Grey Sky Morning (DARBB Part 1 of 2)
Title: Grey Sky Morning
Word Count: 7663
Rating: M
Warnings: Nudity, sexual content, blood, violence
Fandom: Dragon Age
Pairing: Nathaniel/Anders
Summary: With the disappearance of the Warden-Commander, Nathaniel has more than enough to occupy his thoughts; strangely, the only person he can think of is Anders. More than his lover, Anders was his friend, and Nathaniel finds it difficult to let go of him and move on. Things are only made worse when a missive arrives from Weisshaupt, summoning Nathaniel to the Fortress.
He knows precisely what the First Warden wants from him; and Nathaniel must fight a battle between his heart and his duty.
Author's Note: This was written for the Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang to accompany this lovely fanmix by itsadrizzit. The music and especially the way that the songs were put in order, evoked a strong feeling of regret, loss, grief, and that poignant, painful sense of losing someone you wanted badly to hold onto. The pairing (Nanders) was suggested by the itsadrizzit, but it was up to me, ultimately, to decide what pairing worked best with the music. For me, Nathaniel and Anders represented the tone and emotion of the fanmix extraordinarily well. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I worked very hard to get the emotion through without being overbearing. I really hope everyone, especially itsadrizzit, enjoys this story! <3
A huge thank you to wadebramwilson for doing such an awesome job as my beta! :D
Grey Sky Morning
Love letters left unsent. Some confessional, some accusatory, some desperate. He had learned to live without half of his heart, but it was nothing courageous, and nothing prideful. It was only a necessity. Anders was gone, far beyond his reach, and Nathaniel couldn’t send the letters, couldn’t bleed out the poison in his veins and just let himself know some kind of peace.
So he held onto the letters, and he let the wind carry his voice across the sea to where Anders might hear him calling his name.
~*~
He woke up with his bed and his chest empty. For a moment, Nathaniel forgot everything. He could remember nothing but the shape of lips against his ear, and the feel of scarred, dirty fingers on his shoulders. He remembered the sweetness, how it had filled him up, crept into spaces he’d long thought closed off. He remembered the bitterness of everything, how he’d spat and wiped his mouth from the taste.
Nathaniel remembered Anders in his bed, lounging like he had every right to be there, like he had every intention of staying there forever. And he remembered, better than anything else, Anders’ eyes in the darkness, weary and frightened and heavy. Nathaniel had kissed him. Nothing much, really, a kiss in the darkness between two tired men... but it had sparked in his chest, flint striking against his ribs, and he’d kissed Anders harder, deeper, wanting to invade him like some sweet plague.
And invade him Nathaniel had. That first night, he had been slow, cautious, too tentative. Anders had been a torch in the darkness, burning too bright, and he had not been content with the ease of Nathaniel’s passion. He’d wanted harder, deeper, faster, until everything was spinning and Nathaniel was breathless.
And what good had it done? What had it been for? There he stood, nearly half a year since he had found the mage in his bed, and Anders was gone. To the winds, or the sea, or the pitiless mountain road, it made no difference. He was gone, and in his wake he had left destruction; he had carved himself a niche in Nathaniel’s chest, and he had left him woefully empty.
Still, Nathaniel stood at the top of The Keep and looked west. He searched for the safest passage he could find, and was blinded by heavy mist. The land was covered in the mist, and his eyes too. There was no mapping a course for Anders, there was no place navigable that Nathaniel could see. Perhaps Anders had slipped into the earth, tunnelling his way to freedom as though he had the staunch heart of a dwarf. Or perhaps he had discovered a griffon and flown from The Keep, over the Amaranthine Sea, north to the Free Marches, like some Warden of Old.
There was enough humor left in him, apparently. Nathaniel chuckled at the image.
In the end, it was nothing so grand. Nathaniel found a note tucked under his pillow, written in Anders’ crooked hand:
There’s nothing left for me here. I was freed from one prison and locked within another. I’m sorry, Nathaniel... I couldn’t let you stop me. I have found a ship bound for the Marches. Please do not follow me.
--Anders
That was all. No confession of love, no painful regret, no tear-stained paper left to tremble in his hand. There was nothing left for him, and so Anders had gone. He had gone with explicit instructions he didn’t wish to be followed. Not because he was afraid of what Nathaniel might do if he got his hands on him -- not much, as it were, he had never been a violent man -- but because he was afraid what he might do.
What good was there in forcing a man to choose between his heart and his freedom?
In all things, they were forever bound too tightly.
~*~
Nathaniel could see his breath condensing in the air, yet there was still sweat clinging to his forehead. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.. It was always a strange feeling, being so hot and feeling the chill sink into his bones when he left the merchants and their packed-in stalls. There were provisions to be procured - several dozen new blades and a strong supply of ore. The Keep had swelled in the few months since the Architect had been dealt with, and Nathaniel had a hell of a time keeping up with everything.
The Warden-Commander shouted her orders, and Nathaniel bade them. He had no stubbornness left, and no real grudge against her. Sometimes he wished she would order him to hunt Anders down and drag him back to Amaranthine by his ear, but so far she hadn’t spoken of the man, other than to condemn his desertion.
No honor amongst them, though; Nathaniel doubted it was duty that kept him where he was so much as it was the monotony of it all. He found the daily rituals and chores relaxing, settling into them comfortably. He had lived across the sea, he had fought in battle and warred for glory, he had seen braver men fall while he continued to draw breath, and he had watched as the last vestiges of good left to his name were dragged through the mud. There was enough pride in the work he did, in the bastion he kept and the oath he had made. Beyond that, Nathaniel had lost the taste for adventure.
Save when it came to Anders...
Sometimes he still thought of Anders when he had enough time left alone to actually think. He thought of him on some distant shore with sand warm between his toes and some other person’s tongue in his mouth and some other person’s fingers slipped through his honey blond hair.
It caught at his heart like barbed wire. There was no other way to explain what he felt. The pain seemed bad enough to ruin him, and sometimes he was almost sure he could taste blood from his punctured heart, creeping up his throat.
There was no reason he should have thought of Anders. He had taken the boy to bed a dozen or so times, he had kissed his collarbone and breathed heavy against his throat and trembled between his thighs; but that didn’t mean he had been made promises, and it certainly didn’t mean that Anders had owed him anything, least of all an explanation or a goodbye.
Still, Nathaniel thought of him, obsessed over him. It was unhealthy, and dangerous, and distracting, and he was helpless against it. Anders had gotten inside of him, as swiftly and stealthily as an assassin. He had crawled into him some quiet night, when the darkness had been heavy on them and Nathaniel had been terribly naked, and he had refused to leave without making a mess of things.
Now he was cold, even when he sat near the fire with his fingers stiff and his furs draped heavy over his shoulders. Winter had come early and there was no escape.
~*~
That first night, Nathaniel shivered. He hadn’t been cold then, but he had trembled still. Anders laughed, against his mouth, his body too hot and too solid and too wanting underneath him. Nathaniel kissed him, tasted some kind of spice he couldn’t place, some kind of sweetness that lingered on his tongue and the back of his throat long after Anders left.
He’d thought: I could kiss you forever.
He’d said, while tugging at Anders’ robes: “Take these off.”
Anders smiled, like he had any right to look so good, like he had any right to crawl inside of Nathaniel as easily as he did and settle down under muscle and bone. Nothing more than a boy, with a boy’s tender eyes and a boy’s quivering mouth and a boy’s flushed, needy body. It was easy to forget that Anders was little more than a boy, actually. Seventeen; painfully young, painfully soft, painfully full of hope and desire and pride.
Nathaniel kissed him, harder and deeper. There was no shallowness when it came to Anders. He would either drown in him, or he would be without him. To taste him and pull away was an idea Nathaniel hadn’t even entertained. Anders would be the death of him, or he would be nothing more than a faded memory at the back of his mind. There was no in-between, no holding onto him without being submerged in him.
“I wanted to see if these fingers were good for anything besides playing with bows,” Anders whispered, his voice broken with a laugh when Nathaniel sucked a bruise onto his throat. In truth, Nathaniel thought Anders was similar to a bowstring; a lovely bit of tension that only needed the right fingers.
He slipped between Anders’ thighs, mouth hot and slick against him. He traced his tongue over freckles and pale skin, over a birthmark that Anders seemed self-conscious about, closing his thighs a bit when Nathaniel paid especial attention to it. Nathaniel wondered how many people had moved between his thighs, how many pairs of lips had kissed his flushed skin and felt his muscles tremble, how many fingers had fit against the grooves of his hips.
Not many, judging by how Anders squirmed and laughed and moaned. The Circle wasn’t known for its encouragement of sex and love between its mages. Most likely Anders had never felt someone touch him in such a way, and if he had, it had probably been quick and frantic and desperate.
Nathaniel was slow with him. He bit against his thighs and swept his fingertips down to curl behind his knees. He tongued and nipped at Anders’ cock, only swallowing him to the back of his throat when Anders arched and begged for him. He worked him with methodical care, easing off when Anders’ fingers gripped his shoulder in warning..
“Need you,” Anders panted.
Nathaniel settled his hips between Anders’ thighs. For what might have been a moment or perhaps an eternity, he looked down into Anders’ eyes. Amber, half-lidded, so tender they hurt him. Nathaniel slipped his thumb over Anders’ lips, before sliding it between his teeth and letting him suck and bite. He almost asked if Anders was ready, if he wanted more, if he needed to be fucked.
His eyes were answer enough.
He wasn’t sure how it happened, but he ended up standing, with Anders’ in his arms, pinned between the wall and Nathaniel’s body. His hair was loose around his face, disturbed by his heavy breathing. Nathaniel saw bruises on his throat and shoulders and chest, purple-black around his nipple where Nathaniel had latched on.
Too dizzy, too hazy, too much, too soon. Nathaniel could only hold on and keep moving his hips, keep digging his fingers into Anders’ ass, keep rocking up on his heels to bury himself deeper.
Anders said his name, a whisper that became a moan that became a shout as his nails dug into Nathaniel’s back and tore across him. He could feel heat and wetness, blood he assumed, but it didn’t matter. He was riding a high that he had never ridden before, and if Anders wished to cut him open, Nathaniel couldn’t be bothered to care. He wanted to be covered in him, bathed in him, lost in him; he wanted to bleed if it meant Anders might get into his blood easier.
Anders came, hard, sudden, breath wet and ragged against Nathaniel’s shoulder. Nathaniel joined him, hiding his noises in Anders’ sweaty throat, letting his teeth dig in deep at Anders’ collarbone.
Typically, Nathaniel would have dressed quickly and left. He liked sex well enough... but what came after had never appealed to him. He did not seek to get lost in a pair of pretty eyes or spend the night held in a pair of warm arms. He wanted his space and his privacy and the relative safety of his own bed. Nathaniel couldn’t imagine surrendering himself to so much sweetness and softness. It seemed easy enough to get lost there forever, or at the very least, to want to.
For some reason, he moved back to the bed and rested his face against Anders’ chest. He listened to the beating of his heart, fast and hard at first, before calming and slowing. He listened to Anders breathe as the candles burned out and the room was swallowed in darkness. His breath steadied and slowed as his heart did. He was asleep within minutes, and Nathaniel was free to leave him.
He stayed.
Easy enough to get lost there forever.
~*~
Please do not follow me.
Nathaniel couldn’t, even if he desired to. He had no idea of where Anders might have gone, or what he might be doing. It was easy enough to make assumptions, to guess and speculate until his head and chest ached; but he honestly didn’t know. He could have sailed for Antiva or Rivain, he could have marched across the Frostback Mountains and into Orlais, he might have even made his way to the Anderfels. Thedas was sprawling, and there were many places where a man could hide.
He’d heard the reports that Anders was in Kirkwall, but he never pursued them. He couldn’t believe the man would sail north and simply... stop. He meant to run, and there was nothing for him in Kirkwall, nothing that would tie him to the place for long. More than that, Nathaniel couldn’t imagine Anders would wish to remain in a place that had such a large Circle Tower and templar presence. After his merge with Justice, he had become more vocal about mage freedom. He had told Nathaniel one night that there would be a revolution, and he should choose a side before the flames began to lick at his heels.
Of course he would choose whichever side Anders placed him on, for good or ill. To abandon the man was to cut out half of his own heart.
So Nathaniel never believed the reports that Anders had taken up refuge in Kirkwall... not until Stroud spoke of meeting him in the Deep Roads, and when he returned to the Keep with a mage girl in his company. Bethany Hawke, an apostate girl from Lothering who had escaped to Kirkwall when the Blight had ravaged Ferelden. A pretty thing, with dark eyes and hair that constantly slipped into her eyes. She spoke of Anders, her eyes never meeting his, and he knew that the boy whose freckles he had kissed was no more.
“He demands blood,” Bethany said. “I don’t think he’ll ever be satisfied.”
“He’ll have blood,” Nathaniel said. “And Maker forgive me, I hope it’s soon.”
~*~
The letter trembled in his hands. Nathaniel found it difficult to read more than once. His eyes, for some reason, had gone blurry. He set the missive from Weisshaupt down, staring into the fire that cracked and popped, offering little warmth to a room and a bag of bones that still remained cold. Nathaniel still posessed the presence of mind and sense of duty to order his horse prepared and for a small envoy to be prepared at dawn.
“What could Weisshaupt possibly want?” The Warden-Commander asked. She was a blunt woman, with heavy brows and a perpetually brooding mouth. She looked a lot like Nathaniel, actually, and he was reminded once more of how the others must have seen him. “There’s no reason why they should summon you instead of me,” she continued.
But there was a reason, of course. The Warden-Commander hadn’t been there when Anders had been, she had come only after the Hero of Ferelden had disappeared; from Highever, or some other place to the north. Nathaniel was the most senior warden -- and he was also known to have fraternized with the apostate boy. The Wardens at Weisshaupt knew that, of course; they knew everything, and to believe that he had been summoned merely for the fact that he had served a handful of months longer than anyone else was ridiculous. Under ordinary circumstances, the Warden-Commander would have been summoned. But these were no longer ordinary circumstances, thanks to Anders.
A chantry destroyed. A mage uprising. A war between the mages and the templars. The Circles had been set to burn, and around them, all of Thedas had caught fire. Nathaniel couldn’t count the number of dangerous maleficar they had rounded up and imprisoned over the past few months; nor the number of Templars who had come blustering and chest-pounding when the Wardens had remained neutral in the war.
They did not get involved with politics. Except when they did... but Nathaniel saw no reason for the Order to side with either mage or templar. In the end, balance would restore itself. And in his heart, he wished for the fall of the Circle, he wished for the mages to cast off their shackles and emancipate themselves.
Anders had infected him, then. He could feel his poison in his veins.
“I don’t know,” Nathaniel sighed. “But they asked for me. I’ll leave in the morning, with twenty of thirty of our finest men. The journey to Weisshaupt is long and dangerous... It will be many months before I return.”
The Warden-Commander seemed unperturbed by the news. No small wonder, really, she had never liked him, and he could say the feeling was mutual. Still, the Keep was as much his home as any other place where he had rested his head and paused to kick the dust off of his boots; he would miss it. Not so much the people -- Nathaniel had never been overly fond of people, nor of their constant complaining and chattering -- but the place. The Keep seemed to be as living and breathing as the people who occupied her, and he would miss her silent heartbeat.
It didn’t matter. The Keep would stand long after he was gone. In the end, not much mattered but the duty he had foolishly accepted.
If they meant to discuss Anders with him, Nathaniel would tell them what he knew; which was, unsurprisingly, not much. It had been years since he’d seen him, and when he had left The Keep he had made no mention of his plans or what spurred him. The destruction of the Chantry was regrettable, but Nathaniel didn’t see what further insight he could offer.
“Blighted mage deserves what he gets,” the Warden-Commander spat.
Nathaniel didn’t look at her.
~*~
I want you to tell me it isn’t true.
I want you to tell me that you didn’t hurt so many people... that you didn’t kill so many under the thin veil of justice. More than anything, I want you to tell me what possessed you so, what drove you from here and sent you down this path of no return; this path of blood and destruction and loneliness.
Was I not enough for you? Was I not enough to keep you here, to make the Wardens less of a curse and more of a blessing? I’ve never prided myself on being much, but with you, I felt that I---
Nathaniel looked up from the page, his fingers flexing around the quill. Ink stained his knuckles and fingertips, and his face was hidden in shadow and brief flickers of candlelight. He stopped not because of any pain in his hand or any block in his mind, but because he honestly couldn’t put into words what he had felt when he had been with Anders.
Loved, he might have written, he might have said if Anders had been with him... But it was such a small word, merely a drop of rain in an entire ocean. More than loved, more than needed, more than desired... He had felt whole. The name his father had left him hadn’t felt quite so mired in mud and shit, the world had seemed less harsh and severe, the space behind his ribs had seemed less stark and empty.
How do you write that down, even in a letter you have no way, and no intention, of sending?
Nathaniel’s fingers closed around the parchment. He crumpled the paper, not sure if he meant to throw it away or swallow it down where it might fill the empty spaces inside of him; where he might be free of the haunting echo of a lover’s laugh and the haunting memory of a lover’s kiss and the haunting ghost Anders had become.
“I felt something,” Nathaniel whispered, to the shadows and the cobwebs and the cold.
More than he’d ever felt before.
~*~
“I’ve no need for little girls,” Nathaniel said. He rubbed his hands together and blew into his cupped palms. It was frigidly cold, and no matter how he bundled himself up, he could not keep the chill from his bones. He knew that he was fighting a losing battle with the girl; Bethany was willful, and not so easily turned aside. Why she wished to trek across half of Thedas with him, Nathaniel had no clue. Had he the option to remain at The Keep inside its relative safety and warmth, he would have.
“I am no little girl,” Bethany said. “And you are no juggernaut. You can’t just charge ahead with no concern for your own well-being. You have good men here, but none of them mages. What will happen if you take with fever?”
“I’ve brought an apothecary,” Nathaniel challenged. “He will tend to any wounds or ailments.”
“To some, you mean,” Bethany said. “And what happens if something happens outside of his expertise? Will stubbornness be the death of you, Nathaniel Howe?”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Something is bound to be,” Nathaniel said. “Better stubbornness than a sword through the gut, eh?”
“Nathaniel,” Bethany warned.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. Come on, then.”
~*~
Nathaniel stood away from the rest of his envoy, down the path leading back towards The Keep. He could see nothing but a vast expanse of trees and the black sky overhead. Highever was some two days march ahead of them, where they would set sail to Cumberland across the Waking Sea.
He could have thought of any number of things as he stood with his hands aching from the chill. He could have thought of where they were headed, of what might await them when they arrived. He could have thought of Weisshaupt in all of its macabre decadence; parapets and towering columns and bronze statues reaching towards the sky. He could have thought of why they had summoned him, why they had decided that he was the only one they could speak to.
With every fibre of his being, he wished that he could have pondered on what the Wardens at Weisshaupt wanted from him. He wished he could have reflected on that night’s meal and how gristly and flavourless it had been. He wished he could have reflected on a multitude of things; but he found himself back in his room at The Keep, back between freckled thighs and sighing against a pale throat.
We were never allowed to do this, Anders had whispered. We could never... Nathaniel, you feel so good. Please don’t stop.
It had seemed a strange plea then, and it remained so now. How could he ever stop? Anders was inside of him, deeper than his bones; he was rooted in him, spreading tendrils through Nathaniel’s blood. He had never known anything of imprisonment -- aside from his brief stay in the dungeons below the Keep -- and he would not compare what he suffered to what Anders had been subjected to... but he could understand why a man would risk all for freedom. He understood why Anders had run, and why he had begged Nathaniel not to follow him.
Anders prison had been tangible, made of stone and watched by men with steel in their eyes and hands. Nathaniel’s prison was his own body; the space between his ribs, the hollow of his chest. Of all the things he had expected the night he had accepted the Hero of Ferelden’s offer to join the Grey Wardens, falling in love with a foolish mage boy had not been one of them.
It is a prison of my own making, Nathaniel thought.
Yes, but that didn’t make it any less confining, or any less cold.
He had his reasons, Nathaniel thought. He was protecting me. Protecting himself.
Yes, but that didn’t dim the hurt. That didn’t make his heart ache any less for the man. He had decided, in the night, held between Anders’ thighs and breathing in the scent of him, that he loved him. He had decided that he needed him, not to fill some space inside of him, but simply because he was beautiful, and young, and hurting, and he needed him.
It had been years, and he needed him still. Nathaniel had thought the desperate want for Anders would have faded, or at least lessened. But as he stood there in the cold, with his fingers curled against his palms, and his cheeks sliced with wind that was almost whistling through him, he knew that it hadn’t. Maybe it never would. Maybe he’d been damned by the mage boy and his sweet mouth and thighs and fingers.
In the end, it didn’t matter. He had been summoned for a reason, and he would not be a ghost haunting his own flesh when he arrived at Weisshaupt. He would present himself as a Senior Warden, and he would do what was asked of him.
They would not see him flinch.
Word Count: 7663
Rating: M
Warnings: Nudity, sexual content, blood, violence
Fandom: Dragon Age
Pairing: Nathaniel/Anders
Summary: With the disappearance of the Warden-Commander, Nathaniel has more than enough to occupy his thoughts; strangely, the only person he can think of is Anders. More than his lover, Anders was his friend, and Nathaniel finds it difficult to let go of him and move on. Things are only made worse when a missive arrives from Weisshaupt, summoning Nathaniel to the Fortress.
He knows precisely what the First Warden wants from him; and Nathaniel must fight a battle between his heart and his duty.
Author's Note: This was written for the Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang to accompany this lovely fanmix by itsadrizzit. The music and especially the way that the songs were put in order, evoked a strong feeling of regret, loss, grief, and that poignant, painful sense of losing someone you wanted badly to hold onto. The pairing (Nanders) was suggested by the itsadrizzit, but it was up to me, ultimately, to decide what pairing worked best with the music. For me, Nathaniel and Anders represented the tone and emotion of the fanmix extraordinarily well. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I worked very hard to get the emotion through without being overbearing. I really hope everyone, especially itsadrizzit, enjoys this story! <3
A huge thank you to wadebramwilson for doing such an awesome job as my beta! :D
Grey Sky Morning
Love letters left unsent. Some confessional, some accusatory, some desperate. He had learned to live without half of his heart, but it was nothing courageous, and nothing prideful. It was only a necessity. Anders was gone, far beyond his reach, and Nathaniel couldn’t send the letters, couldn’t bleed out the poison in his veins and just let himself know some kind of peace.
So he held onto the letters, and he let the wind carry his voice across the sea to where Anders might hear him calling his name.
~*~
He woke up with his bed and his chest empty. For a moment, Nathaniel forgot everything. He could remember nothing but the shape of lips against his ear, and the feel of scarred, dirty fingers on his shoulders. He remembered the sweetness, how it had filled him up, crept into spaces he’d long thought closed off. He remembered the bitterness of everything, how he’d spat and wiped his mouth from the taste.
Nathaniel remembered Anders in his bed, lounging like he had every right to be there, like he had every intention of staying there forever. And he remembered, better than anything else, Anders’ eyes in the darkness, weary and frightened and heavy. Nathaniel had kissed him. Nothing much, really, a kiss in the darkness between two tired men... but it had sparked in his chest, flint striking against his ribs, and he’d kissed Anders harder, deeper, wanting to invade him like some sweet plague.
And invade him Nathaniel had. That first night, he had been slow, cautious, too tentative. Anders had been a torch in the darkness, burning too bright, and he had not been content with the ease of Nathaniel’s passion. He’d wanted harder, deeper, faster, until everything was spinning and Nathaniel was breathless.
And what good had it done? What had it been for? There he stood, nearly half a year since he had found the mage in his bed, and Anders was gone. To the winds, or the sea, or the pitiless mountain road, it made no difference. He was gone, and in his wake he had left destruction; he had carved himself a niche in Nathaniel’s chest, and he had left him woefully empty.
Still, Nathaniel stood at the top of The Keep and looked west. He searched for the safest passage he could find, and was blinded by heavy mist. The land was covered in the mist, and his eyes too. There was no mapping a course for Anders, there was no place navigable that Nathaniel could see. Perhaps Anders had slipped into the earth, tunnelling his way to freedom as though he had the staunch heart of a dwarf. Or perhaps he had discovered a griffon and flown from The Keep, over the Amaranthine Sea, north to the Free Marches, like some Warden of Old.
There was enough humor left in him, apparently. Nathaniel chuckled at the image.
In the end, it was nothing so grand. Nathaniel found a note tucked under his pillow, written in Anders’ crooked hand:
There’s nothing left for me here. I was freed from one prison and locked within another. I’m sorry, Nathaniel... I couldn’t let you stop me. I have found a ship bound for the Marches. Please do not follow me.
--Anders
That was all. No confession of love, no painful regret, no tear-stained paper left to tremble in his hand. There was nothing left for him, and so Anders had gone. He had gone with explicit instructions he didn’t wish to be followed. Not because he was afraid of what Nathaniel might do if he got his hands on him -- not much, as it were, he had never been a violent man -- but because he was afraid what he might do.
What good was there in forcing a man to choose between his heart and his freedom?
In all things, they were forever bound too tightly.
~*~
Nathaniel could see his breath condensing in the air, yet there was still sweat clinging to his forehead. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.. It was always a strange feeling, being so hot and feeling the chill sink into his bones when he left the merchants and their packed-in stalls. There were provisions to be procured - several dozen new blades and a strong supply of ore. The Keep had swelled in the few months since the Architect had been dealt with, and Nathaniel had a hell of a time keeping up with everything.
The Warden-Commander shouted her orders, and Nathaniel bade them. He had no stubbornness left, and no real grudge against her. Sometimes he wished she would order him to hunt Anders down and drag him back to Amaranthine by his ear, but so far she hadn’t spoken of the man, other than to condemn his desertion.
No honor amongst them, though; Nathaniel doubted it was duty that kept him where he was so much as it was the monotony of it all. He found the daily rituals and chores relaxing, settling into them comfortably. He had lived across the sea, he had fought in battle and warred for glory, he had seen braver men fall while he continued to draw breath, and he had watched as the last vestiges of good left to his name were dragged through the mud. There was enough pride in the work he did, in the bastion he kept and the oath he had made. Beyond that, Nathaniel had lost the taste for adventure.
Save when it came to Anders...
Sometimes he still thought of Anders when he had enough time left alone to actually think. He thought of him on some distant shore with sand warm between his toes and some other person’s tongue in his mouth and some other person’s fingers slipped through his honey blond hair.
It caught at his heart like barbed wire. There was no other way to explain what he felt. The pain seemed bad enough to ruin him, and sometimes he was almost sure he could taste blood from his punctured heart, creeping up his throat.
There was no reason he should have thought of Anders. He had taken the boy to bed a dozen or so times, he had kissed his collarbone and breathed heavy against his throat and trembled between his thighs; but that didn’t mean he had been made promises, and it certainly didn’t mean that Anders had owed him anything, least of all an explanation or a goodbye.
Still, Nathaniel thought of him, obsessed over him. It was unhealthy, and dangerous, and distracting, and he was helpless against it. Anders had gotten inside of him, as swiftly and stealthily as an assassin. He had crawled into him some quiet night, when the darkness had been heavy on them and Nathaniel had been terribly naked, and he had refused to leave without making a mess of things.
Now he was cold, even when he sat near the fire with his fingers stiff and his furs draped heavy over his shoulders. Winter had come early and there was no escape.
~*~
That first night, Nathaniel shivered. He hadn’t been cold then, but he had trembled still. Anders laughed, against his mouth, his body too hot and too solid and too wanting underneath him. Nathaniel kissed him, tasted some kind of spice he couldn’t place, some kind of sweetness that lingered on his tongue and the back of his throat long after Anders left.
He’d thought: I could kiss you forever.
He’d said, while tugging at Anders’ robes: “Take these off.”
Anders smiled, like he had any right to look so good, like he had any right to crawl inside of Nathaniel as easily as he did and settle down under muscle and bone. Nothing more than a boy, with a boy’s tender eyes and a boy’s quivering mouth and a boy’s flushed, needy body. It was easy to forget that Anders was little more than a boy, actually. Seventeen; painfully young, painfully soft, painfully full of hope and desire and pride.
Nathaniel kissed him, harder and deeper. There was no shallowness when it came to Anders. He would either drown in him, or he would be without him. To taste him and pull away was an idea Nathaniel hadn’t even entertained. Anders would be the death of him, or he would be nothing more than a faded memory at the back of his mind. There was no in-between, no holding onto him without being submerged in him.
“I wanted to see if these fingers were good for anything besides playing with bows,” Anders whispered, his voice broken with a laugh when Nathaniel sucked a bruise onto his throat. In truth, Nathaniel thought Anders was similar to a bowstring; a lovely bit of tension that only needed the right fingers.
He slipped between Anders’ thighs, mouth hot and slick against him. He traced his tongue over freckles and pale skin, over a birthmark that Anders seemed self-conscious about, closing his thighs a bit when Nathaniel paid especial attention to it. Nathaniel wondered how many people had moved between his thighs, how many pairs of lips had kissed his flushed skin and felt his muscles tremble, how many fingers had fit against the grooves of his hips.
Not many, judging by how Anders squirmed and laughed and moaned. The Circle wasn’t known for its encouragement of sex and love between its mages. Most likely Anders had never felt someone touch him in such a way, and if he had, it had probably been quick and frantic and desperate.
Nathaniel was slow with him. He bit against his thighs and swept his fingertips down to curl behind his knees. He tongued and nipped at Anders’ cock, only swallowing him to the back of his throat when Anders arched and begged for him. He worked him with methodical care, easing off when Anders’ fingers gripped his shoulder in warning..
“Need you,” Anders panted.
Nathaniel settled his hips between Anders’ thighs. For what might have been a moment or perhaps an eternity, he looked down into Anders’ eyes. Amber, half-lidded, so tender they hurt him. Nathaniel slipped his thumb over Anders’ lips, before sliding it between his teeth and letting him suck and bite. He almost asked if Anders was ready, if he wanted more, if he needed to be fucked.
His eyes were answer enough.
He wasn’t sure how it happened, but he ended up standing, with Anders’ in his arms, pinned between the wall and Nathaniel’s body. His hair was loose around his face, disturbed by his heavy breathing. Nathaniel saw bruises on his throat and shoulders and chest, purple-black around his nipple where Nathaniel had latched on.
Too dizzy, too hazy, too much, too soon. Nathaniel could only hold on and keep moving his hips, keep digging his fingers into Anders’ ass, keep rocking up on his heels to bury himself deeper.
Anders said his name, a whisper that became a moan that became a shout as his nails dug into Nathaniel’s back and tore across him. He could feel heat and wetness, blood he assumed, but it didn’t matter. He was riding a high that he had never ridden before, and if Anders wished to cut him open, Nathaniel couldn’t be bothered to care. He wanted to be covered in him, bathed in him, lost in him; he wanted to bleed if it meant Anders might get into his blood easier.
Anders came, hard, sudden, breath wet and ragged against Nathaniel’s shoulder. Nathaniel joined him, hiding his noises in Anders’ sweaty throat, letting his teeth dig in deep at Anders’ collarbone.
Typically, Nathaniel would have dressed quickly and left. He liked sex well enough... but what came after had never appealed to him. He did not seek to get lost in a pair of pretty eyes or spend the night held in a pair of warm arms. He wanted his space and his privacy and the relative safety of his own bed. Nathaniel couldn’t imagine surrendering himself to so much sweetness and softness. It seemed easy enough to get lost there forever, or at the very least, to want to.
For some reason, he moved back to the bed and rested his face against Anders’ chest. He listened to the beating of his heart, fast and hard at first, before calming and slowing. He listened to Anders breathe as the candles burned out and the room was swallowed in darkness. His breath steadied and slowed as his heart did. He was asleep within minutes, and Nathaniel was free to leave him.
He stayed.
Easy enough to get lost there forever.
~*~
Please do not follow me.
Nathaniel couldn’t, even if he desired to. He had no idea of where Anders might have gone, or what he might be doing. It was easy enough to make assumptions, to guess and speculate until his head and chest ached; but he honestly didn’t know. He could have sailed for Antiva or Rivain, he could have marched across the Frostback Mountains and into Orlais, he might have even made his way to the Anderfels. Thedas was sprawling, and there were many places where a man could hide.
He’d heard the reports that Anders was in Kirkwall, but he never pursued them. He couldn’t believe the man would sail north and simply... stop. He meant to run, and there was nothing for him in Kirkwall, nothing that would tie him to the place for long. More than that, Nathaniel couldn’t imagine Anders would wish to remain in a place that had such a large Circle Tower and templar presence. After his merge with Justice, he had become more vocal about mage freedom. He had told Nathaniel one night that there would be a revolution, and he should choose a side before the flames began to lick at his heels.
Of course he would choose whichever side Anders placed him on, for good or ill. To abandon the man was to cut out half of his own heart.
So Nathaniel never believed the reports that Anders had taken up refuge in Kirkwall... not until Stroud spoke of meeting him in the Deep Roads, and when he returned to the Keep with a mage girl in his company. Bethany Hawke, an apostate girl from Lothering who had escaped to Kirkwall when the Blight had ravaged Ferelden. A pretty thing, with dark eyes and hair that constantly slipped into her eyes. She spoke of Anders, her eyes never meeting his, and he knew that the boy whose freckles he had kissed was no more.
“He demands blood,” Bethany said. “I don’t think he’ll ever be satisfied.”
“He’ll have blood,” Nathaniel said. “And Maker forgive me, I hope it’s soon.”
~*~
The letter trembled in his hands. Nathaniel found it difficult to read more than once. His eyes, for some reason, had gone blurry. He set the missive from Weisshaupt down, staring into the fire that cracked and popped, offering little warmth to a room and a bag of bones that still remained cold. Nathaniel still posessed the presence of mind and sense of duty to order his horse prepared and for a small envoy to be prepared at dawn.
“What could Weisshaupt possibly want?” The Warden-Commander asked. She was a blunt woman, with heavy brows and a perpetually brooding mouth. She looked a lot like Nathaniel, actually, and he was reminded once more of how the others must have seen him. “There’s no reason why they should summon you instead of me,” she continued.
But there was a reason, of course. The Warden-Commander hadn’t been there when Anders had been, she had come only after the Hero of Ferelden had disappeared; from Highever, or some other place to the north. Nathaniel was the most senior warden -- and he was also known to have fraternized with the apostate boy. The Wardens at Weisshaupt knew that, of course; they knew everything, and to believe that he had been summoned merely for the fact that he had served a handful of months longer than anyone else was ridiculous. Under ordinary circumstances, the Warden-Commander would have been summoned. But these were no longer ordinary circumstances, thanks to Anders.
A chantry destroyed. A mage uprising. A war between the mages and the templars. The Circles had been set to burn, and around them, all of Thedas had caught fire. Nathaniel couldn’t count the number of dangerous maleficar they had rounded up and imprisoned over the past few months; nor the number of Templars who had come blustering and chest-pounding when the Wardens had remained neutral in the war.
They did not get involved with politics. Except when they did... but Nathaniel saw no reason for the Order to side with either mage or templar. In the end, balance would restore itself. And in his heart, he wished for the fall of the Circle, he wished for the mages to cast off their shackles and emancipate themselves.
Anders had infected him, then. He could feel his poison in his veins.
“I don’t know,” Nathaniel sighed. “But they asked for me. I’ll leave in the morning, with twenty of thirty of our finest men. The journey to Weisshaupt is long and dangerous... It will be many months before I return.”
The Warden-Commander seemed unperturbed by the news. No small wonder, really, she had never liked him, and he could say the feeling was mutual. Still, the Keep was as much his home as any other place where he had rested his head and paused to kick the dust off of his boots; he would miss it. Not so much the people -- Nathaniel had never been overly fond of people, nor of their constant complaining and chattering -- but the place. The Keep seemed to be as living and breathing as the people who occupied her, and he would miss her silent heartbeat.
It didn’t matter. The Keep would stand long after he was gone. In the end, not much mattered but the duty he had foolishly accepted.
If they meant to discuss Anders with him, Nathaniel would tell them what he knew; which was, unsurprisingly, not much. It had been years since he’d seen him, and when he had left The Keep he had made no mention of his plans or what spurred him. The destruction of the Chantry was regrettable, but Nathaniel didn’t see what further insight he could offer.
“Blighted mage deserves what he gets,” the Warden-Commander spat.
Nathaniel didn’t look at her.
~*~
I want you to tell me it isn’t true.
I want you to tell me that you didn’t hurt so many people... that you didn’t kill so many under the thin veil of justice. More than anything, I want you to tell me what possessed you so, what drove you from here and sent you down this path of no return; this path of blood and destruction and loneliness.
Was I not enough for you? Was I not enough to keep you here, to make the Wardens less of a curse and more of a blessing? I’ve never prided myself on being much, but with you, I felt that I---
Nathaniel looked up from the page, his fingers flexing around the quill. Ink stained his knuckles and fingertips, and his face was hidden in shadow and brief flickers of candlelight. He stopped not because of any pain in his hand or any block in his mind, but because he honestly couldn’t put into words what he had felt when he had been with Anders.
Loved, he might have written, he might have said if Anders had been with him... But it was such a small word, merely a drop of rain in an entire ocean. More than loved, more than needed, more than desired... He had felt whole. The name his father had left him hadn’t felt quite so mired in mud and shit, the world had seemed less harsh and severe, the space behind his ribs had seemed less stark and empty.
How do you write that down, even in a letter you have no way, and no intention, of sending?
Nathaniel’s fingers closed around the parchment. He crumpled the paper, not sure if he meant to throw it away or swallow it down where it might fill the empty spaces inside of him; where he might be free of the haunting echo of a lover’s laugh and the haunting memory of a lover’s kiss and the haunting ghost Anders had become.
“I felt something,” Nathaniel whispered, to the shadows and the cobwebs and the cold.
More than he’d ever felt before.
~*~
“I’ve no need for little girls,” Nathaniel said. He rubbed his hands together and blew into his cupped palms. It was frigidly cold, and no matter how he bundled himself up, he could not keep the chill from his bones. He knew that he was fighting a losing battle with the girl; Bethany was willful, and not so easily turned aside. Why she wished to trek across half of Thedas with him, Nathaniel had no clue. Had he the option to remain at The Keep inside its relative safety and warmth, he would have.
“I am no little girl,” Bethany said. “And you are no juggernaut. You can’t just charge ahead with no concern for your own well-being. You have good men here, but none of them mages. What will happen if you take with fever?”
“I’ve brought an apothecary,” Nathaniel challenged. “He will tend to any wounds or ailments.”
“To some, you mean,” Bethany said. “And what happens if something happens outside of his expertise? Will stubbornness be the death of you, Nathaniel Howe?”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Something is bound to be,” Nathaniel said. “Better stubbornness than a sword through the gut, eh?”
“Nathaniel,” Bethany warned.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. Come on, then.”
~*~
Nathaniel stood away from the rest of his envoy, down the path leading back towards The Keep. He could see nothing but a vast expanse of trees and the black sky overhead. Highever was some two days march ahead of them, where they would set sail to Cumberland across the Waking Sea.
He could have thought of any number of things as he stood with his hands aching from the chill. He could have thought of where they were headed, of what might await them when they arrived. He could have thought of Weisshaupt in all of its macabre decadence; parapets and towering columns and bronze statues reaching towards the sky. He could have thought of why they had summoned him, why they had decided that he was the only one they could speak to.
With every fibre of his being, he wished that he could have pondered on what the Wardens at Weisshaupt wanted from him. He wished he could have reflected on that night’s meal and how gristly and flavourless it had been. He wished he could have reflected on a multitude of things; but he found himself back in his room at The Keep, back between freckled thighs and sighing against a pale throat.
We were never allowed to do this, Anders had whispered. We could never... Nathaniel, you feel so good. Please don’t stop.
It had seemed a strange plea then, and it remained so now. How could he ever stop? Anders was inside of him, deeper than his bones; he was rooted in him, spreading tendrils through Nathaniel’s blood. He had never known anything of imprisonment -- aside from his brief stay in the dungeons below the Keep -- and he would not compare what he suffered to what Anders had been subjected to... but he could understand why a man would risk all for freedom. He understood why Anders had run, and why he had begged Nathaniel not to follow him.
Anders prison had been tangible, made of stone and watched by men with steel in their eyes and hands. Nathaniel’s prison was his own body; the space between his ribs, the hollow of his chest. Of all the things he had expected the night he had accepted the Hero of Ferelden’s offer to join the Grey Wardens, falling in love with a foolish mage boy had not been one of them.
It is a prison of my own making, Nathaniel thought.
Yes, but that didn’t make it any less confining, or any less cold.
He had his reasons, Nathaniel thought. He was protecting me. Protecting himself.
Yes, but that didn’t dim the hurt. That didn’t make his heart ache any less for the man. He had decided, in the night, held between Anders’ thighs and breathing in the scent of him, that he loved him. He had decided that he needed him, not to fill some space inside of him, but simply because he was beautiful, and young, and hurting, and he needed him.
It had been years, and he needed him still. Nathaniel had thought the desperate want for Anders would have faded, or at least lessened. But as he stood there in the cold, with his fingers curled against his palms, and his cheeks sliced with wind that was almost whistling through him, he knew that it hadn’t. Maybe it never would. Maybe he’d been damned by the mage boy and his sweet mouth and thighs and fingers.
In the end, it didn’t matter. He had been summoned for a reason, and he would not be a ghost haunting his own flesh when he arrived at Weisshaupt. He would present himself as a Senior Warden, and he would do what was asked of him.
They would not see him flinch.