WHO: Bastien/Kostos/Southey/Jehan + you WHAT: Catch-all/random opens WHEN: Solace and August WHERE: Kirkwall, for the most part NOTES: I know the month ends in two days but tag me anyway.
"Of course I fucking care," Kostos snaps, righting himself from where he nearly plowed into her to glare up.
(Just about the only time he'll say that to anyone is when he needs it as a sword or as a shield during a fight, however true it might be all the time.)
"But it isn't—we work together. This war ends," hypothetically, if that day ever comes, "I will be fighting another one, with my people, and you—I don't know where the fuck you will be. My family—" which is his sticking point here, more than general nosiness into his life "—won't matter to either of us."
That's far from a satisfactory answer, and doesn't clear up how many lanes there are on the thoroughfare of their relationship.
"So your friendship is predicated on fighting the same war and stops when it does?" She scoffs at that and turns to continue up the blessedly empty stairwell. She doesn't need to know about his family, but she can't say she doesn't care about them without knowing whether or not she should.
"Your family does matter. To you. And what matters to my friends matters to me. You know so much more about me and my history than you'll let me know about you and yours--"
thank u for acknowledging his inability to shut up
"I don't know anything about you," Kostos says, which is obviously hyperbole to some degree, and steps up on the stairs so he doesn't have to keep looking up at her, because that's not natural. "And you've never asked anything about me, except now you are obsessed with my family, and they don't matter."
"I don't give a fuck about your family--" She starts to say it before he's finished saying that they don't matter, her pace on the steps foolishly quickening as if stomping her way up them won't exacerbate her frustration by adding an element of flushed cheeks and heaving breaths. "--other than how they relate to you, because for some stupid reason you're my friend and I care about you!"
Someone walks down past them and Athessa skirts past them, pressing closer to the wall to make more room while they dodge around Kostos like an immovable object. "You know plenty about me without even asking because I offer it freely! I'm not hard to figure out! But I bet if I asked you how you are or what you're doing at any given moment it'd be none of my business. Do you think I want something from you, is that it? That I've got some ulterior motive you've yet to suss out?"
"No," Kostos says, marching behind her and paying the stairs' other traveler zero attention, rounded down from .00002 attention, "for fuck's sake. I don't want to talk about everything. I don't want to try to explain everything to you. And how in Andraste's name did not you not notice there were two of us?"
"It's not like you two are attached at the hip, now is it?! You n' me never spend time together around anyone else," Which would be fine, if it didn't feel sometimes like knowing him in a vacuum.
Why is her room up so many stairs? She should find somewhere closer to the ground.
"Just how stupid do you think I am that you'd have to explain everything to me?"
He doesn't think she's stupid. He wouldn't like her if he did.
But what he says, trailing behind her, furious and defensive of the gaping exposed wound of family problems she's decided to jab a finger into, is, "Considering you can't even understand this," and nothing else—because he's not a coherent enough arguer to add pretty stupid, not because he wouldn't be willing to finish the thought for moral reasons or whatever.
"As stupid as you, then, since you can't understand why the concept of family might be out of my reach."
He knows, or should know, that she has no-one and hasn't for quite some time. Finally reaching the fourth floor, she rounds the corner into the corridor and starts towards her room.
"Fucking," Kostos says, with a pause like a stumble, "exactly, that's—why would I want explain my family, who won't fucking let go of me, to someone who's—"
He takes a few rushed steps to try to catch up better. Stop walking away and fight him.
"—who's going to play the sad orphan card and tell me to be grateful?"
She turns around and shoves him, for all the good that'll do. It's childish, and small, pointless compared to the fighting they both know they are each capable of.
"You think I'd tell you to be grateful?!" She exclaims, incredulous. "You think the only reason I want to know anything about you is so I can compare you to myself? Oh, poor Athessa, poor me, poor fucking--" Another shove. "--Weak, stupid Athessa who can't understand anything so why bother trying, huh?? What the fuck is your problem?!"
It's absurd. If he were a little less pissed off he might break to laugh. Instead he tries to bat her hands away with his forearm to prevent further shoving.
"You're right," he says, in that tone that means he definitely isn't actually agreeing. "Why would I ever think that you would take something personally and make it about you?"
"FINE. Let's make it about YOU then. OH, WAIT, we can't, because that's none of my fucking business, is it?"
Fended off by his batting arm, she takes to slapping that arm for emphasis instead of shoving him. Equally useless, equally silly, but she's just so fucking mad!
Her door is right there. She stomps over to it and unlocks it.
Without the awareness that Athessa could legitimately kick the shit out of him if she decided to, that might be the limit of his willingness to follow a woman trying to walk away from him. Without it, he might have stormed off in the other direction, snapped at someone on the stairs for no reason, slammed his own door when he reached it, spent the next several minutes pretending not to be sorry it frightened his bird until he caved and—
Anyway. That's a different universe. In this one, he grabs her shoulder and flips her around, back to the wall, before the unlocked door can open.
"Ask me," he says. It's not all fury on his face now. Some, yes, but also a little bit of challenge and a little bit of want. "How I am."
Athessa inclines her head to look at him, not coyly up through dark lashes but with anger flashing in her eyes and defiance in the set of her jaw. The knuckles of her free hand pale from tension as she tightens a grip she didn't realize she had on his shirt, just above his hip.
She has RUINED his FUCKBOY COME-ON, but on the other hand:
“Yeah,” he says, in a tone that’s half good idea and half fuck you too, and puts his free hand on the side of her neck, thumb under her chin to try to tip it back so he doesn’t have to hunch down so far to kiss her.
This goes about how anyone might expect; she kisses back, growling some curse or another into his mouth because why should she bother breaking away to continue being mad? She bites his lip, tries to pull him closer, struggles with wanting to let her hands roam and opening the door behind her — the latter of which ends up winning out because as much as she's game to throw down just about anywhere, the corridor might be a little too public.
So Athessa does the bare minimum and turns the door handle, then nudges the door open with her heel so she can pull Kostos in with her without stopping this frustration-fueled makeout.
the only sexy icon i have looks so earnest i can never use it
Purely on instinct, he doesn't respond well to being pulled. He plants his feet, pulls her back, and only then realizes that what she's trying to do is a good idea, actually, and switches to pushing.
He pulls the door shut behind him. Notices the cats.
"Do they need to leave?" he asks, meaning are they going to attack my legs (or worse), but it's not a sticking point either way. He's already sliding his hands up her side, dragging her shirt up with his wrists.
It's hard to tear her attention away to turn and look, but she does, and sees that he means the cats.
"They're fine," she chuckles low against his throat, nibbling at his pulse point. "Unless you've gotten shy since the last time." The parcel she'd gotten from the kitchen gets tossed haphazardly towards a side table, and Athessa doesn't really care if it sticks the landing there. Far more important is getting Kostos out of his shirt, though she does have to take a detour to slip her hands up beneath the fabric and drag her nails down his back.
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(Just about the only time he'll say that to anyone is when he needs it as a sword or as a shield during a fight, however true it might be all the time.)
"But it isn't—we work together. This war ends," hypothetically, if that day ever comes, "I will be fighting another one, with my people, and you—I don't know where the fuck you will be. My family—" which is his sticking point here, more than general nosiness into his life "—won't matter to either of us."
orchestrates him interrupting her with two dashes
"So your friendship is predicated on fighting the same war and stops when it does?" She scoffs at that and turns to continue up the blessedly empty stairwell. She doesn't need to know about his family, but she can't say she doesn't care about them without knowing whether or not she should.
"Your family does matter. To you. And what matters to my friends matters to me. You know so much more about me and my history than you'll let me know about you and yours--"
thank u for acknowledging his inability to shut up
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Someone walks down past them and Athessa skirts past them, pressing closer to the wall to make more room while they dodge around Kostos like an immovable object. "You know plenty about me without even asking because I offer it freely! I'm not hard to figure out! But I bet if I asked you how you are or what you're doing at any given moment it'd be none of my business. Do you think I want something from you, is that it? That I've got some ulterior motive you've yet to suss out?"
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Why is her room up so many stairs? She should find somewhere closer to the ground.
"Just how stupid do you think I am that you'd have to explain everything to me?"
no subject
But what he says, trailing behind her, furious and defensive of the gaping exposed wound of family problems she's decided to jab a finger into, is, "Considering you can't even understand this," and nothing else—because he's not a coherent enough arguer to add pretty stupid, not because he wouldn't be willing to finish the thought for moral reasons or whatever.
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"As stupid as you, then, since you can't understand why the concept of family might be out of my reach."
He knows, or should know, that she has no-one and hasn't for quite some time. Finally reaching the fourth floor, she rounds the corner into the corridor and starts towards her room.
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He takes a few rushed steps to try to catch up better. Stop walking away and fight him.
"—who's going to play the sad orphan card and tell me to be grateful?"
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"You think I'd tell you to be grateful?!" She exclaims, incredulous. "You think the only reason I want to know anything about you is so I can compare you to myself? Oh, poor Athessa, poor me, poor fucking--" Another shove. "--Weak, stupid Athessa who can't understand anything so why bother trying, huh?? What the fuck is your problem?!"
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"You're right," he says, in that tone that means he definitely isn't actually agreeing. "Why would I ever think that you would take something personally and make it about you?"
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Fended off by his batting arm, she takes to slapping that arm for emphasis instead of shoving him. Equally useless, equally silly, but she's just so fucking mad!
Her door is right there. She stomps over to it and unlocks it.
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Anyway. That's a different universe. In this one, he grabs her shoulder and flips her around, back to the wall, before the unlocked door can open.
"Ask me," he says. It's not all fury on his face now. Some, yes, but also a little bit of challenge and a little bit of want. "How I am."
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Ask him how he is?
"Fuck you."
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“Yeah,” he says, in a tone that’s half good idea and half fuck you too, and puts his free hand on the side of her neck, thumb under her chin to try to tip it back so he doesn’t have to hunch down so far to kiss her.
no subject
So Athessa does the bare minimum and turns the door handle, then nudges the door open with her heel so she can pull Kostos in with her without stopping this frustration-fueled makeout.
the only sexy icon i have looks so earnest i can never use it
He pulls the door shut behind him. Notices the cats.
"Do they need to leave?" he asks, meaning are they going to attack my legs (or worse), but it's not a sticking point either way. He's already sliding his hands up her side, dragging her shirt up with his wrists.
no subject
"They're fine," she chuckles low against his throat, nibbling at his pulse point. "Unless you've gotten shy since the last time." The parcel she'd gotten from the kitchen gets tossed haphazardly towards a side table, and Athessa doesn't really care if it sticks the landing there. Far more important is getting Kostos out of his shirt, though she does have to take a detour to slip her hands up beneath the fabric and drag her nails down his back.