[ Master Post ]
Title: Rhapsody in Ass Major – Chapter 316
Co-Conspirator: 
MaverikLoki
Fandom: Dragon Age
Characters: Cormac Hawke ♂, Fenris ♂, Artemis Hawke ♂, Theron Mahariel ♂, Kallian Tabris ♀, Isabela ♀
Rating: E (L2 N4 S4 V0 D1)
Warnings: Drunken shenanigans, Artie is oddly sober, absurd dildo, Cormac is hideously uncomfortable with all of this
Notes: Somebody finally rides Isabela's stallion.
Orana looked grateful, when Fenris returned, and that alone might have been concerning, but the sound of Isabela's whooping laughter didn't really ease his mind. Or Cormac's.
"Izzy?" Cormac called out, following Fenris into the depths of the house. "I'd better not find your hands on my brother if you want them to stay attached to your wrists!"
"Spoilsport!" Isabela shouted back, obviously even more drunk than when they'd left her.
"Oh, sure, you worry about him, but not about me? Oh, all this demon-water and my delicate constitution!" Theron groaned, exaggeratedly, trying to choke back a laugh.
"Should we be concerned?" Cormac asked Fenris. "Because I think I'm concerned."
"I'm sure Kalli's kept them from anything too terrible," Fenris reassured him, opening the door to the lounge.
But Kalli was cackling just as gleefully as Izzy, a half-empty glass dangling from her fingertips, and on the table in front of the drunken lot was… Fenris rubbed his eyes and looked again.
Artemis looked up at them from the wing-backed chair, his grin wide but surprisingly sober. Ish. "Is this what it's like to be surrounded by drunken louts?" he asked. "It's rather fascinating. And amusing."
Fenris pointed. "Why is… that on the table?"
"It was relevant to our discussion," Theron answered, with a sage nod. "Have you met the 'stallion' yet, Fenris?" Kalli snickered into his sleeve. "Fenris, meet the stallion." He gestured at the equine erection jutting from the table.
"You won't need to introduce Cormac," Artie said, "from what I hear." He winked at Izzy.
"Just as horrifying as the first time," Cormac muttered. "Or maybe a little less horrifying because this time I'm wearing clothes, and nobody's suggested sticking that in any part of my body."
Fenris shot a slightly surprised look at Cormac. "So, you do have limits! Someone write to the Gazette! Cormac Hawke has a limit to his depravity!" He paused, eyeing the thing again. "That still doesn't explain what it's doing on our table."
"Oh, we got to talking and your gorgeous husband decided he wanted to see the first thing his brother ever said 'no' to." Isabela grinned, a predatory gleam in her eye.
"I will never cease to be amazed at the things that can be found in a city," Theron marvelled, sliding out of his chair to crouch by the side of the table and get a closer look at the thing.
"I told you it would be real," Kalli reminded him, shifting to cross her legs over the arm of her chair.
"You also told me that cities were inhabited by tiny demons that ate the pants of the unwary," Theron replied, tartly. "That Denerim, in particular, was infested with the things."
"She's not wrong," Artemis said with great seriousness. "What do you think happened to Cormac and Isabela?"
Isabela tsked into her bottle. "I'll have you know that no demon has been anywhere near my pants."
"That's only because you don't wear any," Fenris pointed out.
"Well, that's a reason, sure."
"Big boats," Artie reminded her.
Izzy grinned. "Fair point." She still didn't regret that.
"But I don't blame you for looking so horrified, Ass-face," Theron said. "All of that is… well, it's a bit excessive."
Kalli made a noise of protest around her drink. "You haven't seen the Warden he's with," she said, eyes wide and haunted.
Theron leaned back in his seat to squint at his wife. "Really? Well, surely he doesn't compare to that!" He gestured at the horse.
"Well…" Artie dragged out the word and shrugged.
"Anders is a Warden, not a horse." Cormac rubbed his face. "It's not about the size, it's about the horse. Horses do not belong in my ass."
"Yes, Anders is said to be hung like a Qunari, not like a horse," Fenris replied, still somewhere between horrified and dismayed at all of this. Still, if Isabela and Kalli were staying, he might at least get a delightful evening out of Artemis's inevitable sad-eyed request for a few hours with Theron.
"So, it's just the shape, then?" Kalli asked, studying Cormac's face, with a wicked gleam in the corner of her eye. "Afraid you couldn't get it in, or afraid you couldn't get it back out?"
"Neither! It's a horse! It doesn't go near my ass because horse!" Cormac protested, shoving a hand through his hair, in exasperation.
"It's not a real horse! Of course you probably couldn't fit a real horse. They're like the size of halla." Theron looked contemplative, rubbing his chin as he studied the ceiling, before catching Artie out of the corner of his eye and raising his eyebrows suggestively.
"I would not try to fit a horse. Or a halla. Or a dragon. Or any other … animal appendages." Cormac spoke slowly and clearly. "Animal appendages, real or fake, do not belong near my ass."
"Oh please," Artie said, voice shaking with laughter. "It's just a bit of stone. It's not all that different from certain other objects I pretend not to see whenever I organise your drawers."
"As long as you're not concealing them from your sight by hiding them in your ass, I don't really care what you think of the assortment of 'objects' in my drawers. None of which, by the way, are shaped like animal appendages." Cormac huffed and folded his arms, looking to Fenris for support.
Fenris opened his mouth, only to close it and shake his head, picking up the bottle next to Kalli and taking a drink.
Artemis gave his brother a flat look. "Tentacle."
Isabela cackled. "That was a gift from me too," she said.
Theron look back and forth between them before turning to Kalli, who nodded. "Yes, those exist too," she assured him.
"You're still making too big of a deal out of it," Artemis told his brother. "It's not exactly to my taste either, but…" He gave the stallion a speculative look and shrugged.
Izzy's eyes lit up. "It sounds to me like Slutty Hawke wants to ride the pony."
"I can assure you that is not what I said," Artie drawled. "Nor is it what I'm thinking. And I'm not Slutty."
"If you really want to see a Hawke ride the pony, maybe you should see if Anton can get his thighs around it. Tell him to lie back and think of Cullen," Cormac drawled. "Dragon noises, my ass."
"I have heard both dragons and your ass, and there is no comparison," Fenris deadpanned, eyes not leaving Artemis. At least he didn't seem to be seriously considering sitting on this… thing. Of course, after the jade wand of ass-destruction, Fenris wouldn't have been entirely surprised.
"I will never forgive Anders for bringing cabbage salad into our lives," Isabela groaned, before looking contemplatively at the stallion again. "You sure you don't want to ride the pony, Artie? Show us all you're so much more talented and open-minded than Cormac?"
"Open-arsed, more like," Kalli laughed. "He's not going to do it. Surely not in front of us all."
"Why wouldn't he, vhenan?" Theron asked, grinning like a fool. "There's more than enough demon-water to ease the way."
Artemis looked uncomfortably down at the one glass he'd limited himself to. Apparently this sort of insanity came up even when he wasn't drunk. "Well… I don't know about in front of everyone…" he hedged.
"Ten silver says he doesn't do it," Kalli whispered to Theron.
"Excuse me," Artie huffed.
"What?" Kalli shrugged one shoulder. "You already said you won't."
"Technically, no, I didn't." Artemis held up a finger. "I said I didn't say I would."
Kalli shrugged again. "Same thing." She turned to Izzy. "You know what? Never mind, let's make it twenty silver. There's no way he's doing it, and I could use the coin."
Artemis narrowed his eyes at her. "I see what you're doing."
"Doing what? Making easy money?"
Artie stared back at her for a long moment, his fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. He looked away before she did, holding a hand out in Theron's direction. "Maker dammit. Hand me that bottle." The bottle slapped into his palm, and Artie curled his fingers around it. As he stood, he pulled the cork free with his teeth.
"Amatus," Fenris murmured, but Artie already had the bottle to his lips.
"He's not going to do it," Cormac said to Isabela, looking a little grey in the lips. "There's no way," he said to Fenris.
"This is obscene and absurd," Fenris insisted, but didn't look away.
Cormac looked at anything but his brother. This would not do. He wouldn't do it, and it was one of those things Artie probably shouldn't do, either, but he didn't think he had any arguments that would cut through the drunken haze. His brother was stubborn, when drunk. So was he, really. "I'm standing right here," he said, weakly. "He'd never do that in front of me."
"We may be about to see the stopping power of brotherhood," Fenris sighed. "Artemis— Amatus, your brother is standing right here."
"Yes, so I see," Artemis replied. "I thought I recognised that man in the robes." He smirked at Cormac around his next drink, feeling the whiskey burn its way to his belly. The flustered way Cormac wasn't looking at him was, if anything, more incentive to continue. Another long pull, and he handed the drink back to Theron.
"You can't possibly be serious," Cormac whined. "It's a horse, Artie. Elves are one thing. Horses are something else entirely."
"Just be glad he's not into real horses," Kalli teased. "Of course I bet he'd have found some excuse to go back to the farm, if that was true, instead of taking up with some handsome elf in the city, like he so obviously did." She winked at Fenris.
Fenris snorted in amusement, watching Cormac get ever more uncomfortable, from the corner of his eye.
"I can't watch this," Cormac protested, staring into the corner of the room, as he shifted from foot to foot. "I could leave, but you're about to do something unbelievably stupid, and if Anders isn't here, I should be. At least I'm kind of a healer. Less bad than nobody being here if you break yourself on that thing." He folded his arms tightly across his chest. "I can't believe you're doing this."
Artemis considered his brother for a long moment and almost took pity on him. Almost. He glanced at his husband to see if he would protest, but Fenris just looked dreadfully amused. "I survived Anders, didn't I?" Artie reminded Cormac. To Isabela, he added, "You know, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him this flustered."
Isabela grinned back at him, leaning forward in anticipation.
Artie tugged at his laces but hesitated. There were five other people in the room, five other pairs of eyes watching him.
…and all five of them had already seem him naked, hadn't they? No wonder Varric called him Slutty Hawke.
Isabela cheered and yelled for him to take it off. Artemis threw her a rude gesture over his shoulder and let his trousers drop to the floor.
"Oh, Artie… Artie, no," Cormac whined, intently staring into the corner of the ceiling. If this was what tonight looked like, then he wasn't going anywhere. He was not letting Isabela put even more bad ideas in his extremely drunk brother's head — not that he didn't trust Fenris to put a stop to them, but he trusted himself to remove Isabela, if necessary. "Izzy, what is that thing even doing here? Doesn't it usually belong on your wall? Don't you use that for a coathook?"
"You can thank the country elf, for that," Isabela replied, lecherous gaze never lifting from Artie's slender thighs. "Dalish, over there, didn't believe such things were real. Thought it was us city girls trying to put one over on him, again."
"Pants demons," Theron grumbled, eyes still on Artemis.
Cormac was really the only one not looking, and he meant to continue to avoid the sight as long as he could manage it.
"You were so cute, though!" Kalli laughed, pouring herself another drink and passing the bottle to Isabela.
Isabela set down the bottle, before fishing a tiny vial out of her clothing and tossing it to Artemis. "You don't want to try that without a little slick, and it's not Anders, so it doesn't grease itself."
"Ha. I doubt you would be using it as a coathook if it did," Artemis muttered as he turned the vial over in his hand. "And for the record, I do know the Grease spell. I just… can't aim." Which usually didn't turn out too badly in these circumstances, but it did tend to make the mess harder to clean up. "Since this is my house… erm. Yes. Vial's better."
"You already had to replace one carpet," Kalli said, nodding.
"This is true." Artie pulled the cork out with his teeth and poured some slick over his hand, smoothing it down the… stallion, before pouring more slick onto his fingers.. His cheeks burned from the scrutiny, but the whiskey had smoothed over his nerves' rough edges. Still, he felt like he was on display.
"Would you like some help with that?" Theron asked, still eyeing Artie's legs.
Isabela raised her hand. "I'll help!"
"No," Artemis said flatly. "But thanks." He reached behind him, pressing a finger inside.
Fenris looked a little surprised that Artemis had turned down Theron. That was not the way things went, usually. Then again, Isabela wasn't usually watching.
