faderift | [open] Riftwatchers: A New Musical

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[open] Riftwatchers: A New Musical

WHO: anyone who dares to attend
WHAT: the long-threatened play about Riftwatch
WHEN: August (August)
WHERE: Val Royeaux’s theatre district
NOTES: Lots of references, some unfavorable, to current and past characters. They are made in good fun, but if you find anything upsetting or offensive please speak to me and I will change it!

I. ACCOMMODATIONS

Riftwatchers who took Mssr. L’Euilled Ouebbre up on his generous invitation have found themselves booked for two nights into a suite of rooms at a grand hotel across the plaza from the theatre. Each room looks out onto either the plaza or the city beyond, an untimely heat wave slowing street activity to an indolent crawl in the peak of the day. Despite the weather, the city seems to come to life when the sun sets, strings of lantern lights winking cheerfully over open-air cafes as music and chatter fills the air.

While Riftwatch’s food expenses are covered only in the sense of one very extravagant dinner the night before the premier, they’re sleeping for free and treated as guests of honor as long as they make their affiliation known. The downside of this is that anyone known to be part of Riftwatch is likely accosted multiple times per day by curious theatre-goers, journalists, and the occasional inexplicable theory-crafting superfan (for a show that hasn’t opened yet). It’s a busy and exhilarating visit, blessedly drama-free apart from the literal drama that awaits Riftwatch the second night after their arrival.

II. THE THEATRE

On the second day, there having been ample time for everyone to recover from hangovers and finish visiting local friends, the Riftwatch guests are ushered into the front rows of the mezzanine in a beautiful, sprawling opera house. Patrons in the gallery below, and in the nosebleeds above, cast furtive glances at them and whisper; anyone with a sharp eye for Orlesian nobility can spot this or that lord or lady in the private boxes, vexed perhaps that the attention isn’t on them for once.

When everyone has a drink in hand and the lights have gone down at last, a hush falls over the house and the play begins.

III. THE PLAY

The curtain rises! Emblazoned in magical green flame in front of the cyclorama is a wound-like symbol, flanked below by a chorus of dancing demons. Through some manner of trickery, five actors emerge through the center of the flame and topple to the ground, each wearing a glove with a glowing green bauble at the palm.

The opening number convenes as a troupe of actors wearing Riftwatch colors parade onto the stage and begin to pantomime fighting the demons. The Rifters, as it were, are taken prisoner in a disquietingly catchy sequence wherein we learn their identities: Ellie, a brash and confrontational girl; Wisteria, ladylike and demure, the clear feminine ideal; Jace and Victor, the comic relief, one’s extreme thinness offset by the fatness of the other; and lastly, the de facto leader, an elf (!!) named Tav.

They quickly ingratiate themselves into the company via several introductory numbers. Ellie hits it off with Clarice, a native Orlesian, their scandalous interplanar (and same-sex I guess) romance interwoven through the narrative. Although the Rifters are welcomed as guests by the overall company, including the brave and honest Commander Flint, the beautiful, coquettish Scoutmaster Ysolde, and their loyal-to-a-fault right hand man Edgar, they’re met with resistance and plotting from a wicked cabal of secret rebel mages within the organization: Free Marcher Enchanter Marcus, a man whose distaste for nonmagical citizens has turned to violence; Bann Julian, secretly-magical ambassador from Ferelden who uses his bannorn to safeguard rebel mages; the sadistic Spirit Healer, Isaac; Madame Cidu, a two-faced Orlesian duchess who entertains sedition in her salons; and the weaselly young Magister Benedict from Tevinter, with his poorly-concealed loyalties to both the Venatori and Captain Marcus keeping him playing both sides. All of the above work in tandem to align the Rifters and the narrative with their own design, which appears to be total mage control of Thedas.

They are stymied in their efforts by the good-natured incompetence of Jace and Victor, who have been set to the task of learning how to close Rifts, and instead open many more, causing chaos and a great level of comedic disorganization as Riftwatch scrambles to do damage control. The Rifters, led by Tav, take the forefront of the action, heroically closing a Rift over Haven to thunderous applause as the act one curtain drops.

The second act opens on a sleeping garrison as Tav sits awake. He sings a mournful soliloquy that transitions, rather jarringly, into a confession: he has been committing murders of civilians on every mission, waiting until the dead of night to do so undetected. He can’t help it, he claims; it’s in his nature as someone from beyond the Veil.
The scene is intercut with a moment between Ellie and Clarice, in which sweet lovemaking is interrupted by Ellie’s breathless reveal that she only understood violence before now. This leads into a medley of sorts; Jace and Victor, in clandestine discussion, expose themselves as intentional saboteurs sent to Thedas to sow chaos.

An interlude follows: two fancily-dressed and mustachioed commentators discuss an upcoming mission on the edge of the stage, their witty wordplay suggesting that neither of the evil factions or the pure-hearted nonmagical natives of Thedas have any idea what’s coming. The scene behind them opens onto a group number of everyone ostensibly working together, their heartening chorus peppered by cynical remarks from the two fops. Everything seems to be going well, until a Rift is opened all but on top of the chorus.
A scramble to act leaves several deaths in its wake, including Clarice’s beloved chambermaid Abby, poor loyal Edgar, and, surprisingly, Enchanter Marcus. The ensuing investigation reveals the underlying animosity between the rebel mages and the Rifters; Magister Benedict is murdered in his attempt to spy on Tav, and Clarice is injured attempting to defend Commander Flint from Ellie, who has gone out of her mind with paranoia. Commander Flint puts down the rogue Rifter and gathers his remaining allies, including the shaken Clarice, and the native Thedosians barricade themselves in their keep as the remaining Rifters lay siege to it from outside.

It’s only now that, via Ysolde’s discovery of Benedict’s maimed body, the rebel mages’ plan is blown open; those still alive are immediately taken into custody by the good Commander, never to be seen again.
Outside the gate, Tav laments his terrible purpose as Jace and Victor sing a lively song about how much they enjoy being evil. Wisteria, who has remained stolid and quiet until this moment, appears from offstage to aim a deadly-looking contraption at the gate and blow it open, killing several more characters and culminating in the rowdy finale.

The Rifter-on-Native and vice-versa body count increases exponentially during the final number, ending at last with one solitary figure onstage: Tav, holding his bloody dagger, who drearily explains that it was always meant to be this way. He turns slowly to look over the field of death as the curtain gently drops.

The audience, jarred into pensive silence, takes a few moments before erupting into thunderous applause.

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In answer, Benedict laughs, a throaty giggle that seems completely incongruous with the topic at hand.
"No," he scoffs, "asked to be killed at one point, but that's living in the dungeon for you."

As quickly as a candle being snuffed out, the smile drops off his face and he cuts his eyes to Cassian. you didn't hear that and I didn't say it

“Mm.”

Cassian had, of course, gone digging into the reports. It was one of the first things he’d done after arrival, when his stab wound was slowly healing and getting itchy and he couldn’t be too physically active yet: he read and read and read. It was important to get up-to-speed on who and what and when and where, and old Scouting dossiers, and perhaps he’d dug a little deeper on Riftwatch’s once-Venatori captives in particular. It had been riveting material.

That slight panicky edge to Artemaeus’ expression, however, gives him pause. Maybe this isn’t a wound to press his fingers into. Tease the man about his snobby tastes and old vacation homes, sure— but a stay in the dungeon when by all accounts he’d reformed and done the right thing after—

“Speaking from experience,” is all he settles on, neutrally.

Using the silence that falls between them to school his expression back into something lazy and indifferent, Benedict nonetheless feels the anxiety of the situation warring with how relaxed he's attempting to get. He pulls from the hose again, breathes the smoke out, keeping his gaze fixed on the plaza below.

"Speaking from experience," he agrees sulkily. There you have it.

Ugh. It’s so much less fun to bully Artemaeus when he’s already looking so sad and miserable; there’s no satisfaction to it, it’s like kicking a small dog, not an entitled magister.

And despite himself, at the end of the day, Cassian does have a sympathetic streak: that warm heart, his capacity to worry about the people he fights alongside. You don’t fight for a better tomorrow if you’re not an idealist at heart. You don’t take up arms to change things if you don’t care. The smoke in addition to the wine from earlier has been mellowing him out, too. So he shifts a little forward in his seat, leans in to pat Benedict’s knee, the other man’s shoulder being too far away. Vague reassurance.

“I’ve been a guest of imperial prisons,” he says; not oneupmanship, but an attempt to relate. “Cages are shit no matter where they are.”

Speaking from experience.

Benedict's eyes follow the path of Cassian's hand as he motionlessly allows the touch, then flits his gaze upward again to meet the other's. Still a bit sulkily, but with an air of cautious truce, he passes the hose back again.

"What for?" he hazards. Shadow Dragon stuff, no doubt, but as long as they're sharing.

Cassian takes the hose, and inhales a small, lazy drag while he considers whether or not he wants to answer that. He’s not eager to; it kind of punctures the whole cool, mysterious, capable spy thing, and in front of someone who’s not even a friend.

But if he thinks back to the version of himself he’d been then, there’s a lingering distaste: an irritation and disgust with himself for the short-sightedness. Pockets loaded full of gold, a random woman in his bed, no other thoughts except idle enjoyment and partying and picking up more stimulants and enjoying his cut from the job. Idiot.

“If you promise not to tell anyone,” he says, which probably bodes well. Then, ruefully: “If you can believe it, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’d actually robbed the fucking Imperium, but they arrested me for— I don’t even know. Loitering on a beach in Vyrantium. Just goes to show. They didn’t even know who they’d grabbed.”

The smoke is starting to really work its magic, and Benedict perceives that distinct feeling of serenity washing over him. He picks up his wine glass to nurse at it, watching Cassian with an increasingly languid attention.

He snorts a laugh; no matter how you look at it, the irony of that is pretty funny. "A crime of fashion, maybe," he remarks wryly.

The corner of Cassian’s mouth ticks up. “Maybe,” he acknowledges. “I was probably wearing some awful tourist clothes. Trying to blend in.”

Like some of the ephemeral passersby, seasonal visitors to the shore, versus the magisterial families with more permanent summer-houses. Maybe that was part of what had grated at him so.

This elicits another chuckle, in part because the drugs are hitting, and in part because this has brought to mind an image of Cassian wearing the tackiest tourist clothing Benedict can conjure.

“Mixing stripes with florals,” he decides, giggling stupidly, but has enough presence of mind to add, “what did they say it was for?”

The faint smile’s still sitting there on Cassian’s face, he hasn’t wiped it off yet; it is a pretty funny mental image and such an utterly fucking stupid chapter of his life.

(Still, though, he can’t fully laugh at it either. He still remembers the uprising, the desperate swim off that island fortress, the drowning men.)

He can answer the question, though. He remembers what the official charge sheet said. Will probably always remember it.

“Officially? Civil disruption, anti-Imperial speech, fleeing the scene of anti-Imperial activity, and attempted damage to Imperial property.” He shrugs. “All true, of course, just… not then and there.”

Benedict’s smile doesn’t leave, but he tosses his head with a scoff before draining his glass. He’s in it now, his suspicion and annoyance melting away in the face of his hedonism.

“Dramatic fucks,” he drawls, rolling his eyes. “They just want to boss people around.”
Even the wealthy don’t care much for the fun police.

Cassian is surprised into a small laugh, actual amusement, agreeing —

“Don’t I fucking know it,” he says, and it’s maybe the most emotion Benedict has seen from him this whole time, vehement agreement, something more than his usual dry mockery and still-glass expression for once. He’s still holding the hose, remembers he’s holding the hose; pauses to take another leisurely drag.

The lull in conversation extends to Benedict's mind, and a quiet falls over him as he has a moment to observe how Cassian smiles back, pulls from the hose, seems to relax. He's not bad looking-- the opposite, in fact-- and Benedict finds himself smiling lazily as he watches his face. He forgets to keep talking.

Somewhere along the way, Cassian’s lost the plot too. He meant to grill the other Vint a little more, maybe start constructing some private dossiers on the esteemed Riftwatch members who’d wound up in that play — Commander Flint was practically a figure of notoriety and legend back in Tevinter, and that trifecta of rebel mages was probably relevant — but the combination of leaf and liquor has loosened his own attention span. The stubborn information-gathering can just wait until the next time he bothers Benedict Artemaeus, probably.

Their glasses of wine are empty. When did that happen? He automatically gets to his feet and moves back to the table and the carafe by the window, juggling both the glass and the end of the hose, and so he waves it vaguely at Benedict. Come and take this off his hands so he can refill the drink.

Not needing to be told twice, Benedict slithers out of his chair and rises to accept the hose, bringing his own glass along for efficiency. His eyes closing thoughtfully as he takes another pull, they open again on the exhale, meeting Cassian's with a focused, warm, questioning sort of look; perhaps he's matured a little past straight up asking people if they want to fool around, but just because he isn't saying it out loud doesn't mean he isn't saying it. Quite unmistakably.

It’s not what he expected, and couldn’t have predicted out of this evening. And he could plead ignorance to what that look means, except —

Well. Cassian’s really good at reading people. He measures their moods like a delicate barometer, the ebbs and flows of social manipulation, the buttons you have to push to get the reaction you want. He often radiates a warm, automatic charisma that he uses for professional purpose. So it’s practically automatic gesture when Cassian raises an eyebrow back in turn, a playfully questioning Oh?

He refills their wine. Passes the glass back to the other man, their knuckles grazing.

Goading on, maybe. The impulsive curiosity: wanting to see where this might lead.

Benedict claims to be poor at reading people, but perhaps it’s more accurate to blame his obliviousness on a nature that vacillates between fearful and overly proud depending on his company; a tendency to read hostility or incompetence into situations that only reflect his own insecurity. He can read people well enough, when he doesn’t immediately second-guess what he observes, which is seldom.
But that’s the beauty of drink and smoke, and of knuckles grazing knuckles: one doesn’t have to be a secret agent to figure that out.

He stays where he is, looks down at Cassian, then meets his eyes: inclining his head slightly, he tips the other man’s chin up with his finger. There’s room and time to pull away in horror, and also plenty of room and time not to, but the distance is closing.

Edited 2025-10-18 01:06 (UTC)

Wait and see is, typically, the name of the game: he’ll often be patient, reactionary, letting someone else set the tone so he can echo and mirror it back to them. And so when Benedict makes the move —

Loosened and more mellow than usual, Cassian realises that he doesn’t mind. He wouldn’t mind. You do get tired, in this life, of rarely being touched; of so many people never knowing your real name; of having ripped out all your own roots and not seeing the same faces again after a job ends. This stint with Riftwatch is already longer than his last, and the one before that.

It’s curious having to tilt his head up again for this; he hasn’t kissed someone taller than him in a while. But Cassian instinctively leans into the touch, until the rest of the distance dwindles away. The kiss is tame and chaste and careful for a moment: just their closed-mouth lips brushing.

Turn off your too-cautious thinking mind, and the far simpler thing is to go with the flow: a handsome man has kissed you, so what do you do? And then — perhaps operating off the sheer instinct of this is what I’ve always done when this happens, perhaps determined to not be outdone — he automatically leans into it. Cassian kisses Benedict back, mouth opening, a hungry bite of teeth at the other man’s lip.

The increased enthusiasm is mirrored with a pleased little sound, and Benedict cups the back of Cassian's head to lean more deeply into the kiss. He's used to being the taller party, not that he's ever liked it, and without breaking contact takes a step back to try and coax Cassian to sit with him instead on a bench by the foot of the bed.
It's lovely, wine-flavored and smoky, the smell of skin and sweat and the heat of it on his face and in his hands.

He lets himself be nudged along, following the movement and landing on the bench so their heights are more evened-out and it’s easier to reach Benedict, to reach for the other man’s jaw and haul his face to him. Cassian left his own glass of wine behind, abandoning it in the moment, absorbed in this instead: remembering what to do with his hands, his mouth, his teeth and the slide of tongue.

When was the last time? A job, he thinks. A purposeful infiltration, a seduction for information, the usual way those things go. Maybe it doesn’t always have to be for a point; perhaps it can just be that you’ve had a few and you’d like the distraction, and you’re in a warm, pleasant mood and this man knows your name.

A shudder of pleasure, relief, passes through Benedict as Cassian reciprocates so fully; a faint but delicious burn radiates over his lower lip where teeth grazed it, and he seeks out more with a playful, goading nip of his own.

His hands wander, drifting from shoulders to chest and lower, feeling the taut warmth of Cassian's midsection through his shirt.

Hands drift, into a pleasant touch which isn’t simply patching him up after some recklessly-gotten injury, and it’s— nice. Temporarily set on not being outdone, Cassian reaches down with an exploratory touch and palms Benedict through his trousers.

It feels like a game of sabacc or Wicked Grace: see someone’s bet and call it, purposefully and calculatedly setting another coin on the table. Raise the stakes, just to see what’ll happen next.

The touch is met with a gasp, and a delighted little laugh as Benedict tenses, automatically arching slightly toward him. His own hand has slid lower, and the tips of his fingers very delicately slip beneath the waist of Cassian's trousers, moving at such a pace that their trajectory is obvious but he's in no need to rush.
He leans forward, breathing against Cassian's ear as his hand finds its target and gives it a languid stroke.
"Do you want my mouth," he whispers, more than eager to oblige.

Yes, Cassian thinks almost immediately, the version of Cassian that had once drifted in and out of beds and left a string of temporary flings behind him, men and women whose names he barely remembered after.

But somewhere within the past minute, a cold drop of self-awareness had finally crystallised. Benedict’s voice in his ear, the offer, the admittedly tempting idea of his mouth on his dick. They’re about to kick down a door and add an unpredictable new variable to a dynamic which he’d only started to come to terms with, now that it wasn’t just comfortably and amiably antagonistic. This is a colleague. Another colleague in another rebellion. An Altus from Tevinter, first son of a literal fucking Venatori family. The younger Cassian had been messy, wayward, but now that he’s older, he likes to think he’s more professional than this: more cool and collected and wise, less a shattered lonely mess after Bix left him. A complicated stew of emotions roil as he tries to figure out the answer to that question.

Yes. No. Maybe.

Then, at last, he thinks: Don’t shit where you eat.

Something changes. Cassian’s hand latches onto Benedict’s and regretfully pulls it away and he exhales against the other man’s neck, and then he’s sliding off the bench and back to his feet. “Sorry, I—”

Gods, he shouldn’t have drunk so much before and after reaching the room. This is messy. This could get messy. He’s not going to fuck a magister’s son that he’s going to have to see again in the morning. He can’t.

What do you say here? Maybe next time? Rain check? There’s simply no graceful or tactful or socially-appropriate way to exit this situation, so Cassian just shoots the other man a regretful stricken look and says, again, “Sorry, I should probably, uh, get going,” and starts for a speedy exit.

With an intake of breath as though to protest, Benedict sits up and lets his hand be guided back to him. No protest actually comes, at least not verbally; he looks stricken in turn, his face abruptly beginning to flush as the rejection lands. He's too buzzed to have any real arguing prowess, not that it would make sense to argue anyway. So he just watches, crestfallen and humiliated, as Cassian takes his leave.

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[open] Riftwatchers: A New Musical

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