Chapter Text
He wasn't even aware of it when he began to fall for her. The emotion so far removed from his nature, he'd only known of it secondhand. Old memories -- a dead man's memories were all he had to go by, and they were pale in comparison to the living dreams that now haunted them both. When he did become aware, he tried to tell himself that this was yet another of those odd sensations that Anders shared between them. He was just feeling Anders' infatuation for her, not his own. If it was a lie, it was an easy lie, and one made only to himself.
She was a painful distraction, he thought. The way that Anders would think of her throughout sleepless nights could be infuriating. But in shared fantasies she was distracting to the both of them. He longed to look on her with his eyes -- to be blinded by her. But he knew she'd just be repulsed and afraid. Anders longed for other things, much more physical things. But he knew that as long as they were they, that she couldn't possibly want him.
When it turned out that she did anyway, that she was honest when she said she didn't care that they were monstrous, that she didn't mind the pain that they warned her about, well, everything had changed then, hadn't it? The dams built up carefully through long years had crumbled to dust, and even Justice couldn't hold back the tide of their desire. Not even if he had wanted to.
When they'd eased into their new life with her, he started to give in to those wants he dared not to name. When Anders slept, and all was quiet, he would hold her in his arms, look on her with his eyes, watching her sleep. Why he did so, he wouldn't be able to say. He only knew that she was beautiful, that he could see her more truly this way. He thought it was enough.
He didn't know that sometimes when he held her in his arms, she was awake. He didn't know that she liked it.
------------
Desire wandered the Fade somewhat aimlessly, casually sending out its snakelike feelers. It searched for the telltale sign of a dreamer, their longings, their wishes.
A tendril of lust found its mark, then, and it wrapped around the dreaming one so sweetly. A gentle tug, and then she was simply there, trapped, just as it pleased. It slunk its way through to her, marking its boundaries -- a 'keep out if you know what is good for you' sign to any other. It always paid to be polite.
The mortal was... delicious. That form would spark some wicked desires for it to feed upon, it thought. There was power in her, not just in the raw appeal of her form. Perhaps too powerful. Still, it couldn't hurt to try.
It appeared in front of her as its usual form -- a dark purple scaled 'female' creature with burning passion for hair, and little else covering it but adornments that only served to tantalize by barely concealing.
"Hello there, sweetheart." The words coiled from its tongue, honey dripped. It draped a perfect hand over its round hip, and stroked it lightly, as if to suggest that it knew just how to touch, and wouldn't she just love to let it?
"Oh, fuck, not again..." The mortal woman just huffed in annoyance. Desire could feel her readying ice in her mind, sharp and freezing, willing it to begin the flow.
But the demon wasn't there, only a lilting laugh in the Fade could tell its presence. The weak spell was cast at empty air, just as arms were jerked behind her, the evil thing catching her, whispering to her.
"Oh fuck? So soon? I don't know that you'd like it my sweet." With the closeness of the mortal's essence, it was easy to pry at her mind, seeking her deepest wants. Who did she want to have, and couldn't? The question was given form, emerging from her mind, and Desire tasted of it to know it fully.
She wanted what? Of all the ridiculous... Still, a desire is a desire. If it would get her to budge, it would be worth taking even that form. Perhaps.
It shifted its appearance to be that which Justice now wore, in that place where the spirit had been sent. What was standing behind the mortal now was a tall, thin, nude man, with eyes that shone blue, and cracks of the same blue shine in his skin where the body could no longer contain its contents. That a spirit had gotten to the mortal world before it! It could spit with jealousy!
"But perhaps, you would like to be fucked better like this." Even the voice had changed to Justice's deep echoing tones, and she looked down at the hands that held her. They were cracked through and glowing. Desire could sense that sharp pang of want in her then. "Yes, I could give this to you. For a price. A small favor, certainly worth this pleasure. Take me to your world with you, and I won't fight you, it'll be a partnership. I'll let you have him every night. We can feast on him together."
------------
Justice could feel the presence of evil as pinpricks of alarm running down his neck. Eyes of Fade light shot open, awake, seeking the source. He found he was holding it in his arms. Marian stirred in her sleep, muttering incoherently. But he knew that the unintelligible words were her calling out to him. He could feel the demon taking hold of her, could feel the corruption of what it was doing through the small window in her mind that was her link to the Fade.
Enraged, he shook her, trying to wake her from the dream, but the demon protested, and her eyes stayed shut and flitting back and forth under her lids. He pulsed, sending a wave of energy through that window, slamming the demon with its force -- a more indelicate way to break its hold on her. Finally her eyes opened, and the feeling of foulness left. It hadn't taken her. Relief. And then fear. He was holding her, and she was awake.
She struggled in his grasp, unaware that she'd left the Fade, and was back in her bed. "Let go of me, demon! I'm not giving in to you this time, or any other! To the Void with your offers!"
She called him a demon. It was everything he'd feared. A part of him wanted to react, to yell back at her how much those words hurt, that he wasn't a demon. He couldn't be. The last time he'd done something like that, though, hadn't gone very well at all. The memory of that act stung like poison, fresh in his mind. He let her go immediately, retreating to the side of their bed.
"I apologize for waking you. I saw that you were being hunted by a demon as you walked the Fade. I could not let one of them harm you." He laid on his back, all nervous tension, staring at the ceiling. He wouldn't look at her.
She steadied her breaths and looked around a bit, at the darkness of the room, the sharpness of objects, the way everything fit. She wasn't dreaming. So that meant... "Oh Maker! Justice. It's really you. I'm sorry, I thought you were... something else."
"There is no need for you to apologize" was all he said, somewhat sadly, still staring at the ceiling.
She could kick herself. Here he was, in the Makerbeloved glowing flesh, and she'd just berated him, right after he'd helped her. This was not how it was supposed to go. In her fantasies, he'd simply known. He'd held her down and devoured her with that strength that only the spirit showed. He was like the tiger to Anders' cat, the power in him showing through shining blue stripes.
"No. I don't think you're a demon. I didn't mean you. I like you, really. It's just, the real demon in the Fade made herself look like you. I was just being rather adamantly opposed to her when you woke me. Um... Thank you for that, by the way. I hate having to deal with them. Demons, I mean." Ugh, she was babbling ridiculously. He refused to look at her, but she wouldn't give him the same courtesy. She felt herself insanely lucky that Anders never wore much to bed. She'd have to commit this sight to memory... for later.
And then he turned, looked at her with eyes so brilliant she could barely make out their shape. Angry eyes. "It took my form? To get to you?" His fists clenched audibly in the stillness of the deep night, and he sat up, exposing more flesh as the blankets fell. "I would make it pay for this outrage." But how? It was gone, now. Its departure would have to be enough.
Her eyes opened a touch wider and wandered as she said a prayer of thanks to whatever god had smiled on her. "It's ok, I'm fine. It's not like it's my first time having to run a demon off, you know. They tried the same thing on me constantly before Anders moved in."
He gave her a strange look. "This demon, it was Desire?" She nodded. "And it took my form. I see." Those piercing eyes narrowed. He looked at her then, not through physical eyes, but with a spirit's gaze, seeking the truth of her. He saw her longing so close to the surface, so vibrant. No wonder Desire caught hold of her, she was swimming in it. He could see what was drifting through her mind -- half-formed images of the two of them.
There was a time when he would have found such things distasteful. Somewhere along the line, he'd just forgotten why. Hunger was a necessary drive, something Anders had to teach him before he'd caused the body to waste away to nothing. Some measure of sloth was also necessary, this he'd learned after a few bouts of working without sleep to hallucinatory states. Mortal bodies have needs. Not all of them were sinful. And this thrumming feeling was surely not.
He leaned over to her, reveling in the sight of her. "If I were to give you what it is that you desire, they would not be able to use it against you." He said it so matter-of-factly, so easily. Once the rationalizations were made, once the path was made clear, there was nothing left for the spirit to do but to follow that path to where it would lead.
She quirked a brow at him. "Are you sure I'm not still dreaming?"