I have NO IDEA if I'm actually going to be able to finish this in time, but I'm going to try. (In my defense, A Nonnie Made Me Do It. =P)

Posting this in the "anything thread" because one, there are minor Trespasser spoilers for a non-Trespasser prompt, and two, because it was originally meant to fill this prompt: https://21-days.dreamwidth.org/2504.html?thread=200392#cmt200392, but some elements of this one keeps slipping in and out: https://21-days.dreamwidth.org/2504.html?thread=204488#cmt204488

Writing this has given me newfound respect for anyone who writes Sera well. Also: I know nothing of French, so I apologize if any of the nobles' names come across as odd.

--

It was not a large gathering; perhaps no more than thirty people attended. But conversation flowed easily, accompanied by the light, lilting flow of music and free of the polite bite of cultured disapproval. Even from across the room, Josephine could see that the hostess— the young heir from a prominent merchant family— looked pleased with herself, and with good cause. Perhaps when she was older she would count her successes by each move she made in the Game, but at her current age, a well-run party was accomplishment enough.

If only Yvette would pay half the attention to such matters, Josephine thought with a sharply contained sigh. She’d had to keep half an eye out on her sister since they’d arrived, and had already caught her several times that evening ignoring the other guests in favor of staring at the many portraits and landscapes hanging between each curved arch of the walls.

She herself had spent the hours socializing, when she wasn’t scolding Yvette, filling the air with easy chatter as she listened for hidden meanings. At the moment, however, she had no conversational partner; she’d taken a brief moment to herself, both to have a chance to look over the room as an observer, and to simply breathe.

A servant— an elf, she couldn’t help but note— approached with a glass of wine, and Josephine accepted it with murmured thanks. She took a small sip, and continued to cast her gaze around the room.

The family hosting the event were known for their fine art collection— one reason why Yvette had been so eager to come— and were clearly eager to show it. Elaborate arches lined the walls, with the paintings Yvette so admired filling the empty spaces in between. Where there were no paintings, there were scattered windows, and the occasional opened door leading to balconies overlooking the sprawling vineyards just outside. It was not a small space; there was just room enough for all to mingle, without leaving the room feeling empty. Most of the guests gathered in loose clumps of twos and threes, drifting easily from one conversation to another.

At some point, she’d lost track of Yvette. Now, after a moment of looking, Josephine spotted her again, at the other end of the room, sipping from her own glass of wine— she made a mental note to let the servants know not to refill her glass too many times— and making what was, even from this distance, clearly a lackluster attempt at conversation with another one of the guests.

It seemed Josephine’s respite was already at an end. With a restrained sigh, she lowered her glass, and began to wind her way across the room.

She had nearly reached them when, from the corner of her eye, a glimmer of movement caught her attention. She turned.

For a moment, she saw only the pointed ears and plainly-colored livery, and thought her simply another servant.

Then she realized that she recognized those ears, those slight shoulders, that rough, pale hair, half-hidden by the ridiculous hat the Courcillons required of all of their servants. She caught her breath.

“Sera?”

She started, turning towards Josephine, and Josephine saw, with a startling burst of relief, that she hadn’t been mistaken: it was Sera, though she’d never seen her dressed in such a way. That, at least, had been no trick of the eye. Instead of her usual jeweled tones, Sera wore the plain, tan-colored livery of the Courcillon family.

Somehow, she doubted that Sera had actually decided to begin working for the nobility.

The moment their eyes met, Sera let out a low groan. “Oh, buggering tit-buckets.”

Her displeasure could not have been more clear. It stung, but Josephine did not allow her own smile to waver.

There were many things she could say; even without taking their current circumstances into account, it had, after all, been a little over six months since she’d last seen her— since the Inquisition had disbanded— and longer still since they’d properly spoken. Finally, she settled on something vague and open-ended. “I must say, I did not expect to see you here.”

Sera let out another groan, this one decidedly more frustrated. “Please, don’t get started on all that stupid noble talk. Just say what you mean already. Or don’t say anything. That’s an option, too, right? ”

As she spoke, her eyes darted around the room.

“I think not.” She did not know Sera as well as she might have, but she knew enough to realize that putting her in the same room as nobility never ended well. An entrance to a balcony was not far ahead from where they stood, and Josephine nodded that way. “Would you care to step out for a moment?”

Openly conversing at length with a “servant” would, after all, only cause unwanted eyes to turn their way.

Sera relaxed a little at that, though she still looked disgruntled. “Yeah, whatever.”

The air outside was light and cool, the breeze still carrying a light tang of salt from the sea. Josephine leaned against the railing, wine glass dangling in her hand as she looked out upon the dark rows of vines below. Sera lingered to the side, fidgeting.

For a moment, they were silent. Then Josephine spoke. “I take it you have not joined the Courcillon’s household?”

“What?” Sera spluttered, then snorted, the annoyance fading from her face as she laughed. “No. Hell no. Do I look like the serving sort to you?”

Josephine let out a soft chuckle. “I must admit, I find it...difficult, to imagine.” She paused, and turned to look Sera straight-on. “However, that does strike out the most likely explanation for your being here.”

Sera grimaced. “Oh. Yeah. That.”

“Yes, ‘that’.” Josephine closed her eyes briefly. “I’m almost afraid to hear the answer, but I must ask. Sera, what are you doing here?”

“Just, doing...stuff. Things.” A pause. “Useful things.”

That...clarified nothing. Josephine resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose.

She needed to look at it positively. At least Sera had answered her— she hadn’t been entirely certain that she would.

“I see. Might you tell me what sort of ‘things’ those are?”

“Er.” Sera chewed her lip, clearly thinking.

Finally, she seemed to come to a decision. “Right. So. You see that one, over there?” She nodded vaguely in the direction of the entranceway, and Josephine followed her gaze.

She could not tell who Sera was looking at. Several people filled her vision, but none stood out. After a moment of searching, she relented. “I’m sorry, but of whom are you speaking?”

“Him.” An impatient note entered Sera’s voice. “The poncy-looking one— well, they’re all poncy-looking, but the really poncy-looking one. The one trying to chat that other one up.”

Josephine looked closely— and finally saw who it was she was talking about.

It was, she realized with a frisson of surprise, the man speaking with Yvette.

“Lord Voclain?”

Sera made a dismissive gesture. “Yeah. That one. He’s been nosing around the docks, bullying ship-workers, throwing his weight around like it actually means something, that sort of thing. So we thought we’d embarrass him a little. Which, good, yeah? ‘Cept the one we got to do it’s new, and got nervous. So I said I’d be here, moral support and all that shite. Way I figured, watching a bit tit get humiliated’s no skin off my back.” Sera paused. “‘Sides, this way, I get a piece of the cut. So here I am.”

It took Josephine a moment to parse through everything Sera had said. The situation was nothing new; she’d done damage control after enough such pranks to know that this was typical Sera. But—

“Lord Voclain, at the docks?” She frowned. “Are you certain?”

“That’s what my people say.” Now Sera frowned too. “Why? That’s not weird, is it? Thought you Antivan types were all about your trade and your ocean and your big boats.”

“That...is not inaccurate,” Josephine allowed. “But Lord Voclain is not Antivan; he is Orlesian. His family has no involvement in trade— at least, not that I’m aware of it.”

“Huh.” Sera made a thoughtful sound, then shrugged. “Don’t know anything about any of that. I just know someone wanted him brought down a peg or two.”

Josephine’s eyes narrowed at the reminder. “Yes, about that—”

“Whoa, whoa!” Sera exclaimed with a burst of laughter. She leaned back against the railing. “Don’t get your underpants in a twist, yeah? Nothing’s going to happen tonight. Girl lost her nerve. I was just heading out when you caught me.”

Josephine gave her a flat look. “I believe I recall you making a very similar protest when the Duchess of Lydes came to Skyhold. I never could persuade her to come back down to the dining hall, after that.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sera laughed. “That was a good one.” Sobering up a bit, she continued, “But I really do mean it this time. Places to go, things to do, and all that.”

Reaching over, she snatched the wine glass that had been dangling, half-forgotten, in Josephine’s hand, and drained it in a single gulp.

“Sera—”

Sera pressed the glass back into Josephine’s hands with a laugh, silencing her as their fingers brushed together. With a grin and a sing-song kind of voice, she said, “See you around, Lady Josie.”

Then, before Josephine could say anything more, she pressed her hands to the railing and, in a move utterly reminiscent of the former Inquisitor, leapt off the edge to the ground below.

Unlike the former Inquisitor, however, she did not land silently. Distantly, Josephine could hear her curse. “Ouch! Bloody, buggering— how did she always do this—? Stupid—”

Josephine raised a hand to her mouth, a few soft sounds slipping out as she tried, and failed, to fully contain her laughter.

Oh, wow— and here I was worrying that the pairing wouldn't end up being your thing! THE WONDERS OF MEME. I'm kind of delighted to realize that I was actually writing this for you twice over, haha.

Which, this means that I actually have another thing to thank you for, other than being great motivation yesterday! I'd actually never even considered the possibility of this pairing before, but the moment I read your prompt, my brain basically went YES VERY GOOD WOULD OTP. So, um, thank you for the new ship! <3

As for the fic itself: Ahh, I'm so happy that you liked this! Especially Sera's voice— that was definitely something I spent a lot of time trying to get right, so I'm glad that that worked for you. Also, confession time: that ending was actually not in my original outline. But then the idea popped into my head, and it amused me far too much to not include. <3 I'm definitely aiming to get at least one more part of this out before the filling period ends, though I'd be quite pleased if I can manage more! We'll see. :D

Thanks for answering my question earlier, OP!

Justice/Fenris + Anders/Fenris + dubcon + noncon (in terms of Anders not getting a heads-up) + H/C

*

“The Cracks of Their Skin”

*

They’re surrounded by bodies in a Hightown alley, and Fenris is still amazed at the ability of Kirkwall’s nobles to ignore screams at their doorsteps. Breaking up a meeting of rogue mages and Templars had, of course, resulted in everyone turning on Hawke’s ragtag crew.

Fighting both magic users and magic dispellers at once proved strategically complex, and midway through the battle Fenris staggered into a sick surge of energy—the abomination, letting his demon out. Bad enough having Merrill spinning enchantments from her own blood, now Justice had to join the party too.

He has to admit it worked, though, and soon enough they stand, bruised and bloodied, amid scattered corpses.

But this time Anders doesn’t return at the end of battle. His demon gleams bright and blinding through the cracks of his skin. The light transforms the face Fenris has been contemplating, with growing ambivalence, for the past six years.

With the light comes the too-familiar heat along his tattoos. Something of the spirit’s essence always sets the lyrium humming along his limbs, and only years of practice let Fenris remain outwardly impassive.

“Can you take him?” asks Hawke. Her dark skin is darker still with dirt, and she’s barely holding Merrill up. The elven mage had depleted the last of her mana fending off the rogue Templars closing in, and hadn’t managed to entirely deflect a lightning bolt from one of the mages. Hawke continues, unnecessarily, “I need to get her home.”

“Very well,” he says. “But I don’t owe you for last week’s game anymore.”

*

They enter the dark of Fenris’s mansion. Dim reflections of the demon flicker in the dusty fixtures and windows.

“This is not your house,” says Justice.

“Fuck you,” says Fenris.

If he has to deal with this monstrosity, he may as well be drunk for it. Without another word he makes his way upstairs.

The house is cobwebbed and dusty, as usual. Occasionally, Hawke and Merrill come by and insist on cleaning, but for the most part they let Fenris be. He doesn’t bother lighting the sconces along the wall. The full moon through the open windows and the light of the demon behind him are enough to guide him to his bedroom. Justice follows, eerily quiet.

Once there, Fenris stokes the dormant coals and loads another log onto the fire. His shoulder twinges from catching his sword on a Templar’s shield, and his ribs ache from a blow to his side—deflected by his armor, but it still knocked him breathless. If fucking Anders was around, Fenris might have demanded healing. However, Anders is not around, and Fenris is not about to ask for help from the demon.

He growls to himself and sets his sword on the table, trading it for the half-empty bottle of wine.

“I don’t permit Anders to drink,” says Justice.

Fenris pops the cork back out and rolls his eyes. “I knew there was something I didn’t like about you,” he says drily.

“It clouds his judgment. It clouds yours.”

Fenris takes a long swig straight from the bottle. A deep red, likely older than he was. “You cloud his judgment more than wine ever could.” He feels his own judgment impaired with every moment in the demon’s presence. Justice sets his tattoos tingling, a facsimile of desire, and he’s aware of every movement across the dusty room. He’s long since learned to cope with the sensation, yes, but he hasn’t often spent so much time alone with it.

He prays the wine will steady his will, as it so often does. There’s a slow warmth spreading through him, a balance to the heat sparking from his fingertips.

He stares into the fire, trying to decide how best to deal with the demon. Perhaps Anders would return eventually, whether or not he tried anything. Or perhaps the demon wants to take a more active and permanent role in Kirkwall’s affairs. As much as the apostate drives him mad, Fenris can’t bear the thought of Justice running around free in his skin. If need be, he’ll cut the demon down.

“You have to let him out sooner or later,” he says.

“I will.” The demon paces to the window, then back, hands clasped behind its back. A human gesture, and somehow that worries Fenris. “Anders needs to rest.”

“I thought he was babysitting you. Not the other way around.”

“He’s been under a lot of strain. It’s distracting him from our cause.” Justice pauses beside the fire and throws a sidelong glance the elf’s way. “You’ve been unfair to him.”

Fenris sets down the bottle. “So I’ve heard. Repeatedly.” He decides that Hawke’s going to buy him into the next month’s worth of card games. This is far more frustrating than he signed up for—to be chided by a demon, while his whole body yearns for crackling touch—

“He wants you.”

What.

Fenris debates grabbing for the wine again, to drink, or to fling the bottle. “What,” he says aloud. The demon can’t possibly imply—

“He has wanted you for years, and yet you deny him such simple comfort.” The demon, suddenly, is only a few steps away. Too close. Too far. “Why do you deny him that which you also crave?”

Fenris flushes with rage and regrets leaving his sword on the table. Rage, he tells himself, not desire, nothing like that. He glares into unreadable white eyes. “If that were true,” he hisses, “It’d be none of your business, demon.”

A snarl, a quick dizzy movement, Fenris tries to phase out of harm’s way but his tattoos aren’t working. He’s shoved back and back and into the wall, and the lyrium in his skin does nothing but sing into the touch. Head ringing, wrists pinned by one steel hand to the wall above his head—he growls as the demon’s other hand grabs him by the jaw.

“I am no demon,” says Justice, and its voice echoes centuries. It’s close, very much too close.

Fenris trembles with the contact. This is a mistake, this whole night is a mistake, but there’s a fire blazing inside him and he has no hope of dousing it. As the hand slides down from his jaw to curve around his throat, he goes limp in acquiescence against the wall.

Anders’s hand—Justice’s hand—closes around his neck, holding him in place. Fenris looks past glowing eyes, golden hair, up to the blank dark ceiling, holds his breath steady. Justice isn’t pressing too hard, yet, he can still breathe, though every breath tastes of the Fade. “Is this what you call justice,” he asks, and as he asks he realizes he isn’t really sure what’s right or wrong.

The demon tightens its grip on Fenris’s wrists. “He needs this,” it says, and it rocks Anders’s body against him.

Fenris stiffens at the friction, holds still as he can with Anders’s clothed cock rubbing against his own. He’s lain with worse things, he reminds himself, as coherent a thought as he can manage. This could be worse.

The hand is again at his cheek, gentle, brushing hair from his face, tracing his cheekbone. Fenris groans at the demon’s touch, and while a part of him hisses to pull away, to push back, to escape, he finds himself nuzzling into the soft palm.

He’s felt those hands often enough over the years, more often than he claims to want. Anders never lets him get away with concealed injuries, not after the first few years. The touch is the same, the same warm skin, the same calluses, the same ragged fingernails, and yet the touch is nothing like the mage’s.

He hates it. No, he hates the way he arches into it, hates the way he bucks against the palm pressing lower, hates the way he burns from fingertips to groin. Every inch of him burns. He hates the sound of his own voice choking out, “More. Give me more.”

Justice laughs and it has to echo through the mansion. Fenris imagines every fucking noble in Hightown can hear that laugh. “You’ve been a distraction,” it says. “I want to understand why.”

The demon’s hands are quick and sure as it strips Fenris down, unbuckles his chest plate, unlaces his too-tight breeches. Fenris has barely stepped out of them before Justice flips him around to bend face-first against the wall. Clad only in his shirt and gauntlets, hard as rock, Fenris trembles with need.

Fingers, cold and slick, touch against him without warning, and he jerks. He knows spells like this, has on rare and blessed occasions benefited from them before, and it hadn’t occurred to him that Justice might grant him that courtesy.

He has little time to reflect on that kindness, though, as three long fingers shove inside him. Slicking him up inside and out, probing, prodding. The movements are quick and utilitarian and glance against his prostate only by sharp sparking accident, but the energy of Justice’s aura alone is enough to have Fenris shaking on the edge of release.

“Fuck me,” he growls. “Get on with it, demon.”

“I’m no demon,” intones Justice, and he sinks inside Fenris with one deep thrust. Both hands seize around Fenris’s hips, bruising, and Fenris knows he’ll feel that in the morning, once the pleasure-glow of lyrium fades. He’s left to keep himself upright, brace against the wall, back arching as Anders—as the demon pounds into him. This is not Anders.

He’s so full, the mage’s cock larger than expected. He hasn’t even seen it but every inch of it slides rough and hot inside him.

White-blue light, his body comes alive beneath the demon. Fenris screws shut his eyes against the brightness and heat of flesh and Fade. He’s hard as he’s ever been before without the unwelcome aid of blood magic. His hips twitch, ache to hump against the wall like a rutting animal. But the hands around his hipbones hold him still and he can only rock into Justice’s thrusts.

A moment later, or hours, a final stabbing jerk of hips, and Justice comes hot and hard inside him. Its aura swells around them, sweet rising tide of release—Fenris gasps for breath in the surge of pleasure not his own.

They still, and breathe together. The Fade-white glow subsides until only the firelight is left.

No longer struggling to withstand the demon’s bruising thrusts, Fenris can take one arm from the wall and reach to touch himself.

Justice, still pressed up inside him, knocks his hand away. “Turn around,” says the demon.

And Fenris at last finds a line he won’t cross tonight. “This is good. Just finish me.”

He expects refusal; if not refusal, then roughness. But the hand at last closing around his cock is gentle. There’s no lyrium there, and Justice seems to suppress its aura, or has better control after its release.

The soft fingers around him, trailing up, down, twisting, feel no different than the healer’s touch, spreading salve or setting bones. It’s easy to pretend it’s Anders pressing him against the wall, Anders softening inside him, Anders pumping a slow, sweet rhythm over his cock.

Fenris isn’t sure if that’s better or worse, that the demon can so mimic the healer. That Fenris might not be able to draw a line between them. That he so badly wants this to just be Anders.

He ducks his head against the wall, hair shielding his face, and takes comfort that Justice can’t see him as he comes, shudders into the demon’s hand, spills across those cool, callused fingers.

“I see it now,” says the demon in his ear. “If he still wants you, after this, he can have you.”

*

Fenris wakes in bed, aching all over. Not an unusual occurrence, given his lifestyle, but the aches are not generally quite so intimate. Memories of the night before flash through his mind. He presses the heel of his palm to his forehead and groans—

Then hears a faint gasp from across the room. He’s not alone.

Fenris sits bolt upright to see Anders hunched over the table. Slumped on folded arms, but his eyes are open.

His warm, brown, not-glowing eyes. So it really is Anders, and Justice sleeps again.

The mage sits upright, slowly. His feathered pauldrons are in disarray, and his hair doesn’t look much better. Fenris, who’s spent all his known life making a careful study of human faces, can see the exhaustion cleared than words across his face. “I wasn’t sure I should be here or not,” says Anders quietly. His voice is hoarse.

So, he knows what happened. Fenris is relieved; now he doesn’t have to tell him. He doesn’t know what he would have said—we fucked last night, but it wasn’t you. He slides out from under the blankets and sets his bare feet on the floor. “You are here, though.”

Fenris takes stock of the situation. His sword is at the table, with the wine bottle. Most of his clothes are piled on the floor—he still wears only his dark shirt and gauntlets. The shirt, at least, is long enough to cover him as he stands and reaches for his leggings.

Anders answers after a moment. “Yes, it’s me.” He’s looking at Fenris strangely, with something like concern, and Fenris suddenly feels the bruises around his neck and jawline. “Can I heal you?”

He laces up his leggings and considers donning his breastplate. Instead, he unbuckles his gauntlets and drops them to the floor. He doesn’t have the right to ask for healing, he thinks, not when he so welcomed the bruises. But once again he can’t resist, and he sits down across from Anders. He sets his hand, palm up, on the table between them.

Anders reaches out, then hesitates. His fingers come to light only a few inches away. He’s ashen. There’s hatred in his eyes, and for once Fenris knows it’s not for him.

Because he’s felt that hatred before, the shame of acquiescence, he asks, “Are you alright?”

The mage jerks, fingers skidding on the wood. “Me? You’re the one he—”

“I’ve had worse nights,” he says. The confession is an olive branch.

Anders seems to accept it as such; he pales, but doesn’t break from Fenris’s gaze. “I see,” he says, and leans forward again. He offers his own confession: “I’m not sure how I am.”

Fenris nods. “Fair enough.” In all their years together at Hawke’s side, he’s never felt so close to seeing the real Anders, the man without the monster. His lips twitch almost into a smile.

Anders almost-smiles in return, and at last takes Fenris’s hand. His warm fingers trace along his veins—his real veins—not the tattoos—and Fenris can barely feel the magic trickling into him. Just the slow relief as every bruise eases away one by one, as the strain releases from his shoulder and the ache dissipates from his ribs.

Anders’s eyes are closed, and Fenris is free to examine every last golden line of him.

He can barely feel the magic, but his skin hums with the simple touch of skin. Perhaps, Fenris thinks, it’s never been just the lyrium after all.

Not OP, but ooo, I am definitely here for this. <3 I love how you portrayed the Anders/Fenris relationship, and Fenris' complicated feelings about both Anders and Justice.