#cait and nate do not understand the meaning of a slow burn

[haledamage]

Pairing: Female Cousland/Nathaniel Howe

Story Summary: Cathain Cousland had been in love with Nathaniel Howe for as long as she can remember. It doesn’t take long after they reunite in Amaranthine to realize she still is.

Chapter Summary: As they left the Blackmarsh, less gloomy and haunted but still mud and swamp and mud, Cait had plenty of time to reminisce on all the ways she hated being right.

As they left the Blackmarsh, less gloomy and haunted but still mud and swamp and mud, Cait had plenty of time to reminisce on all the ways she hated being right.

She bit her tongue against the complaints and curses that still stewed in her mind, though. There was no use in angering their new companion, and Cait didn't know how he'd react to her hurling insults at his home.

Cathain was proud of the diversity of those she'd traveled with since she'd become a Warden, the different points of view she had gotten the chance to understand. Mages and templars, dwarves and elves, qunari and golems, and at least two men who had actively tried to kill her and whom she now counted among her most staunch supporters.

Justice… was something new. To put it lightly.

Kristoff had probably been a handsome man in life, but he'd clearly been dead a few days in bad conditions when Justice had been forced into his body. Now, there was no way to deny or pretend he was anything other than a walking corpse. His face was sunken, nearly skeletal - especially around his nose and jaw - and he looked too delicate to be able to move under the weight of his armor. His clouded eyes glowed faintly blue from the strength of the spirit within. Cait had to suppress a shudder whenever he looked her way; she had the distinct feeling that he could see into her soul and was taking her measure.

But Kristoff had been one of hers, or would have been, and she could feel him buzzing in her blood as clear as Nate or Oghren. So she had accepted Justice's offer to help, and now one of her Wardens was a spirit. An actual blighted Spirit of Justice. Wonders never cease.

With the death of the Baroness, they'd cleared the miasma from the marsh. The air was lighter, the sun finally penetrating the canopy. Conversation flowed easily again, and Cait's head finally started to clear.

"Is this what it's always like for you?" Nathaniel asked in something akin to awe. "Can you go anywhere without saving cursed people and fighting ghost dragons?"

Oghren cackled, answering before Cait had a chance, "I could tell you some stories. The Commander attracts trouble like I attract the ladies, heh heh."

"So you must live a very boring life," Anders muttered dryly.

Cathain bit her lip to stop from laughing. "He's literally been married twice."

"Are you serious? Him?"

All she could do was nod, silent giggles shaking her shoulders.

Anders shook his head. "I need to rethink my whole life now."

Oghren didn't hear them, though. He was in storytelling mode, waving his arms wildly as he spoke. "What do you want to hear about? When she found the actual physical remains of the Chantry prophet and had to fight a high dragon and the cult that worshiped it?"

"That dragon almost killed me."

"When she found a Paragon in the Deep Roads from the time of the First Blight?"

"I was just trying to find your wife."

"When she cured a werewolf curse?"

"Technically, the werewolves cured themselves. I just mediated."

"When she won a duel with Ferelden's greatest general and single-handedly ended a civil war?"

"It was hardly 'single-handed'."

"Cait!" Anders laughed. "Andraste's flaming knickers, just take the blasted compliment!"

Cait shut her mouth with an audible click of teeth, stopping any more denials from pouring forth. "Maybe I do attract trouble. Explains how I got stuck with you lot."

"I always said life would never be dull with you around," Nathaniel said fondly. "If only I'd known how right I was."

Anders threw an arm over her shoulders. "I bet Denerim is insufferable. Is that why you moved out to, what did Wade call it - 'Turnip Keep'?"

Cait leaned against him, thankful for once at his attempted levity. "Ugh. It's like everyone in that city forgot my name the moment the archdemon died. I didn't even kill the blighted archdemon."

"Tell you what," Anders said with a poor excuse for a wink, "next time you have to go to Denerim, I'll go with you! Everyone will be too busy scowling at the mage to even notice the Hero of Ferelden!"

Cait pulled away from him so she could look up at him, searching his face to see if he was joking. He wasn't. "Anders, that may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Does that mean I get to call you Caitie yet?"

She laughed, feeling better than she had in days. "Don't push your luck."

-------

"Do you… eat?" Cait cringed at the way it sounded, but could think of no more polite way to phrase it.

If Justice was offended, he didn't look it. Or maybe he just hadn't figured out facial expressions yet. "I require neither sleep nor sustenance. I will keep watch over your camp through the night."

It was tempting, the idea of a full night's sleep, but… "I'd like someone to take watch with you. We were ambushed on the road less than four days ago, I'd like an extra pair of eyes on the trees."

"You do not trust me." He said it plainly, again not offended, just observing.

"I don't know you," Cait corrected, "though I don't think you mean us harm. But regardless, I'm not lying to you. We lost most of a day's travel because I got injured. I don't want to be caught unaware."

Justice stared at her, unblinking. She fought the urge to look away. "Very well," he stated, and then he didn't acknowledge her anymore.

“I'm going to go gather firewood." Cathain stepped into the forest before anyone else tried to talk to her.

She wasn’t that lucky. She was barely into the deep woods when she felt Nathaniel join her. She couldn’t hear him, but she knew he was there. “I hope you don’t think you’re being subtle,” she said lightly.

“We need to talk,” he growled, right behind her.

“I know we do.” She didn’t turn around, wading further into the underbrush. “And we will, after dinner. Right now we have work to do.”

“Caitie, please, will you just stop.” He grabbed her wrist and dragged her to a halt.

Cait whipped around toward him and stared at that point of contact. She tested his grip, but it held firm. He wasn’t hurting her, but she’d have to hurt him to break free. She looked up at him, then back at his gentle but implacable hold on her arm. She tried reaching for calm, but all she found was anger. “Let me go, Nathaniel,” she warned, voice low.

He stepped closer, trying to intimidate her with his size alone. “Did you know you only call me Nathaniel when you’re mad at me?”

“Did you know that the last time a man grabbed me like that I broke his nose? Let. Me. Go.” She took a step toward him, crowding him even though she was several inches shorter than he was. She met his eyes, jaw set in a clear challenge.

Nate blinked first. He released her wrist and she rubbed at it, even though he hadn’t left any mark at all. He backed up a step. “You are the most stubborn, infuriating woman I’ve ever met.”

“So I’ve been told,” Cait said bitterly. Her hands were shaking. She clenched them at her sides until they stopped. “I know what I am, Nate. I don’t apologize for it. There was a time when you found that attractive.”

“Maker help me, I still do,” he snarled. Her eyes widened at that confession, but he didn’t give her time to think about it. “It isn’t like you to run away like this, Caitie.”

“How would you know what I’m like?” She hissed and stepped forward, getting in his face again. “What makes you think I’m the same person I was when you left? That either of us are?”

Nathaniel grabbed her by the shoulders. He looked like he wanted to shake her until some sense fell out, but he didn’t. Softly, he said, “I don’t expect you to be. I just want a chance to find out for myself.”

Her anger faded. Without it, she felt cold. Tired. “And what if you don’t like what you find?”

“Is that what you’re scared of? Caitie, there’s no way you could change so much that I wouldn’t still--” he cut himself off abruptly, but Cait knew how that sentence ended and it hit her like a blow to the chest. “I’d like us to be friends again. I thought we were.”

“We are,” she whispered. It didn’t feel sufficient. She thought back to their talk not even a week ago when they left the Vigil, and added, “You have never been ‘just’ anything.”

His smile was a sweet and beautiful thing. “Neither have you.” Moving slowly, giving her plenty of time to refuse him, he lifted his hand to touch her face. She leaned into it.

Her eyes fluttered shut against the intensity of his pale eyes and her whirring thoughts. “Do you ever wish I were something… else? Softer? Less aggressive, less angry?”

“Does this have something to do with that talk we had over the fire?” Nathaniel asked quietly. Cait could feel his breath on her skin as he spoke.

“Yes. And you didn’t answer my question.” This felt familiar, this closeness, like sneaking away from their families to have a few moments they didn't have to pretend. He was taller, broader, older than he had been then, but his eyes were the same. So was the way he looked at her.

His hand brushed over her cheek and into her hair, cupping the back of her head and gently coaxing her to look at him again. “Never. If you were, you wouldn’t be you. If I had the choice of every man and woman in Thedas, I would still pick you every time.”

Cait touched his face, tracing the stubble on his jaw; he was going to have a full beard by the time they made it back to the Vigil at this rate. “I have obligations.”

“I know.”

“Things I have to take care of before I can even consider any kind of personal commitments.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to lose you again,” Cait whispered, and her voice broke. There it was. The truth under all her excuses, finally out in the open.

“Shhhh, I know.” Nate traced his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’m here. We’ll figure the rest out as we go.”

She grabbed onto the front of his armor to drag him down to her level and pressed her lips to his.

She hadn’t meant for it to be anything more than that, but his hand clenched in her hair and tilted her head back just so. She made a tiny, hungry noise in the back of her throat and he surged forward, pulling her flush against him, and any hesitations Cait still harbored flew right out the window.

They kissed like they'd waited eight years for it. Every ounce of loneliness and longing and pain from nearly a decade apart, all the frustration and anger from the last month poured from them and into each other in a desperate and almost violent meeting of lips and tongues and bodies.

Too soon, they had to break apart to breathe. Cait finally took the opportunity to run her hands along those glorious shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch and shift under her touch. Nathaniel had one hand splayed across her hip and the other still tangled in her hair and his eyes were dark and warm. Cait would burn the whole blighted world to ash if he asked it of her, if it meant he'd keep looking at her like that.

He pressed his forehead to hers and she took several deep, calming breaths. She wanted to kiss him again, but was much too wound up and emotional for that to lead anywhere except her tent. Cait had a lot of things she wanted to say to him; she wished she knew where to start.

When she did finally speak, it wasn’t to Nate. “Enjoying the show?”

"We were just wondering if you'd be back with that firewood before sunrise," Anders said casually. He appeared from around a tree about ten feet away and leaned against it. "How did you know I was there?"

"I can literally feel you in my blood. I couldn't ignore you, no matter how much I wanted to. Give it another month, maybe two, you'll feel it too." As she spoke, she pried herself reluctantly away from Nathaniel. He let her go, but didn't let her go far.

"That is a very interesting fact and also a clever way to change the subject," Anders' grin was sharp and lethal.

She sighed. "I'll be right there with your blighted firewood, okay?"

"I'll head back to camp with Anders. I doubt we'd get anything done otherwise," Nathaniel said. Before she could react, he turned to her, tipped her chin up, and kissed her, quickly but very thoroughly. Then he walked away before she could find anything to say in response.

Anders rolled his eyes in a way that reminded her abruptly of Fergus, an affectionately annoyed, brotherly expression. "Right, well, I'm going back to camp. You might want to fix your hair or something." He waved and left.

Cait didn't think they needed firewood. The heat from her flushed face would be enough to keep them all warm tonight.

-------

Justice was perhaps an even worse conversationalist than Cait had anticipated. He answered any questions asked of him without rancor but also with as few words as possible. He offered no questions in return except those he deemed necessary, about maintaining the campfire or what he should be keeping watch for while the others were sleeping.

They were barely an hour into first watch and she could already tell it would be a long night.

She watched him from across the fire. He was unnaturally still, unblinking, no shifting or breathing or any of the other tiny movements people made without noticing. And when he did move, it was never all at once. She watched him watch a bird bouncing in the trees above them, and Justice moved only his head to track its movement, the rest of him still as the grave.

When the bird moved past him to the point that his head couldn't turn farther, he abandoned his pursuit and turned back to the fire. His clouded, glowing eyes met hers.

"This must be very strange for you," she said softly.

He studied her in silence, so long that she thought he wasn't going to answer, before saying hesitantly "…It is. In the Fade, the world changes around you constantly. But not here. I can close my eyes and know that when I open them again, things will be as they were."

Justice closed his eyes then, and Cait felt as if hers were just opened. His silence wasn't due to coldness as she'd first thought; he was simply overwhelmed, absorbing and observing everything. He was listening to every word they said to pick up its nuance. He was watching the birds in the trees and the flowers along the road, seeing colors he'd never seen before.

A wistful look passed over his face, and his lips curled up in the first smile she'd ever seen from him. "Is that the wind? It feels good on my face."

"When we get back to the Keep, I'll take you up on the roof to watch the sunset," Cait said, her voice rough with emotion. "Colors like you wouldn't believe."

He looked at her, staring again with those soul-piercing eyes. "I would like that. Thank you."

The silence felt more comfortable when it settled again. Justice turned back to the forest, watching the leaves rustle in the breeze, the little family of deer that walked close to their camp, the pop and spark of the campfire. Cait let her eyes wander as well, trying to look at the world through fresh eyes, like she was seeing it for the first time.

"You have a question for me." Justice said eventually. Cait didn't know how long had passed in silence. "Ask."

"What kind of man was Kristoff?" It felt rude to ask, but she had to. "He was supposed to be one of mine. I was supposed to be responsible for him. I feel guilty that he died because I wasn't here."

Cait bit her lip to stop more words from pouring forth. It was more than she'd intended to say, but she meant it. What happened to Kristoff, to the Wardens at the Vigil before it had been hers, would not happen again.

"You care about the people under your command."

She shrugged. "They're my family. We protect each other, take care of each other. And I failed at that with Kristoff. Now I just want to make sure he's remembered. It's the least I can do."

Justice smiled at her, a real smile. It was more charming than she'd have expected from a corpse. "I think I understand." The smile disappeared all at once, as if it had never been there. "Kristoff was… very proud of his position as a Grey Warden. He looked forward to serving under you. He hoped to have the opportunity to help people. That's why he went to the Blackmarsh. He recognized the magic involved and thought he could help."

"He probably could have, if The First hadn't got to him. No one expected talking darkspawn," Cait mused.

Justice ignored her interruption. "He loved his wife. Her name is Aura. I do not have much basis of comparison, but I think Kristoff was a good man. I... mourn his loss."

He said the last as if surprised by his own words. After a moment, he added, "What of you, Commander? Are you a good man?"

Bryce Cousland's little spitfire, all grown up and still playing the man, a nasty, familiar voice whispered in her mind. Cait ignored it and didn't bother to correct Justice about her gender. "I try to be. I believe everyone makes good choices and bad ones. I just try to make more good than bad. It's the best any of us can do."

Justice held a hand out toward her, hesitant and awkward. "I think if I am to be trapped in your realm, I am glad it is you I travel with."

Cait clasped his hand. It felt like shaking two hands at once. One was cold, clammy, very clearly and disturbingly the hand of a corpse; the other was firm and almost hot enough to burn, the energy of the spirit within. "I hope I prove worthy of the trust you've put in me, Justice."

"The fact that you wish to prove yourself at all means that you already have."

-------

"Whaddya think he meant?" Oghren asked suddenly. It was early afternoon on the brightest day Blackmarsh had probably seen in decades. He'd been silent since the Fade incident the day before, walking at the middle of the group with his eyes on the ground.

"Welcome back, Oghren!" Anders exclaimed. "I was starting to think you'd gotten stuck in the Fade after all!"

"Go kiss a nug."

"What did who mean, Oghren?" Nathaniel said with the patience of a man with two hot-headed younger siblings.

"That… darkspawn guy. The First. He said 'The Mother' had sent him to stop you," at this he pointed at Cait, "from aiding in 'his' plans. Whose plans?"

That jogged something in Cait's memory. "The one we met at the Vigil said something like that too. That I had arrived 'just as he foretold.'"

"So whaddya think he meant?"

"Nothing good," Cait muttered. She picked at a loose thread on one of her gloves distractedly, trying to think.

"It means there's something out there more dangerous than these intelligent darkspawn," Nathaniel said darkly. "Maybe the source of them."

"Maybe two sources? Whoever 'he' is on one side, and this Mother on the other?" Anders spoke with his hands as much as his words, miming two angry hand puppet darkspawn that crashed into each other and exploded.

"And Grey Wardens in the middle." Cait crossed her arms over her chest to keep from unraveling her gloves entirely. "At least it seems to be localized. No talking darkspawn or creepy grub things at Soldier's Peak or in Denerim."

"Are those the only other places that have Wardens?" Anders asked. He wasn't normally interested in the inner working of the Grey Wardens, but he looked very curious now as he moved to walk next to Cait.

"In Ferelden, yes." She counted on her fingers as she spoke. "Alistair is still a Warden, no matter how much he hates me or says he quit the order when he married Anora. Loghain and a few visiting Orlesian Wardens are at Soldier's Peak, trying to help the Drydens turn it into something useful. We're the only active Grey Wardens in Ferelden right now."

"That's... kind of depressing actually."

Cathain laughed. "I find it refreshing. Five whole Wardens in Amaranthine? Another four or five within a week's travel if we need them? It's an embarrassment of riches."

"I feel like that explains a lot about why you are the way you are," Anders gave her what was starting to be a familiar brotherly grin.

Cait put her hands on her hips, pretending to be offended. "And just what way am I?"

"Beautiful and charming," he teased. "A picture of courtly grace. Certainly not the kind of woman more likely to punch you than smile at you."

"I think you just have that effect on women, Anders," Nathaniel muttered.

Cathain laughed along, but in her head she was already drafting all the letters she needed to write. How was she supposed to say 'darkspawn civil war' and then convince Anora and the First Warden both to not send an army to Amaranthine?