Chapter 11: Greatness bonds, for one night

Author's note: I hadn't planned to do this, but the first time I published this I had made people wait a very long time for this chapter and thought they deserved a fan-squee kind of a moment.

The trip to Lothering had taken even less time than Aedan's ambitious estimates. Having gained enough trust in Morrigan to heed her suggestions, the men found that whatever Flemeth had given her to get passed hordes of darkspawn unnoticed worked. Not having to save their strength for the darkspawn the group was able to get at a forced march, aided by the fact that their packs were now almost desperately light.

It was good they arrived relatively early. They estimated maybe two or three days before the horde would be dangerously close to Lothering. Though it was night by the time they got there, and all the rooms had been taken long before, they could reasonably stock up and still have a day or so to come up with an actual plan before heading off to try to defeat the darkspawn.

The only question left to Aedan for the night was where to stay. True, they could march away from town into the dark just to come back the next day, but there hardly seemed to be a point in the endeavour. Someone somewhere could still afford to give a bed for the night, he just needed to remember a rumour from his old life that could give him another option than out of town or in the chantry.

"You really think with the number of refugees here someone whose willing to just let strangers stay at their house will still have spare room?" Alistair reasonably questioned.

"I'm not saying there's anyone left who can take in refugees. What I'm saying is there has to be someone in this entire town who's a friend enough to let us in, especially if we have food," Aedan defended.

"Friend enough?" Alistair laughed "what's that supposed to mean?"

Aedan managed a sound somewhere between scoffing and laughing. "Well, okay, I don't like getting into all the details because it makes me sound pompous but— "

"—you, pompous? Perish the thought," Morrigan chimed in, always part of any conversation she could make her way into without seeming to care.

"Anyway," Aedan continued, "Duncan might have told you what the whole Cousland thing means, son of the Teyrn and all that."

"The middle of a blight after your lands have been stolen is hardly the time to flash your nobility around though, is it?" Alistair scoffed.

If the words had come from anyone but the well-meaning but blundering Alistair, the sharp sting Aedan felt at the mention of the invasion would quickly have grown into rage. As it was, he just continued trying to make his point: "the truth is I've always found the whole thing to be a burden," he commenced shortly. "My point is, though, that with nobility you have one advantage, if only just the one. You always know someone who knows someone no matter where you are in Thedas. Listen to me, this may just be Lothering but I know someone here well enough to persuade them to let us in even if they've said no to all the refugees, just watch."

"And the point of this would be what, exactly?" Morrigan practically spat out against either civilization or her new found proximity to the chantry and Templars.

"Listen," Aedan started jovially, comically, "you may be used to the living in dirt bit, but right about now I'd sell your left kidney for a bath so I'd ease up on the sass were I you."

Morrigan hardly made a reaction beyond her usual show of insult at anything but the utmost courtesy. Aedan was right, at any rate. How Aedan became so good a tracker or how he remembered the right piece of information in all the rumours was unclear, but he found exactly the type of people he was looking for. A family with a soft spot for old noble ties, cast out and living in Lothering, with enough secrets to hide that they'd kept the refugees well out of their walls.

"And you're sure about this?" asked Alistair, incredulous that anyone could have gathered the necessary information in less than an hour and still have had time to buy some food.

"Trust me," Aedan said simply, his almost devious smile coming back across his lips as he knocked, with the confidence and light of a known friend on the stranger's door.

The door opened about a foot and the entirety of its frame was taken up by a man who seemed almost as tall as Aedan and even more wide in the shoulders. It put Aedan slightly off guard. A man of his height (6'4'') and the build of a warrior had significantly few chances to feel anything but giant. What surprised him even more, however, was the jovial, almost soft voice the man produced in an accent mixed between Ferelden and high born marcher. "Can I help you," the voice enounced.

Despite momentarily losing his focus, Aedan was now certain he had the right house. Ferelden Marcher? I don't think you could fake that accent if you tried. In light of his new confidence, Aedan was able to reproduce his persuasive smile almost instantly, the smile that had been his friend for so long. "Messere Hawke, I presume? You wouldn't know me, but I believe my mother was a friend of yourmother's, back when she was still lady Leandra Amell, I bring sad news—well, and food."

"So, you come here after all this time expecting what, exactly?"

"Nothing so much, nothing so much. Maybe some stories. You see my mother, she—well, the games of the nobility are kind to no one, as I'm sure you're quite aware. Sufficed to say the maker seems to have decided my mother pay the ultimate price now rather than later."

A faint, concerned smile came to the eldest man of the Hawke line, and his voice seemed mixed between genuine concern and regret as he began "I'm sorry. I wish I could help but—"

Aedan cut him off, too sly to ever take a simple no. "If this… is about your family secret… I'll tell no one, I—"

"—how did you?"

"Just listen. I was recruited into the grey warden just before the recent incident in the south. There's no one in less of a position to threaten anyone, I assure you."

Whether it was his silver tongue, the ambition in his eye, or something completely else, Aedan's persuasion had worked. Hawke nodded lightly, knowingly, before closing the door shut to disarm any traps that were preventing it opening all the way.

Aedan was happy for his victory, but his eyes filled with concern as he looked to Alistair. "for one day, Alistair, please just pretend the word apostate isn't in your vocabulary," he tried to pass as matter-of-factly as possible.

"What?" exclaimed Alistair, practically choking on his own surprise.

"Just trust me," Aedan pleaded before turning back to the door with kind smile in place, just in time for it to open.

"Well then, I guess I should be letting you in," smiled Hawke, opening the door wide and letting everyone in before closing it tight behind them and barring it back up.

The shack was more from the inside than Aedan had expected. He knew they were ex nobility but he'd hardly imagine that a household of three apostates—seemingly two apostates in the time since the rumour began—would have two stories with a basement and more than a single room to spare despite the four people who still lived there, none of which shared any space. He hid being impressed well enough, jovially bringing the food out to add to the home's supply as he began to relate the sad news of his mother's demise. He played his cards well enough. Leandra was a magnificent hostess, and she refused to spend a moment without recounting a story or learning something about all the visitors now in her home, despite her current situation.

Aedan was pulled aside some time within all the stories, and Hawke led him away from the kitchen into what seemed to once have been Malcom's study. "I don't mean to seem inhospitable," Hawke started, "but I figure since you've eaten and rested and told your stories you can tell me what really brought you here?"

"Don't believe I just dropped in to see a family friend now that everything I've ever had has been taken from me?" Aedan questioned, with a toothy grin.

"I don't believe anyone gets to be as smooth as you are without a few secrets," Hawke pointed out shrewdly.

"To be honest, I needed a place to stay, preferably with the option for a warm bath, or any bath. I just remembered the right story at the right time."

"No more secrets than that, then?" Hawke questioned, every wary, ever the defender of his family.

"Well, everyone has a few secrets, don't they. Well, everyone but Alistair, I don't think he could keep his mouth shut about anything."

"Somehow, I don't put it past even your companion Alistair to have secrets."

"So, what's your secret then, maybe you could persuade me to tell me mine if you tell me yours" Aedan smiled.

"You mean besides being an apostate who is also the son and brother of other apostates?" Hawke questioned.

"Well, it's hardly a secret if I already know, is it."

"Somehow, I think you already know my other secrets."

The tension in the air was thick, and it was quite clear to Aedan what Hawke meant despite his subtlety. Aedan blushed lightly, surprised at his own modesty now of all times. Still, he bit his lip at the thought before shaking his head lightly, "another time perhaps it could have been something but…"

"Alistair, right?" Hawke nodded knowingly. "Oh common, don't look so terrified. He may be too distracted to notice half the time but anyone with a head on their shoulders could catch those looks you give him when you think no one's watching you."

"So you've been watching me, have you?" Aedan sang out charismatically.

"Who wouldn't? But, you must know it's a chance in a billion, he was raised in an abbey. Look, I'm not asking you to give up hope, I have to get my family as far out of here as soon as I can anyhow. But, for now we're both here, and we both know the big secret, and we're both heading off to uncertain fates and almost certain battle or death. What's one night?"

"Well, when you say it like that," Aedan smiled, his look lingering on the mage's incredibly un-mage-ly physique as he bit his bottom lip with a soft, blushing smile.

"So, what about that bath? I'm sure you'll hardly be missed," Hawke continued, seemingly as much the persuasive type as Aedan himself. Maybe that's why he let us inAedan couldn't help but wonder. Still, it was a day of great luck and many compliments, and though his heart was very much already in someone else's hands, Aedan knew that Hawke was right. Who knew what would happen between him and Alistair? It was most likely nothing. For now he had a chance at one night with someone who actually seemed to understand, who had lost and still needed to lead, to protect those in his company. Aedan saw a lot of himself in Hawke, and he wasn't about to let a chance like that, also seemingly one in a billion, pass him by.

For a short time, it had seemed the whole affair had passed by rather anticlimactically. Aedan had been attended to and allowed to sink into a warm tub, and Hawke was presumably still chatting it up with the rest of the congregation. Once Aedan had had time to wash and properly sink into the familiar comforting warmth he had taken so much for granted when he had a bath, however, Hawke reappeared, with the upper hand from still being dressed.

"Mm, really, I'd just gotten comfortable" Aedan teased, as Hawke approached his side. He was handed a towel and he mock reluctantly climbed out of the tub, but he went no further before he was pinned against the wall and began to feel the warmth of Hawke's lips along his neck and shoulders, an unexpected change from Aedan's usual pattern. He gasped out, not having expected it, but allowing himself to melt some into the oddly familiar stranger.

Aedan was led away, half naked through the vacant upper floor toward Hawke's room. He made no protest, and began fumbling to drop Hawke's armour-robes from his chiseled form. What came next was unlike anything Aedan ever felt. With each touch of Hawke's hands, warm and cold, electrifying sensations of magic pulsed through Aedan's veins. He moaned out, mouth hanging open, as he was persuaded through similar sensations onto the bed. Hawke's magic was enthralling, and his stamina was something Aedan had never known even in Rory, something that matched his new found dark motivation. Whether anyone heard was unclear, though unlikely given the magic Hawke seemed to possess, but as they spent the night intertwined, one and then the other relinquishing power, melting into their similarities and driven passionately by their differences, it was clear Aedan had found an equal. Hawke knew his burdens and his pain, and he held none of it against him. Instead, both were allowed to stop protecting everyone and simply be with each other, mentally and in passionately physical love making—for a single night.