[ Master Post ]
Title: Rhapsody in Ass Major – Chapter 191
Co-Conspirator: 
MaverikLoki
Fandom: Dragon Age
Characters: Artemis Hawke ♂, Anders ♂, Isabela ♀
Rating: T (L2 N1Â S0 V0 D1)
Warnings: Shirtlessness, family secrets, dick jokes
Notes: Anders is surprised by how quickly Cormac can wash and dry his hair. Artemis explains.
"His hair," Anders sighed. "Although, credit where it's due, I've never seen a man wash and dry his hair so quickly in all my life, and I spent a lot of years in a circle tower. What did you do to him, Artie? Or is this something else to blame on Carver?"
Artie's face twisted some more, expression landing somewhere between amused and grossed out. "Puke. In his hair." He shook his head. "Suddenly grateful I never… er." He gestured vaguely. "And Cormac's hair? Oh ho. No descriptions of mine could do it justice. And I'll have you know it's not so much my fault as it was my dad's, though I suppose dad didn't try to stick things in Cormac's hair half so much." He stifled a snorting laugh behind his hand. "You should try to convince him to let his hair dry naturally, just once. That is all I will say on the matter."
Isabela and Anders exchanged glances. "Well, now I'm curious," Anders said as Izzy bit back a smirk of her own.
"Your father was Rivaini, right?" she asked knowingly. "No wonder Cormac is so fussy with his hair. Oh Anders, now I want to see this. How can we make this happen?" She clutched Anders's arm.
"What…? What does being Rivaini have to do with anything?" Anders just looked confused.
"Oooh, I bet he looks just like a seer's son!" Isabela's eyes gleamed. "But, if he's using magic on his hair… Are we going to have to get Cullen's help?"
Anders looked ill. "I'd rather not bring any templars into this. Can't we just ask him?"
"We could, but then if he said no, he'd have warning. He'd be waiting for us to try." Isabela drummed her fingers against Anders's bicep. "What about you? You can stick him to the floor, can't you?"
"Such a rogue. You always assume the worst." Anders shook his head. "Whether or not I could, I'd be sleeping on the couch, if I did that. You know what else sleeps on the couch? The dog. I'm not subjecting myself to dog farts to satisfy your curiosity." Never mind that he had his own bed that only had cats in it, the principle was that he wouldn't be turning his magic on Cormac in any ways that weren't sexy.
Artemis tapped his lip, eyes gleaming like Izzy's, and Anders wondered if he should warn Cormac for his own safety. "If we could somehow get his hair wet while he's asleep and without waking him up… but that would make a mess of his pillow. Hm. Maybe we could enlist Bethy's help with this. She's good at this sort of thing."
"Should I be concerned?" Anders asked, looking back and forth between them. "I feel like I should be concerned."
"Oh, Maker," Artie laughed. "You should have seen him when we were little. It was the best way mum could tell us apart at a distance. You know what my hair looks like, but then his was just…" He gestured around his head, hands describing a round, poofy shape. "I used to stick twigs in it when he wasn't looking. But mum loved it. Said it made him look like dad when she first saw him. Broke her heart when he straightened the damn thing."
"That sounds so adorable!" Isabela cooed. "If your dad looked like Cormac, and with all that hair, your mum got a good one. I'd flee the country, if that was the prize! But, noooo. I got some greasy pirate and a half-cocked elf. The elf was pretty cute, though."
"If you're talking about Zevran, I protest that he was most definitely in possession of an entire cock, the last time I saw him, which… was in Amaranthine, but still." Anders flicked his hand and filled his bowl with ice chips, before grabbing the rum and a few slices of lime, to go with it. "And, I'm still not sure why we can't just ask Cormac. I mean, if it looked so good on your dad, it's not like his vanity's the problem. And I'm pretty sure you're not going to stick twigs in his hair… You're not, are you, Artie?" With all the talk about hair, Anders finally realised his own was starting to itch, and he untied it, scratching at the back of his head, with a relieved sigh, before he froze the sweat in a moment of brilliance.
"I make no promises," Artemis replied, taking the rum once Anders had had a few sips. "You are asking me to compromise my duty as a little brother, and you know I take that duty seriously." He waggled a finger at Anders. "And there's no way Cormac is letting you see his hair like that willingly. The last time I brought it up, he called me 'a little shit'."
"He always calls you 'a little shit'," Anders pointed out. "Usually affectionately. And the more time I spend with you, the more I understand why."
Artie inclined his head in a mockery of a bow. "If I'm a little shit, it's because he's a bigger shit."
Isabela cackled, plucking the whiskey from where Anders had set it in the sand. "Is he the only one with your dad's hair? Or does Anton do some 'magic' of his own?"
Artemis grinned, finally relaxing enough to stretch his legs back out. "Just Cormac," he said. "Though I suppose Anton could pull it off. The rest of us take after mum, though my hair does… frizz and curl a bit if left to its own devices."
"My hair's pretty boring," Anders said with a shrug, rubbing a handful of ice over his chest. "Just what you see. Bit of a wave, as it gets long. I had it long, once. Cut it all off, though. Too hard to wash." Which was almost the truth. It was too hard to wash, but he'd just been brought up from the hole, where the closest to 'washed' he'd gotten was a bucket of cold water a couple of months prior. "Maybe I'll try it again, some time. When I've secured the future of mages in Thedas, and I can lounge around and have sexy Fereldan noblemen play with my hair. That's what I want my future to look like. Mages in every village, and sexy Fereldan nobleman to spoil me stupid."
"I am very interested in your future," Isabela purred, tossing chips of ice at Artie's drink. "Especially the sexy Fereldan noblemen part. I wonder, should they all be Hawkes?"
"Don't rule out the rest of them, until you get a good look at the Howes. He's smashing and his sister's… unfortunately married, and very happy that way. Easy on the eyes, though, if maybe just a little less dead sexy than her brother. But, I might just think he was hotter because he wasn't easy at all. An amazingly difficult prick, Messere Howe."
"Well, you do have a thing for hard pricks," Artie replied. He thanked Izzy for the ice and pressed the drink to his cheek, humming at the breath of cold against his skin.
"To be fair, that's something we all have in common," Anders reminded him. His cheeks and shoulders were starting to turn red, and so were his scars. He soothed healing and ice over his skin, and the red faded.
"Mm, true," Artie admitted, nodding. "Are we Hawkes too easy for you, then? Should I tell Cormac to play hard to get?"
Izzy chuffed. "Good luck with that."
"Cormac would last all of two days," Anders laughed. "You? You might actually succeed, as long as we kept you away from the rum. But, would you want to be a difficult tease, Artie? I mean, just look at what you get, when you're not." He stretched, trousers catching on his hips, as he twisted, before dropping back into the chair.
"Why am I not getting some of that?" Isabela asked, flicking cold water from the chest of ice at Anders.
"Because I'm a lot less into contagious, since I came to Kirkwall," Anders drawled, drowning any further thoughts in booze and lime.
"But, we've already established I'm not contagious, and you never objected to my more exciting talents, before…" Isabela scooped a soggy bit of journeybread into her hand and poured it into her mouth.
"You left out the part where you were paying me, last time, and I was desperate to get out of town." Anders grinned. "Nothing personal, but it never was, and you know that just as well as I do."
"And here I was hoping to ply the generosity and wild lusts of an old friend!" Isabela peeled off her neither quite a shirt nor a dress and dipped it in the melting ice, before wrapping it around her hair.
"Izzy was paying…?" Artie started to say before choking on a laugh. "Hey, why not."
Isabela lazed back in her chair, either to get more sun on more skin or to better show off her assets. Possibly both. "This is terribly unfair, you know," she said, lower lip sticking out in a pout. "Here I am in my underwear, next to two half-naked men, and neither of you is interested."
"I'm sure my brother will make it up to you when we get back," Artemis said without sympathy.
"If it makes you feel any better, I could say it's because we're much too interested in each other. My tastes run a little more towards Hawkes, these days." Anders laughed and shoved a fistful of ice into his trousers, cheating it along the scar on his hip. "Oh, blessed is the Maker who gave me the power to do that," he groaned, stretching his dripping hand toward Artie. "You want to come steal some of the glorious chill in my pants?"
"I do!" Isabela volunteered, and Anders laid a thin layer of ice across her belly. She shrieked in surprise and bounced a lime off the side of his head.
Artemis laughed. "I think I'm fine for the moment," he said. "Unless you were hoping for an excuse to put your hand down my pants, in which case you are more than welcome to do so."
"So we're not bothering with the 'hard to get' routine," Anders teased. "As tempting as that is, I'd rather not risk your fiancé rearranging my internal organs."
Isabela raised her hand. "I'll do it!"
Artie grinned. "Nice try."
