’ 𝙵𝙸𝚅𝙴 𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴𝚂 ’ 𝙳𝚁𝙰𝙱𝙱𝙻𝙴 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃𝚂.
five times noticed: ( five times the receiver noticed the sender properly )
ONE
The Grey Wardens seem to bring chaos wherever they go. It's erupted over this strange place, an ogre having barreled through a wall in the Deep Roads and out into the cool night air. They've interrupted something, civilians screaming and running.
As her fellow Wardens deal with the other darkspawn, Inara locks eyes with a mage. He is older, long and tall, and humming with power. She motions, and he seems to understand her. Magic crackles, and rocks lift as she runs, allowing her to jump from them down onto the back of the ogre, where she is quick to slit the creature's throat and bring it down.
TWO
The strange artefact the ogre was trying to keep from the Wardens proves hard to move. The Wardens wait for backup in the archaeological dig they interrupted, and Inara comes to know the mage she locked eyes with on the battlefield as Professor Emmrich Volkarin.
He's an interesting man, and a powerful mage. He's locked the thrumming stone into some kind of contraption to dampen its magic, keep it from calling more darkspawn to their location. As she stands examining it, she sees him across the glass case from her, his gaze not meeting her eyes.
She clears her throat, and he seems to jolt.
"My eyes are up here, Professor," she says with a smirk on her lips as blush fills his cheek.
"I wasn't-" he's quick to sputter. "I don't- It-it isn't-"
"More of a brain guy?" Inara asks as she straightens up, winking at the man who continues to blush.
THREE
She throws her arms around him as soon as she's through the window.
"I was so afraid," he breathes as his arms circle around her.
"You didn't get the letter?" Inara blinks as she pulls back to look up at his face, his beautiful eyes. "I tried to-" warn him.
She's been declared dead. Missing in the Deep Roads for several months, Nathaniel had no choice but to declare her gone for good, and take the mantle of Warden-Commander for himself. She's a ghost, now. How fitting that she's come to the Necropolis, looking for a little bone.
"I did," Emmrich said. "But I..." he swallowed. "I wondered if perhaps something more had happened, if plans had gone awry. It... wasn't the way that you'd mentioned earlier, and I-"
Right. She was supposed to die at sea. But things had changed. She saw the waves pass over his face. It must have been hard for him either way, a play at death. He did fear dying, she knew.
She wrapped her fingers around his hand, kissed the back of it softly.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I won't die on you again."
"Once was quite enough," Emmrich confirms.
She cradles his face in her hands, and does what she can to apologize.
FOUR
He looks happy to see her, at first. But as time passes, his brow grows furrowed. He can see through her at the best of times.
"What is it?" he asks her finally, after his skeletal assistant has poured them both a little wine. "What is it you're not saying?"
Her eyes crawl over him. He is so handsome. His face, chiseled and distinguished. His hair so well-kempt. Every time they spend days together, he is continuously interrupted by friends and students. There is so much right in his life.
It is hard to tell a man you love, a man afraid of death, that you are dying.
"You remember how I had hoped that when the Inquisition ended, I would stop hearing my Calling? That it was all part of the monster's beacon?" Inara asked as she lifted her glass.
Emmrich's hand moved, and ice glittered over the rim of the drink. The wine looked too much like blood for her to drink, to swallow it.
"Yes," he said brightly.
"It..."
"Ah."
His head bowed. She watches him, and doesn't breathe. She can see him, struggling with himself. With his fear. With her.
He shouldn't have to love her when she went. She'd make sure that he no longer did.
FIVE
"Go, my pet! Stop them!"
Ghilan'nain's voice is screaming in her head, and Inara is obeying. She cuts through the soldiers that swarm, walking beside the darkspawn she does not recognize. She has never been more like the monsters, driven to follow the same as them. The mask on her face feeds her urgency; she can feel her goddess's pain, her anger, her fear.
The voice swells and coos in her head as she gets closer, closer. She will save Ghilan'nain from her would-be assassins, and she will destroy those who would cut down her god.
But then she sees him. She feels the pull of his magic, feels the energy of his hands.
The veil lifts from her eyes. She remembers who she is. The Hero of Ferelden. The former Warden-Commander of Ferelden. A woman, who loved this man.
She sees the man snared in the tentacles, struggling. She must get him down. Distract the goddess. Save the mage.
Ghilan'nain does not flinch when she gets close. Not until Inara strikes out, makes her bleed. Fury. Rage. The goddess wraps two arms around her head, like she might embrace her. And she snaps her neck. Her head twists.
Emmrich's hand. She knows it well. She watches it raise as the world goes black.
Five times Katherine of Aragon and Thomas Cromwell disagreed
These are all Handmaid OT4 verse
1. “You are always beautiful Catalina” he says in Spanish and still after all this time Thomas sounds hesitant when he calls her by her name, as though he is unworthy. It is an old disagreement between them - but she basks in the love in his voice.
2. There is a rift between them over a matter of policy in regards to the monastic reforms and Thomas is the first to bend, saying that he had been wrong and narrow minded.
3. Katherines words ring in her ears and she prays, oh she prays that it will not be the last thing she has ever said to Thomas.
4. They will never agree entirely on religion but neither does it poison the love they share.
5. Thomas will never think of himself as beautiful and Katherine will never tire of telling him otherwise.
meme: five times memestatus: accepting (from mutuals)
one.
It did not take Alec a long time to realise that Parker was a little bit touch averse. Contrary to popular belief, he was not an idiot. So despite the fact that Alec was a tactile person by nature, he limited himself to high fives and fist bumps, and let Parker come to him as and when she was comfortable.
The first time Parker initiated a hug? Felt like Christmas had come early. It was a brief thing, arms flung around his lanky form for a second before she had disappeared like the whirlwind she was, but it was a goddamn revelation.
One hug, and Alec was addicted.
Only thing was, he didn’t know exactly what he’d done to deserve it.
two.
Over the time they had worked together, Alec learnt a few things about Parker that he hoarded the way he hoarded video games and little nuggets of obscure trivia no one needed or cared for. These included that while Parker was not fond of physical displays of affection unless she knew and trusted someone completely, she was also absolute pants at the concept of boundaries, both physical and otherwise.
So when he came out of the shower at his apartment, nothing but a towel around his waist to the sight of Parker perched on his window, half-way out, he froze, eyes wide and mouth agape. She merely smiled, stepping back through to give him a quick hug and peck on the cheek before she was gone.
By the time his brain rebooted, he had been staring at nothing for a good fifteen minutes.
It took him another half hour to realise she had raided his fridge and he now had only the vegetables Eliot had forced him to buy left to munch on.
Parker was damned lucky he loved her.
three.
Sometimes Alec still woke up struggling to breathe. In the few minutes it took him to register his surroundings, the dark made him think he was still in that coffin, and his phone was dead. There was no comfort of Parker’s voice telling him to hold on, no faith that his team - his family - were coming for him. It was just Alec and the dark, and the harsh sounds of his breaths in the quiet of his room.
When Parker found out, she broke into his room to stick a bunch of glow in the dark stickers to his ceiling. How she found out, Alec still did not know. But it was Parker, so it did not matter. He appreciated the gesture, because now his eyes would open after a nightmare to the reminder that he had someone who cared about him staring him in the face.
She would sneak him hugs after his nightmares, and he stopped questioning how she could tell, just enjoying the feeling of her arms around him.
Alec could not tell you what he did to deserve Parker.
But he sure was glad to have her in his life.
four.
If Alec thought he was addicted to Parker’s hugs before, now getting to kiss her as well made him question if he had died and gone to heaven. He would be the first to admit that he could be too much for people - too nerdy, too tall, too optimistic, too loud, too black - but he and Parker meshed in ways most people would not have expected. It was almost too good to be true.
Except that it was true, something that he was reminded of every time Parker leaned comfortably against him. Every time she draped herself against his back in a half-hug, or settled onto his lap because it gave her a better view of the television or pressed a kiss to his cheek or his lips just because she wanted to.
This was his life, somehow.
And he loved it.
five.
There was a high that came from getting away with the perfect crime. With toppling an empire and watching it burn. With sticking it to the man and winning. A high to helping the underdogs and the downtrodden.
But Alec’s favourite high was Parker smiling when he approached her, eyes lighting up and arms lifting in a silent request for a hug. Not because she needed it, but because she knew that Alec expressed himself best through physical affection and she trusted him. His favourite high was wrapping his arms - loosely, always loosely so Parker could slip away if she wanted to - around her body and feeling hers wrap around his neck, and just holding her for a second.
It was a drug that Alec could not get enough of.
And the best part of it was that sometimes, it seemed like Parker felt the same.
Send me a five times prompt and I’ll try and write you a ficlet!
I briefly entertained the delusion that this wasn’t going to be R/N but I think we all know what I’m about son.
Five times Rebecca got that [Harry Potter] reference (and one time she didn’t)
1.
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. This apartment is kinda small, yet you seem to have a series of large pieces of furniture and equipment on rotation that I don’t understand how you store.”
Rebecca’s staring bemusedly at the rowing machine planted obstructively in front of Nathaniel’s sofa. Last time she was here it had been the longest table for two she’s ever seen in her life but she doesn’t bother wondering what they’re going to do for dinner, not yet. If she’s perfectly honest she’s having a hard enough time focusing on the conversation she just started when he’s standing in front of her like that, sweaty and shirtless and muscles rippling when he moves.
“What was the question?” he teases.
“Dude, seriously. One day you’re a five star restaurant, the next you’re a gym. Where does this stuff come from? Where does it go? Do you have, like, a Mary Poppins bag in your closet that I don’t know about?”
“I like to think of it as more of a Room of Requirement,” he says, smirking down at her. At her ongoing raised eyebrows he elaborates, “Storage space. The building has storage space. I pay a little extra. You know how I feel about clutter.”
It’s true—she does.
“Well that makes sense, I suppose. Although a Room of Requirement does sound very handy. Follow-up question—who moves said equipment in and out when you feel like a change?”
“House elves?” he offers. “Definitely house elves.”
“Hmm. You know, I’m pretty sure the house elves had a different name for the Room of Requirement,” she murmurs, stepping closer.
“Really,” he says, slinging his towel around his neck and mirroring her movement until they’re all but pressed up against each other. “You’ll have to enlighten me. I don’t recall.”
“Uh-huh. The Come-and-Go Room,” she explains, and the complete and utter shamelessness with which she stares him down and delivers the innuendo makes his toes curl.
“Just to clarify,” he begins, because he knows he can be obtuse sometimes, “you want to see my storage room. So that we can have sex in it.”
Rebecca blinks at him.
“Wow. Actually, no. I was just trying to decide if there was a safe way for us to fuck on the rowing machine, but that kind of seemed like an accident waiting to happen so your idea sounds way better. Count me in.”
Luckily, the table’s as sturdy as it is long.
2.
Things are getting heated during an impromptu make-out session on his bed when he says it; Rebecca’s sprawled out enticingly beneath him on top of the covers, hair adorably tousled and cheeks charmingly flushed as her knees squeeze together with wanting at his sides. They’re still fully clothed at this point but he’s definitely starting to have other plans, hands smoothing down her hips and slipping under the edge of her bunched-up skirt to press tantalisingly at her thighs.
It takes her a hazy moment to register his comment but when she does she pushes back at him with a hand on his chest, smothering a laugh.
“Hang on a second. I’m sorry, did you… did you just refer to my vagina as the Sorting Hat?”
Nathaniel ducks his head with an abashed huff. Maybe a week into a relationship—if that’s even what they’re doing here, he’s still not entirely sure—is a little early to be making things weird.
“I think so? Was that too much? It kind of just… came out. I can dial it back a little.”
“No,” Rebecca says, eyes widening as she arches against him. “No, that’s… strangely kind of doing it for me. Keep going. What else you got?”
He lifts his head to look at her better, searching her eyes to make sure she’s serious before resuming the languid slanting of his hips against hers.
“Yeah? I mean there’s the classics. You know, let me open your Chamber of Secrets. So I can… Slyther-in.”
He dips closer to her ear and drops his voice on the last word, his tone low and silky in a way that prickles hot along her skin and peppers goosebumps standing to attention along her forearms.
“Oh, yeah—that’s a good one,” she agrees, somewhat breathlessly. Her fingers thread through his hair, expression turning mischievous as she pushes purposefully down on his head. “But I hope you know Parseltongue, because I gotta warn you—this time there’s an entrance fee.”
He groans as he slides willingly down the mattress, taking her underwear with him, more than happy to pay the toll.
3.
Nathaniel’s cautious when he follows her into her bedroom, still stunned into silence from the intensity of her most recent outburst. He’s keenly aware that he’s somehow failed to give her something she wants—not for the first time and probably not for the last—and the tidal wave of nauseous inadequacy roils hard in his stomach.
Sometimes he thinks she feels things strongly enough for the both of them, but that’s not how this is supposed to work.
She’s curled up in a determined ball beneath the covers, back to the doorway and him by extension, and he thinks her anger might have dissipated by now but he keeps his movements tentative as he takes off his tie, watch and belt before sliding up the bed behind her. She tenses when he tucks his chin into her neck but then her breath leaves her in a heavy sigh and she relaxes somewhat, shoulders slumping against him.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I have the emotional range of a teaspoon,” he murmurs in her ear, smoothing her hair back, and Rebecca can’t help it, she fucking melts.
“Oh god,” she sniffs, shaking her head. “No. Nope. Uh-uh. There’s no way that just worked on me.”
She twists in the sheets until she’s facing him, eyes wide and damp. There’s no smugness in his expression, though—only chagrin and sincerity—and she brings her hand up to her face to chew on her thumb nail.
“I’m sorry I exploded,” she says quietly. “Maybe we can call it even.”
If he’s a teaspoon then Rebecca’s a ladle, a saucepan, a bowl. A mess of a melting pot, of endless conflicting emotions in constant danger of bubbling over, but he’d like to think he’s learning how to help her keep it at a simmer, even if he doesn’t always succeed.
4.
Rebecca can’t help but shut her eyes and smile at the sound of the supply closet door closing behind her, taking a deep breath before she turns to find Nathaniel studying her, an infuriating smirk already twitching on his lips.
“Hey,” she says lightly.
“Hey.”
They’ve done this enough times now that they crash together like clockwork; her arms around his neck, forcing him down towards her as he tugs her blouse free from her waistband. She wonders absently if this is ever going to start feeling like a broken record because it surprisingly hasn’t yet, her mouth still determinedly drawn to his, limbs still listless to tangle and intertwine.
He looks like a deviant school boy—blue eyes blown wide, hair mussed, cheeks ruddy, white collar rumpled and tie twisted off to the side—and she tells him as much, tells him how he looks like he’s asking for trouble as she trembles at the touch of his fingers sliding beneath her shirt at bare skin.
He pauses, quirking a brow, voice low and searing right through her, like lava.
“Oh, I solemnly swear—I am up to no good,” he mutters, jutting his chin, looking down through hooded eyes at her and god, she hates it sometimes but damn if that doesn’t do it for her.
She shoves him roughly down onto some boxes, impatient, hiking her skirt up to straddle him.
“Is that a wand in your robes, Mr Plimpton, or are you just happy to see me?”
“Oh, c’mon—I know you can do better than that,” he goads with a teasing frown.
She narrows her eyes, rolling her hips and taking satisfaction in the way he swallows and digs his fingers into her flesh as she shifts against him. He tries to still her but she manages to override his grip on her thighs.
“Hmm,” she continues, feigning deep contemplation. “Let me see. Seven and a half inches. Sequoia. Slightly springy. Excellent for charms.”
He laughs into her mouth as she leans forward to kiss him.
“Better.”
Her hands dip below his waistline to investigate, and their capacity for puns is for the most part lost there.
“This was the last time,” she says, after, still panting as she smooths down her skirt.
“The last time,” he echoes. “Mischief managed.”
“Mischief well and truly managed,” she agrees, hand hovering on the door handle as she waits for him to finish tucking in his shirt.
5.
Sometimes she doesn’t quite manage to catch herself quickly enough and suddenly she’s dreaming about timelines; about the endless alternate versions of herself from parallel universes, about any number of Rebeccas that could have stopped some point along the way and just fucking waited, and all the versions of him that would have happily waited with her.
And because each new iteration is still disastrously and inherently her, they make any number of the same mistakes in countless combinations but at the tail end of it it’s always still the two of them—drawn back together as hopelessly and as clumsily as moths, orbiting unquestioningly around each other’s light. She’s still not entirely convinced she deserves love yet but she can’t help but look at all their broken pieces and think maybe, just maybe, they’ve done enough that they deserve each other.
There’s a version that’s closer to her than all the others, that mirrors every meticulous mistake she’s ever made bar one.
“You honestly still want me?” she sniffs, disbelieving on his doorstep, self-deprecating self-awareness the price she’s had to pay for progress in all of this. “After everything?”
“Even after all this time,” he agrees, disarmingly earnest even as his eyes flicker down towards her mouth. “I meant what I said, Rebecca. It’s always been about you. Always.”
She laughs, sobs and moans into his mouth at that, desperate and helpless and feeling too much but she doesn’t do it this time, doesn’t turn and run away, no matter how terrified that leaves her.
All she had to do was stay—
There’s a knock at the door and she startles, room sharpening and shifting back into focus around her, forcing her back to reality with the painful clarity of an office that now belongs solely to her, shared only with the space where his desk once sat perfectly snug against hers.
(+1)
He knocks on the door gently.
“Rebecca? Are you okay in there?” He pauses for moment then adds, “Do you want your toothbrush?”
There’s a beat before the door swings open and she’s standing in front of him, eyes a little red and expression suspicious as she shifts back and forth on the soles of her feet.
“What? What do you mean, do I want my toothbrush?” She sniffs and scrubs the back of her hand across her nose. “That doesn’t even make sense. I was already in the bathroom. And why would I want my toothbrush, anyway? That’s stupid. You’re stupid.”
Nathaniel widens his eyes, ignoring her petulance.
“Did—did I just make a Harry Potter reference you didn’t get? Did I just out-master the master?”
“What? No,” Rebecca says quickly, scowling.
“I definitely did. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
He watches as her gaze slides away from his as she turns his words over in her head, scrambling to make sense of him and prove him wrong. He thinks it might be vaguely ringing a bell for her but she’s not entirely sure, and he feels an odd mix of arrogance and relief at the fact that in her confusion she no longer seems as upset as she did before.
They’re still working it out, this thing that they’re doing—Mona’s moved on and out of his life but she still hangs heavy between them sometimes, the evidence of eight months plus spent trying to get Rebecca out of his head and his heart still achingly apparent, his apartment like an archaeological dig site of the mould he’d tried so unsuccessfully to fit his life in to. It had been easy enough when they were measuring out their moments in the supply closet; back then she’d been making excuses about stationery, not stumbling across the remnants of another woman’s toiletries in his medicine cabinet or noticing the ways his morning routine had changed to factor in another person.
“That was barely a reference,” Rebecca says eventually, tone still sulky. “It doesn’t count. Your allusion was not fully realised and therefore did not make sense given the context.”
“Oh, I am good,” he self-congratulates, rolling his shoulders, determined to lighten the mood.
He moves away from her towards the couch and is thankful when she begrudgingly follows, slipping her hand back inside the bathroom to switch off the light before she joins him. She keeps her distance, back against the opposite arm, but after a minute or so she sighs and swings her feet up, sliding them unceremoniously into his lap.
“So you got me,” she says flatly. “Why the toothbrush line?”
“Hermione’s parents are dentists,” he says, shrugging. “I always just kind of inferred it as a comfort thing. Like she brushes her teeth when she’s upset, and thought Harry might want to do the same.”
Rebecca stares at him, brows raised, for a moment—this ridiculous sentimental nerd sitting across from her, masquerading as a no-nonsense lawyer.
“Well, who needs dental hygiene to cheer them up when they’ve got you and your literary insights, huh?” she settles on eventually.
He thinks they might just be able to pull this whole damn mess of a thing off. He’s getting better at talking her down.
’ 𝙵𝙸𝚅𝙴 𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴𝚂 ’ 𝙳𝚁𝙰𝙱𝙱𝙻𝙴 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃𝚂.
five times touched: ( five times the receiver touched the sender (platonically or romantically or otherwise!) )
ONE
For a long, hazy moment, she does not understand what is happening. She is supposed to be dead.
"Look at this one," a strange voice coos.
There's something warm against her cheek. Glassy, glazed grey eyes look up, and see a god.
Not hers, something whispers.
But then, what had the Maker ever done for her?
TWO
"So strong, don't you think?"
Ghilan'nain's giggle fills Inara's head. She sounds proud as Inara wipes the blood from her blade, and the human feels it too, thrumming in her chest. Elgar'nan snorts, his nose wrinkled in disgust as he surveys his own champion of choice who laid dead at her feet, the twisted mass of still-twitching black flesh melting away with a wave of his hand.
Ghilan'nain comes closer. Her hands wrap around Inara's arm, the hand she lost in the combat growing back as her voice lilts so gentle inside Inara's head. Kinder than the song that once blinded her.
"You did well."
The edge of Inara's hand brushes Ghilan'nain's own palm, and heat blooms there in the contact.
THREE
"Your pet failed," Elgar'nan's voice is disgusted as the two gods watch the shimmering window to the world before them.
Ghilan'nain looks angry. Inara feels angry, the heat dripping from the mask over her mottled face and down her throat. The darkspawn wasn't enough. Inara offered to go. Ghilan'nain kept her back.
"We will have to make our own dagger," he sneers.
The goddess turns to Inara, still angry. She grabs her body, the grasping rough. Someone has to pay the price when Ghilan'nain gets angry. And she is there.
FOUR
Every time Elgar'nan looks at her feels like a threat. It feels worse when they are alone, as they are now. He stands above her, and it seems there's something that he wants as he grasps her chin, lifts her masked face so high it strains her neck.
"How strange the world has become," he growls as he examines her.
Inara wonders if it is the Blight he speaks of.
"Razikale is dead. Your goddess is mortal," he says. "Perhaps with you..."
His voice trails off.
His hand leaves her skin when Ghilan'nain drags herself into the room. Still angry, still wounded. Inara goes to her, grasps her wounded goddess's reaching hand.
"Sister, we should speak."
FIVE
"You must end them now, before they can reach us."
The sun burns in the sky, a ring of fire around the blackness. She feels that is what they are - a blazing fire against the coming night. Solas is much too certain he can reach a victory now he's been denied a thousand times. She can feel Ghilan'nain's anger. She can feel Ghilan'nain's fear.
"Yes," Inara says. "I will protect you."
Ghilan'nain's hand folds in hers, and Inara's lips grace the back of the flesh. She is so beautiful.
With her help, Inara will be beautiful again, too.
’ 𝙵𝙸𝚅𝙴 𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴𝚂 ’ 𝙳𝚁𝙰𝙱𝙱𝙻𝙴 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃𝚂.
five times smiled: ( five times the sender made the receiver smile )
ONE
The sun is shining when she sees him for the first time.
He is everything she thought he would be and more. He towers over her - as he should, when she is only thirteen, and barely able to see over the Chantry's stone wall in the courtyard. Someone was kind enough to lift her onto it as the parade goes by, flower petals and confetti in the air, in her hair.
Everyone is cheering, the whole city pulsing with the noise in a way Inara has never felt before. King Cailan has married Queen Anora, a true love story.
And stories are all the Chantry lashes into her skin. She groans and rolls her eyes at so many of them; stories of nobles becoming more noble bore her to her core. But Loghain - his story captivates her. A farmer who made something of himself.
The parade swells through the streets, and people throw flowers out towards the newlywed couple. Loghain, tall and dark and solemn, walks along the edge of the route, eyes sweeping the crowd. Inara finds herself watching him with wide eyes, not the bride and her beautiful dress, not the groom and his gleaming armor.
She's not sure if he noticed, or if it's luck. When a beautiful white flower with petals ruffled like fine lace falls in front of his feet, Loghain falters, as if not wanting to tread on the little piece of the Maker's beauty. He picks it up with a soft smile, almost sad. His eyes scan the crowd.
He sees Inara, and her eyes widen. He steps towards her, slides the flower behind her ear with the gentlest smile. She smiles so wide she thinks her cheeks might split open.
"I love you," she blurts out, her chest too full of emotion to find better words.
Loghain laughs, and pats her head fondly. And then he is back in the parade, and gone.
TWO
Desperation leads to mistakes.
She is starving to death, her skin clinging to her bones. She has to do something.
Ellis has helped her practice. How to slip her fingers into someone's pocket. She can get closer than the elf can, she can bump into a human and walk away without a lashing that draws blood. So it has to be her.
But as she gets close, she shakes too hard. She needs to eat. She's clumsy, knocking too hard into the man's body. The hand across her face sends her to the ground, and stuns her. As she lifts a hand to her cheek, she sees the shadow of his hand raising again. She curls on herself, bracing.
There's a quiet struggle.
"Enough, Howe," a voice growls. "Can't you see the girl is ill?"
She's stunned when she lifts her head. Loghain Mac Tir. The Hero of the River Dane is above her, clutching the other man's hand with a scowl on his face. The other man is sneering, glaring down at her as if attempting to convey with his eyes what he would do to her if his companion were not there.
Loghain releases the other man, pushing him back a step as he forces his arm back. Then he turns, putting his shoulder between the other and Inara. He offers a hand.
She pulls herself up, still shaking. She tries and fails to offer a smile.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I--"
"Thief," the man behind Loghain sneers.
But Loghain puts his hand on Inara's shoulder. After a moment of searching, he pulls a silver coin from his hand, and presses it into her hand.
"Find a warm place to sleep tonight. It's going to rain."
"I will," she lies.
Her fingers shake as they close around the coin. He leaves, and her stomach grumbling ruins the holiness of the moment.
THREE
Ostagar is a wonder. Inara has never seen so many people, all clutched within the gleaming white bones of the ruins like maggots weaving through a corpse. The Grey Warden hopeful's legs still ache from her long, long journey with Duncan.
She's slipped away from her Grey Warden watcher, a young man named Alistair, for just a moment. Just to look around.
She finds herself standing outside Teryn Loghain's tent.
"You here to see the teryn?" a man asks her suddenly, and she blinks and stares numbly. "Suppose you have a message for him."
And then he's gone. Confusion settles into the Warden's brow until he returns with Loghain.
"What is it?" he asks her, eyes sweeping sharply over her form.
"Uh...." words fail her. "You're Teryn Loghain." That's stupid to say.
He snorts.
"And you are?" he asks.
"I'm uh. Here with the Wardens," Inara manages, and offers a wide smile and her hand.
His face crinkles. He does not shake her hand.
She's more disappointed about it than she has any right to be.
FOUR
She expected to feel disappointment when he woke. Or rage. Or… something. Anything. Grief, maybe.
She’d pictured the moment in her head a couple thousand times. She’d imagined watching him die. She’d imagined screaming at him, yelling and fussing and fighting. Punching him, even. He was the reason everything was ruined. He was the reason her love left her, abandoned her with the whole Landsmeet as witness. She wanted to want to hit him.
Instead, there she was. A young Fereldan girl, staring wide-eyed at the Hero of River Dane.
“I passed your test. Fate has a twisted sense of humor, it seems,” Loghain said slowly, his tongue dragging through his mouth like he was drunk, or hit in the head recently. “I suppose you think I’m some sort of monster. Moreso since I survived your ritual. You keep striking at me, and I just refuse to die decently.”
“You do seem to live through quite a lot that you shouldn’t,” Inara answered, eyebrows raised. “I suppose you might say we have that in common.”
“I’d recommend a sharp knife in the kidneys next time,” Loghain told her, pressing the heel of his hand hard into his forehead, like he was trying to hold his skull still. “Simple, but often effective.”
“Hardly seems appropriate to heed such advice when you’re the one suggesting the plan,” Inara said, head tilting ever so slightly. “Shouldn’t you make it more complicated? Increase your chance of survival?”
“Why should I? I’m a strategist by trade, after all. Should a fine plan be abandoned simply because it ends in my own demise? That seems like such a waste of a good idea,” Loghain snorted.
Inara let a puff of breath free. Not quite a laugh, but more amused than a sigh.
Her chest stirred. Not being angry felt wrong. Not hating him felt…
Maybe she just didn’t feel, anymore, at all. Maybe Alistair really had ripped her heart from her chest. Maybe when the pain faded, there would simply be nothing left.
Maybe that was a good thing.
“So then… what do you think you can have me do then, that will be so much worse than death?” Loghain asked her then.
“Well, you are stuck working with me now,” Inara said. “The super-secret Orlesian spy-traitor you so despise.”
“Is that punishment meant for me or for you?” Loghain puffed.
“We can suffer together. Call it bonding,” Inara offered with a wry smile. “Oh, and we do have a dragon to kill when we find the time. No big deal, that.”
She rose to her feet, and Loghain looked up at her with the dull of misery clouding his eyes. She remembered that feeling. Remembered the rain of Ostagar cooling her fevered forehead.
“You should sleep,” she said. “In the morning, we’re leaving for Redcliffe. Your best friend Eamon would hate it if you didn’t show, I’m certain.”
“No. No one disappoints Eamon,” Inara frowned, and went to face the friends she had abandoned two days prior.
FIVE
She did not expect to see his face there, in the hall of Vigil's Keep. She was then as she ever felt - a young girl staring dumbly at the Hero of River Dane.
She almost runs to him, his arms welcoming her as she grasps at him like a lifeline. A smile is on both their faces when they part from their hug.
"It's good to see you home," he tells her.
"Are you here to stay?" she asks, almost too eager.
"No," Loghain says, and his nose crinkles. "I have to go to Orlais. Order of the First Warden."
Fuck the First Warden, Inara wants to say but can't. She holds on to his arm, like she can beg him to stay through the connection.
"I thought you were enemies," Nathaniel Howe says from behind them.
Inara and Loghain look at each other, and just grin.
five times protected: ( five times the receiver was protected by the sender ) - From Bucky
Tony is always adamant he can protect himself and while in the suit they may be true, he's not exactly a big guy. So sometimes, Bucky stepped in and everytime he did, Tony's heart skipped a beat.
The first time Bucky protected Tony was after a few Iron Man fans broke into Stark Industries while the security systems were rebooting. The company buildings were usually a safe space for Tony and he froze up when someone invaded that space. Luckily, Bucky was there and he was able to get the fans to leave quietly. Tony was thankful for that.
The second time Bucky protected Tony was while they were at a bar. There was a man trying to flirt with the Playboy regardless of the fact Tony had rejected him repeatedly. When the guy got a little too close and a little too handsy, Bucky taught him a very valuable lesson. Don't fuck with Tony Stark or Bucky Barnes.
The third time Bucky protected Tony was after a nightmare. It was bad and when Tony woke up screaming and breathless, Bucky was there to hold him close and keep him safe. Tony would never forget that. Never.
The fourth time Bucky protected Tony was during a fight they were losing. There were too many Hydra bots and they were losing focus. Tony was attacking a group of Hydra guards when a bot had come up behind him. If it wasn't for Bucky snapping it's head from its body, Tony would've been a goner.
And the fifth time Bucky protected Tony was the one that truly meant the most to Tony, although he didn't realize that. Bucky protected Tony from a certain truth. Though Tony had seen the way his parents were killed, The Winter Soldier shot the camera before the end of the ordeal. Soldat had been assigned to not only kill Howard Stark but to do it in the most brutal way possible. When Maria had come into the picture, Winter had to react the same way to both. He would never tell Tony his mother suffered. It was better Tony believe her death was more or less painless. And Tony was grateful that when he asked Bucky about the night, asking if his mother suffered, he always said no.
