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A Plague Tale

Summary:

For librarian Lottie “Rook” Ingellvar, the pandemic was not the only darkness that swept over her life in 2020. An act of unbelievable betrayal and violence has left her numb as the world begins to thaw and life returns to normal. Struggling with equilibrium, her boss in special collections proposes to relieve her of her usual duties and set her up with a more flexible job - assisting a professor in his research.

In the distinguished, older Professor Volkarin, Rook finds a stability she’s never known and an easy charm that soon develops into a roiling, back-breaking crush that threatens to upend the careful walls she’s erected around her heart and body.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1

Notes:

Am I obsessed with this game? Yes, fucking BIG time. I’ve never played a game where I’ve wanted to romance every single person I meet. I’m still plowing through my Lucanis fic and eventually plan to write a modern AU Devrin (think park rangers and fire watchers type shit) so WATCH THIS SPACE but I have been enchanted by Emmrich before I even saw him in game (ty tumblr)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The air threatens snow. That sharp smell so different from the threat of rain. More metallic, chillier. Rook crosses one leg over the other and settles back into the cafe chair where she agreed to wait for Neve.

The Christmas Market had been Harding's idea, but Neve had, in that sometimes inexplicable way she does, taken to it immediately. The first Christmas Market after the Plague, shots fresh in arms, a manic feeling in the air. Like livestock let to roam for the first time in their lives in a great, green field. The joy and mild, humming fear and uncertainty is palpable. Rook, holding a mug of gluhwein with both hands to warm them, feels numb.

She ought not to feel numb. Rook loves the Christmas Market. Loves Christmas in general even though she's never once set foot in a church (the cathedrals where she did her master's research, she figures, don't count.) It's the lights and the warmth and the general feeling all around her. The chance to break handknit sweaters out of the closet, wear flannel jeans. T stand around with your friends and blow cold air through your mittened hands. Rook told her Varric, her therapist, last week that she can't feel temperature anymore. That it's hard for her to feel anything. That she got so scared that something was physically wrong with her she burned her pointer finger on a candle, just to make sure she hadn't gone numb for real. Let's not do that again, alright? Varric said, looking at her over the tops if his glasses. And then he told her it was normal. Expected, common. That it's a form of protection for her body to shut a little down. That, in time, her nerves would come back online, knock politely at the door of her brain and ask to be let back in. It's been four months, she'd said, trying and failing to keep the exasperation out of her voice. Four months, Varric replied, setting down his clipboard, is no time at all, kiddo.

"How is it?" Rook jumps a little at Harding's voice, runs a hand through her hair to try and laugh it off.

She holds her styrofoam cup up in cheers. "Very, very alcoholic."

"Well, that's good," Harding says, sitting down across the patio table from her. She's drinking hot chocolate, Rook can smell it. "God you a pastry," Harding says, pushing a little, white paper bag across the table toward Rook. "Have it later if you're not hungry now."

"Thank you." Rook means to put it in the pocket of her coat, but through the paper, she can feel it's warmth. Fresh. She unwraps it. A cheese danish dotted with raspberries. She takes a bite and smiles. Her tastebuds, at least, still work just fine.

"Of course! Hell, I could go get you another one if you want." Rook laughs and shakes her head, glancing over at Harding who's turned her attention to the market, watching the crowds of people duck under the lights and through the little wooden huts. Harding knows a little - that something bad happened, that Rook is different now even in just the smallest ways - but not everything. The only one who knows everything is Neve.

And here she comes now, dressed in a long woolen coat the color of freshly baked bread and wrapped in a cashmere scarf that probably costs as much as Rook's couch at home. "I see I'm the only one out here doing the hard work."

Harding snorts. "What hard work? I see you out there, hunting scoops."

"Shopping," Neve corrects, handing Rook a little bundle. "Highland wool. Seller said they’ll keep you warm on the coldest nights." Normally Harding would say something like what, nothing for me, but today she doesn't. Today she just smiles and reaches over to squeeze Rook's knee. Sometimes she wants to tell them to stop - to stop coddling her, to stop looking at her like that - but  the pastry is still warm in her hand and the socks look beautiful, Look like they really could keep her warm for the rest of her life and so she just says thank you, says thank you and take long drink of the gluhwein.

 

The call comes in between bites of currywurst - Neve holding the basket, Haring and Rook feeding themselves and her with toothpicks - and when Rook sees the number is from work she goes cold, excusing herself to duck into one of the brick alleyways between shops.

She almost lets it go to voicemail. It's Saturday. She's not on the clock. She's out with her friends at a Christmas market trying to wake her nerves back up, listening for that knock on her door. But she does answer it, because she knows that if she doesn't, it will gnaw at her for the rest of the day.

"Hi Mae."

"Oh!" She says, sounding surprised, and it's comforting the way Maevarus always sounds so surprised when she answers the phone, as if she was so busy running the University's library that she simply hadn't been paying attention when they invented caller id. "rook." And there it is, the way everyone has been saying her name since it happened. Letting the end drop, heavy with pity. "I'm so sorry to call you on the weekend."

"It's fine," Rook says too quickly. She glances over at the market. Harding's wandered off, but Neve is looking right at her. She raises and eyebrow; Rook waves her off. I'm fine.

"I wanted to talk to you about yesterday." Rook grits her teeth. Her nerves are knocking, but not any sensations she wants to let in.

"Oh, of course."

"I wanted to say that given what has happened I'm not surprised that coming back to work might be difficult for you." What has happened. Mae knows, of course, what has happened. She's the one who's running the job search to replace him. Mae knows what happened on paper and maybe that's enough. Rook didn't have to explain why she had to leave work before noon, why when she asked she was white knuckling the reference desk to keep herself upright. Mae knows enough to be kind, to be lenient when Rook asks for time off (three weeks right after it happened), but she couldn't know what a physical shock it had been to sit down in that basement chair, trying to sort through the new collection that had just come in, and smell his cologne. And Rook doesn't want her to know that. She doesn't want her to know any of this. Or for anyone to know any of this. She doesn’t want to know it herself.

“Listen, I am so sorry -"

"Stop." Mae cuts her quickly off with a sort of finality that slams Rook's thoughts to a halt. Maybe Maevarus actually does know what it's like for a smell to gain a body, for a smell to have such a violent touch. One in five the nurse told her that night, or had it been morning by then? - holding her hand which didn't look like her hand but something cold and dead. The thought, that Mae might know, that Mae might understand, makes Rook feel worse, makes her feel a little lightheaded. "I don't want you to apologize and I don’t need you to either." By now, Neve's moved off the street and toward the alleyway. She's scrolling through her phone but Rook can tell she's paying attention, wanting for a moment to step in if need be, to reach out and take her hand. Rook wants to hang up the phone and take Neve by the arm and disappear into the lights of the Christmas market. But that would be crossing a bridge that no longer stands. She'd felt the same way that night. When the cops left and the nurse let go of her hand. When the nights were still warm and fireflies bobbed in and out of the darkness. Neve was waiting there outside the hospital to take her hand. I want to go back Rook said then, I don't want this. I want to go back. And Neve said nothing - what could she say? when she knew then, even if Rook did not yet, that there would be no going back - but pulled her into a tight hug and held her there for so long that even the summer night had begun to turn cold. All of that passes between them now, one week into December, snow falling in soft flakes, not cold enough for it to stick. "Are you still there?"

Rook readjusts, pressing the phone closer to her ear. "Sorry. I'm outside. It's a little loud."

"I have a proposition for you." Mae says, and Rook thinks she ought to feel something, but she's finding it hard again. Numb. “There’s a professor in the Classic department. A really nice guy from my limited interactions. He's been looking for a research assistant for a while. It's a little below your skill level but it's flexible and you don't have to spend much time in special collections.

"I can work." And Neve perks up at the sound of her voice, a little thin and a little too high a pitch.

"Of course you can. " Mae says, matter of factly. "and right now I'd like you to do this. How does that sound?”

By now, Neve is standing beside her, leaning against the brick wall and pretending to scroll through her phone. Rook can see Harding between the wooden shops looking for them, two more cups of cider or maybe mulled wine in her hands. "Who is the professor?" Rook asks, but in her mind she’s already agreed to it. Not because she wants to, but because the idea of heading back to special collections, sitting in the same places where he spent time watching her, thinking of thoughts she could not even conceive of fills her with a sharp, childlike fear.

"Emmrich Volkarin"

Notes:

Thank you so much for reading <3 <3