Nonverbal 2 for Cassmos or "hey, look at me…" for Disaster Couple bc I miss em :c
Disaster Couple
Returning his wife to the Anderfels seemed to only make things worse. Vasili - and it was still such an odd name to churn over in his head - didn’t have a lot to go on, as far as Karste’s behavior was concerned. It wasn’t that he hadn’t written about her in his journals before losing his memories. No, thoughts of Karste filled ninety percent of the books. The problem was that it was all flowery descriptions of her - and her parts - and long rants about how much he loved her and how afraid he was that she’d leave.
Really, mostly just the last. That fear had been all-consuming in the last days of his lost memory. He hadn’t been much a journaler before his sickness, apparently, and once it manifested the inevitability of their separation crushed him.
Honestly, it had been tiring to read about. He’d been ridiculous before losing his memories, not that he’d admit it aloud. Yes, fine, his mother had walked out on him. Sure, he was a maleficar. But.
But.
He was an extremely handsome and rich maleficar. Karste clearly wanted for nothing in her life and even without his memories he was more than happy to indulge her. She was beautiful, fascinating and a delicious challenge intellectually. She’d also stabbed him, having forgotten he no longer had a demon to fix him up. He couldn’t ask for anything else.
Well, no, he could ask for her to not be… like this. He gestured at the sparse vegetation and severe mountain side. Fred yowled.
“Precisely,” Vasili told his cat. He scooped up more salve and gently worked it into Fred’s skin. It wasn’t chapped, not by some magic or miracle, no, by meticulous application of lotion. Did Vasili use the excuse of applying lotion to get out of manual labor? Absolutely. Did he feel guilty? Not a lick.
Fred kneaded his leg and raised his back into the gentle massage.
“Yes, she’s being very tiresome. And her little rebellion’s going to fall into shambles while we’re out here fucking around in the desert and then she’ll complain about having to fix everything herself.” Vasili chatted for the rest of the salve application and then closed the jar with a grumble. He shoved it in his pack and then settled Fred into his ring of spells and pillows.
“I think it’s time to do something about her.”
Fred meowed in agreement, far more permission than Vasili needed.
As ever, Karste couldn’t meet his eyes as he approached. She bit the inside of her cheek and mashed her pestle harder into the mortar.
“That can’t be more interesting than me,” Vasili said.
Still, she refused to turn.
“Hey, look at me,” Vasili said, his tone a garbled mess of demand and soft plea.
The moment Karste turned her head, Vasili grabbed her chin and kissed her. He hadn’t intended to be rough, but her surprised resistance had forced his hand and then she’d bitten his lip and grabbed his hair so tightly it hurt. It was magnificent and warmed the only cold spot in the entire forsaken wasteland she used to call home.
She tried to pull away. “Vas-”
“Don’t run away now. I want you.”
“Va-”
He interrupted her with a kiss. “My name isn’t a no.”
The ceiling above him was made of stone. There were some dark stains. Splatter. It looked like blood, though he didn’t know why he was so sure. He pushed himself up, but only barely managed it. Everything hurt. He felt so weak just breathing was a trial. He looked at himself. Shirtless, smeared with dried blood and covered in thin, grey tattoos. He felt- he felt like he was in Tevinter. Was he a slave?
He tried to get to his feet and failed, falling back onto the cold stone. He knocked over a silver chalice and while it fell with a clatter, it had been empty. He looked around. Definitely, definitely, a ritual dungeon and he was sprawled in the center of ritual markings. Biting his lip, he felt his ears. Yes. Pointy. Not too pointy, but too much for Tevinter.
He laid back down.
Whomever his master was would be mad enough he’d moved as it was.
There came the sound of a heavy door opening, and light flooding from a staircase at the end of the room. “Vasili?” called a woman’s voice, followed by the careful click of boots on stone. She carried a lit candlestick in her hand as she moved down, one hand on her hip, the side he couldn’t see.
“Andraste’s mercy what happened to you?!” she asked as she knelt next to him, placing the candle to the side. “It’s only been two days!”
He didn’t respond. This woman certainly wasn’t the master here. She didn’t feel or smell like mage and she dressed like a peasant from what he could see. He didn’t move his head. This Vasili, whomever he was, was certainly logging all of his transgressions. Would there be a flogging? He couldn’t imagine what that would feel like. Was that good or just another thing he’d forgotten like his name and where he was and everything.
Actually, he remembered one thing. A slave covered in lyrium tattoos. The designs didn’t look like his, but maybe they served the same purpose.
“Vas! Talk to me!” She slapped his cheek lightly.
He really didn’t like this. This was exactly the kind of test he’d do if he had a slave. Send someone to interact with them and then punish them for responding. Maker, but he was too clever to be a slave. It wasn’t fair.
“…your marks are different,” she breathed, speaking mostly to herself as he stayed still beneath her. “Where’s George? Can you cast anything?”
Well, he didn’t remember who George was either and if he showed her his prowess he’d be in a very liable position, so he continued his vigil lying silent.
“Vasili Sokolov I did not marry you just to peel your stupid ass off the floor because you can’t handle me going away for two days with my sister!” Her voice grew louder and more frantic as she felt him down, for injury maybe.
Those hysterics certainly sounded genuine. And there was no sign of his master so far. He whispered, “Shut up before you get me whipped, woman.”
“This is your own home, you imbecile–”
Then suddenly, as if realizing, she let go of him with her brows creased in worry. “You haven’t called me that since we married,” she said quietly, “There’s really something wrong with you. What have you done to my husband?” She cradled his face with her hand, looking at him as if searching for an answer.
“If I killed him, I really did it in the worst way possible. I feel terrible,” he said, his voice still impossibly quiet.
“What do you mean you feel terrible?” The woman sounded like she was trying not to come off alarmed. “Let’s get upstairs where I can see you properly.” With a tired groan, he let her tug him up so he was seated. Her touches seemed more frantic as she touched his forehead and pressed her ear to his chest.
“I need you to try and stand so I can get you upstairs,” she instructed, “I doubt anyone can hear me shout from down here.”
“You must be new here. That’s okay. I don’t have any memories, but I do know that when your master leaves you in the blood magic dungeon, you stay in the blood magic dungeon.”
She muttered a string of curses of mixed Anders and Tevene. “–new here, this is your house, we don’t keep slaves, Vasili, mark yourself lucky Anja isn’t here…”
The woman let out a slow exhale. He wondered if she were more irritated or worried, but neither mattered. His vision spun and he wanted to lay back, so he tried to push her off.
“Killian! Gerout!” she shouted, tightening her grip on him. Her voice echoed through the basement with no answer, and then she yelled again, louder this time. He winced and turned his face away from her.
Eventually the sound of armoured boots echoed from the hallway above the stairs.
“My lady?” a man called down.
“I need your help!”
The clattered down the stone steps and lingered just on the threshold, both of them uncomfortable with blood magic. One of them cleared his throat. “Ah, um, is he drunk again, my lady?”
“No, he’s not drunk, he’s sick look at him!” The lady gestured so emphatically it took both hands, which meant she dropped him, but then she caught him before he hit the stone floor and he felt well and truly sick. “The marks weren’t like this when George- After Adamant. I don’t know what it means. Help me get him upstairs.”
He wanted to protest again, but the only sound that came out was a weak moan as the guards lifted him gently off of the stone floor. He wasn’t convinced this lady was an actual Lady - just look at her - but he had some faint hope he wasn’t about to be tortured.
The light of the upstairs was blinding as they moved through the house, and then up another long flight of stairs.
He finally let out his breath, a tired groan of pain as he was set down on something soft. He opened his eyes enough to confirm that yes, it was a bed, and a nice one. There must have been a dozen pillows and cushions piled behind him.
The woman hastily gave orders out.
“–I don’t care what Cassandra said to you last time, I need you to get them both and specifically tell them George is gone and something is very wrong with Vasili,” she urged, “Take Killian with you and don’t stop for anyone. And I need you to get us something hot and gentle to eat, two basins of water–”
“Are you done yelling?” he muttered from the bed.
He was answered with silence as several people ran off.
There was the sound of clothes hitting the floor once the door gently closed, a rustling of fabrics and another door in the room opening and closing. The mattress dipped next to him and she wiped away at his chest with a damp cloth. He cracked open one eye to see her changed, the dirty clothes she wore before piled off to the side.
“Explain to me how you feel,” she said, avoiding his eyes as she cleaned the blood away from him.
“Cold, tired, weak… Empty.” He tried to sigh, but he could barely manage regular breaths, so he gave his dramatics up for loss. “I imagine the master bled me extensively. Maybe I’m used to store magical energy with the marks and they drained it all. It doesn’t really matter, in the end, so I hope you’re happy when I get punished for this.”
“My husband the idiot.” She seemed lost in thought as she rinsed the cloth in the bowl near the nightstand and came back to finish. “Do you remember who you are? You don’t recognize me, obviously.” The woman seemed hurt as she spoke.
When the servant came back with a tray bearing bread, broth, and candied slices of fruit, the woman beckoned her set the tray on the bed and then dismissed her with a grateful nod. She pulled him upward to sit again before she dipped the bread in the broth and held it out to him.
“Start eating, Vasili. We’ll see if it helps before Teren gets here.”
He refused the food. “So you really are pushing that whole ‘you-are-Vasili bit.’ Look, I’m too old for that kind of master-slave game. Can you just roll me onto the floor or something and we can be done with this?”
“Vas.” Her voice cracked this time when she spoke. “If this is some…melodramatic game you’re playing because you don’t want me helping those people anymore…”
There was a gentle, scratching purr from the floor when a hairless cat leapt onto the bed, stepping over the woman’s lap to nudge his nose on her stomach. She seemed uncomfortable with the motion and nudged him away. The cat moved to him instead. He sniffed him and then pushed its face against his bare chest, chirping.
“Fred, off of him, he’s unwell,” she said through gritted teeth, pushing the cat to the side. “Vas, please eat. No one here is going to hurt you.”
“Look, I know you’re new here, but-”
The woman shoved the sopping bread in his mouth. “You are a mage you fuckwit, now fucking eat.”
She seemed to have found some sort of nerve and well - he was going to die anyway wasn’t he? Why not enjoy one last meal. He surmised he must be her illicit lover, that’s why she was so desperate and bad at this. She watched him eat without moving, giving him no chance to pause or ignore the food. She slapped his hand down when he tried to push her off.
“If you’re so desperate to follow orders you’d better start following mine.”
“Rude,” he finally managed to snap out between the force-feedings. When he’d finally had enough that she was satisfied he coughed and sipped some water under his own power. “You could have mentioned the mage-bit up front. Not that there are no mage slaves, but honestly.”
“I hate you so much,” she muttered, “How do you feel since you’ve eaten?” She glanced at the door, irritation giving way to a flicker of disappointment. When she looked back at him her expression settled at unimpressed once more.’
He was busy petting the cat, Fred?, who was more than happy with the situation, purring and kneading his side. The cat was a little raggedy, with scars and a torn ear, but he was apparently his. “Wait, so is my name actually Vasili then? And you’re not just stupid?”
The pointed look she gave the cat was more than a little unsettling. She crossed her arms and he watched her physically bite down on the first comment that came to mind.
“Vasili, answer my fucking question or so help me I’ll send one of the staff to fetch Pavus to witness this,” she threatened. He didn’t know who Pavus was, but she seemed serious, so he deadpanned her.
“Cold and exhausted,” he repeated.
The woman threw her hands up with a howl and left the room for a moment. Vasili, that was not a Tevinter name, but he was pretty pasty and pretty elf-y for a Tevinter, so who knew, looked down at his cat. “Is she always like this?”
Fred purred louder. Vasili took that as assent. He was so busy rewarding his clever cat with more pets that he didn’t notice she was back until the woman angrily threw a duvet over both of them. “Rude. Fair, but rude.”
“I hate you so much. Just wait until your brother gets here. I am not going to stop any of his mocking.”
Vasili stopped petting Fred long enough to pull the blanket off of his face. “I have a brother?”
“A twin! And he’s a magister, so stop it with this stupid slave nonsense. What did you even do to yourself?”
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t be in this position, would we?”
Her nostrils flared with her next irritated sigh. “When you get your memory back…”
[ chin ] for your muse to gently grab my muses chin.
Vasili grabbed her roughly by the chin. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
Karste spat in his face and then used her palm to strike at the underside of his chin. His mouth snapped shut with a click and he stumbled back a half step. Karste closed the gap between them and stabbed him just under his left collarbone. The wound was visible through the tear in his silk shirt and the skin rapidly changed color as the poison from the blade fought against George’s magic.
“I’ll do whatever I want, Magister,” Karste snarled the words at him.
“You were about to eat poisoned berries, you idiot,” Vasili returned. He grabbed her left wrist and forced her hand open, revealing the bright, red berries.
The completely safe, bright, red berries. Karste glared at him and tried to judge just how stupid he was. The answer was usually very, but Vasili had uncommonly good knowledge about food. Either way, she closed her fist on the berries and then smeared the pulp and juice into his eyes and mouth.
With a shout, Vasili shoved her away before swiping at his face, the marks on his hands and face glowing brilliant in the late afternoon. “What is wrong with you?”
“They’re perfectly safe, you stupid Vint!” Karste shouted. “The green ones are poison!”
Vasili froze and narrowed his eyes in the odd way he did when listening to George. Aloud, he said, “I’m not saying that,” before his neck tilted to an unnatural angle with a crack.
When he spoke again, it wasn’t actually Vasili that spoke. “This vessel cannot tell the difference.”
“Try to blush,” Vasili murmured into Karste’s ear.
She snapped her head around and tried to bite his face, but the whole movement was extremely awkward. She was seated in his lap and both of them were wrapped up in his stupidly expensive Tevinter blanket next to the fire in the center of the Inquisition camp. So the result was a great deal of squirming and the blanket bulging oddly here and there as limbs were rearranged.
“That works, too,” Vasili said, hiding a quiet chuckle in her neck. He pressed his teeth into the bruise on her neck, but without any real pressure. Just a reminder. “They think we’re fucking.”
“What?” Karste asked in Anders. “It’s freezing!”
“What did you expect out of these Southerners?” Vasili returned. He sent another pulse of heat into their blanket cocoon. “Squeal a bit. That’ll really upset them.”
“I absolutely do not-” Karste’s rant was cut off with a squeak. She hissed angrily. “It’s not twisting their noses if you actually grope me.”
Completely unchided, Vasili just bit her again and continued what he was doing with his hand.
160: “ Do you think you can teach me that? ” Disaster couple, OG Canon or modern au
“Oy, teach me that,” Vasili said. He plopped down inside of Karste’s personal space, not that that was anything new for him.
Karste stabbed him with her needle and went back to repairing her trousers. Her stitches were quick, even and... She pulled the thread tight and the fabric sealed together perfectly, not revealing the thread at all. She smiled down at her work, before twisting her face into a scowl to aim at her lover. “No. You’re never, ever going to sew anything in your life. I’m not wasting my time.”
“George wants to know.”
“George can pay for his tutelage.”
Vasili stared down at the fire, his lips moving silently as he spoke with the Avarice demon. “George offers three full travel days of discussion of medicinal herbs native to the region now-known as the Anderfels.”
Karste narrowed her eyes down at her needle. The sewing technique was hardly secret or rare, it would be easy for George to find someone else to teach him. But on the other hand, most of the knowledge George had was probably for plants long killed by the Blight.
But they could be found in other areas now... Karste nodded to herself. “Fine. I agree.”
“I really wish you hadn’t,” Vasili complained.
“Then you shouldn’t have made a pact with a demon.”
‘ don’t talk like that. ’ / ‘ you’ll feel better in the morning. ’ (writer's choice!)
Future/Modern Thedas AU
“You’ll feel better in the morning,” Vasili said looking twice as harried as Karste felt.
She punched him in the shoulder anyway, before putting her hand back on her distended belly. “As your child seems to delight in kicking me in the kidneys all day and night, that’s unlikely.”
Vasili threw his hands up. “Well, I tried. You can’t complain that I don’t comfort you when you rebuff my efforts every time.”
“I’d respect effort; that was clearly the first thing that came to mind,” Karste shot back.
“Pardon me for not having a wealth of experience to-”
“Oh stop,” Karste snapped. “You’ve milked your mother running off enough.”
Vasili straightened his posture and his voice raised comically in pitch. “Excuse you. That kind of trauma never leaves you.”
Karste rolled her eyes. “Fine, I guess I’ll just call your father and let him know we’ll take him up on his offer of moving into the Main House.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
Vasili narrowed his eyes at her and then sighed dramatically, throwing his arms up again. “Fine. Sit.”
Dubious, Karste nevertheless sat on their couch. She wouldn’t really move into the Sokolov Main House. For one, Nicolai was insufferable with how desperately he wanted his sons’ love. For another, it wasn’t her home.
“You’re not allowed to be cross after this,” Vasili said as he placed a hand on her belly.
“Why would I be-” Karste gasped and knocked his suddenly, impossibly hot hand off of her. “What did you do?” She hissed in Anders, shielding her belly protectively.
“Magic, obviously. It settled the baby, didn’t it?”
Karste bared her teeth, but privately admitted that, yes, the baby had stopped kicking.
“Father said that woman had the same problem as you when she was pregnant, but since you get on my case if I so much as think about skipping a bloody snack, I didn’t think you’d allow it.” Vasili smoothed the front of his shirt.
“You’re a mage?!”
“Obviously.”
“And you never thought to mention it?”
Vasili rolled his eyes and pulled a granola bar out of his pocket. He took his sweet time opening it and taking a bite. “I am the scion of the Ancient and Noble House of Sokolov, of course I’m a mage.”
“Well excuse me, Princess. With how rare magic is, I thought you’d surely have bragged about it by now.” Karste ran her hand across her belly, but it didn’t prompt the usual fit of internal wiggling and kicking. “And I can just get a heating blanket if that’s all it takes.”
“Don’t be stupid, obviously my child is a mage and wants a stronger connection to the Fade than you have.”
“You were so close to not being an ass. So close.”
“You married me. You can only blame yourself at this point.”
Vasili rubbed his chin as he looked at his reflection. George usually protested when he wore makeup, but after several years of cajoling, the demon had finally agreed that there was nothing wrong with accentuating the marks. But makeup wasn’t the problem. The problem was his wife. She thought that she could hide something from him and that was unacceptable. He waited until she returned to dressing room.
“I’m thinking of cutting my hair.”
Karste froze, he could just barely see her on the edge of the mirror. She visibly shook herself when she straightened and though she tried to play it cool, Vasili knew better. “Are you sure about that? The, uh, Season is about to start, isn’t it?”
Vasili smirked. Yes, his lovely, intelligent personified knife of a wife still stumbled over noble concepts. What a delight. He fussed with the collar of his robes. “That’s just it. Fresh start and all that rot. You know Teren’s going to do this dramatic elf-blood reveal midway. This way I won’t be tempted to cover my ears.”
Karste hesitated and then stepped up behind him. She touched his shoulders, as if smoothing the fall of the fabric, and met his eyes in the mirror only briefly. “You’re far too proud to consider such a thing.”
“Perhaps. But I would like it.” Vasili pulled on his ponytail and mimed cutting it with scissors. Not the most finesse in the history of his gambits, but she was stubborn, his wife.
With a disgusted noise worth of Pentaghast, Karste turned and walked away from him. She called over her shoulder. “Fine! I like it! Save your crowing until I’m in the other room. Also I hate you!”
Ask and ye shall receive: 75. Kisses Meant To Distract The Other Person From Whatever They Were Intently Doing
The vial in Vasili’s hand falls towards the ritual circle. Even with his marks, he’s not fast enough to catch it, so instead he pulls on George’s power and everything goes up in a pillar of blue-white flames. As the ash settles on Vasili and the rest of the dungeon room he’d been using for his ritual, he slowly pries Karste off his neck and shoves her away.
He speaks in Anders to ensure she understands every possible nuance of what he says, “Oh yes, brilliant idea, just walk up and startle the evil blood mage in the middle of an evil Tevinter ritual. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Fuck off,” Karste said, licking her lips. “You’re useless at alchemy. Your twin may be an idiot, but he’s right about that.”
“I can still run experiments for George to analyze,” Vasili snarls. He waves his arm dramatically and a sheaf of papers flies off the rough table and float in the air around Karste. “Remember this when you’re out getting another vial of Darkspawn blood for the experiments you wanted run.”
Karste doesn’t have words for that. Doesn’t have words for the emotions she feels. It had been an offhanded comment, the littlest thing, a tiny, itsy bitsy question about the Blight that Blackwall hadn’t been able to answer. She hadn’t thought Vasili heard.
Hadn’t expected he would have cared even if he had.
She feels cold for a second before she feels the phantoms of his hands on her. Not rough and bruising, hot and seeking, gently touching and brushing in the smooth movements the night that they… That they hadn’t- It wasn’t fucking, but she can’t put words to it, especially not as the papers settle around her.
She wants to feel it again.
Wants to forget it ever happened.
Wants him.
“Well? Are you going to strip, or just stare dumbly at me?”
