#da2 samson

Monty wagged his tail, and Samson huffed. “You’re back late. Picking fights at the Hanged Man, were you?”

“Yeah, I was,” she said belligerently.

Samson shot her a long-suffering look, and she rose to her feet and frowned at him. “Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t my fault.” She pulled the cork out of the bottle and took a sip. 

“It’s never your fault though, is it?” he asked, and he reached for the bottle of cider. 

She shot him a dirty look but handed over the bottle. “It really wasn’t my fucking fault this time, okay? It was Fenris’s. Well, not Fenris’s,” she amended, “but it was related to Fenris.”

Samson lowered the bottle in surprise. “I thought he didn’t like getting involved in your fights.”

She rolled her eyes and snatched the bottle back from him. “I told you, it wasn’t my fight, it was his. His former master showed up.”

Samson’s eyes widened. “Former master? You mean a Vint magister was here in Kirkwall?”

“Yeah,” Roman said, and she took another sip of cider. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. Roman still couldn’t believe Fenris’s own sister had tried to sell him out to his former master. She didn’t mention Fenris’s sister to Samson, though. She and Fenris didn’t agree on much, but they both valued privacy. If Roman was in Fenris’s place, she wouldn’t want strangers knowing her business either.

Samson scratched his whiskered chin. “And here I thought the Templars were helping the city guard to crack down on who comes in and out o’ Kirkwall.”

“Templars,” Roman said scornfully. “They’re corrupt as fuck, even if precious Meredith doesn’t want to see it. Grease the right palms and practically anyone could get in here.” She took another sip of cider, then set the bottle down and picked a piece of chicken from Samson’s plate. 

“Hey, get your own,” he said, but with no real heat.

She huffed and chewed the chicken and ignored Monty’s pleading eyes, and for a moment they were quiet as Samson selected another chicken thigh from the platter on the island and started cutting it up. 

He broke the silence. “If there was a Vint magister here…” He shook his head. “Maker. If there was anyone I’d think the Templars would try to keep out, it’d be magisters.”

Roman scoffed and stole another sliver of chicken from his plate. “Yeah, because more mages are the worst thing that could happen to this shithole,” she said sarcastically.

Samson didn’t reply. He was frowning slightly, and Roman narrowed her eyes. “Don’t tell me you agree.”

He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his chin again. “I’ve been hearin’ things,” he said slowly. “Down in Lowtown, and in Darktown too. A lot of abomination attacks, sounds like.”

Roman aggressively bit the piece of chicken in her fingers. “Yeah?” she said in a hard voice. “Have you also heard how the Templars have started punishing the Circle mages even more harshly? Anders said that a full quarter of the Circle mages are Tranquil now.”

Samson flinched at this, and Roman felt a pang of guilt. She knew that the Tranquility process was a sore issue for him, given what had happened to Maddox after Meredith had thrown Samson out of the Templars. 

She swallowed her bite of chicken, then pushed the bottle of cider across the counter toward him. He picked it up and took a sip, then set it down and jerked his chin in the direction of the main room. “You got some letters, by the way,” he said. “Both from the Gallows.”

Roman sighed loudly. Two letters from the Gallows always meant the same thing: both Orsino and Meredith were trying to get her help with some bullshit task. “YFuck that. They can wait until tomorrow.” She plucked a piece of potato from Samson’s plate and ate it while she brooded about Meredith, then picked up the bottle of cider. “The fucking gall of that bitch, trying to get me to help her,” she complained. “She’s just trying to find an excuse for her fucking puppets to drag me in.”

“Better not give her one, then,” Samson said.

She gave him a dirty look. “I know, Samson. I’m not a fucking idiot.” For the past month or so, she’d cut down on her use of blood magic, doing it only when she was working a spell at home or when she was outside of the city limits. It infuriated her to play into the Chantry’s bullshit sanctions against blood magic, and if she had it her way, she’d keep using blood magic in her perfectly safe way even within Kirkwall’s bounds. 

But Roman didn’t just have herself to think about. She was famous here now — or infamous, depending on who you talked to — and her actions were under scrutiny, no matter how much she tried to keep to herself when she was out and about. Anything she did would reflect poorly on the people close to her… particularly on Carver. 

Fucking Carver, she thought angrily. She couldn’t give the Chantry an excuse to make her brother a scapegoat for her choices. 

She and Samson continued to eat silently from his plate. As the minutes stretched on with no further commentary from Samson, she started to watch him suspiciously. He was usually more talkative than this. Not that he was a huge talker or anything, but he usually had more to say than, well, nothing.

She narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”

He glanced at her. “Nothing. This chicken’s good.”

Roman grunted, and they fell silent again. When his plate was cleared, she frowned at him. “Seriously, what is your problem?”

He raised an eyebrow and reached for the cider. “What are you on about?”

She gave him an arch look. “If you’re trying to do some kind of ‘strong and silent’ bullshit, it’s not working.”

Samson lowered the cider bottle from his lips and shot her a chiding look. “You sure about that? It seems to be getting your knickers all twisted.”

She scoffed and grabbed the bottle of cider from him. “My knickers aren’t fucking twisted.”

“Too bad,” he said. “I was going to offer to untwist ‘em for you, but…”

She ignored his innuendo. “Are you pissed about what I said about the Tranquil?”

His sarcastic little smirk slipped away. “No.”

“I wasn’t being an asshole,” she said defensively. “I was — it’s just the fucking truth.”

“I know, Bird,” he said tiredly. He sidled past her and headed for the front door.

Roman put her cider down and followed him. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to get more of the dust,” he said, and he slid his feet into his worn-out shoes.

She raised her eyebrows. “Now?”

“When else is a man supposed to go meet his illegal lyrium dealer?” he said sardonically. 

Roman pursed her lips but didn’t reply. Samson bent down to tie his shoes, and she leaned against the doorjamb and folded her arms as she watched him. She knew he needed the lyrium; she’d seen what happened to him when he ran out of it, and she didn’t want to see him suffer like that again. But still, sometimes she wished…

She discarded the fleeting thought. There was no point wishing Samson didn’t need the lyrium. He’d told her long ago that he would die without it, and she had no reason to not believe him. It wasn’t like she knew any Templars who had ever quit taking lyrium. 

She pushed away from the doorjamb and wandered over to him. “I’ll come with you.”

He looked up in surprise. “Eh? What for?”

To hit back if someone hits you, she thought, but she wasn’t going to fucking say so. She shrugged, and Samson smirked as he stood up. 

“You going to be my knight in shining armour again?” he taunted.

She scowled. “No. Fuck you.”

He raised an eyebrow, and she scoffed and looked away. “You know what, whatever. Forget it.”

“All right, good,” he said affably. “Gettin’ into a brawl kind of defeats the purpose of going out in the middle of the night.” He chucked her chin playfully.

She smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

He suddenly gripped her chin. Before Roman could snap at him to let her go, he was kissing her: a quick firm kiss on the lips — so quick that she didn’t have time to bite him or push him away before he released her. 

He opened the door. “Go eat some more. I’ll be back soon,” he said, and then he was gone. 

She wrinkled her nose at the closed door. How dare he kiss her? He was such an asshole. 

Beside her, Monty sat back on his haunches and tilted his head curiously. Roman looked down at him for a second, then sighed and crouched beside him. “Go with him, okay?” she murmured. “If he gets hit, you jump in and bite back for him. He’s a fucking idiot, he won’t defend himself.”

Monty stood and wagged his tail, and Roman opened the door for him. He bounded away into the darkness, and Roman went back to the kitchen with a sigh. 

She picked up the half-empty bottle of cider and took another sip, then wandered over to her writing desk to check out her letters. She pushed away the ones from Orsino and Meredith without opening them, then paused when she saw a thicker envelope with Varric’s handwriting on it.

She frowned as she opened it. The envelope contained a bunch of worn journal pages that were variously dirty and bloodstained, topped with a short note from Varric. 

Hawke,

Remember that old journal page we found wedged into a brick wall that one time — something by the “Band of Three”? I had a couple sharp eyes looking out for more pages, and this is what they found. I put them together in the order I think they’re supposed to go. Kind of hard to tell without dates, but this is the best I could do. 

Come on down to the Hanged Man after you read them and let me know what you think. You’ll probably want a drink, anyway. I always knew shit in Kirkwall was weird, but this takes the cake.

 - V. 

That’s cryptic as fuck, Roman thought. She took the pages and her bottle of cider to the study and plopped down on the couch in front of the fireplace, then began to read.

- SAMSON -

Samson sidled into the shadows as he made his way through Hightown. There was a faint feeling of unease in his gut, like a hint of nausea, and it revolved around the mages in Kirkwall. 

He’d been hearing stories down at the docks: stories about people cutting their wrists and getting possessed by demons and exploding into monsters who gobbled up their whole families. Samson was too jaded and skeptical to believe any old story he heard on the streets, but he’d been hearing tales for weeks now, versions of the same stories, and he’d been able to put together enough pieces to know that not all of the stories were made up. 

Kirkwall had always had its share of horror stories involving mages, most of which Samson had heard in the course of his business of smuggling mages out of the city. This familiarity meant he was all the more aware that there were more stories than ever before, and they were getting more and more bizarre. 

Mysterious deaths involving ice and lightning, flash fires with no evidence of kindling or fuel, people behaving strangely and talking in tongues, people going missing… He knew Roman didn’t want to hear it, and he didn’t even want to believe it himself, but the truth was this: there was a mage problem in Kirkwall.

Roman was right too, though. Samson had heard things from the Gallows, whispers from the merchants and the few visitors who came and went from that ghastly fucking place, and he knew that Roman was right: Meredith was handing out the Tranquility sentence these days like a Chantry sister handed out blessings on Satinalia, and Samson’s former brethren were feeding right into her tyrannical attempts to control the mages. 

Samson sighed. He’d heard enough and lived through the nugshit for long enough that he could see all the moving parts in this Maker-forsaken place, almost like looking at the inside of a clock: the Templars were getting more controlling and punitive, and the mages were getting more desperate to protect themselves. The hysteria of it all was bleeding down from the Gallows to Kirkwall proper, making the city guard more fearful about magic and making the hidden apostates more fearful than ever of persecution. If something didn’t change, if things continued down this route, the city was going to explode like one of those qunari gaatlok barrels. 

His troubled thoughts were interrupted by the sound of heavy breathing behind him. He barely had time to be alarmed before a heavy muscular body rammed into his hip.

He stumbled, then caught his balance on a nearby wall and stared in surprise at Monty, who was standing beside him and wagging his tail so enthusiastically that his whole body was shaking. 

Samson gathered himself and frowned at the mabari. “What are you doing here, eh?” 

Monty sat and gazed at Samson attentively, and Samson wrinkled his nose. “Did she send you after me?”

Monty let out a little bark, and Samson jumped before scowling at him. “Quiet, dog,” he scolded in a whisper. “You’re going get people looking. If you’re going to follow me, you have to shut your trap.”

Monty panted but didn’t bark again, and Samson gazed at him a little resentfully. It looked like Monty really did understand him. Just not when Samson was saying ‘no’ to feeding chicken to the big furry fucker.

He sighed. “All right, come on then. But be quiet,” he said severely, and together they continued on their way to Lowtown in silence.

Samson watched the mabari from the corner of his eye as they walked. It was so strange having any kind of company when he went… well, anywhere really. Monty, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease as he trotted along at Samson’s side.

Within the space of a couple of minutes, Samson had adjusted to Monty’s presence. It helped that Monty was almost entirely silent. He was a big bloody dog, and Samson would have expected him to make some noise as he walked, but he was pleasantly surprised at how quiet Monty was. 

He shot the mabari a sideways glance. “She really sent you along, eh?”

Monty looked up at him with his mouth agape in a wide doggy smile, and Samson huffed. “Let me guess. She told you to attack anyone who attacked me, right?”

Monty wagged his tail, and Samson pursed his lips. Bloody bird, always acting like he was some kind of coward for not picking fights like she did. He’d told her time and time again that it was smarter to run or hide than to fight back, especially for someone like him: someone powerless, someone that the city guard wouldn’t move to protect if something really went wrong. Besides, he did fight back sometimes when he was attacked — if fighting back was the smarter move. Roman was hotheaded and angry, always looking for the next person she could justifiably throw a fireball at, but Samson wasn’t like her. He wasn’t strong like her.

Leave it to the damned bloody bird to be the strong one, he thought tiredly. I’ll do things my own way. Samson might not be strong anymore, but at least he had his street smarts. He’d just keep sticking to the smarter course, whether it meant hiding or fighting back. He’d keep doing what he needed in order to survive.

He and Monty were about to step into the market when he spotted something strange: two men and a woman talking in low and urgent voices in a corner. He slowed down and placed his hand on Monty’s head, and Monty slowed down to a stop as well. 

Together, they sidled a little closer to the furtive trio. Samson couldn’t move close enough to hear what they were saying, not without making himself and the mabari visible, but as they edged a little nearer, Samson had a jolt of recognition: he knew one of the men — or at least, he thought he did. The man’s blond hair was shorter than Samson remembered, and he had a beard where his face used to be bare, but Samson was fairly sure this blond bloke was a Templar.

On shore leave from the Gallows, looks like, Samson thought. Then, with another jolt, he realized that he recognized the woman too: she was a known mage sympathizer. 

Strange, he thought. He watched the trio for a minute longer, trying to determine if he could conclusively identify the blond fellow as being a Templar, but he really wasn’t able to get any closer without being seen. When the three people made signs of looking like their meeting was coming to an end, Samson quickly ducked into a nearby alleyway with Monty to hide.

When the trio had dispersed, Samson patted Monty’s head. “Let’s go, dog.”

They quickly slunk through the market and into the lower-class suburb that led toward Lowtown, and Samson pondered what they’d witnessed. A Templar and a mage sympathizer having an amiable little late-night meeting? Meredith wouldn’t be too chuffed about that. Or maybe the mage sympathizer wasn’t as sympathetic as she seemed and was feeding information about apostates back to the Gallows, in which case old Orsino would be the unhappy one. 

Samson and Monty made their way through Lowtown proper. As usual, Lowtown was more active — and more dangerous — at night than Hightown was, and Samson listened furtively as he made his way to the usual meeting spot for his lyrium-smuggling contact down by the market. The gossip was the same as he’d heard earlier today: mentions of a fish merchant closing down for the week after selling some clams that made people sick, talk of a few lingering qunari out on the Wounded Coast, reports of a young elf getting dragged off to jail by a guardsman after stealing a few apples for his family, the usual grim fare. But one piece of gossip in particular deepened his worries. 

It was a corrupt city guardsman talking to some other human. “... those knife-ears still cleaning blood and guts off of that big tree in the alienage. You know, the one they tie all those poncy ribbons to.” He chuckled. “That’s what happens when apostates hide out in the alienage: all that knife-ear nugshit makes ‘em blow up. Too bad and serves ‘em right if you ask me.”

Samson frowned as he slunk past the guardsman and his friend. He knew about the incident in question because Roman had been directly involved. Meredith had forced her to track down three runaways from the Circle by making indirect threats toward Carver, and one of the runaways was a possessed mage — a mage who had, as indicated by the guardsman, become an abomination and ultimately exploded into a shower of blood when Roman was forced to kill him. 

“Is that a mabari?” 

“What’s a mabari doing with that homeless fellow?”

“That’s not… it’s not Hawke’s mabari, is it?”

Maker’s balls, Samson thought in  exasperation. He knew he shouldn’t have let Monty come with him. The damned dog was drawing far too much attention, including curious looks from the corrupt guardsman.

He shot Monty a resentful look. Monty ducked his head and tucked his tail between his legs, and Samson immediately felt bad. It wasn’t Monty’s fault, after all; it was Roman’s. He’d have to have a word with her when he got back to the mansion.

He quickly met up with his contact and traded a few silver for lyrium powder, then selected a more convoluted but quieter route back to Hightown so they wouldn’t be stared at. As they silently made their way back to Roman’s house, Samson brooded over that abomination incident in the alienage. 

He’d always known there were apostates hiding throughout the city, but he’d somehow not thought much about how much harder it had to be for the apostates who were elves. He’d helped to smuggle out dozens of apostates in his time, and he count on one hand the number of times they’d been elves, and the reason was obvious: they didn’t have the coin. Mages who didn’t have the coin to smuggle their way out of the city must be even more afraid, which made them more prone to possession — more prone than they already were if they hadn’t had any training at the Circle.

He rubbed his forehead. Maker’s balls, I’m tired, he thought, and he continued on his way to Roman’s house.

When they got back to the house, Samson let Monty in before following him inside and closing the door. “Oi, I’m back,” he called. He took off his shoes and padded through to the main room, and when he didn’t find Roman there, he peeked into the study. 

Monty was already lying on his belly in front of the fireplace, and Roman was sitting on the couch and scowling at the fire. There was a sheaf of papers beside her and two empty cider bottles on the floor, and another half-finished bottle in her hand.

Samson wilted slightly. Roman had been drinking less since he’d started sleeping at her house. This was the first time in a while that she’d had more than one drink in the evening. 

At least she’s not drinking rum or whiskey, he thought. “You can’t send the dog with me again,” he said as he entered the room. “Everyone was staring. A guardsman was giving me the eye over ‘im.”

She looked up at him. “Kirkwall is a fucking mage trap.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Eh?”

“Look at this.” She picked up the sheaf of papers and thrust it at him, and he took them gingerly. 

The papers were journal entries by some group called the Band of Three who’d been investigating the history of Kirkwall during Tevinter occupation. The more Samson read, the more discomfort he felt twisting in his gut. Secret Vint plans, hundreds of slaves going missing, the city designed in the shape of magical glyphs, gutters in the sewer system meant to channel vast amounts of blood…

By the time he finished reading the pages, the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck. He held the papers out to her. “Where’d you get these from?” he rasped.

“I found one of them. Varric scrounged up the rest.” She stood up and plucked the papers from his hand. “You know what this means, right?”

He pulled a face. “Er—”

She cut him off. “The Veil is thin here,” she said. “That’s why so many mages in the Circle fail that fucking Harrowing ritual bullshit. That’s why some people turn into abominations for doing a single little spell with blood magic. It’s this fucking city. It’s…” She waved her arms in an angry expansive gesture. “The whole environment is against us, and the Templars just make it worse!”

Samson blinked at this. “Hang on.” He rubbed his face with both hands, then gazed wearily at her. “You’re telling me that Kirkwall is a… a bad place for mages, but the Templars are the problem?”

“They’re definitely not a fucking solution, that’s for sure,” she retorted. “Everyone knows that demons are attracted to fear.”

“And to anger,” Samson said pointedly.

“Exactly,” Roman said angrily, missing his point entirely. “And think about what’s pissing me off. It’s the Templars!” She waved the journal pages. “It’s already hard enough for us to live here, and they’re just making it harder.” She tossed the pages on the floor and drank from her half-finished bottle of cider, and Samson frowned. 

“What is it you want, then?” he said slowly. “You want to just… get rid of the Templars or something?”

She lowered the bottle and gave him a frank look. “Sounds like a good fucking plan to me.”

He stared at her with growing disbelief, then laughed. “You’re not bloody serious.”

“Do I look like I’m fucking laughing?” she said. “It’s the Templars that are making the mages so desperate that they’re turning to… to summoning demons and other shit that they don’t understand.”

“And when they summon demons and do that shit, someone needs to be able to stop them,” Samson retorted.

Her face went slack with disbelief, then twisted back into anger. “You can’t be fucking serious about this. You’re defending them? They threw you out!”

“That bitch Meredith threw me out,” he corrected.

She threw her hands up in frustration. “So what, now you think the Templars are justified? Now you think it’s okay to keep the mages locked up in a fucking tower with no freedom?”

“No,” Samson said loudly. “That’s not what I’m bloody saying. I’m just….” He sighed and rubbed his face again, then looked at her once more. “Think about it, Bird. Say the Templars get dismantled. What happens to ‘em?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she said impatiently.

“What happens to Templars who have no use anymore?” he said, and he gestured sarcastically at himself.

The fury in her face loosened slightly, and Samson gave her a humourless smile. “You didn’t even think about it, did you? Well, you should. Think about Carver there. The Order falls apart, and he’ll end up like me, just a ruined—”

“You’re not fucking ruined!” she bellowed suddenly.  “Stop saying that!”

Samson closed his mouth and stared hard at her. An ugly pause ensued, electric and tense like the brewing of a heavy summer storm. The longer he and Roman went without speaking, the more he felt the old memories rising to the front of his mind, like bloated corpses cut loose from the bottom of the sea: his disbelief at being kicked out of the Order and out of the only home he had, all for something so trivial. The betrayal and the loneliness. The shakes and the nausea when the withdrawal first set in. The delirium, the beatings, the confusion, the raging thirst and hunger during the moments when he was lucid, the horrific hallucinations when he wasn’t. The humiliation of having to find a black-market lyrium dealer, and the slow erosion of his soul as his muscles and his purpose and his confidence wasted away bit by bit. 

For a first time in a long, long time, the old injustices were burning in his belly and burning through the shroud of his usual world-weary passivity, prompting him to take an aggressive step toward her. “I am ruined, Roman,” he said in a hard voice. “You didn’t know me when I was in the Order. If you did, you’d know I’m a bloody shadow of the man I used to be.” 

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Samson, for fuck’s—”

He interrupted her. “Is this what you want for Carver?” he said harshly. “You want that big brute to end up like this, all wasted away and jonesing for the dust?”

She opened her mouth again, but Samson didn’t let her speak. “You going to write to Her Divine Holiness and tell ‘er to dismantle the Templars?” he said aggressively. “Tell her to let every one of ‘em end up on the streets like beggars?”

She narrowed her eyes. “If you really think that’s what would happen to them, what does that say about the Chantry and your precious fucking Order?”

He exhaled hard and glared at her, furious at not being able to find a reply. Roman leaned away and planted her fists on her skinny hips. “Besides, it’s not like complaining to the precious fucking Divine would do anything,” she said. “You think she’d break up her personal army for the good of the mages? Not a fucking chance.”

“They’re not supposed to be her personal army,” Samson snapped.

“And the Circles aren’t supposed to be jails for mages, but look where we are,” Roman drawled.

All of a sudden, Samson had had enough. “Fine then, everything in the world is shit,” he shouted. “Are you happy now?”

She recoiled slightly, then sneered at him. “No, actually. I’m fucking pissed.”

“No different than all the fucking time, then,” he said acidly, and he strode away to the kitchen. He threw open the enchanted icebox and stared unseeingly at its contents. Truthfully, he hadn’t been planning to get anything out of here. All he knew was that he didn’t want to be around Roman right now.

Unfortunately, she didn’t get the hint; a second later, she was storming up to him. “What the fuck is your problem?” she yelled. “Why are you being such an asshole?”

He slammed the icebox shut. “Me?” he said incredulously. “I’m just tryin’ to survive, Bird. I’m just trying to make the best of this bullshit that we’re living through.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Roman demanded.

“You’re trying to pick a fucking fight,” he snapped. “I can see it in your face. You’ve never tried to keep your head down. You want a war with the Templars, don’t you?”

“I don’t want a fucking war, but that’s what’s coming,” she yelled. She shot him a scathing look. “And don’t act like you don’t know it’s coming. You’re one of the smartest people in this fucking city. You know exactly what’s coming.”

He raised his eyebrows, thrown off by her compliment in the midst of her vitriol. “So… so what, you think there’s a war coming and nothing can stop it?”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I think.” She took a slow step closer to him and belligerently lifted her chin. “There’s a war coming between the mages and the Templars. And if you won’t pick a side, you’re a fucking coward.”

Coward. The word shot straight through his chest like an icy spear. It wasn’t that she was wrong necessarily, because she wasn’t. Samson wasn’t brave or principled or any of that shit, so if he didn’t have any of those precious virtues, that must mean he was a coward. But to hear Roman saying it to his face…

His chest squeezed painfully, almost as though she was digging her nails through his rib cage to rend his heart. He swallowed hard and glared at her. “Fuck you,” he spat, and he pushed past her and headed back to the study.

He sat down heavily on the couch. Monty sat up and whined softly, but Samson ignored him; he lay down on the couch and closed his eyes.

 A moment later, he heard Roman’s strident voice. “What in the Maker’s fucking ballsack are you doing?”

“Cooking a four-course Antivan meal,” he said flatly. “What’s it bloody look like?”

She barked out a nasty little laugh. “You’re fucking sleeping down here, then? Is that it?”

He opened his eyes and glared venomously at her. “Yeah, I am. I’m sleeping here tonight, and I’ll get out of your hair first thing in the morning so you don’t have to share your fucking fancy house with a coward.” 

Her jaw clenched visibly, but she didn’t speak, and Samson’s heart twisted. She really did think he was a coward, then.

He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes once more. “Go away, Roman. Leave me alone.”

She scoffed. When she spoke again, her voice was moving away toward the stairs. “Fuck you too, then. See if I fucking care.”

He didn’t bother to reply. A few seconds later, he heard the slamming of her bedroom door. 

He drew a deep breath and ignored the swelling feeling in his throat. Then something nudged his back.

He jolted in surprise, then sighed loudly; it was Monty snuffling around him. 

He shifted his shoulders in annoyance. “Leave off, dog,” he said quietly. “Go upstairs.” 

Monty whined and nudged him again, and Samson shrugged irritably. “I said leave off,” he snapped. “I don’t want your company.”

Monty whined again, but the nudging stopped. A moment later, he heard the distant sound of Monty’s scratching nails, followed by the opening and closing of Roman’s bedroom door.

Feeling even shittier now, Samson sighed and slowly stood up, then shuffled around the lower level of the house putting out the oil lamps and chandeliers. When the house was dark except for the lingering flames in the fireplaces, he lay back on the couch in the study and folded his arms behind his head. 

He stared blankly up at the ceiling for a long time, exhausted but unable to sleep. His gut was a buzzing mess of agitation, and his chest felt like there was rock sitting in the center of his ribs. His mind kept running fruitlessly over all the negative thoughts in his head — and there were a lot of negative things to go over: abomination attacks, a quarter of the Circle’s mages being Tranquil, Meredith blackmailing Roman to do what she wanted, Roman wishing she could dissolve the Templars, Roman yelling about a war that no one could stop, Roman telling him he was a coward…

His heart twisted painfully, and he breathed slowly to quell it. She was such a bloody bitch: telling him he was smart one second then calling him a coward the next, and sending her mabari to follow him as though he was a fucking child who couldn’t look after himself. She was so fucking stubborn and hard-headed, always carrying on about how fucked up the Templars were and how fucked up this entire city was.

But she’s not wrong, he thought as he remembered those papers she’d shown him. That history of the Vints doing some kind of mysterious horrible magic right here in this city — this city that was built in the shape of a magical glyph, this city where the Veil was thin and demons were just a whisper away from the minds of its mages…

And Roman was even more vulnerable than most. Rage-filled Roman Hawke, with her fearlessness and her ferocity and her fucking blood magic… A pulse of fear pierced through his heartsick anger. Sure, she had good control over her own magic, but if those journal pages had the right of it, she was in danger no matter what. She was in danger just by virtue of living in this fucking place that she refused to leave.  

What if she becomes an abomination? His gut clenched at the thought. He’d asked her once if she was afraid of becoming an abomination, and she’d told him that she was. What if she did become an abomination, though? What if she became the very thing she feared? What would happen then?

What would Samson do then?

An icy sort of fear was spreading through his chest. Don’t think about it, he thought. He couldn’t think about what he’d do if that happened — not that he could do anything, really, since he wasn’t a Templar anymore. The lyrium he bought off the black market was enough to keep the edge off of his cravings and his withdrawal, but it wasn’t nearly pure enough to channel into any kind of power. If Roman… If something happened to her, there was nothing Samson would be able to do to help her. 

He rubbed his face wearily. He couldn’t believe he was even having to think about this. Truthfully, given the political situation and the ugly history of this city, Samson knew what he and Roman should both really be doing: fleeing this city before it had a chance to explode. 

And that’s why she thinks you’re a coward, he told himself scathingly. But was it cowardly to survive, or was it just the smart thing to do? Who gave a fuck about being called a coward if it meant you got to live?

Then again, what was the point of living the way Samson had before Roman had wandered into his life?

He was suddenly reminded of something else she’d once said: that it wasn’t enough to just survive, to just eke out a living from one day to the next. That people needed something to live for. But Roman herself had admitted that she didn’t know what she was living for. Did Samson know what he was living for, either? 

He sighed. Maybe he really was a coward. Maybe this bloody mage-Templar problem would force him to find something to live for. Maybe Roman was right, and what he really needed was to pick a side. Support the mages, or support the Templars? Support the monsters, or support the people who made those monsters what they were? 

Support the freedom of mages, or support the freedom of the Templars who’d been leashed and brainwashed just as he had been?

Maker’s fucking balls, he thought morosely.

He lay in the dark on the couch for a long time sliding in and out of a restless sort of doze, unable to settle his mind enough to properly sleep. He was vaguely aware of the fire slowly dwindling down to mere embers until the whole study was wreathed in shadows. When a shadow broke away from the gloom to move toward him from the stairs, he thought it was a dream.

The shadow paused at the end of the couch. “Monty won’t shut the fuck up,” she said. “He keeps whimpering.”

Samson frowned at her through the gloom. “So?”

She folded her arms and said nothing for a moment, and Samson stared at her, half-convinced she was just a figment of his imagination. 

“Come upstairs,” Roman muttered.

He raised his eyebrows. “Eh?”

“I said come upstairs,” she said a little more loudly. “I don’t think he’ll shut up until you come upstairs.”

He blinked blearily at her. In the feeble glow of the dying fire, he could just make out the glimmer of her silk robe and her customary pouty scowl. 

He frowned at her, then closed his eyes. “I’m staying here, Bird.”

She clicked her tongue. “You’re telling me you like sleeping on the couch?”

“That’s right,” he lied. Truthfully, his lower back was hurting, but it was still better than sleeping on the ground in Lowtown. Most importantly, it was better than doing what Roman wanted.

For a second, there was silence. Then she poked his shoulder hard. “Come on, don’t be so fucking stubborn. I know your back must be hurting.”

He scowled. Bloody know-it-all, he thought. “It is not,” he muttered.

“Then why do you complain about it all the time?” she said archly.

He opened his eyes and glared at her. “Go back to bed, Roman. I’ve had enough of your nugshit.”

She stared stonily at him. Then, to his surprise, she started to climb onto the couch.

He hastily tried to shuffle away from her, but she doggedly settled herself over his hips. He grabbed her hips and started trying to lift her off. “Bird, quit it—” 

She untied her robe and opened it, and Samson stopped breathing: she was naked under the robe. Naked, no panties, no bra, her dusky little nipples hard… 

His cock pulsed, and his mouth was flooded with a rush of saliva. Infuriated by his own traitorous body and at Roman for making him this way, he gripped her bare hip and tried to push her away. 

She pulled his hand away and placed it on her breast. “Come upstairs,” she said. 

Her nipple was a perfect taut little bud. He roughly kneaded her breast, then twisted her nipple suddenly, wanting to hurt her and make her purr at the same time.

She gasped and arched into his hand, then fisted her hand in his hair and pulled his head back, and Samson burst out a groan: her mouth was suddenly on his neck, her teeth nipping at his skin and sending jolts of pain and pleasure from his throat down to his groin. She nipped the base of his throat then started to suck, and for a moment, Samson let himself enjoy it. He wasn’t giving in, mind — he was just… letting himself enjoy this for a second before pushing her away. 

She sucked hard at his skin and started rubbing his cock through his breeches, and he groaned and lifted his hips. “You bitch…” he moaned.

“Come upstairs,” she whispered, and she bit the side of his neck. 

He jolted at the pain, then gasped with pleasure as she squeezed his cock through his breeches. Then she was grabbing his hand again and pulling it between her legs, making him touch her wet curls– 

She pressed his fingers into her folds, and a red-hot roar of lust tore through his body. She was sopping wet and spreading herself over his fingers, and he wanted her so badly that it pissed him off. 

She groaned and undulated shamelessly over his hand, and Samson tried — rather feebly — to pull his hand away. “Not here,” he hissed.

She tightened her grip on his wrist and continued to rub herself against his fingers, and Samson stared at the meeting point of her pussy and his hand for a second before forcing his eyes back to her face. “I said not here,” he complained, and he tried to pull his hand away again. “Get off.”

She dug her nails into his wrist. “Make me,” she breathed.

Make me. Her provocative words, these words she said on purpose when she was trying to rile him into roughing her up... Something hot and angry and wild suddenly snapped inside of him.

He wrested his hand away from her and grabbed her by the throat, and her lips fell open in a gasp. She clawed at his wrist and tilted her hips down toward his groin, but Samson didn’t let her make contact; with his hand at her throat, he clumsily forced her off of his lap until they were both standing up.

He released her throat to grip her chin instead. “Get upstairs,” he bit off.

She curled her lip. “What happened to ‘I’m not going upstairs’?”

He lifted her chin higher. “If you’re going to rub yourself on me like a bloody cat in heat, I’m not letting you do it down here.”

She laughed mockingly. “Let me? Like you can tell me what to do.”

He tightened his grip on her chin — enough that it had to be hurting her — then squeezed her buttcheek in his other hand. “Get upstairs, Bird,” he snarled. “I’m sick of hearing it.”

“No,” she said belligerently. “I want to fuck down here.”

He spanked her suddenly, satisfied when she jolted and gasped. “Get upstairs,” he commanded.

“I said no,” she spat.

He dug his fingers harshly into her buttock until she gasped in pain. “Then I’ll just have to take you upstairs,” he hissed. Without warning, he bent down and hefted her over his shoulder in an undignified carry.

She squawked, then thumped his back as he made his way to the stairs. “Hey! Put me down—”

He spanked her upraised ass. “Shut it, Bird,” he ordered. He began carrying her up the stairs, and he was secretly pleased when he realized that carrying her was easier than it had been a couple months ago before he started sleeping in her house. 

Must be those three square meals Orana makes, he thought idly. Then, just for the hell of it, he spanked Roman’s ass again.

She yelped, then thumped his back. “You’re such a fucking asshole,” she hissed.

He huffed, and without replying, he flipped up the hem of her robe and pressed the tips of his fingers into her pussy. 

She jolted and gasped, and Samson smirked, satisfied at having found a way to shut her up. He continued to caress her slick folds as they ascended the stairs, and by the time he was stepping into Roman’s open bedroom, she was breathing hard over his shoulder. 

Monty was resting his chin on his paws in front of the fireplace. When Samson and Roman came in, he sat up attentively. 

“Go to the washroom,” Samson ordered, and he unceremoniously dumped Roman onto the bed. He still wasn’t used to having the mabari stand witness when he and Roman were doing the deed. 

Monty dutifully trotted away, and Roman struggled to sit up and push her hair out of her face. “Don’t tell him what to do,” she snapped. “He’s—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Samson said coldly. He kicked the bedroom door shut, then started unlacing his breeches. 

Roman leaned back on her elbows and sneered at him. “Look at you, the big strong boy throwing me around. You want to shut me up, hm? How’re you going to do that?”

His blood roared at her taunting tone. He pulled his throbbing cock out of his breeches and stalked toward the bed, then crawled between her legs and wrapped his fingers around her throat.

He pushed her down so her back was flush to the bed, then started rubbing his cock between her legs. Her lips parted on a moan, and the sound of it made his blood thrill even more. 

She thrust her hips toward him, and Samson squeezed her throat. “I’m going to fuck your mouth, and you’re going to like it,” he snarled. “You’re going to like it so much that you’re going to rub your pussy until you come with my knob in your throat.”

She mewled and jerked her hips, pressing her sleek heat against his cock. Overcome with the pleasure and the heat of her, he leaned in and kissed her hard. 

She parted her lips and licked his tongue, then bit his lower lip, and he grunted as the sharpness of her teeth sent yet another tantalizing pulse of pleasure pounding to his cock. He shoved his tongue ruthlessly into her mouth for a moment before pulling away, then crawled over her body until he was straddling her. 

He lifted her chin with one hand. “Open your fucking mouth,” he snapped. 

“Fuck you,” she breathed, and she obediently opened her mouth.

Without any hesitation, he leaned forward and slid his cock between her lips. She suckled the head of his cock, and a jolt of ecstasy tore its way from his groin up to his throat in a helpless gasp. 

He curled his hips toward her and grabbed her hand. “Touch yourself,” he rasped.

She pulled her hand out of his grip and reached between her legs, and he watched raptly as her eyelids fluttered with pleasure. Soon she was writhing beneath him, her lips a tight suction on his shaft, and Samson thrust into her mouth with greater zeal as his pleasure rose in time with her own. 

A breathless minute later, she released his cock to cry out in climax, and Samson greedily watched the pleasure twisting her pretty face before taking hold of his cock. “I said to come with my knob in your throat,” he snarled, and he pushed his cock toward her lips.

She eagerly lifted her head to take him deep, and he grunted and thrust into her mouth as she moaned her pleasure around his cock. When the shuddering of her climax had stilled, he finally pulled his length from between her lips.

He crawled off of her and kneeled between her legs again, then ruthlessly looped her knees over his arms and planted his palms on either side of her hips. “I’m going to fuck your brains out,” he gasped, and he plunged himself inside of her.

She cried out, a hoarse and guttural cry of pleasure, and Samson slammed into her in a rough and mindless rhythm, riled almost beyond reason by her taunting and his anger and the beautiful lanky length of her naked body beneath him. Her fingers were digging into his forearms, her nails biting into her skin with little pricks of pain that only served to enhance his ecstasy, and as his pleasure continued to rise, he dipped his head down and took her nipple in his mouth.

He suckled hard, hard enough to bruise her flesh, and Roman arched beneath him as best she could despite the constraints of her legs over his arms. “F-fuck!” she cried. “Fuck, fuck, come on, fuck me hard…”

He slammed into her even harder, so hard that he would have sworn it would hurt her if not for the rapture that was twisting her face. She moaned and scraped his arms, and he gasped against her chest, and when his climax suddenly crashed over him, he bit her nipple. 

She keened with pleasure and writhed beneath him. “Fuck yes,” she sobbed. 

He didn’t reply, too busy gasping and thrusting jerkily into her as he came. Then, in a final fit of spite, he pulled out of her and thrust against her belly instead.

A few thick white spurts landed on her belly, and Roman twisted her hips. “You asshole,” she whined.

He didn’t reply, focused instead on catching his breath. When his heart had slowed to a less-than-frantic pulse, he sat back on his heels and smirked at her. “Serves you right,” he said.

She shot him a dirty look, and Samson smiled more widely at her, feeling oddly at peace. Roman looked so thoroughly spent, and her body bore the obvious marks of his work: his toothmarks on her breast, his semen on her belly, her own wetness smeared on the insides of her thighs and on the bed. For some reason, seeing her look this way made him feel more relaxed than he’d felt all day.

He pulled off his shirt and flopped down on the bed beside her. “I guess I’ll stay here and get some sleep,” he said.

She huffed and sat up. “Whatever. Do what you want, I don’t care.” She slid off of the bed and went to the washroom to clean up, and Monty trotted out of the washroom. 

Samson hastily tucked his cock back into his breeches, then gave Monty a sheepish look. “Sorry about before,” he muttered. “She just… she drives me up the wall sometimes.”

Monty wagged his tail and gave him a big canine grin, and Samson smiled faintly at the mabari before shuffling under the blankets. When Roman emerged from the washroom a couple of minutes later, Samson was glad to note that she was wearing her usual slight frown instead of an angry one.

She took her robe off and hung it on her painted changing screen, then put out the bedside lamp and crawled under the blankets. She settled on her back beside him, and as they lay there side-by-side, not talking nor touching, Samson began to wonder if he should say something.

Roman spoke first. “You’re not a coward,” she said quietly.

His heart flipped. He didn’t reply, unsure what to say. After all, he wasn’t totally sure that he wasn’t one.

She spoke again, and her tone was a little harder this time. “I don’t think you’re a fucking coward, Samson.”

“Then why’d you call me one?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was... mad.”

“You’re always mad,” he pointed out.

“Would you–” She broke off, then exhaled sharply and sat up on her elbow to look down at him. “I didn’t mean it, okay? Sometimes shit just comes out of my mouth and I – I didn’t fucking mean it. You’re not a coward.”

“You still think I need to pick a side, though,” he said.

She was quiet for a moment. Then she laid down and rolled onto her side facing away from him. “I didn’t think it would be so fucking hard to know which one you’d pick,” she said. 

He gazed morosely at her naked shoulder blade. She wasn’t wrong; he had no real reason to side with the Templars, after all. It wasn’t like he’d joined them because he believed in their cause. Really, he had every reason to hate them — or not the Templars per se, but the Chantry’s control over them. Whether Roman saw it or not, the Chantry controlled the Templars just as much as they controlled the mages. The leashes they used were just of a different kind. 

Really, if it came down to a war between the Templars and the mages, there was no reason for Samson to side with the Templars. He just wished… 

He sighed. Honestly, he sort of wished he could be a Templar without joining the Order again. If he could just get his hands on some real lyrium, the real good blue stuff so he could have his Templar powers back, then he’d be healthy and strong again. He could walk through this city with his head held high, and he could fight back when anyone tried to beat him down. And he could use his powers for a good purpose, too — to be the kind of Templar that Roman would tolerate: the kind of Templar who stepped in to stop the abominations and to talk the scared mages down from doing stupid things. 

If he had his Templar powers back, he’d be able to do something if Roman became an abomination. Maybe he’d be able to stop her or calm her down so she didn’t need to die.

His gut writhed. Stop it, he thought sternly. There was no point thinking about this any further; it was all a pipe dream. There was no way he would get his hands on real lyrium again. 

He gazed at Roman’s naked spine with an aching heart. Then he rolled toward her and pulled her back against his chest. 

He hugged her around her waist, and she tsked. “You’re squeezing me.” 

“Yeah,” he said huskily.

They laid together in silence for a moment, her spine flush to his chest and his knees tucked behind hers. Then Samson spoke quietly into the dark. “I know you don’t want a war, Bird.”

She scoffed. “Obviously.”

He didn’t reply. A minute later, she spoke again. “I don’t get in fights because I want to, you know.”

He frowned slightly. “Then why’re you always fighting all the time?”

“I’m not the one picking the fucking fights,” she snapped. “The whole world keeps picking fights with me.” Her voice cracked, and Samson felt her body tensing in his arms. 

His throat started to ache. He swallowed and hugged her harder, and she wiggled her shoulders slightly. “You’re crushing me,” she complained.

Her voice was thick with tears. Samson closed his stinging eyes. “Shut up, Bird,” he whispered, and he kept hugging her.

She sniffled quietly, and Samson held her in silence until her body started to relax. When she spoke again, her voice was hard, as though to make up for her tears. “I just want a fucking moment of peace. Just a fucking second of calm. That’s what I really want.”

He breathed quietly in the ensuing silence. Her hair smelled like vanilla and almond and sweat, and her skin was soft against his chest. The room was dark and her sheets were warm, and the only sounds were his breathing and the soft rumble of Monty snoring on the carpet by the fireplace. 

“It’s pretty calm right now,” Samson murmured.

For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she pulled his hand away from her midriff. 

She twined her fingers with his, and a nearly-painful spear of tenderness pierced his chest. She was such a pain in the ass, fighting with him one second and making him angry-fuck her the next, then being just a little bit sweet like this and making him feel bad for fighting with her in the first place… 

Bloody damn bird, he thought. She was fierce and angry and so fucking vulnerable, and Samson wished he could do something to save her from herself. If only he could be a Templar without actually joining the Order again. If only he could get access to some proper lyrium again…