Dragon Age Fic: Corrections – Josephine/M!Inquisitor (NC-17) 4/?

[anxiousgeek.livejournal.com]

Title: Corrections
Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition
Rating: Adult
Character/Pairing: Josephine/M!Inquisitor
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Smut, romance, angst, fluff.
Summary: Josephine and Maxwell Travelyan met for the first time at Lady Trevelyan’s summer ball when they were young adults. Now, a decade later and Max is the Herald and Josephine his Ambassador.
Notes: Another Dragon Age Kink Meme prompt with a life of it’s own.  A WIP. Dam.

Goodbye Haven

When Corypheus came Josephine had fallen to sleep at her desk after a long day of writing letters to their various supports. She had been trying to update everyone after the Herald had closed the breach when dozed off. She was sure she was dreaming at first, bells being rung and people celebrating permeating her sleep, a blanket around her shoulders as usual.

Then she started to register the screams through the thick chantry walls, the shouting inside the inside the holy building itself. She jumped out of her chair, knocking it to the floor and ran out into the main halls.

There was chaos.

The families and some of the lay sisters were running around in a panic, Cleric Roderick was at the door urging people inside the building with the aid of a young man in a oversized hat she’d never seen before. She couldn’t see any further, couldn’t see any of her friends in the chantry, Leliana, the Herald… She ran to her room, weaving through the small growing crowd and managed to get inside to collect her rapier and dagger, hooking them both into the sash around her waist in lieu of anything proper. She hadn’t really been expecting to use them as a mere ambassador now she was out of Orlais and away from the Great Game but she kept them close by just in case.

Just in case of times like this.

Fighting through the scared people in the chantry hall, and pushing past the boy and Roderic, she stumbled out into the snow and looked to see the fire lights coming down the mountain, the army holding them, hundreds of them, more…She shook off her fear and went looking for Leliana in her tent not finding the Spymaster there but not surprised either.

She took off in a run and got to the gates, finding Cullen shouting at people to get inside.

“Ambassador!” he cried. “You should be in the chantry.”

“What’s happening?” she asked, “where is Leliana? The Herald.”

“Leliana and Varric are on the wall,” he said, pointing to two figures high up on the outer wall, taking long shots at the approachers.”

“And the Herald?”

“I’m here!” Maxwell said, running through the gate, Iron Bull, Sera and Solas on his heels. “Josie what are you doing out here?”

She ignored the question, trying to get a glimpse through the village gates at the approaching army. All she could see was red before they were closed and secured before her.

“You should be in the chantry,” maxwell said, grabbing one of her arms and spinning her around to face him. “It’s safer there.”

“I can help. Fight.”

“We don’t know who we’re up against, go with Cullen to the chantry, please,” he pleaded with her and she almost relented at the tone but she frowned instead, angry.

“I know how to fight, these are not toys,” she said, shaking free of his grasp.

“Please Josie.”

“Josephine!” she corrected haughtily.

“Really now?” he asked.

“Is it because I am a woman? A lady? A noble like you?” she asked, growling slightly. She hated the way she sounded when she was mad but she no time for is heroics or his chivalry when she could help.

“No, none of this things,” he said, looking pointedly at Sera and Cassandra, who had just joined them, “it is not that.”

“Then why?”

She put her hands on her hips, tapping the rapier against her leg.

“Because I don’t know your skills! I don’t know how well you can fight! How you can fight!” he cried. “I need to know I can trust you in battle and now is not the time to find out.”

She hesitated then, dropping her hands.

“I promise, when we get out of this mess, you can show me what you’ve got but for now, please, go to the chantry. Protect the people in there.” He smiled then, reaching out to take her hand again, squeezing it tight around the handle of her sword. “Please Josephine.”

“Very well,” she conceded with a curt nod, blushing slightly with embarrassment. She should’ve considered more than just her own skills. “Please be careful Maxwell,” she added quietly.

“And you Josie.”

He let go of her then, breaking into a run towards the trebuchets with the other behind him. She watched for a moment, glancing at Varric and Leliana as they started to climb down from the outer wall to join them.

“Come Lady Ambassador,” Cullen said, “help me protect the civilians.”

She nodded, and started to run after him back through the village.

Later she would apologise she promised herself.

If they had a later.

x

They had lost the Herald and they were lost.

Josephine could hardly breathe. It took all her energy not to cry, she was pretty sure Leliana was pulling her up the mountain. The Iron Bull had always swept her up and carried her for a little while – but when she had come to she had insisted on climbing the Frostbacks under her own steam. Not that she was sure this counted. Now he was carrying two children, which she considered much more important. All the Chargers were carrying children or injured, as the boy, Cole she had discovered, flitted around them all ‘helping’, whatever he meant by that. Everyone felt calm though, the injured did not groan, the children did not cry. She supposed that was enough for now, the silence that had descended them as they trudged through the snow was soothing.

“We should make camp,” she heard someone say, Cullen perhaps. It was hard to tell with the wind whirling around them. It could’ve just as easily been Leliana.

“Around the next turn,” someone else replied.

There seemed to be some sort of agreement and they continued fighting the wind and snow until they were following the winding path through the mountains and suddenly the wind wasn’t so bad and the snow seemed to settle and then they were stopping and Josephine dropped to the ground.

“Are we done?” she asked, voice too low to be heard she was sure.

“For now Josie,” Leliana answered, pulling her back to her feet. “But we need to get you out of the snow, onto dryer ground.”

“I’m fine,” she grumbled.

“You’re frozen and exhausted.”

She let her friend lead her over to the side of the mountain, lining her up with some of the others who were asleep on their feet too. She wanted to be stronger than this, like Leliana, like she had been trying to convince Maxwell but then fighting was much different to mountain climbing and she really wasn’t wearing any of the right clothes.

“And you were always the stronger one,” she said, unaware she spoke out loud and Leliana huffed.

“Shush now Josie,” she said, “here take this and come sit by the fire.”

She handed her a blanket and urged her over to the small fire a mage had started, Solas perhaps, or the boy Cole. Was he a mage? What was he? She settled down by the fire, half watching as Iron Bull settled some of the children around the warm flames. Leliana settled down too, and Josephine leaned her head on her shoulder and closed her eyes to the rest of the Haven survivors.

“Do you think he survived?” she asked, after a moment.

“Go to sleep,” Leliana said softly, “I will find out soon enough for you.”

With a movement she thought might be a nod Josephine fell to sleep.

Josephine woke to shouting again, screaming she thought, the blanket around her shoulders once more and she panicked, not wanting to relive any of the last night. She jumped to her feet almost falling over, looking to see what the commotion was. They were still in the mountains, still running from an unknown foe, an unknown army, and still lost.

A small crowd led by Cullen was coming into the little valley they had inhabited, Iron Bull behind carrying someone.

Someone familiar.

She gasped and ran up to them, fighting through the others as they crowded around trying to see, trying to help, trying to be there when only she needed to be there. Only she needed to see him. She was sure of it.

“Is he?” Someone yelled and no one answered.

“Please, I must,” she trailed off as she tumbled through the last wall of people and fell onto her knees in front of Cullen and Bull, looking up at them.

At him.

“Is he alive?” she asked, not quite sure they could even hear her.

“He’s alive,” Cullen said, helping her up to her feet. “Come, we’ll take him to a tent, Solas and Dorian are waiting.”

She looked at the young man in the Qunari’s arms and wanted to reach out and swipe the fringe from his eyes. Unconscious in Bull’s large arms he looked so young again, his hair had been growing long again and he looked so small. Not the man she had come to know and not even the young man she had first met.

“Quickly,” she said, leading them now with purpose, feeling herself awake and alive for the first time since they’d left Haven.

In the nearest tent they laid him on a cot and Cullen took Bull to deal with the other survivors as they tried to get closer and find out what had happened to their Herald. She understood that feeling, as Leliana came and stood by her and watched out as Solas inspected the young man.

“Bring in a brazier,” he said, “he needs to be kept warm. I believe he mostly exhausted rather than injured. Bruised perhaps.”

Josephine took a sigh of relief and went to fetch a spare brazier, bringing into the tent and setting it down as close to Maxwell as she considered safe before letting the mage light it. She watched as the fire lit up his face, pale and still and she felt a little sick at the sight of him but couldn’t look away.

Wouldn’t look away.

Solas covered his head with his hands and she felt the pulse of magic before she saw it, a wave of light over the man’s skin, quick and warm. The elf stood back and nodded.

“That should help with any pain, but I sense no real injury.”

“Thank you,” Josephine said with a small smile, moving closer to the cot.

“We should let everyone know, rumour will be rife,” Leliana was saying behind her but Josephine ignored her and found the blanket she had discarded earlier and settled it on the ground next to the cot before dropping it down onto the floor.

“I will let them know what has transpired,” Mother Giselle said, softly and Josephine turned to see the chantry mother standing in the doorway to the large tent. “We will pray for him.”

Josephine turned her attention back to Maxwell, wondering if she could touch him, hold his hand. Wipe the dirt from his brow. They were friends after all and he needed a friend right now. She needed a friend right now.

On cue, she felt Leliana’s hand on her shoulder.

“He will be fine Josephine,” she said softly.

“I hope so.”

When he woke she had fallen to sleep again, another blanket on her shoulders, the one she’d spread over him hours before. She looked to see him smiling at her, a little more colour in his cheeks now and that spark in his eyes.

“You were cold,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling it tighter around her.

“You could always come cuddle up on cot with me?”

“No thank you,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. He was fine. “What happened?”

“The Elder One, he was there, and an Archdemon of all things,” he said sitting up. She shifted to the side a little, looking up at him as he spoke, feeling both relief and increasing fear. An Archdemon? There were places that still suffering from the effects of the Blight, Leliana had the worst stories, the worst nightmares about it all. “I managed to bury his army. And myself. He got away on the Archdemon.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, reaching over and placing her hand on his knee, squeezing it. He covered her hand with his and smiled back.

“He said the anchor was a mistake, an accident.”

“Serendipity,” she told him, getting up to sit next to him. Her smiled at her.

“The maker’s will.”

“Perhaps.”

Yelling started up outside the tent and Josephine groaned, looking over as Cassandra, Cullen and Leliana started up another disagreement.

“They’ve been arguing for hours,” she said, knowing she would be too if it weren’t for her vigil next to Maxwell. “I don’t think any of them slept.”

“Go,” he said, patting her knee. “Go sort it out.”

She hesitated, not wanting to leave his side. She worried about him still, and there was much to worry about right now, but her friends arguing was getting louder and the shouting disturbing the other survivors.

“I’m fine,” he added as she finally stood. She handed him the blanket with a weak smile and headed out into the fray. Everyone was on edge, the tension of finding the Herald had faded now he was alive and well, and now there was nothing but mountains and a feeling of helplessness over the camp. They needed direction, Josephine knew that much.

She found herself arguing with them until Cassandra had had enough, slamming her hands down on the table with a finality that had them all retreating except the seeker herself. Their anger dissipated and while Josephine was tempted to return to the tent and check on Maxwell – he seemed a little unsteady on his feet – she could see him talking to Mother Giselle now, listening to her words intently. She dropped down onto a bench by the fire, Leliana following and settling on the ground beside her, curling her arms around her knees.

“What will we do?” her friend asked quietly.

“We’ll think of something,” Josephine said, we have supporters now, a few allies.”

“Need to get out of the mountains first,” Leliana said, “Maker preserve us.”

Josephine rested her head on her hands, wondering exactly why the Maker had done this, if he had, watching Maxwell and Mother Giselle finish their conversation. The young man looked over to her and gave her a small smile. She smiled back, and offered him the seat beside her with a nod of her head. He went to move when Mother Giselle starting singing a hymn, voice quiet but melodious at first.

Then Leliana joined in, her voice as sweet and beautiful as Josephine remembered, and she smiled again, feeling something shift in the camp as a scout came to join in with the hymn, more behind her.

And Cullen, Cullen could sing, and she felt it, felt a little hope then.