Work Text:
No one should travel through Hightown alone at night. As much as the elite of Kirkwall liked to believe in their high walls and gates, in the way the city could be compartmentalized to drown the masses while they remained untouched, it was as much of an illusion as any wealth could create. With the buildings spiked high and sharp with Tevinter blood roots, the drifting white flakes of snow became part of a fallen empire’s anachronism. Instead of blood soaked magisters there would be the clanking sound of tempered metal suits of armor soaked with just as much. Anders would have been even better served by remaining in Hawke’s home, where there had been a fire to warm his bones and company full of terrible jokes. Instead he stepped out into the night that was brighter for the blanket of snow the sky was lying upon Kirkwall.
Anders was no stranger to mistakes. He was impulsive, spiteful, full of anger that boiled into single mindedness. What was one more mistake, one more impulse that he couldn’t explain, it was meaningless in the grand scale in the wreckage of his life.
A fever had been raging through Darktown as Wintersend approached. While much of the city was wrapped up in festivities, lights, and the distraction from their daily struggles, Darktown had no chance for fantasies. Wards had fallen, families straining to save one another and the cruelty born from poverty that took advantage in the sobbing masses. Anders had not left the clinic in nearly a week, the minutes and hours stringing together in an endless barrage of illness and magic.
Magic could only do so much, his supplies only went so far. And yet he still needed to be more, to do more, to turn nothing to something.
Even Hawke had been oddly absent, which made Fenris’ appearance all the more questionable. The warrior had come alone, a choice that had registered Anders as odd but not enough to distract from the weary ache that had seeped into his bones. But even with his magic threaded deep in a mother of five whose lungs he was attempting to ease, Anders knew exactly when Fenris had entered. It was one part lyrium, one part familiarity, the years having attuned his mind to what Fenris looked like in the hazy edges of his vision.
When Anders looked up there was no Hawke, nor any of their other companions. There was only Fenris, speaking with Lirene while watching Anders with unflinching eyes. Or maybe that was just what his mind remembered, everything became so blurred together. Maybe it was after the next patient, or the one after that, but that was when Anders saw the basket in the warrior's arms, cradled with the weight of a burden.
He hadn’t listened to what Fenris had said, registering the tenor of his voice instead of the words themselves. Anders had been wiping grime and mucus from his hands, the sting of soap burning away the illness before he had moved to the next person. Maybe it was a greeting or an insult, all Anders had focused on was the supplies he could see peeking from the basket. A delivery? How did Hawke manage to wrangle Fenris into that? He remembered thinking, because what else would have made sense?
“You can put it on my desk, give my thanks to Hawke,” he had said, looking away from those uncannily green eyes.
Whatever Fenris’ expression had been, he hadn’t seen it while he ran a mental inventory of what he had been running low on. Fenris had already been wiped from his mind, thoughts sweeping him away to the background noise to be filtered out and away from the constant clatter because if he let himself hear, let himself see, then he would hear and see every inch of the clinic until he tore at his own hair. So he didn’t see any expression or the way his body may have shifted, did not listen to any tone or chosen words that might give way to additional meaning.
“Yes. Hawke. I shall,” had been the reply and Anders couldn’t remember if there had been a pause, if there had been anything to Fenris’ voice that might have been a hint of something else.
In the end, he hadn’t paid attention. If it wasn’t for that strange sense of proximity, he wouldn’t have even known that Fenris had not left immediately. But the elf hadn’t spoken to him again, so Anders had no reason to wonder why Fenris had lingered at the desk.
The strangest part of Darktown was the winters, really. As cold as it could be, Anders always found Hightown’s air colder. Darktown had built-in insulation from the abandoned mines, even with the outlets and bits of sky that could be seen. It was snowing in Hightown, the emptied streets of the nights still as white flakes gently drifted down.
Snow this white never made it to Darktown. Nor did the particular bite of the winter’s winds.
Honestly he had forgotten that Fenris had even come by until Lirene doused the lantern, locking the door, leaving Anders in what passed for silence in the depths of Kirkwall. That was when he saw the basket again, remembering the odd arrival, the barely the conversation. It was near bursting with supplies, as Anders had thought. Restocked herbs for potions and salves, precious lyrium potions, new rounds of clean bandages, a veritable bounty was carefully cataloged and put away as weariness gnawed at his bones. Nothing else had been out of place, his latest draft still with the scratched out lines from revisions.
The supplies were why he had gone through the hidden entrance to Hawke’s cellar. She had made certain he knew that he was always welcome in the estate and tonight he was tired enough to forgo pretending to sleep in the clinic. He was definitely tired enough to know he would light the lantern at the first plea at the door and only make himself even more of a wrung out wreck than he currently was. Whatever the reason, be it the supplies or the fatigue or no real reason beyond loneliness, Anders had made the climb through Kirkwall’s grandest wine cellar to Hawke’s smile.
Her fire was welcoming and warm, dog lounging about with a whine for attention when he arrived. They had chatted, the words hadn’t mattered other than the peace her friendship and company brought him. Any other night he could have gone to the guest room she insisted was his. But he remembered the basket, bursting with expensive supplies the clinic was in dire need of.
“Thank you,” he sighed into their hug, squeezing her small frame close.
She had laughed, “And what am I being thanked for this time?”
“As if I need a reason,” he had smiled back, content being held in her friendship. “But you convinced Fenris of all people to deliver supplies? I know you’re the champion, but I didn’t know miracles were part of the position.”
When she pulled back, Anders couldn’t quite place the downturn of her smile, bemused but knowing all at the same time. There was a magic to Hawke in her contradiction, beyond her own power to call down upon the fade. “Fenris asked me what you might need. Not the other way round.”
Hawke had continued to talk but Anders hadn’t heard her words, not over the rush of waves behind his ears. There was more to the conversation, but he can’t remember what words were said, the expression on Hawke’s face. Instead there was only that steady pounding that made the entirety of the world blur to the beat of his own heat. Followed by Hawke’s voice faint in the background.
Anders... Anders... Anders...
There had been the sharp slap of winter air in his lungs, taking in reality one breath at a time. He was outside the estate and into the quiet of Hightown’s nighttime shadows. A baptism of snowflakes to his heated cheeks, his blood cooled even as his pace kept quick, footsteps silenced by the snow accumulating beneath his thin soles. His limbs ached, from cold, from fatigue, or maybe just the absolute devastation of realization that he had tossed aside something, someone who mattered.
Templars were less frequent when the moons rose high as the cut purses became more bloody. A rational man would have stayed at Hawke’s, laughing off the misunderstanding with his friend. Because Hawke was his friend, Anders was as certain of that as a man could be. Fenris had always been something else entirely. A splinter that never worked loose, so that it would show as a black spot beneath his pale skin for years to the point where it was impossible to tell if it was foreign matter or he had simply never noticed this specific imperfection in his own body that resisted all attempts of removal. That maybe there was nothing to remove.
Anders made no claim to being a rational man. It was a mistake, but as his hands pressed on the frigid door that Fenris still after all these years never locked, Anders knew that he would fall headlong into this folly with his eyes open and frantic.
The mansion looked as it always did, not that the dust and decay mattered. Each step was as well trodden as a memory, the creaking darkness shuttering into place as the door swung closed behind him. “Fenris?” Anders felt his voice echoing around the grand foyer, dampened by the rot and shadows.
There was no answer but there was the familiar steady light from the top of the stairs. The one room in this ghastly corpse of a building that thrummed with light and life. Anders barely remembered starting his way up the stairs but there he was, easily taking two at a time to reach the light in the middle of this cemetery.
“Fenris?” He called again at the doorway, hand on the crumbling frame. And this time the shadows looked back with bright green eyes.
It was just an effect from the fireplace, Fenris standing before it and the light painting him in relief. Half man and half spirit, wholly a dream as Anders felt his steps falter under the surprise that slipped to scrutiny bore down on him. Yet the usual sense of frustration at that consideration failed to replace the quickened beat of Anders’ heart. Not in the face of the circular thoughts dancing through his mind of every item being held in the hand rested against the fireplace before being set into the basket with care.
“Mage!” Fenris’ sharp voice brought Anders back to reality. “Why are you here?”
“You brought me supplies,” Anders answered in awe and he could feel his own smile starting. How long had it been since he smiled? He didn’t remember moving but Fenris was closer so he must have, the warmth of the fire beginning to seep in through his coat. Warmth was so easy to forget when one went so long without.
Fenris’ brow furrowed and Anders wondered if before everything Fenris’ hair had matched the dark brown of his eyebrows. “Yes, we spoke.” his feet moved back on instinct, head cocked in question as Anders moved closer. “Have you hit your head?”
“I didn’t listen,” Anders answered, crowding into Fenris’ space as the elf backed away further. Listening had never been one of his best skills unless it was a patient directly in front of him. Instead his mind always skipped around the details, piecing together as it rushed ahead or fell behind. His mind buzzed with the knowledge that Fenris was looking between him and the closing space between them, a warning that he brushed aside in favor of tunneling realization. “You brought them, you found what I needed and brought it.”
And really he should have expected the sharp crack of the wall to his back, the just shy of painful grip of Fenris’ hands digging into his shoulders through feathers and cloth. Anders knew better than to corner the warrior, who reacted like a cornered cat at the best of times. And in most instances that would have been enough to jolt Anders out of the cocoon of his own thoughts and tunneling vision. Fenris’ eyes were narrowed with suspicion and his lips were moving, the low rumble of his voice rubbing against Anders’ nerves.
“Mage? Anders!” Fenris snapped and he was close enough that Anders could smell the sour notes of wine on his breath, could shiver at the way his name was twined with frustration, anger, and what tasted intoxicatingly like worry.
More words were about to tumble from Fenris but were stopped by Anders’ hands cradling his jaw. Instead of the flare of lyrium and his spine ripped from his body, Fenris’ lips paused mid thought only to be caught between Anders’ own as he surged forward.
Both of their lips were chapped, rough and worried, the angle wrong as Anders stretched his neck to close the gap while Fenris still held his shoulders firm. The moment held fragile as glass as a second drew as long as an eternity until Anders felt a gasp sparking electricity, the glass shattered and raining around them. Their kiss was desperate, as if Fenris might devour him entirely here in this moment and Anders would never need to breathe again.
But then he was breathing again, their foreheads pressed together as he could taste shared air on his tongue. Feather soft white hair brushed against his fingertips as Anders still had Fenris’ jaw cradled in his palms. “You bought the supplies, not Hawke. You,” he whispered against Fenris’ lips in a half statement half kiss.
He could nearly feel the blush that rushed through Fenris’ cheeks, stroking his thumbs with blind affection. “You had need of- There was no burden to bring such things,“ Fenris grumbled, his hands gripping tight in Anders’ coat even as he ducked his head away from their shared space.
But that only gave Anders the room to nose against hair white as unblemished snow, to brush his lips against Fenris’ ear to give way to a shiver through the elf holding him in place. “You got me a present,” he smiled against skin.
Fenris made no move to let go, to pull away, instead the heat rising to the tips of his ears with a sweet bashfulness. “It was noth-” but he was cut short by Anders gentle guiding, another soft kiss to interrupt the denial undermined by how Fenris fell so easily from words to his lips moving in tandem with Anders.
He leaned too deep, his weight swaying into Fenris too sharp and this kiss, sweet and electric, broke with Fenris’ arms sliding around his waist with a chuckle. Anders could drown in that quiet laugh, the way he could see the barest tick of a smile as he steadied by resting his head on Fenris’ shoulder.
“When was the last time you slept?” Fenris asked, his arms warm, guiding as he began to walk. Anders hummed with no answer, a puff of air brushing his hair from his forehead in chastisement. “I thought as much. Come, lie down.”
For a moment Anders wondered if he had caught the fever because Fenris had led him to his bed. That would explain why Fenris only sat on the mattress after Anders had kicked his boots off and set his head against the pillow. It would explain all of this, including how Fenris’ hand found his hair and threaded through it with an affection he had never seen and hadn’t experienced in years. What other explanation was there for when he shifted closer, Fenris made no move to pull away as Anders pillowed his head on a strong thigh and let the weight of the world melt away.
Anders fell asleep nearly as soon as he reached the bed. There was nothing stopping Fenris from stepping away, from going about whatever task he decided for himself that was not watching the sleeping blonde that rested in his lap. But no task seemed more important than continuing the gentle strokes of Anders’ hair through his fingers.
“Happy Wintersend, Anders,” he whispered to the firelit darkness.