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isola-affiliated garrett hawke from dragon age. indie-friendly. 18+

[accipio]

❝There's a recipe to a good hero, Hawke. It's like alchemy. One part down-to-earth, one part selfless nobility, two parts crazy, and you season liberally with wild falsehoods.❞ -Varric

app / stats / rules

Devilishly handsome apostate flees for his life, strikes it rich, repels an invasion, and becomes a hero. Sounds like a story destined for a happy ending, right? Well, about that...

Former refugee mercenary Champion of Kirkwall, current disgraced fugitive.

May have sort of accidentally started a war. Don't worry about it.

Subject of countless rumors, most of which are which are probably true. Except for the unflattering ones. Those are definitely true.

Turns out that having a secret noble streak tends to get you into trouble when you're surrounded by corrupt despots and power-mad religious crazies. Who would have thought?

Doesn't know when to shut up, much to the chagrin of everyone around him.

Most irritatingly carefree son of a nug to ever draw breath. Definitely not burdened with the crushing weight of his failures, no serah.

(A general rundown of his worldstate and decisions can be found here.)

[corvisque]

Waking up with horns and a tail is jarring in a way the assassin would have never considered -- because rather than feeling strange, it feels natural. As though he has always had them. Which he knows can't be true, since he is fairly certain he had gone to bed the night before as an elf. Or at least he thinks he had? His mind has been foggy for much of the day, haunted by fragments of people and places he thinks he might recognize, maybe, but then again maybe not. White noise in his head, pressure in his temples. Actually, that might just be the horns.

Pressed into the back corner of this club, he finds himself thankful for both the shadows and the music, which is not nearly so deafening to these new ears as it would be to his old. He does not feel much like dancing, and he is only really sipping at his glass of what passes for booze here, but he would much rather be sitting at this little table than sitting at home. Much easier not to think here, in a place positively filthy with distractions and amusements.

Like the one walking his way just now.

Zevran might have properly greeted Hawke, insisted that he please join him, even, if there wasn't a knife between them. The suddenness of the act startles him. The Champion pulling a weapon on him to... what, rob him? His hand is on his own dagger before he can think. He does not want to hurt the man, but if he must.

He does not get the chance to do that, either. Instead he's left blinking at the light show left in the magic weapon's wake.

"Neat trick."

"And very lucky for you, might I add. Not a good idea pulling a dagger on an assassin. Is this a joke? It's not very good."

[accipio]

Hawke glares at his now-daggerless right hand as though it alone is responsible for landing him in his current situation. His marked lack of surprise at the sudden appearance of the magicked butterflies suggests that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to him, and indeed it isn’t-–not by a long shot. The only thing that surprises him is the fact that the unintentional spell happened to be relatively benign.

“An assassin?” Could be a bluff. He studies his would-be mark, eyes straining to penetrate the murky half-light of the club. No, he thinks, not a bluff. 

The suspicion that he’s just narrowly avoided a rather violent and unpleasant death is accompanied by the strangest feeling of recognition. He could swear that he’s met this man before, but that’s impossible—tieflings are not a common sight in his usual stomping grounds, and he’s sure he’d remember one this striking.

Unless…

“Shit. You’re a Zhent, aren’t you?” 

Of all the clandestine groups who might feasibly keep assassins on their payroll, the Zhentarim are the only one he’s had personal dealings with. Said dealings were, thankfully, very brief: everybody knows that messing with the Zhent is bad for business. Any man who infringed upon their territory or antagonized their agents was liable to find himself with a slit throat. And now he’s done just that.

With his back against the wall, Hawke defaults to his usual defense strategy. He runs his mouth.

“Honest misunderstanding, mate, really. I assume you’re probably going to kill me now–and I don’t blame you, don’t know what I was thinking, idiot mistake—but at least let me buy you a drink before you send me off to the hereafter? You look like you could use a stiff one, if you don’t mind me saying.”

[absolutionem]

Cullen's jaw tightens at that accusation. What choice did he have? He swore upon Ilmater he'd bring this brigand to justice, come hell or high water. "You make it sound as if it were a choice." When it comes to religious vows, seldom is it choice.

(And why does that rankle? No, he will not allow this apostate to sway him from his path.)

"Vie for you attention?" That too rankles, far more than Cullen cares to admit. Pulls at atrophied desires that shame him, pushed aside and stuffed down for so many years nothing remains of the man, only a weapon of Ilmater. "Are you so conceited you think I'm besotted with you?"

What a sad life that is, says that voice inside him that will not shut the fuck up, growing louder, bolder, as the months have crept up on this haunt. Hates it, hates him, this stupid apostate who makes him question himself as if a bumbling hopeful unsure of his commitment to the faith.

"Half of them are rotting in a cell. The others hang from a rope. I cared not to ask who was who." Finally, an opening, a distraction not to think on how unsettled this man always leaves him, how this has gone for too long because Cullen's too weak to do what needs to be done, Ilmater's laws be damned. He twists his claymore to display its sharp edge, gleaming. One slash to that pretty throat and this torture will end.

It's Cullen's throat that tightens instead. "W-what are you doing?!" No, not this again. He isn't so inexperienced in the bedroom that he doesn't know what Hawke's doing, but like a dutiful soldier, as always, he marches to his own death without skipping a beat. Fucking Sorcerers, always weaving spells. "S-stop that!" Stop staring at that expanse of sun-kissed kiss, dark thatch of chest hair, and all those freckles, begging to be mapped—

"Ropework?!" The mental image of that strikes his mind's eye with the fury of a flaming arrow. The heat on his pale cheeks builds, blatant. "Argh!" Frustration spills out of his mouth as he lowers his weapon, dashing forward as he slams Hawke against a wall, pinning him in place. "What's wrong with you?" Confusion and fascination in equal measure, Cullen's head tilting as if some sort of bird, the fur cape adding to the illusion. Their noses almost touch as he inches closer, pressing his entire weight against Hawke. "W-why are you like this?"

[accipio]

Oh, this is almost too easy. Hawke makes a show of checking his nails, unbothered. There's still a bit of soot underneath his little fingernail from that unfortunate incident with the meteors and the bridge. “Are you not? There are any number of ne'er-do-wells and lawbreakers you might have targeted instead, but you seem to have taken a special fancy to me. It’s flattering, really.”

Hawke freezes, all traces of his former mirth vanished. The image of Varric swinging from a rope forces itself into the forefront of his mind, accompanied by a feeling akin to being dunked in a freezing river. “If you speak true—if you’ve hurt them—” He keeps his voice at a conversational volume, but there’s a dangerous, manic tinge to the words. “I will make damn sure that you regret it. Mark my words, paladin.”

He might very well have made good on that threat, but Rutherford ploughs into him like a stampeding rothé before he gets the chance. He groans, the back of his head pounding from its sudden and ungentle introduction to the brick wall behind him. 

Why is he like this? A foolish question. He’s like this because he has to be. If he weren't like this, he’d be dead, mad, or rotting in a cell. But of course Rutherford wouldn’t understand that, being a paladin, having presumably lived most of his life under the aegis of a holy order. In that austere, regimented world, freaks of nature have no place.

He blinks the spots from his eyes, Rutherford’s blurry face slowly coalescing in front of him, mere inches away. A small, distant part of him that’s still capable of coherence reflects that this might be the only chance he gets. He acts—without thought, without conscious planning, every muscle in his body attuned to a single, instinctive goal: escape. He headbutts the bastard as hard as he can.

[accipio]

@astrallithid -> ALTERNATIVE ALLEGORY

Good men are hard to come by, shrewd ones doubly so. Back home, Hawke had Varric—a one-in-a-million dwarf, a crack shot with a crossbow and a frighteningly savvy businessman to boot. Varric handled the money side of their little operation; he sold off their stolen goods to his contacts all over the Sword Coast and cleaned up Hawke’s messes. Theirs was a highly profitable friendship.

Now, Hawke has nobody. His merry band is a plane away, and he’s got some damned goody-two-shoes paladin on his tail. Working alone has never been his style, and he stands a better chance of evading his pursuer if he has allies. Adventurers, mercenaries, thieves, blackguards, charlatans—hells, he’d even take a moderately disreputable wizard at this point. 

(Could get another operation going here, too, he thinks to himself, business never far from his mind. )

Still, he’s not going to throw in his lot with the first stranger he runs into on the street. There’s a certain indescribable quality that denotes what Hawke thinks of as his type of person, a rough-and-ready willingness to take whatever the world throws at you and come back for more.

The man who catches his eye certainly fits that description. The stranger’s got that tanned, slightly windblown look characteristic of people who spend most of their time outdoors, but Hawke doesn’t take him for a woodsman. A sailor, perhaps? Whatever he is, he’s the most promising opportunity that Hawke’s chanced upon since waking up in this bizarre place. 

“Evening,” he says, as casually as if he were speaking to an old friend. “You wouldn’t happen to know of a place nearby where a man could buy a drink, would you? Preferably a stiff one.”

[absolutionem]

This is why magic ought to be restricted.

Body swapping people with horses, turning them inside out, collapsing an entire bridge via meteor-sized hailstones once, banditry and impertinence—Ser Rutherford tired of his quarry ages ago.

The sorcerer, one Garrett Hawke, brought by reason or force into Ilmater's light by his mail-gloved hand.

"You ask me that question every time," Cullen grinds his jaw, the words practically spat out, "And every time the answer is the same." To submit himself to Ilmater's judgment, to make amends to all the people whose suffering he's caused, either by vowing to get his wild magic under control under the tutelage of a proper instruction, or spending the rest of his life rotting in gaol. "There's nothing for you to return to," he paces around Hawke with the demeanor of a predator, cornering him, "Your merry band of misfits is through, I made sure of it."

Cullen's grip tightens on his claymore, its design simple but deadly, its end pointed at Hawke's throat. "I'm tired of running all over the Sword Coast. It's been months of this nonsense. Give up."

[accipio]

Hawke’s grin doesn’t falter. “I should have known you’d follow me here. Just couldn’t stay away, eh?” 

Indeed, the paladin—Rutherford, that was his name—has shown a doggedness in pursuing his quarry that Hawke might find admirable if the objects of the chase weren’t him and his friends. 

He winks, a move calculated to vex and annoy. “Don’t you have better things to do than vie for my attention? Surely a devotee of Ilmater would be more interested in building an orphanage somewhere. Or scourging himself."

His posture remains loose and casual as he watches Rutherford’s pacing, but there’s a wary glint in his eye that suggests he’s fully cognizant of the threat posed by a well-trained, single-minded, Smite-happy paladin. Some men and women of the holy orders could be ruthless, even cruel—so unshakably convinced of their own righteousness that they didn’t hesitate to cut down anyone in their way—but Rutherford doesn’t strike him as that type. Ilmatari seldom are. Too preoccupied with their bleeding hearts, too burdened by conscience. Still, Rutherford is a paladin, and that means he isn’t to be taken lightly.

Hawke’s smug grin falters for a moment, his left eyelid twitching almost imperceptibly. “If you’re trying to scare me, you’ll need to try harder. Varric’s far too sly to lead our band into any trap you’ve set.” Surely the bastard lies, or at least exaggerates. Surely. 

Hawke harbors a healthy attachment to his own skin, which means that he doesn’t appreciate having Rutherford’s blade at his throat. All the same, he knows better than to believe that his life is in any real danger—no devotee of Ilmater would cut down an unarmed fugitive. Rutherford’s bluffing, and they both know it. 

He shrugs, stepping forward slightly. The tip of the blade comes to rest right over the dip between his collarbones, where the unbuttoned collar of his shirt parts rather immodestly to reveal a glimpse of freckled, sun-bronzed chest. He isn’t above using every means at his disposal to escape, including less than honorable ones. “Well, Ser Rutherford. It appears you’ve got the best of me. Will you be clapping me in irons, then?” He smirks knowingly. “Or perhaps you prefer ropework.”

[accipio]

@corvisque -> ALTERNATIVE ALLEGORY

Once the initial shock of waking up in Spirale fades, it doesn’t take long for Hawke to slip back into certain old habits. He enjoys taking in all the new sights and sounds, of course, but a man can’t live on novelty alone. He needs coin. 

And he knows just how to get it. It doesn’t take him long to find a likely spot: a place the locals call a club. 

Turns out that clubs are really damn loud. Before him is a huddle of bodies on a dancefloor, all of them gyrating to music that’s so deafening he can feel it rattling the foundation of the building. He turns his attention away from the writhing mass, migrates to the cluster of small round tables off to the side of the dancefloor. The music is marginally quieter here, and the crowd is thinner—plenty of little alcoves to duck into, safe from prying eyes.

He spots a potential mark soon enough: a handsome tiefling who looks remarkably at home amid all the booze and debauchery. While Hawke appreciates a pretty face as much as the next shameless lech, the fact that the tiefling appears to be alone is what truly draws his attention.  

He drifts over to his mark, taking care to sway slightly as he walks. He needs to look at least moderately inebriated: an annoyance, perhaps, but nothing more sinister than that. 

“‘Lo there," he slurs. "Mind if I join you?”

The first step to any successful robbery is a show of force. In order for things to go smoothly, the mark must be convinced that any reluctance to part with his valuables would have a deleterious effect upon his general health and well-being.

Hawke’s got that part down pat. With a casual flick of his wrist and a muttered Creation spell, he summons a crystalline dagger into his hand—not brandished at the tiefling per se, but held with a certain suggestion of violence. “Right, then. No need to be alarmed. Turn out your pockets and–oh, fuck.”

 He feels the surge of wild magic before it physically manifests. Just as quickly as he’d summoned it, the dagger in his hand disappears, replaced by a swarm of glowing spectral butterflies. They flutter placidly over the dancefloor before dissipating in the harsh glare of the spotlights.

[accipio]

@absolutionem -> ALTERNATIVE ALLEGORY

Nothing wrong with a fresh start. As he slinks down a rain-dark street, past lurid window displays trying to tempt him to part with money that he doesn’t have, Garrett Hawke repeats this platitude to himself in the vain hope that he’ll soon start believing it.

Truth be told, there are some upsides to being lost in an unfamiliar city. No guards who recognize him, no pinch-faced harridans gawking at him in the market square. There goes Malcolm Hawke’s lad. What a shame. Poor Leandra, to think she married into a tainted bloodline…

Yes, he thinks, anonymity does confer certain advantages. Things were getting a bit hot back home, after all. That little mishap with the Calishite horse-trader had drawn undue attention, and the Ilmatari, infernal busybodies that they are, had dispatched one of their paladins to bring Hawke and his fellow brigands to heel.

(You accidentally body-swap one horse-trader with his prize stallion, and suddenly everybody is out to get you. Figures.)

Well, Hawke is certainly not afraid of some hair-shirted zealot with delusions of righteousness, but the fact of the matter is that open conflict is bad for business. His gang’s growing notoriety (due in large part to his own actions) means that their days of picking off lightly-guarded merchant caravans are just about over. In this plane—wherever the hells it happens to be—he’s got no such reputation, but he also has no money, no men, and no clue what he ought to be doing.

He’s distracted, so maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice someone following him until the bastard is nearly breathing down his neck. He can clearly discern the sound of footsteps behind him—some would-be mugger trying to earn their dinner, like as not. Good. Perhaps a bit of action will take his mind off things.

He whirls around on his heel, his rain-sodden hair falling into his eyes. The grin he wears is eager, almost manic. 

“Evening, mate. Something I can do for you?”

[accipio]

ALTERNATIVE ALLEGORY: DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS

Garrett Hawke was born in Waterdeep to an Illuskan family of little import. He'd have been doomed to a sedate life as a clerk or shopkeeper had his strange and dangerous magical powers not manifested during early childhood. Garrett's father had a touch of sorcery himself, and for a while the elder Hawke trained the younger in secret. Unfortunately for them both, Garrett's spontaneous outbursts of wild magic made his nature impossible to conceal. He left home at sixteen, sick of enduring the whispers and stares of superstitious folk. Now in his mid-thirties, he makes his living by robbing trade caravans on the High Road from Neverwinter to Waterdeep. Much to the annoyance of his fellow brigands, the unpredictable nature of his abilities means that he immolates, freezes, or banishes as much loot as he manages to steal.

mages? what are those? we sorcerers now. (wild magic subclass, to be specific.)

hawke in this AU is a bit of a scoundrel, largely due to the fact that he grew up lacking most of the support networks that he had in canon. and he's damn full of himself, too. ugh.

while not cruel or violent per se, he is a career criminal--another man's misfortune is his gain.

despite his enthusiasm for his job, he's actually fairly incompetent at being a highway robber, largely because of his lack of control over his magic.

consider this an event starter call! capped at three, castmates exempt. for the purpose of this event i'm counting both DA and DND/BG3 folk as castmates!

[isolaradiale]

November was perhaps the most frustrating time of the year for Ofiuco. The Stars were always running maintenance on the island's functionality, making sure that even in a worst case scenario there would still be systems to fall back on if things went wrong outside of their own plans. It didn't happen often, but sometimes things slipped in that they didn't intend on.

But every November the Stars performed a big backup of the island's data. It was a lot of work, and involved pausing the city altogether so that the citizens that lived there had no idea that anything was amiss. That day, in this year's case November 8th, would feel like it had happened to them. Even though it actually hadn't.

"Why does this always fall on me to do? It's boring..." Ofiuco knew the reason. Her main body had evolved past her original schematics, but her robot body within the island's setting had all of the tools installed to make the data backup easier. None of the other Stars were allowed to touch that body since it was an extension of herself.

Ofiuco wasn't focused on the task at hand like she should have been though, so she didn't notice that she had accidentally hit the wrong button. "OOPS!?" At least until it was too late. Just like that, everyone's data in the city had been wiped. "...Good thing this is why we have backups in the first place." Everyone in the city was reconstructed from that backup, but something was wrong. Something that Ofiuco didn't catch at all.

All of the character data had been reinstated but it was jumbled. Characters were recreated as if they came from different worlds altogether, which would lead to a crisis that only some were able to realize. But how long would it take for the Stars to notice?

WHAT'S GOING ON?

Welcome to our last new event of 2024, ALTERNATIVE ALLEGORY!

Ofiuco made a little oopsie that slipped past her radar and accidentally deleted everyone's character data during the yearly big backup. Good thing she had the previous day's basic backup to reinstate them!

But something corrupted the backup, and while all of the characters were reinstated, all of the data has been jumbled up.

Because of this, the characters have been recreated as if they were from different worlds altogether.

Think of this as a chance to design an AU for your character, like Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia as if he were an Ace Attorney character, for example!

All threads must be set on November 9th or later. The characters will believe they lived through November 8th, but the city was in maintenance mode on that day and wasn't actually active!

This event will run until 11:59:59PM EST on Friday, November 29th!

WHAT ARE THE RULES FOR DESIGNING OUR CHARACTER'S AU?

You can pick any series from the masterlist to design an AU version of your character from! You only require mun permission if you're using an original character's world instead. You cannot use a series that is not on our masterlist.

You can design an entire backstory for that character as if they're from that world, however you must abide by our fandom OC policies. This means you cannot give them direct ties to any characters from that canon.

Similarly, you can give them powers or change their appearances according to the setting but must abide by our fandom OC policies regarding what is or what isn't acceptable. That means you can't give them any powers that rival or surpass the main characters. Powers are uncapped for this event so this isn't too limiting.

You aren't required to AU your character if you don't want to! That said, if you want participation for this event you will need to write with someone who is AUed.

Whether your character realizes they have been AUed and remember their original canon or not is up to you! Do whatever you think works better for what you plan!

You can change your character's AU if you'd like! You're not bound to one for the whole event, you can have several!

To make it easier for others to keep track of what you've done, we recommend making a post describing the AU and everything that has changed.

If you have any questions about the event, please send them to the masterlist! We will not be answering them in the Discord server so that everyone can see the answers!

[absolutionem]

"Not so 'fun-sized' now, is it?" He asks amidst a snort giggle, watching Hawke lying down on their couch.

[accipio]

He takes a short break from his agonies to glare at Cullen, though there's no real heat in it.

"I was only trying to taste-test them. You know, for the children's sake." He rests a hand on his forehead, looking every inch the suffering martyr laid low by the machinations of Big Chocolate.

"Are those granola bars still in the cupboard? Maybe we could hand out those instead."

[absolutionem]

"Is chocolate dangerous? I can't believe he ate the entire bag..."

[accipio]

"Of course it isn't. I'm not a mabari, you know. You don't need to rush me to the vet because I ate one measly--"

He grimaces, clutching his stomach.

"Ugh. I think I need to lie down."

[absolutionem]

Cullen sighs, practically purrs, at Hawke's fingers carding through his hair, nails scrapping at his scalp. It anchors him to this present, out of the nightmares at the edges of his reality.

That insult wrings merriment out of him, a giggly half-snort he's unable to suppress quickly enough. "No, I..." He pauses, gathering his thoughts. The Gallows again, but this time not an unpleasant memory, but rather a happy one, in hindsight.

Knight-Commander Meredith, showing off her red lyrium sword to the Champion. Oh, how obvious that she wanted to unnerve Hawke, cow him into submission. But the Champion stood strong, unflappable as he fired off a cheeky retort that, despite its lack of physical violence, eviscerated Meredith in front of the entire Kirkwall Templar Order:

"It seems a lot more sword-like than I remember."

And then, as now, sudden, piercing levity caused Cullen not to disapprove but to laugh, wring out of him that self-same half-snort giggle. Meredith hadn't heard it, caught up shaking in quiet rage at this apostate's continued defiance, her, "I WANT HIM DEAD!" louder than everything. Hawke hadn't either, more preoccupied with what was sure to be a horror show—the same red lyrium that had driven Varric's brother insane, now in sword form, pointed at his throat.

"I love you," bursts forth from Cullen as if a quiet prayer, devotional, and a statement of fact all in one. "I..." And Meredith's face, distorted by her madness, no longer has power over him, the fear replaced by the ridiculousness of the situation that bore it. "I think I've loved you for a long time, actually. Since the Gallows, probably. When Meredith tried to intimidate you with her red lyrium sword, and you just..." Another snort, crow's feet crinkling in amusement, "Maker, I shouldn't have laughed. But I did. I did. And that's...that's what I want. Someone who can look at death's door and smile, laugh, and make me smile and laugh too."

"I...you don't have to..." He pauses, suddenly unsure by the weight of the epiphany hitting him like the Holy Smite he took to the face, the source of his lip scar, during the battle at the Gallows. "Likewise, you don't have to give me anything either. I just want to be around you, bask in your presence, and remember it's okay to laugh once in a while."

"I love you. I...I hope that's okay." I hope it's not too fast, too much. That I am not drowning you. But what is Cullen if not a man meant for soul-crushing devotion?

[accipio]

If this were a scene from Tales of the Champion, Hawke would answer Cullen’s revelation with a perfectly-timed, perfectly-rehearsed confession of his own, and then the loving couple would embrace: passionately, but not with such wild abandon as to offend the more prudish members of Varric's readership.

Unfortunately, the real Hawke is considerably less tactful and socially adroit than Varric’s invented version. He stares wide-eyed at Cullen, his face a concerning motley of pink and white, before dissolving into a fit of laughter. More like giggles, really.

“Maker, I was a fool,” he finally wheezes once he’s able to control himself enough to form coherent words. “I had hoped—I hardly dared to hope, but I did nonetheless—yet I never seriously considered that you… That you could…” He trails off, half-afraid that saying the word aloud will break some spell.  

It’s difficult to explain himself in a way that doesn’t make him sound utterly pathetic, but he gives it a go anyway. “I never thought that anyone would ever actually love me. Like me, sure. Lust after me, obviously. But never love. This thing between us, this affection, I thought it would never be anything more than that.” There’s a moment, a mere fraction of a second, when Garrett Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, comes dangerously close to weeping. Fortunately, he's able to master himself in the nick of time, and any appearance of wetness on his face is surely a mere trick of the light. “I was wrong. I love you.”

He kisses Cullen. Any and every bit of him that he can reach. It’s hasty, awkward, and bound to look comical to anyone who might be watching, but he doesn’t give a damn. “You actually remember that?” He grins into Cullen’s hair. “I’m glad somebody found it amusing. If memory serves, the tone of that conversation was rather dire.”

He’d always wondered what the breaking point was for Cullen, which of Meredith’s abuses proved too much for even her Knight-Captain to countenance. He never for a second imagined that the final straw could have been that clunker of a joke. “When you put it like that, it sounds so brave.” And definitely not like what it was: the thoughtless remark of a man in so deep over his head he might as well have been at the bottom of the Amaranthine. But Cullen has a knack for seeing nobility in him where there is none, and he inwardly swears to himself that he'll do his damnedest to be the man the templar thinks he is.

"Is it okay?" He repeats the words disbelievingly. It takes all of his self control not to flick Cullen on his stupid, thick, handsome skull. “Of bloody course it’s okay. It’s better than okay. I’m the luckiest bastard to ever walk the face of Thedas. Did I mention I love you?”

[havairiansong]

" Well then, today's my lucky day ! " His mock bow was met with a rather theatrical bow in response, the bards arms going out and down like he was presenting something. Himself, perhaps ? " Elijah Torvis, and you'd be absolutely correct. One minute I was quietly falling asleep in a hay cart on my way out of town, the next, I rise in a strange carriage with a missing crossbow, and this strange noise maker. "

The bard flashed his phone before slipping it back into his pocket.

" And whoever that was driving has a very twisted sense of humour, taking away a man's weapon and giving him- Well, whatever this is supposed to be. A tyke's toy ? ...Anyways, I suppose that's not the important thing right now huh ? You mind pointing me in the direction of the nearest place a man can stay ? An inn, or a brothel even? I'm not picky. "

[accipio]

Not only is Elijah a fellow transplant, he’s evidently brand new. Pure as the driven snow, as it were, and as of yet unfamiliar with all the irritating contraptions that this city seems to run on. Well, maybe pure isn’t the right word—the other man has a look about him that suggests a certain worldliness, which Hawke approves of. 

“You’ve been kidnapped, I’m afraid,” he says lightly, as though being thrust into another world were no more than a minor inconvenience. “So have l. This city is full of people in our situation—minding their own business one moment, then flat on their arses in the middle of this Maker-forsaken place the next.”

Hawke spares a withering glare at the phone before it disappears into Elijah’s pocket. How he despises technology. “That little…” He pauses, unable to think of a fitting superlative. “...Rectangle is the key to finding your way around this city. It should be able to give you directions to your assigned lodgings. In theory, anyway.”

 A knowing smirk flashes across his face, gone nearly as soon as it appears. His hunch was correct—Elijah is indeed the sort of fellow who appreciates the wilder side of life. “There’s certainly nothing stopping you from booking yourself a room and some company over on Crimson Lane, but if you want my advice—” Few people do, but that doesn’t stop him from dishing it out liberally. “—Save yourself the dust. You’ll be needing it. Besides, if you fancy waking up hungover next to a stranger, there’s a pub right down the street.”

[absolutionem]

Tired of feeling friable, tired of feeling. Cullen's mind wanders, as it often does during moments of weakness, towards lyrium—how much easier it was to function on it, no strong emotions beyond an impersonal drive to get things done, subdued and absent. Certainly better than this endless torment of pain and misery, re-enacting the same traumatizing scenarios of his youth every other night, begging for his life.

But what the lyrium gave it also took away, Cullen chastises himself for the hundredth time. His parents' faces, Honnleath before the Blight. The Chantry's chain tightly wrapped around his neck. No better than a dog. No, worse than a dog—a dog at least had his freedom of choice. What choice was there when everything compelled you to obey lest the philters stop coming?

That spiral of self-loathing (for being weak once more, for craving it despite knowing better) threatens to swallow him. The tears drip down his face no matter how hard he drives the heel of his palm against his eyeballs, so rough Cullen hears the bones of his eye sockets crunch.

Maker, how Cullen wants to stop crying. But a wall he's built for fifteen years, a dam holding back a deluge of unresolved issues, fell to a well-aimed fireball.

And who else would've thrown it but Garrett Hawke?

It shames Cullen its instinctual for him to stiffen as Hawke wraps his arms around him. Kinloch Hold again, its legacy, turning sudden touch into a potential threat. But there's no demons whispering sweet nothings into his ear, no promises of pain taken away, pleasure readily given. Just the scent and warmth of Hawke, lingering in the space between his shoulder and neck.

"I was...good at being a tool. Prided myself in it." Mages aren't people like you or me. Idiot. Cautiously, his arms wrap around Hawke, nuzzling his neck, that beard, to hide his tear-tracked face. "I'm tired, Garrett. I...I want to find my own purpose again, free of the Chantry. But I'm so tired. I've given all there is to give. What if there's nothing left of me anymore? Would...would you still be with me then?"

[accipio]

He feels Cullen stiffen and curses himself viciously. You great blundering Maker-damned idiot, what were you thinking? Trapped as he is in the grips of nightmarish memories, Cullen is bound to associate any physical touch with the abuse he suffered. 

Hawke moves to pull away, his face ashen with guilt. Much to his surprise, Cullen seems to have other plans. Strong arms envelop him in a bear hug, and he feels instantly better for it. He cards a shaking hand through blond hair, thankful that Cullen can’t see his expression. He’s thankful that he can’t see his expression. He must look a right fool, giddy and sad all at once. 

Cullen’s quiet admission is somehow more shattering than all the tears. Hawke sucks in a shaky breath, trying to beat his thoughts into shape. In moments like this, his shortcomings make themselves obvious—he is all flash and no substance. He can fire off witticisms with little effort, perform for any crowd, but when it comes to things that really matter, he’s as useless as a blundering child. Everything he wants to say sounds like an empty platitude, an anemic substitute for what he really feels. 

But still, he has to try. Cullen deserves that much from him. Deserves much more, as a matter of fact. “Of course I would. I don’t want you to serve me like you served the Order and the Inquisition, you great stubborn lug!” Andraste's tits, even Sandal could have worded that better. “Sorry, I—What I meant was that this isn’t another of your duties. You don’t have to give anything, Cullen. Just—” Tolerate me? “—just be here. With me. And allow me to be there for you in turn. That’s all I could ever ask of you.”

[havairiansong]

@accipio

Elijah had, as they commonly say, ' hit the ground running ' as soon as he got out of the weird horseless cart he was brought here in, and immediately took to the streets like it was second nature. It didn't take a genius to see that he stuck out like a sore thumb...

But whoever said that was a bad thing ?

The bard weaved and threaded his way through people's paths, initially blowing right past Hawke ! But the man stopped, put a finger to his lips, and turned himself around. Heelllooo Mr. Tall, Brooding, and handsome ! Elijah smoothed out his shirt and rested one hand on his hip.

" Well well, hello ! You seem like the kind of, good hearted man that knows his way around. Spare a few minutes for a poor lost soul ? "

[accipio]

Hawke’s tenure in Kirkwall has familiarized him with the various sleight-of-hand techniques employed by the city’s teeming population of pickpockets and cutpurses. The truly gifted ones could snatch a man’s smallclothes off him without even revealing their presence, but the great majority made do with less sophisticated methods. There was the classic two-man job—have a partner distract your clueless mark while you rob him blind—and, of course, the most basic of them all: the bump-and-grab. It’s only natural, then, that when a stranger darts out of the crowd and brushes past Hawke, his first thought is that he’s been the victim of the latter.

“Hey, you! Stop right… Oh.” A brief check of his pockets reveals that he has not, in fact, been robbed. Weird. 

Still more surprisingly, the stranger (blue hair? That can’t be natural—or can it?) turns around to regard him with a look of interest that borders upon licentiousness. In his experience, people don’t typically heap flattery upon perfect strangers out of the goodness of their hearts, but Hawke never misses the opportunity to be flattered, ulterior motives or no.

He flashes the vulpine grin that he typically employs when he’s trying to be charming, then tilts his head to get a better look at the blue-haired man. Young-ish, fit, not dressed like a local (so, a fellow kidnapping victim, most likely), and strangely… earnest. Whatever his scheme may be, the nature of it is not immediately apparent to Hawke.

“Well, you’re in luck. It just so happens that I’m exactly the kind of good-hearted man who knows his way around all sorts of places.” He dips his head in a mock-bow. “Garrett Hawke, at your service. Not from around here, I take it?”

[absolutionem]

Cullen might be used to these shenanigans from Hawke, yet a blush creeps from the back of his neck to his cheeks nevertheless. These attempts at unnerving him—at flirting--are for him now. A stray impulse bubbles up to the top, that of wanting to smack Hawke's behind. But Cullen, ever the penitent, schools his traitorous desire into a slack-jawed stare, then a cough.

"You're glad I walked away?" Cullen isn't sure why he's surprised. Perhaps more proof that Hawke cares despite being an apostate. Over the years he'd heard from plenty of people, all with good reason for their scorn, that he deserved to wither and fall as was the self-imposed fate of all templars. "I—" He digs his teeth into his lower lip, worrying it. "I can bear it, if the cause is just. But the Order ceased to be that long ago."

Kinloch. How he wishes his past would let him be, begs for it to leave every other night. But no matter how much time passes, he'll never be free of it. Be free of this conversation, unless he takes to step to cross as chasm, no matter how frightening, how much it threatens to swallow him. Swallow their relationship if he allows it by refusing to speak the truth, no matter how shameful. "You say that, but—" Buying time. Self-deprecation, hoping Hawke will take the bait, berate him for putting himself down once more, saying something cheeky and borderline salacious, then the conversation moves on.

No.

"I—" His hands are shaking but he doesn't want to sit down. His mouth dries up, voice reedy and weak, back to that twenty-year-old, fresh-faced templar caught in a magical cage wrought in sickening, shimmering gold, reciting the Chant as a bulwark against demons, clawing at his own skin. "—I shouldn't have made it. I watched all my brothers be killed in front of me, turned into abominations. Then it should've been my turn, but Uldred and his bloodmages wanted to toy with me. Weeks, months maybe, of desire demons whispering in my ear, touching me, tasting me..."

Bile rises to his throat. But Cullen keeps talking through it as he did back then, noise to drown them out, keep them at bay with light, truth. "It made me hateful. And it was better to be hateful than allow mages to do that to me again. Meredith understood. Or I thought she did, until I realized all she'd done was stoke my hatred—my fear—for her purposes. Perverted the Order's purpose no better than a desire demon perverts touch." His eyes sting. Cullen drives the heel of his palms into his eyes, rubs at his eyeballs until stars burst behind his eyelids. "I'm sorry, I should've seen it. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough. I'm sorry to you and all the other mages I failed. I'm sorry."

[accipio]

As Hawke watches a man he’d at one time believed incapable of any human feeling fall to pieces in front of him, he realizes two things. One, that he is abominably selfish for bringing the subject up in the first place. Two, that he wants to kill whoever did this to Cullen. He’s killed before, in the impersonal desperation of battle, but he’s never before felt this kind of raw, churning hatred—not even for Meredith. Perhaps it should frighten him. It doesn’t.

The white-hot rage passes, replaced by the nobler impulse to comfort his partner in any way he can. But will it be enough? He thinks about all the times he failed his friends, all the times he was too blind or too stupid to be there when they needed him most. That will not happen, he swears to himself. Not now. Not with him.

“Cullen,” he chokes out, inarticulate with emotion. He means to say something profound or at least helpful, anything that will lessen Cullen’s pain, but the silver tongue that he’s always relied upon sits limp and useless in his mouth. Fuck it, he thinks, and does what he’s been wanting to do since this conversation began: he wraps his arms around his partner and presses his face into Cullen’s shoulder in the hopes that touch will say what words can’t.

“You didn’t fail me,” he finally says, his beard scraping  against the fabric of Cullen’s shirt. “The fact that you’re standing here now with me—an apostate—is proof enough. Don’t you understand? All of those people, those monsters, they wanted to make you into something they could use. A tool—something ruled by fear and hatred. They failed. You beat them. Give yourself credit for that, at least.”

[accipio]

✎

handwritten letter meme (currently closed)

Cullen's kitchen looks like the site of a marinara-based explosion. There's a pot of something that might be loosely described as pasta sauce sitting abandoned upon the stove, the process of cooking it evidently having gone wrong in every single way possible. The sole clean patch of countertop is occupied by several containers of takeaway, along with a note. The sound of water running upstairs indicates that the guilty party is presently occupied with scrubbing himself clean of the evidence of his crime.