Anders is not averse to being kissed. The past few days have put paid to the entire notion that Justice precludes an active sex life. No, love life, and that notion may have taken longer to dispel than the other, the idea that no mage should dare to fall in love.
He gives a good-natured groan. "Everyone knows where I learned to do all this. Isabela's already told you more than I ever knew she knew about my sordid history, I'd wager." Rolling onto his side to face Hawke, he yields to a less colorful temptation, allowing himself to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. How many times in the past three years has he longed to do that, something so simple? "I ought to ask the same question of you. You're far too good at, mm, a few things I could list, but I'm too much a gentleman to name them all. And I know you turned down Jethann, so I can't credit him for it."
Hawke hooks a leg around his and pulls herself closer. "Love, if the past week has proven anything, it's that you are most definitely not a gentleman. And thank the Maker for that." She grins, turning her head a bit to encourage him to continue the caress there.
"As for me, reading all over Varric's books, of course. He's a dwarf who does his research, those things are detailed. And you'd lose that wager; Isabela suspects a great deal and is all too pleased to come up with wild theories but candidly admitted she knew very little for certain." A few weeks ago, Hawke would not have been willing to admit pressing Isabela for information on the subject of Anders' previous sexual exploits. Now it's just something else they can laugh about. Hawke laughs a lot these days.
"From books." Anders' skepticism is plain. "I've been reading Varric's serials too, you know. I can't recall one where the hero's girl learns how to avoid scraping sensitive areas with her teeth. Varric's women always know what they're doing, except for the ingenues, and even they take to it like ducks to water. Like Ser Quackers to a bath." He cards through the soft short hair at the base of her skull, runs light fingertips down the back of her neck. "Like you, really, which tells me you're no blushing ingenue, love, since real life doesn't work like Hard in Hightown. Confess, now, you've spent at least the past year in intensive training for some sexual triathlon where only the most beautiful rogues can compete."
You get all the love for mentioning the duck. Seriously. *is too fond of that duck*try_winging_itDecember 27 2011, 22:58:04 UTC
Hawke mmms as he toys with her neck, almost purring. "Hardly that. Pity, it sounds like it would have been fun. I'd have dominated the flexibility and stamina sections but been beaten at the last minute by Isabela and her pirate wiles, because she would have seduced the judges before preceedings even began." She spends a minute with her eyes closed, enjoying his touch and fantasizing about what might have been involved in a sexual triathlon, particularly with him involved, or at least watching.
"Anyway, you know what I've been doing for the past year, you were there for most of it. Running around being Kirkwall's unofficial pest control service, spending a surprising amount of time dealing with the Qunari, and trying to convince you to give this a try." She moves her hips against his as she says this, a suggestion of a recent memory. Though it wasn't sex she'd been asking him for all that time, or at least not just sex, as he knows very well. "No time in there for intensive training. Though I'll grant you the not a blushing ingenue
( ... )
That parallel has not escaped Anders, either, and he chuckles. "Turned the tables on me, to start with. Then I was on the table; hard to say whose victory that was. Neither of us, I think, after all was said and done. We couldn't afford to develop any obvious attachment, and we couldn't hide anything for very long, so the best expedient was for me to continue what I was already inclined to do." Chasing people, being chased, typical Circle games. "That made him only one of many, safer for him and for me, though he never asked it of me and I never spelled it out to make him hear. I think he knew anyhow, or else he didn't want to let himself care enough to object.
"The only time he ever said a word, I'd gotten involved with this apprentice transferred in from Orlais, she'd been a troublemaker where she was, fairly strong Resolutionist sympathies. Karl and I didn't see eye to eye, politically, and I thought that was the problem, or else that he didn't like my being with a woman, someone he couldn't match or best." They had a
( ... )
Hawke leans up on her elbow, looking down at him with an expression somewhere between amazement and vague outrage. "She wanted to use you for breeding stock?" It's just a moment, and then she tries to control her reaction. It's hard to say what aspect of the idea piques her. The idea of Anders, with all his gifts and intelligence and humor, all the things she loves about him, valued for nothing but his ability to propagate. Or, yes, the possibility that somewhere there could be another woman, not her, who has Anders' child.
She forces herself to let go of the idea. From the way he's phrased things it didn't happen, might not even have been more than a suspicion on Karl'es part. And Maker's name, they've only been together a few days. She has no right to be possessive in this respect, particularly not of things that happened long ago, before they ever met. That's getting off-track and then some
( ... )
"He considered the Circle the lesser of many evils. He'd been surrendered so young, it was the only life he knew; looking back, I can't blame him for failure to understand why I couldn't be content with that life. At the time I was ... not as sympathetic. There were harsh words. He may have felt I was using our apothecary and herbalist work to cover for other activities, though he didn't accuse me outright and I couldn't have denied it if he had. What disappointed him the most, I think, was that I never quite managed to stay gone once I'd left again. Some of the letters he wrote me from Kirkwall, later on, I got the impression that he thought I was being recaptured deliberately, to put me back inside the Circle walls so I could do more damage. He never asked at the time, I suppose because he didn't want to know. That way, he couldn't tell anyone anything that would hurt me
( ... )
Solitary confinement for a year. Maker's breath. Even in the circumstances he relates...
She can't find anything to say in response to that, to any of this. All she can do is kiss him. Which she does, deep and emotional, as her arms wrap around him with a silent promise: Never again. I will never let anyone cage you again. Even if it means taking on the Knight-Commander and every Templar she has.
Now that Anders hears the details, the mental image is considerably less exciting than he would have expected. "Like a naughty sort of obstacle course," he muses. "In the mud. In Ferelden." He's well acquainted with Fereldan mud. It holds no sensual appeal. "You're only confirming my deepest suspicions about female rogues, you do realize. Intensive training in the erotic arts, with the end goal to sweep all categories in the triathlon of lockpicking, trap-springing, and the Orlesian kiss."
"I don't know about intensive training," Hawke muses. "She was experienced, but she went about sex the same way she went about everything. Thoroughly, with impressive skill, but without fanfare or art. It was still good. Better than good, at times. Frantic grapplings against trees just after finishing off a sortie, during those moments when all you can think is I'm not dead, and want to do something to prove it."
She turns her head to grin ruefully. "It was certainly a rush at the time, but I doubt we made a pretty picture, so I'm afraid your suspicions fall down there. Do you know, she and I never even spoke about it? Not much, at least. It wasn't really about either of us. It was about knowing how to stay alive, in more than one sense."
"I'm afraid the last thing I think of after finishing off a sortie is grappling against trees," says Anders, bemused. "There's usually lots of other people's blood, which is not sexy, or darkspawn blood, which is even less sexy. Aside from any bleeding your allies are doing, of course, but that's the healer's problem, I suppose." He tries to imagine being a rogue, a female rogue (that is important; it might be different for women, and this story is about women), who does not have to worry about healing anyone, and who may be inspired to fierce arousal by a light rain of darkspawn blood. The closest he can imagine is Sigrun, but he thinks Sigrun would laugh at the idea. Sigrun would point out that trees have scratchy bark.
Sigrun might not find all the blood excessively offputting, though. She was always very practical.
Why is he thinking about Sigrun, again? And why is he imagining Velanna trying to convince her that trees are sexy? Crazy Dalish woman. Velanna would be into trees
( ... )
"It required specific circumstances," Hawke agrees. "Neither of us being injured, for one thing. But we were all pretty aware at the time of just how short life is, and determined to make the most of whatever moments we could grab." Her mouth quirks. "That, or I was just a sex-crazed teenager. One of those." Not quite a teenager by that point really, nineteen or twenty, but close enough.
"But yes, those lessons--the lockpicking and rogue ones, not the ones that involved trees--were the basis for a lot of what I do now. It was a solid grounding in the basics. After that it was mostly a matter of practice and opportunity, and Maker knows I get chances for that here." He gets a quick kiss for the compliment. Too bad she doesn't know what he's really thinking, jokes about wood and unfortunately placed bark would abound. It would unhinge the conversation though, which would probably be a pity.
Though the conversation now goes problematic places, because what had ended her 'relationship' with Lara was Ostagar. Not something Hawke intends
( ... )
"Mm. This is a fascinating story. I was almost positive this was going to be about Varric Tethras, only you haven't mentioned any luxuriant chest hair yet, so I'm still being kept in suspense. Tell me more about this horrible person, because if he isn't Varric, he isn't already married to a jealous crossbow, and therefore his actions in this story have no justification whatsoever. Also, why did you become so deeply enamoured of a complete idiot, and how did your many admirers fail to distract you from this silliness, and where was Isabela during all this that she didn't contrive something outrageous to throw you into one another's arms. This is the most improbable part of your entire history thus far, Hawke. I think you're making it all up to tease me."
"Oh, it was all thoroughly improbable," she says easily, grinning. Not just because of the game they're currently playing, but because she can still feel the results of her movements a few moments ago, which bodes well for the immediate future. "A very pretty bundle of contradictions, emphasis on the very pretty. More than witty enough to match me flirt for flirt, and passionate enough to make my head spin, but all of it restrained and locked away, and me without the right lockpicks. Such a challenge." She slides her legs so she's straddling him, still resting her head on his chest but the position is becoming more suggestive. Or perhaps the word should be inviting"A fighter capable of impressive damage, but also a healer. Compassionate, but at times implacable. Intelligent, able to find humor in some of the most unlikely places, but with a gravity about him when the humor wasn't in play. Passionate, as I said, but controlling it, directing it." She runs a finger along his mouth. "Entirely irresistable and unforgettable. I'm afraid I
( ... )
He nips at her finger. He tries an opportunistic little shift and arch, capitalizing on that inviting position she's adopted, only to be foiled by a maneuver at once evasive and tantalizing. She did not learn this up against some Fereldan tree, surely. No?
They've been sleeping together less than a fortnight and already Anders wonders whether Hawke plans to repay him in kind for the preceding years of frustration. He could swear she delights in teasing him to the point he can't do anything but pounce. Perhaps that first kiss set a pattern - or a bad example - or a good example - whatever the case, her games haven't palled, and he enjoys playing along.
"What an absolute trial it must have been. You, lying awake, saddled with such an active imagination. All alone, left to your own devices. Your own ... inventive ... devices." She's not making this easy on him. "I can pity your poor chimera, who probably spent most of those nights suffering the effects of your wiles. I met a woman like you once, a few years back, and she
( ... )
"I had to be inventive. It went on for years. And if my chimera, as you put it, was suffering, he did a remarkable job of not showing it. It used to drive me mad. I should tell you about some of the fantasies I came up with, sometime. Hundreds of scenarios, some of them thoroughly unlikely."
Whenever he strains for her, she dodges away, then darts back to tease him further. Small movements, but those are all that's required. Half of being a rogue is not being where the attack is, and then attacking where one isn't expected or can't be retaliated. It's a philosophy that applies to more than combat, and Hawke's always been good at adapting her tactics to new situations. Her finger's left his mouth--with some reluctance--and is trailing down his jawline.
"An unholy terror, hmm? Tell me about her. Surely there was more to it than a pretty backside view. Even the most shapely of hips can't have been worth that sort of constant aggravation." He'd better be referring to her and not the Warden-Commander.
"Something about dreams," he repeats, mock-incredulous, still low and with the hint of a chuckle in it. "If you had any idea, you wouldn't ask. Wouldn't want to know any more than what I've already let slip, thoughtless of me to say even that much." They are pretending he's talking about some other woman, or aren't they? "Since you have asked, and so nicely ..."
It's convenient to have her lying atop him this way. He has so much scope for movement. His other hand makes an unhurried pass up her side, brushing the curve of her breast there before glancing off and over to her shoulder, the side of her throat, the line of her jaw, the kiss-stung swell of her lower lip.
"You know how dreams are," Anders confides. "Anything you've seen or felt or read in waking life is fair game, can come swimming up to haunt you. This woman I've been telling you about ... I worked with her very closely. Saw her every week, sometimes every day, for years, in a variety of circumstances and outfits and moods. And as we've discussed, I am no
( ... )
Hawke whimpers at that slight stroke; she can't help it. "Sounds...familiar," she manages, holding herself very still above him. It's so very tempting to move, take what she wants. Their faces are only an inch or two apart, she can feel the heat of his breath, of his gaze. "I went through something similar with my chimera, you know. I mentioned the hundreds of scenarios I envisioned. I didn't have your breadth of experience to fuel my imagination, but I didn't need it, it was fevered enough on its own."
There's another brush of fingers, or perhaps it's a trick of her fancy; either way, her eyelids flutter closed for a moment as she forces back another whimper. "Everything, from laughter-filled lovemaking to frenzied, possessive fucking. I thought about all of it. Craved all of it. I spent as many days with him as you did with your dream-woman, I knew his moods, and I applied them. Some nights I'd think of him touching me gently, paying slow, careful attention to every inch of my body." Andraste's ass this is excruciating, but so
( ... )
No, it's not her imagination. Anders is stroking her, just barely, as she speaks, challenging her to withstand it or to demand more, curious to find how long she can keep talking. On that last word, a practised thumb swipes lightly over her pearl, then bears down a little harder, giving a good rub that's only repeated once.
"Ah, but there's a difference. I was dreaming, you were awake. You could control your fantasies. Even when you imagined him directing it all ..." Now he does part her, against his better judgement, because he wants to feel her, wants her to know he's sure of the effect he's having on her. His fingers slide along slick folds, declining to seek entry. "... really, you held the reins, didn't you? In those scenarios you envisioned, he'd do anything you wanted. However improbable. Though what could be so improbable? Who wouldn't do anything for you?"
"Someone very, very stubborn, Maker knows why." Her breath hisses between gritted teeth, and she hardly knows whether she's answering his question or referring to herself at the moment, because she's determined to last as long as she can but isn't sure exactly why.
"You think you're the only one who dreamed? Not drawn from real life, as yours were, but impossible things, impossible places, positions...there was one involving a waterfall that I'll never forget, but if I ever tried it in reality we'd both drown. I'd wake myself up with moaning, Anders, find myself knotted up in the bedsheets, clawing at the mattress and half-insane with want, unable to do anything but finger myself until I passed out again." Her voice is low and hoarse. "Or I'd come in my sleep, wake the next morning soaked and still aching for him. Believe me, there was almost no control involved, awake or asleep. I didn't even have the excuse of voyeuristic stream-bathing to spur me on." How did this turn into a game of unrequited lust oneupmanship?
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He gives a good-natured groan. "Everyone knows where I learned to do all this. Isabela's already told you more than I ever knew she knew about my sordid history, I'd wager." Rolling onto his side to face Hawke, he yields to a less colorful temptation, allowing himself to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. How many times in the past three years has he longed to do that, something so simple? "I ought to ask the same question of you. You're far too good at, mm, a few things I could list, but I'm too much a gentleman to name them all. And I know you turned down Jethann, so I can't credit him for it."
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"As for me, reading all over Varric's books, of course. He's a dwarf who does his research, those things are detailed. And you'd lose that wager; Isabela suspects a great deal and is all too pleased to come up with wild theories but candidly admitted she knew very little for certain." A few weeks ago, Hawke would not have been willing to admit pressing Isabela for information on the subject of Anders' previous sexual exploits. Now it's just something else they can laugh about. Hawke laughs a lot these days.
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"Anyway, you know what I've been doing for the past year, you were there for most of it. Running around being Kirkwall's unofficial pest control service, spending a surprising amount of time dealing with the Qunari, and trying to convince you to give this a try." She moves her hips against his as she says this, a suggestion of a recent memory. Though it wasn't sex she'd been asking him for all that time, or at least not just sex, as he knows very well. "No time in there for intensive training. Though I'll grant you the not a blushing ingenue ( ... )
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"The only time he ever said a word, I'd gotten involved with this apprentice transferred in from Orlais, she'd been a troublemaker where she was, fairly strong Resolutionist sympathies. Karl and I didn't see eye to eye, politically, and I thought that was the problem, or else that he didn't like my being with a woman, someone he couldn't match or best." They had a ( ... )
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She forces herself to let go of the idea. From the way he's phrased things it didn't happen, might not even have been more than a suspicion on Karl'es part. And Maker's name, they've only been together a few days. She has no right to be possessive in this respect, particularly not of things that happened long ago, before they ever met. That's getting off-track and then some ( ... )
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She can't find anything to say in response to that, to any of this. All she can do is kiss him. Which she does, deep and emotional, as her arms wrap around him with a silent promise: Never again. I will never let anyone cage you again. Even if it means taking on the Knight-Commander and every Templar she has.
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She turns her head to grin ruefully. "It was certainly a rush at the time, but I doubt we made a pretty picture, so I'm afraid your suspicions fall down there. Do you know, she and I never even spoke about it? Not much, at least. It wasn't really about either of us. It was about knowing how to stay alive, in more than one sense."
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Sigrun might not find all the blood excessively offputting, though. She was always very practical.
Why is he thinking about Sigrun, again? And why is he imagining Velanna trying to convince her that trees are sexy? Crazy Dalish woman. Velanna would be into trees ( ... )
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"But yes, those lessons--the lockpicking and rogue ones, not the ones that involved trees--were the basis for a lot of what I do now. It was a solid grounding in the basics. After that it was mostly a matter of practice and opportunity, and Maker knows I get chances for that here." He gets a quick kiss for the compliment. Too bad she doesn't know what he's really thinking, jokes about wood and unfortunately placed bark would abound. It would unhinge the conversation though, which would probably be a pity.
Though the conversation now goes problematic places, because what had ended her 'relationship' with Lara was Ostagar. Not something Hawke intends ( ... )
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They've been sleeping together less than a fortnight and already Anders wonders whether Hawke plans to repay him in kind for the preceding years of frustration. He could swear she delights in teasing him to the point he can't do anything but pounce. Perhaps that first kiss set a pattern - or a bad example - or a good example - whatever the case, her games haven't palled, and he enjoys playing along.
"What an absolute trial it must have been. You, lying awake, saddled with such an active imagination. All alone, left to your own devices. Your own ... inventive ... devices." She's not making this easy on him. "I can pity your poor chimera, who probably spent most of those nights suffering the effects of your wiles. I met a woman like you once, a few years back, and she ( ... )
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Whenever he strains for her, she dodges away, then darts back to tease him further. Small movements, but those are all that's required. Half of being a rogue is not being where the attack is, and then attacking where one isn't expected or can't be retaliated. It's a philosophy that applies to more than combat, and Hawke's always been good at adapting her tactics to new situations. Her finger's left his mouth--with some reluctance--and is trailing down his jawline.
"An unholy terror, hmm? Tell me about her. Surely there was more to it than a pretty backside view. Even the most shapely of hips can't have been worth that sort of constant aggravation." He'd better be referring to her and not the Warden-Commander.
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It's convenient to have her lying atop him this way. He has so much scope for movement. His other hand makes an unhurried pass up her side, brushing the curve of her breast there before glancing off and over to her shoulder, the side of her throat, the line of her jaw, the kiss-stung swell of her lower lip.
"You know how dreams are," Anders confides. "Anything you've seen or felt or read in waking life is fair game, can come swimming up to haunt you. This woman I've been telling you about ... I worked with her very closely. Saw her every week, sometimes every day, for years, in a variety of circumstances and outfits and moods. And as we've discussed, I am no ( ... )
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There's another brush of fingers, or perhaps it's a trick of her fancy; either way, her eyelids flutter closed for a moment as she forces back another whimper. "Everything, from laughter-filled lovemaking to frenzied, possessive fucking. I thought about all of it. Craved all of it. I spent as many days with him as you did with your dream-woman, I knew his moods, and I applied them. Some nights I'd think of him touching me gently, paying slow, careful attention to every inch of my body." Andraste's ass this is excruciating, but so ( ... )
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"Ah, but there's a difference. I was dreaming, you were awake. You could control your fantasies. Even when you imagined him directing it all ..." Now he does part her, against his better judgement, because he wants to feel her, wants her to know he's sure of the effect he's having on her. His fingers slide along slick folds, declining to seek entry. "... really, you held the reins, didn't you? In those scenarios you envisioned, he'd do anything you wanted. However improbable. Though what could be so improbable? Who wouldn't do anything for you?"
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"You think you're the only one who dreamed? Not drawn from real life, as yours were, but impossible things, impossible places, positions...there was one involving a waterfall that I'll never forget, but if I ever tried it in reality we'd both drown. I'd wake myself up with moaning, Anders, find myself knotted up in the bedsheets, clawing at the mattress and half-insane with want, unable to do anything but finger myself until I passed out again." Her voice is low and hoarse. "Or I'd come in my sleep, wake the next morning soaked and still aching for him. Believe me, there was almost no control involved, awake or asleep. I didn't even have the excuse of voyeuristic stream-bathing to spur me on." How did this turn into a game of unrequited lust oneupmanship?
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