here comes your man (open, intro post)

[birdhousesoul]

((I have decided to elide the inevitable "I'm on a space station? What's that? Why is T-Pain here, and why am I wearing this nautical-themed pashmina afghan?" sequence.

Scenario I/II is a set piece. Scenarios III and IV invite response, if anyone feels so moved!))

I. A pod begins to shake

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[birdhousesoul]

He's at once relieved and slightly ashamed that his approach has yielded the hoped-for result, so far as he can tell, anyway. Hawke won't make a scene. How many times, he wonders suddenly (it occurs, suddenly, that he should wonder), has she hoped the same of him? Telling off Knight-Commander Meredith in the heart of Templar Hall was perhaps not his finest moment, and Hawke was all that stood between him and immediate arrest as a seditious apostate. And she did that for him, stood by him and let him capitalize on her standing, let him -

He is not thinking clearly, he decides.

Probably a combination of patchouli and brickquer fumes, inducing lightheadedness. That's all. He needs to dunk his head in cold water, or something.

He takes an even, measured breath. "Tell you what. The night's shot anyhow. Why don't I go and ... make myself more fit for human company. Shave some of this off," he cups his chin in one hand and moves his hand a little to feel and hear the gritting of stubble against the skin, it's gotten that bad. "And when I'm presentable to the Champion of Kirkwall, I'll present myself. To answer for my multitude of crimes."

Amazingly, a note of humor actually creeps into that last remark.

He quashes it, though. "I promise." Dares to reach out, to touch her shoulder. "If you're not ready then, I'll leave. But you'll know where to find me."

[try_winging_it]

Hawke can feel the warmth of his hand through the shirt she's wearing, and suddenly it seems like a very long time since anyone touched her. She allows it, though she doesn't react outwardly. And damn him, he can read her stillness better than most, will know it for deep emotion rather than a lack of it.

But she's never been able to resist Anders' mix of flippancy and heartfelt sincerity, and it's certainly a better idea than standing in the middle of the bar and trying not to make a scene. "On the condition that you don't refer to me as the Champion of Kirkwall again. Not that I ever gave a damn about presentable even when I was that." She lets out a long breath, releasing some of the tension in her body with it. "Are we talking an hour to get yourself cleaned up, or a day?" That half-smile quirks again, because she never could resist a teasing remark even when there's nothing funny about the situation. "Or do you need that month of beauty sleep first?"

[birdhousesoul]

"That depends. How beautiful do you want me to be?" If Anders is overdoing it on the joking-to-serious ratio, he can't help it. Smiling with her, seeing her smile, feels better than he has any right to feel. Certainly better than he thought he could feel before this conversation took place. He knows what she's asking is important, however, and he has to address it carefully if he's not to undo whatever good she and he have accomplished here tonight.

"I wish it could be an hour." Unconsciously he glances down at Teo, to check the mabari's reaction. (He fell into this habit over years with Hawke, even before their romance began: get a fix on the mabari's mood and you have a key to the master's. It's not one-hundred-percent foolproof and Teo is subtler than the average dog, but Anders likes to think it has kept him from making some severe blunders over the years. If Teo's on edge, Anders knows, best to tread extra-carefully around Hawke.) "But," he allows, reluctantly, "that probably isn't the best idea. A day, does that sound reasonable?" He waits a beat, then continues, inspired: "I mean, it's going to take a while to get a lot of the really ground-in dirt out."

[try_winging_it]

She shouldn't be joking so much. It's misleading, not to mention it feels like a further breach of trust, though she'd be hard-pressed to say to whom. But humor's always been Hawke's defense mechanism, and it's a long time since they were able to tease each other. Not just her five months, but those long weeks when they were so busy not saying things to each other that they weren't able to say much of anything at all. "Good luck. You'll need every minute, some of that dirt has been permanently ingrained for years." She shrugs, mostly so that he'll move his hand from her shoulder. "Tomorrow, then. You can meet me at the library, that's where I usually am in the afternoon." That should be safe enough. Neutral territory.

[birdhousesoul]

((oh lord, like half of act 3 where when you right-click on him he snottily informs you that "I think we're better off focusing on the task at hand"? Yeaaaah. THAT needs to be brought up, because WTF ANDERS.))

"The library, then, tomorrow. It's a date," says Anders, who promptly regrets the remark, but it's already been said, so. There's that.

[try_winging_it]

((oh, a lot of things need to be brought up. She should just make a list))

Hawke raises her eyebrow and gives him an eloquent look, not bothering to point out how completely ludicrous (and not in amusing ways) that description is.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders has the good grace to blush. It's the classic Anders blush, right out to the tips of his ears.

"Yes. Well. I'd better get going, then, if I'm to have a head-start on excavating these pores."

((let me know what happens next / when they should next thread! also, edited this for pronoun inclusion ))

[try_winging_it]

"You do that," Hawke says wryly, walking past him towards the bar. She came in here for some alcohol, and by Andraste's pyre she's more determined than ever to get it.

But she pauses just next to him and adds, more quietly and without looking at him, "It's good to see you, too." A breath. "Painful. But good."

She keeps walking before he can say anything else; Teo picks himself up and follows, brushing against Anders' leg as he jogs by.

((give me, uhm, a day or so, Hawke may have some interaction with Zevran and/or Sheeana in the interim and I should at least get that started))