Fic: A Dead Man's Heart, Part 1
Title: A Dead Man's Heart, Part 1
Character/Pairings: Justice/f!Hawke, Anders/f!Hawke
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It is emotion that changes a spirit from what they are, and love warps just as much as anger and hate. Trapped within Anders' mind, Justice sees a world he is not a part of and loves a woman who he can never touch.
A/N: Originally written for a prompt on the kmeme, this is mostly an exploration of Justice as he exists within Anders and how he is changed by this. Details about Hawke are kept fairly vague as much of this is how Justice sees her and not necessarily how she really is.
At first, he has no concept of love. He is simply Justice, a single virtue, nothing more. Within the Fade this is what he is, and he is content to be as such.
And then he is no longer in the Fade, but trapped within the corpse of a man. And he can feel the echoes of this man, of Kristoff, and this changes him. He remembers a life of emotion and beauty, but more than anything he remembers this Warden's love for a woman.
And this is something that Justice has never experienced before.
It is a frightening thing - and even that is new, this feeling of fright - but he can exist with this new addition to himself. He comes to realize that these things in the mortal world - these emotions, the tangibility of the land around him, the songs of lyrium - are beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful.
When Aura touches his face in the Amaranthine Chantry, the slightest brush of her fingers over his decaying skin, Justice feels that echo of Kristoff's love for her, a faded feeling that sparks within him. It is something not his own, and yet he finds it beautiful. And, even more than finding it beautiful, he finds that he also wishes to feel this emotion as his own.
But Kristoff's body decays, rots away, cannot be held together by Justice's will alone, and he knows that he must leave soon. There is a sense of fear in this as well, but not simply the fear that his essence will dissipate into the mortal world. No, he fear the loss of these emotions, of this sense of...humanity that Kristoff's memories have instilled in him. He looks at this world, at the injustices within it, at the anger and hate and fear, how these mortals cannot see the beauty that is around them and held within them, and he wishes he could do more. He is Justice, but he cannot do much, trapped as he is within the failing body of a dead Warden.
But then there is Anders, this fragile mortal who goes through life with a smile upon his face, who avoids the things that cause him pain even as his words are laced with a bitterness at the things the world holds for him, at the situation that all mages must endure. This is a man who could act, but does not, and as the two speak of things, so many things, something becomes clear to Justice. This mage could be more, but he does not think that he can. He cannot look outside of himself for fear of what lies there.
Together, perhaps, they could do more. Anders is a burning spark of humanity and possibility, and when Justice tells him of his proposal, the man does not back away.
And,what began with the remnants of Kristoff's heart continues with Anders'.
*
At first, there is no difference between them. In those first moments, Justice and Anders are the same, their thoughts intertwined. There are no spaces, no individuality. They meld into one another, spirit and mortal, and who they were before is no more.
It is not until Anders panics and pushes himself to the forefront of their minds that they become separate, and this is the first time that he realizes something has gone wrong. He can see what Anders sees, the aftermath of their rage, the bodies strewn around them and the blood that stains the snow. This is not what he had wanted. Not what they had wanted.
There are dead Wardens all around them, and they cannot remain here.
They cannot stay in Ferelden.
*
Being part of Anders is very different from inhabiting Kristoff's corpse. There are no echoes here, every emotion is vivid and alive. Fear, anger, hate - but also joy and happiness and lust, so many things that Justice has never experienced before. It is brighter than the songs of lyrium, so much more immediate and real, so much so that Justice can hardly bear it.
Is this what he had wanted?
He does not know for certain, but he can feel what Anders feels. Every bit of it. But it is so very different from before. Justice sits in the back of Anders' mind, but he is not in control. This is not his own body, and Anders' mind has a stronger connection to it.
But he knows now why Anders had agreed to this joining. There is a letter, received only days before all of this had happened, and it is from someone Anders cares for. A mage, trapped in Kirkwall. Trapped in some place called the Gallows, where the threat of tranquility hangs even more immediately over the heads of the mages there than in the Ferelden Circle. And this rite is something Anders fears, for it takes a mage and separates them from the Fade. Their beautiful humanity is stripped away in an instant, never to return.
It is an injustice. Such an injustice, and something that pains Anders. This man - Karl - is important to him. Justice feels the memory of something like Kristoff's love for Aura, though it is not the same. Affection that has come from knowing this man for years, perhaps? And guilt, he thinks, for something that Justice cannot place. He does not know how the feelings of mortals change, and this is not the same thing that Kristoff's memories had left him with.
He cannot understand this. There are too many variations of emotions, too many nuances. But he knows that Anders cared for this man - still cares for this man - and that they must go to him.
They must go to Kirkwall.
*
And this is where he meets her, in a dank, musty clinic in the worst part of Kirkwall. He has been with Anders for some time, growing used to being a presence within his mind, learning where the two of them overlap and where the two of them are separate. They are not completely the same being, but they are also not purely different. There are places where they are nearly as one, bits of their minds knit seamlessly together.
But they both notice someone enter their clinic, several someones, armed and armored. It is a threat - perhaps one of the many gangs that plague the streets has caught up with them. And they are ready - both of them are ready - to defend this place.
It is one of those odd, strange moments where Justice rises closer to the surface of Anders' mind, his own self bleeding out of this body that they share. It is the anger and sparks of fear that push him forward, the main emotions that seem to tie them together.
Then there is a woman standing there, speaking to Anders, and she is a threat. Anders feels this and Justice feels this, and he is not certain just how dangerous she is. He must be ready to -
But she is talking, just talking, and they are confused. She asks for maps of the Deep Roads and Anders is not willing to simply give them to her.
But maybe she can help them, Justice thinks, and Anders thinks, and neither of them are completely certain who it originates from. They must meet Karl that night, and if something is to go wrong...well, Justice is not certain that the two of them alone will be enough.
They do not expect her to agree.
And then...and then she does.
*
He should have picked up on the fact that she is a mage much sooner than he does, but it is not until they are in the Chantry and have been attacked by Templars that he realizes what she is. Neither he nor Anders realized that the long blade she carried was actually a mage's staff, and they do not do so until they see her wreath herself in lightning that spills from her fingertips and brings Templars to their knees.
But that is getting ahead of himself, and it is still strange, this linearity to how the mortal world works. Time is strange here, so very unlike how it flows in the Fade. It is easier for him to focus on the flare of emotion, either in Anders or in himself.
And when Anders sees Karl standing there, his forehead branded with a symbol that encompassed so many of the mage's fears, there is so much emotion. Anger, hate, and grief, with such self-loathing overriding everything as he realizes that the have come too late.
These are not the things that Justice feels, and yet they are. He is overwhelmed by Anders, the feelings fueling him, and when he hears the woman's warning - there are Templars - he bursts free.
Only...it is not exactly Justice. It is the same being that had been there in those moments after they had first joined together, this seething, corrupted thing, justice untempered by compassion, comprised of anger and hate and grief - so much grief - and it is at once both of them and neither of them.
It is something that is Justice and yet not, and while he is technically the one in command of Anders' body in those moment, there is something that changes the very core of what he is, stripping away all of his control.
But this woman...while her eyes go wide at the sight of them - at the sight of him, the blue cracks that open along their skin and the smoke that surrounds them - she does not turn on them. There are Templars and her attention turns to them. And she fights them, taking Templars to the ground with her magic and the bladed end of her staff, the electric tang of magic thick in the air around her.
And yet it is in a later moment, after Anders is back in control, after Karl has died in their arms, after they have returned to his clinic and Anders has told her of their situation - there is this moment where they both expect her to turn way from them. She is a mage, she knows of abominations, she could easily decide that this is what they are and decide that she will have nothing to do with them. What they are is too close to what mages fear becoming, too close to what Anders fears becoming, and they expect her to leave them and never look back.
But she doesn't. She sits beside them for a time, just talking to them - no, to Anders - and there is this little spark of emotion that wells up within them as she continues to meet their eyes and even smile at them despite knowing what they are. Justice cannot identify what this emotion is, this delicate, new feeling, and he cannot say who feels it first. And there is this confusion that he feels, and that is his own, he thinks.
This woman - Hawke - is the first to learn of their secret, and she has not turned them away.
*
The thing is, Justice is trapped. Within Anders, within his mind, and he cannot get free, not without taking the risk of what Anders' anger might turn them into. But it is not always his choice, he finds, it seems that he is tied to some of the worse things that lurk within the mage, coming free in the moments when Anders feels most threatened or vulnerable.
But then there are the moments when they see something unjust, where Justice's very nature compels him to come forward. And as their cause is that of the mages, it is injustices against them that bring forth the most anger and rage and hurt, and that is when Justice is most able to break free.
Being held within this body, unable to communicate with anyone beyond Anders, it is such a terrible feeling, but this is a thought that he does not share with the mage. He does not wish to trouble the man further, his emotions already tumultuous in both the aftermath of their joining and in the weeks after Karl's death.
And this is also where he finds the differences between them - Justice can feel Anders' pain at losing the man, and it pains him as well, but not all of Anders' affection has been transferred to him. While their cause is a shared one - the liberation of mages, the ending of the tyranny of the Templars and Chantry - they are not as singular in their individual feelings.
And this, then, might be where it starts. Anders mourns, but Justice does not. In those days that they first come to know Hawke, while Anders can look at her and find her an attractive woman, there is nothing within him that sees her as anything more than that. And as for Justice...well, he does not fully understand this concept of 'attraction'. He imagines it is like the call of lyrium or the spark of emotion, and when he thinks of Hawke it is not anything of how she looks that draws him in. It is, rather, the way in which she speaks to them, how as they follow her on her adventures she proves herself to be a champion to mages.
There are little things that she does, little things that blur together because there is little he can do to accurately determine when they happened, but they amount up to something that sits within Justice, something that sings to him like an emotion, but he does not understand it. He concludes that it must be something of Anders' that he is feeling, for it could not possibly be something that is his.
But he feels this want - he thinks that is what it is - to speak to her, particularly after they finally manage to track down the half elven mage boy, the one who's magic sings so loudly and strangely, who is tied so strongly to the Fade.
Despite the protests of the white haired elf that follows her, she does not send the boy to the Gallows. She does not even seem to consider it.
He will go to the Dalish. He will be free of the Templars.
And there is such...gratitude, this sweeping relief that is something of both Anders and Justice. They have not known her long enough to truly gauge what she will do in situations, but with this she shows that she will stand for mages. That she can.
He wishes to speak to her, to try to convey what this action of hers means to them, but he is trapped within this man, unable to utter a word.
It is a torment, and one he can do little about.
It is later and they sit in their clinic, Hawke at their side. She sits upon one of the cots that has been set up for healing, though she is not injured; her feet swing idly as she smiles at them. Warmth builds within Anders' chest at this smile, something shared by the two of them. There is a lightness to how she speak, her words much like how he remembers those that Anders used to say, back when he and Justice were separate. Though...no, that is an unfair comparison. There are similarities, yes, and this is something he has noticed. The humor used to cover for other things, hiding hurts. He does not quite understand this - this humor deflects from the truth of one's words, obscures meaning, and he is glad that Anders does not speak quite as he used to. Justice does not...approve of hiding meaning like this.
But she speaks of the Circle and her sister, and some of this humor fades from her voice. She is the last mage in her family, but there were two more. Two more apostates who defied the Chantry and lived free.
She might not know the horrors of the Circle as Anders does, but she knows the terror of fleeing from Templars, of living in fear. Knows that a boy such as the half elven mage - knows that no mage - would thrive within the confines of a place such as the Gallows.
He wants to tell her what this means. But he cannot.
The conversation slides from topic to topic, things that Justice does not quite understand. Anders laughs, happiness bubbling up within him. There is an ease to how the two speak that Justice has not yet seen in any other of the conversations he has witnessed from behind this man's eyes.
And Justice...he wants. Just to speak to her. Just that. This happiness that Anders feels, Justice wishes to feel it as well.
The conversation twists, something that Hawke says striking at a memory hidden within Anders, something that is an old hurt, but one that still pains him. Family, Justice thinks, and loss.
There are cracks that show, little places for him to slip through, and it is a combination of this vulnerability in Anders and Justice's want for a moment of his own that allows him to come to the forefront. For a moment, and only a moment, this body is his, and he can move and speak and -
And yet whatever it is that had changed them before comes back, and Justice is twisted by anger and hurt. He is barely aware of what this body says, and he sees Hawke flinch away from him just the slightest, the glow that emanates from this body highlighting her skin in blue.
“Anders, you're glowing,” she says, and it is so different, hearing what she says while he is in control of this body. He opens his mouth - and it is so different, moving within a body that is not dead, that can still move as a body is supposed to move and is not at the risk of falling to dust at any moment - but Anders fights his way forward and he is pulled back, those few moment of freedom slipping away.
He hears Anders apologize to this woman that sits before them, and she sets a hand atop theirs as they try to pull away from her.
It is all right, she tells them - tells Anders - and Justice is trapped once more and cannot speak to her.
*
It is like living within a bubble, seeing things, experiencing them as though from a great distance. Words are like echoes, images muted and indistinct. He sees and hears, but he does nothing, the world around him something that he cannot touch.
But it is not all terrible. He and Anders...for all that there is something not right about this, they are so much stronger together. They can do things that neither could do without the other.
He gives Anders a sense of purpose, a drive that the man did not have before. Together, they are the cause of mages. Together, they can change this world.
He does not think that Hawke truly understands this, not yet. She looks at them and sometimes, when Anders speaks to her, when the cracks open up and Justice is allowed out, she has this look upon her face as though she cannot comprehend just how bad things can be. She has been hunted, yes, has lost those dear to her, but she has never been shut up within a tower, never been stripped of her magic again and again and again just because a Templar so willed it.
She knows fear, but not the reality of it, not as Anders knows it.
He fears that it is a trap, when she tells them of a letter sent to her, one asking for help from one who has shown themselves a friend to mages. He fears and Anders fears, but they will not let her go alone.
Hawke takes the pirate woman who Justice knows from Anders' memories and the blood mage with them - he does not understand why she trusts these two, only that she does.
He is glad to see that the broody elf is not here. If this is, in fact, not a trap, then it is best not to risk bringing along one who despises mages.
But when they arrive at the specified location, they are met by a Templar.
And it is a trap, he knows it is a trap, Anders knows it is a trap, and yet Hawke is walking straight into it. And they are ready - he is ready - to do whatever is necessary to keep this Templar from harming her.
Hawke looks to them and sets a hand to their shoulder.
“Let me talk to him before you start glowing,” she tells them.
Trap, trap, trap, he sings within Anders' mind and the mage struggles to hold him back. It is hard, because they are both in agreement on this. But Anders is insistent that they do not show what they are to a Templar, and while there is this seething anger that any Templar should be allowed to live and inflict further abuses upon mages, they cannot risk this. Not yet.
And it is with a sort of dawning awe that they realize that this Templar is trying to help. There are mages within the cave, and he wants to save them. No, not save them - he simply wishes for them not to be killed.
And Hawke...will do anything to keep these mages safe.
The smile that appears when she insists that she will help them- and it is a small smile, barely gracing their mouth - is both Anders' and his own.
*
It is after this - or maybe it is another incident, Justice cannot truly know, his sense of time still so different from that of the mortals around him - that Anders' thoughts of Hawke change from viewing her as a friend to something very different. It is odd and strange, and while Justice is not unfamiliar with the idea of these sort of things, it is something entirely different to inhabit a body that wants and desires and lusts, things that are not virtuous, things that Justice still thinks of as tied too strongly to the demonic.
There is an odd sort of connection between their minds - they are each able to think differently, though most times the thoughts of one will direct the thoughts of the other without the other consciously realizing it.
And this is one of the moments where neither of them will ever be certain whose thoughts were directing the others.
But it starts with this: thoughts of Hawke. One of them thinks of her, one of them dwells upon their memories of her. Justice thinks of her and of mages, and of how she is good and right and just. And Anders thinks of her smile and the touch of her hand to his, her laugh and the flash of mischief in her eyes. Or perhaps they each think of both, the abstract and the tangible, things physical and not. Their thoughts are no longer always upon the writings they labor over in the midnight hours when this body refuses to sleep, or on the plight of mages.
They become distracted by her.
But then Anders' thoughts - and it must be Anders, it cannot possibly be Justice, for these thoughts are not those of a virtue, they cannot be - turn to other things, remembering the briefest touch of her skin to theirs, imagine what it would be like to pull her to them, to cover her mouth with theirs, to tug aside cloth and armor and run fingers across planes of warm skin -
These are not the thoughts of a virtue. They cannot be the thoughts of Justice. They cannot be.
*
And this is how things go, for years, with this slow seeping of what Anders is into Justice, and what Justice is into Anders. It is not so much that they are becoming less separate within this shared body, but that there are fewer differences in how they think. Anders is less human than he was before, and Justice is...far more human than he had ever thought to be.
But through all of this time, an eternity of moments, there is Hawke. And she glitters and gleams, a spark of wild magic within their lives, strong and yet like the gossamer threads of a dream half remembered. Justice does not know how to describe her, does not know how to capture the essence of the feelings that well up within him as the sight of her. She is like lyrium, he thinks, deadly and beautiful.
It takes so long to find the words to describe it, but he thinks that these are appropriate. She is like the songs of lyrium to him, and yet like a mortal drawn to that raw essence of magic, he cannot touch her without risking ruin.
Perhaps he has been too long in the mortal realm now, too long tainted by the things not of the Fade. He is not as he should be, a virtue corrupted by anger, and he knows that in those moments when Anders recedes and he breaks free that he is a danger. But he wants - he wants to much - and he cannot exist solely confined within Anders. Not when there is so much beauty in this world, so much potential, so much that he cannot touch.
There is a moment, one of those many moments when Hawke comes to their clinic and spends hours helping them, talking to them - no, talking to Anders. And in this moment he thinks a bitter thought, thinks that Anders is all she will ever see, never the spirit of Justice who lingers within.
And yet he cannot help the emotions - and how far he has fallen from what he once was, emotion eroding away what was once virtue and changing it to something else - that creep up within him when their heart pounds faster as Hawke allows her arm to brush theirs. No, to brush Anders'. There is nothing here that is about him, about Justice.
He can feel what Anders feels, knows his thoughts and fantasies - he is certain that they are Anders', for they cannot be his - and when the mage allows for their - his - fingers to linger atop hers as he shows her the proper motions of a healing spell, Justice feels a surge of something bitter and hateful, an emotion that he has no name for. It is not the hate he feels for Templars, not what he feels for injustice - this is something twisted and ugly in a different way.
He thinks it might be jealousy. But it is wrong that Anders should be the only one to be with Hawke, be the one that she smiles at and speaks to, the one who causes her to linger as the clinic clears of patients.
And he cannot stand it, cannot stop how strongly he wishes for it not to be Anders who is with her in these moments.
And, somehow, his anger and jealousy are enough to drown out Anders and Justice comes to the surface, blue light spilling from their skin - from his skin.
“Anders?” Hawke asks, words so much more clear, her eyes wide. Her fingers linger inches from their - his - arm, uncertain, and if he could think, perhaps he would be able to realize that she is trying to determine what has allowed him out, why he has appeared.
But Justice can think nothing beyond these few precious moments, this suddenly all-consuming need to be near her, and he steps towards her.
“Anders,” she says again, backing away, and there is something so wrong about that. Her back hits the wall, and she looks at him without fright, her eyes worried. “You're glowing. Stop glowing.”
He remembers the moment in the Chantry when he was still only Justice, when Aura had touched his skin for just the briefest of moments, and he brings his arms up, hands cupping her face. She stills, a breath half inhaled, and he cannot read all of the emotions that cross her face.
The feel of his skin against hers is so strange after being trapped within Anders' mind for so long, and he runs a thumb over her cheekbone, lightly, so lightly. There are tiny imperfections in her skin, he can see them more clearly now, tiny scars and darker spots, the way that her nose is not perfectly symmetrical and slants slightly to one side. He slides his hands back, into her hair, and her breath hitches.
“Anders, what are you doing?” she says then, and her eyes are so wide, confused and worried and yet not at all frightened.
There are little echoes of things that he can only slightly remember, things that are of both Kristoff and Anders, and he tips her head up just the slightest. Her eyes flutter shut for a moment, then open once more, and the light that bleeds from his skin highlights the curves and angles of her face in blue.
“I am not Anders,” he says, and it is his voice that says it.
But then the moment shatters, Anders panicking and screaming within his skull, dragging him back into the darkness, drawing him from all of this, and as the man comes back into control of their body he throws himself away from Hawke, so suddenly that he stumbles, trips over one of the cots that line the room.
And Justice hears as though from a great distances the panicked words of Anders as he demands to know what he has just done, hears Hawke try to calm him even as he grows more and more distressed. She tries to touch his hand, to insist that Justice had not harmed her - and the thought that he would harm her makes Justice's anger spike and makes Anders even more terrified - and Anders pulls himself from her, tells her to stay away. To get out, that she isn't safe here.
Perhaps Anders does not truly know all of Justice's mind, and from the panic that he senses from the mage, Justice thinks that he has mistaken the jealousy and anger from the moments before he took control as directed at Hawke.
And he wonders if, from taking that small moment for himself, he has ruined the chance for any future moment for either himself or for Anders.
*
Except, she does not stay away.
She does not stay away.
And this is strange, a confusion that Justice is not able to understand. Anders seems insistent upon keeping away from her, afraid now, more than ever, that they will do something to harm her. They spend a day holed up in their clinic, Anders trying to distract himself with work. And, to be fair, she does not come back that day.
No, it is the next day - or so Justice thinks, he knows it is a very short amount of time, not months, not years - that they find her in their clinic, sitting on one of the crates stacked by the wall, smiling at them as though nothing had happened.
And Anders insists that she leaves, but she will have none of it. She sits there, legs crossed, hands resting lightly on her knees, and tells them in no uncertain terms that she is their friend, and that she will not leave them to face their demons by themselves.
No, that's not what she says. She tells Anders that he is her friend. And, surely, when she says demon, she must mean Justice.
And the word hurts.
Anders reels at the force of the anger and hurt that courses through Justice, and he stammers out something about not calling him a demon, but Justice cannot bear to listen to the rest of the conversation. He buries himself away within Anders' mind, shutting out the world around him.
Of course she would think him a demon. It is fitting, that a mortal who he cares for would not be able to understand him. Would think him to be something he is not.
He does not think that, perhaps, when she speaks of demons, she does not speak of him.
*
But he does not stop...caring for her. Emotion is wild and tempestuous, he has learned, and he cannot stop it anymore than he can find his way back to the Fade. He can hate his situation, he can hate that she does not know him, but he cannot hate her.
And, even if he could, he cannot stop Anders from...wanting her, and that, in turn, seems to influence Justice's own emotions. Desire, lust, and something soft and glowing that reminds Justice of Kristoff and Aura. But he does not want to examine this emotion, not in Anders, not in himself.
He had once wished to have what Kristoff and Aura had. But he knows that is something he will never have.
Instead of Hawke, he tries to concentrates upon the cause of the mages. That is something he can affect, something that he cannot begrudge Anders. There he sees injustice that he can try to fix.
So they help, he and Anders, and many mages are lead by them from Kirkwall. Conspiracies are born, and they dive ever deeper into the underground movement, as those within the city do what they can for the mages who suffer there. And here is goodness, here is brightness, here is hope. Every apostate living free in the city, every non-mage pledging themselves to the cause, ever shipment of lyrium sabotaged, all of it means a step is being taken to achieve that shining future that they hope for.
But there are whisperings of a Templar plot, one to turn all mages within the Circle tranquil. This strikes at some of Anders' deepest fears, plays off the terror of being alive and yet not. The threat of a colorless world, empty of emotion.
This cannot stand.
But they cannot do this alone, and so, for the first time, they approach Hawke for help in the affairs of the mage underground.
And she agrees.
They take her into the tunnels that stretch far below Kirkwall, running from the dirty streets of Darktown to the prison that is the Gallows.
And this...this is where things shatter and break. Where they find themselves so unlike what they wish to be, so very far from something good and pure.
There are Templars. Templars, and a girl who cowers at their feet, begging for them to not harm her. And it touches something else hidden deep within Anders, at pain and hurt and anger, shame and hate, memories filled with things that the man has never spoken of, and they can let nothing happen to this girl.
Justice breaks free, surges into control of their body as rage courses through them, and he is not himself, not at all. He is Justice, for every mage ripped away from their mother, for every single one that has been beaten, tortured, raped, made to so thoroughly hate themselves and their lives that they would take their own.
They are lost within this, lost within their own need for justice - no, for vengeance - and they cannot see the difference between the Templars and those around them.
And there is a girl before them, surrounded by the corpses of the Templars, and she cowers on the ground before them, the word demon spilling for her lips. And she is with them, she is one of them, and they can leave none who would side with the Templars alive -
“Anders,” they hear, words that feel like they come from so far away, but within his mind, Anders hears it. But it is not enough, not the words that follow, not enough for Anders to wrestle control from him.
And then he hears something that he does not expect.
“Justice,” she says, and he turns his head to hear his name on her lips, turns away from the girl and the bodies of the Templars. “She is what you are fighting for. You cannot turn on her, not when she is the reason you are fighting. Please, Justice.”
And he will never be able to say what it was, whether it was her words or the simply use of his name, but it is enough to break through the anger and the need for vengeance, and Justice fades away as he is replaced by Anders.
*
He had known that it would happen eventually. Some part of him had known, even from those early moments.
In the moments after they nearly kill the mage girl, Anders panics. Justice panics. Together, they flee, this time ignoring the calls of Hawke, leaving her there in that cave below the Gallows, surrounded by dead Templars.
They run and run and run, through the dank tunnel that stretches below the Gallows, through Darktown, until they come to their clinic.
They have to leave. Have to go...somewhere. Self-loathing runs through them, both of them, this twisted horror at what they have become.
And yet...and yet the Templars are dead. The mage girl is not and the Templars who had tried to harm her are, and they have done good.
“No, no, no,” Anders mutters, taking long strides around the room, hands clutching at his hair. “How can you be pleased? We nearly killed that girl.”
Even if Justice could not feel the panic, all of the emotions that well up within Anders, he would know that the man is deeply unsettled. He only speaks aloud as though talking to Justice in moments like this.
And Justice is not pleased that they nearly lost themselves and killed the girl. But the Templars are dead, the one who had sought to turn every mage tranquil is dead. And this is good.
“No,” Anders says again, abandoning his pacing to crouch before the box that holds his few belongings. “We have to leave. We cannot stay here. Cannot take much. This is trash, trash, trash-” He throws things from the box, hands shaking.
But they still have work to do here, they cannot leave, not yet. Kirkwall needs them, and they cannot leave. But Justice can do little to calm Anders, only succeeding in frightening the man more, and the need to flee grows only stronger.
And then Hawke is there, running through the doors of the clinic, out of breath as though she has chased them the whole way. They spare only the smallest glance her way, enough to know that it is her, before Anders forces their attention back to the objects within the box before them.
For a moment, it seems that she does nothing. Then she steps to their side and sinks to her knees, reaching out and setting her hand over theirs. They flinch - Anders is ready to bolt at any moment - but they manage to remain there, small tremors running through their body as Hawke runs her thumb lightly over their skin.
As she speaks, they still, grip loosening on the small embroidered pillow that is the last thing Anders had picked from the box.
There are two things that Justice latches onto in the ensuing conversation. The first is that there was a plot to turn all mages in the Circle tranquil. It barely matters to him that it had gone no further than the Templar who had proposed it; it existed and, as such, had been a threat. Their excursion into the Gallows had been justified, regardless of what outcome had occurred.
The second is that Hawke will not abandon them over this.
She will not abandon them.
He can feel Anders' shock; it is mirrored in his own. She has seen what they have become, how them joining so as to better the cause of the mages has turned them into something dark and terrible, and yet she does not leave.
Anders thinks she is stupid and stubborn and so, so beautiful, And, in this, Justice has to agree.
*
And then there is something else that he had known would happen. It comes an hour or a day or a week later, after Anders has calmed and all his possessions have been replaced within the box. There has been time to think, to feel, and the man has made a decision.
Justice has know for some time that there is a beautiful emotion that has been growing within them, caught within the chest of this body, one that glows and sparks. It is something like what Kristoff had felt for Aura, but this is so much more. This is not a memory, not dulled by time and distance.
And it is not just Anders who feels this, though he thinks that the mage might not realize this.
They are in their clinic - so many moments seem to start in this clinic - and Hawke is there as well, and Anders has made up him mind. There are ways out of this, openings that no one takes, and Justice is swept up within it all as Anders steps close to Hawke and kisses her.
And this - this is so much more than what Justice remembers of the moments like this that Kristoff and Aura shared. He only knows the echoes of their relationship, only knows the memories of the other people that Anders has been with. Only knows of the weight of this action because of the meaning placed upon it by the bodies he has lived within.
If he were only a spirit of justice, untarnished by the world and the emotions of mortals, he would think nothing of this. Feel nothing as Anders presses his lips to Hawke's, nothing as she grips at the feathers upon his shoulders, feel nothing in the later moments where they are no longer within the clinic but within her estate, where clothing is shed and skin slides against skin, where hands and fingers and mouths touch and explore.
But he is no longer that simple spirit of justice that he used to be, and he does feel. Feels the sparks that run through them, feels the catch of their heart and the coiling heat within this body. He feels what Anders feels.
But this is not for him. This is for Anders and Hawke, things shared between them, and it is a hollow, empty thing that Justice experiences, but is not truly a part of.
Bitter, twisted thoughts run through him, thoughts that are a darker shade of justice. Loathing, he thinks, for Anders, for himself, for the injustice of his existence. He is trapped within the mind of a man who loves - loves - the same woman that he does. He can see their happiness, feel their happiness. And yet he has none of his own.
For what is perhaps the first time, he finds the beauty of the world around him to be diminished.
Character/Pairings: Justice/f!Hawke, Anders/f!Hawke
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It is emotion that changes a spirit from what they are, and love warps just as much as anger and hate. Trapped within Anders' mind, Justice sees a world he is not a part of and loves a woman who he can never touch.
A/N: Originally written for a prompt on the kmeme, this is mostly an exploration of Justice as he exists within Anders and how he is changed by this. Details about Hawke are kept fairly vague as much of this is how Justice sees her and not necessarily how she really is.
At first, he has no concept of love. He is simply Justice, a single virtue, nothing more. Within the Fade this is what he is, and he is content to be as such.
And then he is no longer in the Fade, but trapped within the corpse of a man. And he can feel the echoes of this man, of Kristoff, and this changes him. He remembers a life of emotion and beauty, but more than anything he remembers this Warden's love for a woman.
And this is something that Justice has never experienced before.
It is a frightening thing - and even that is new, this feeling of fright - but he can exist with this new addition to himself. He comes to realize that these things in the mortal world - these emotions, the tangibility of the land around him, the songs of lyrium - are beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful.
When Aura touches his face in the Amaranthine Chantry, the slightest brush of her fingers over his decaying skin, Justice feels that echo of Kristoff's love for her, a faded feeling that sparks within him. It is something not his own, and yet he finds it beautiful. And, even more than finding it beautiful, he finds that he also wishes to feel this emotion as his own.
But Kristoff's body decays, rots away, cannot be held together by Justice's will alone, and he knows that he must leave soon. There is a sense of fear in this as well, but not simply the fear that his essence will dissipate into the mortal world. No, he fear the loss of these emotions, of this sense of...humanity that Kristoff's memories have instilled in him. He looks at this world, at the injustices within it, at the anger and hate and fear, how these mortals cannot see the beauty that is around them and held within them, and he wishes he could do more. He is Justice, but he cannot do much, trapped as he is within the failing body of a dead Warden.
But then there is Anders, this fragile mortal who goes through life with a smile upon his face, who avoids the things that cause him pain even as his words are laced with a bitterness at the things the world holds for him, at the situation that all mages must endure. This is a man who could act, but does not, and as the two speak of things, so many things, something becomes clear to Justice. This mage could be more, but he does not think that he can. He cannot look outside of himself for fear of what lies there.
Together, perhaps, they could do more. Anders is a burning spark of humanity and possibility, and when Justice tells him of his proposal, the man does not back away.
And,what began with the remnants of Kristoff's heart continues with Anders'.
*
At first, there is no difference between them. In those first moments, Justice and Anders are the same, their thoughts intertwined. There are no spaces, no individuality. They meld into one another, spirit and mortal, and who they were before is no more.
It is not until Anders panics and pushes himself to the forefront of their minds that they become separate, and this is the first time that he realizes something has gone wrong. He can see what Anders sees, the aftermath of their rage, the bodies strewn around them and the blood that stains the snow. This is not what he had wanted. Not what they had wanted.
There are dead Wardens all around them, and they cannot remain here.
They cannot stay in Ferelden.
*
Being part of Anders is very different from inhabiting Kristoff's corpse. There are no echoes here, every emotion is vivid and alive. Fear, anger, hate - but also joy and happiness and lust, so many things that Justice has never experienced before. It is brighter than the songs of lyrium, so much more immediate and real, so much so that Justice can hardly bear it.
Is this what he had wanted?
He does not know for certain, but he can feel what Anders feels. Every bit of it. But it is so very different from before. Justice sits in the back of Anders' mind, but he is not in control. This is not his own body, and Anders' mind has a stronger connection to it.
But he knows now why Anders had agreed to this joining. There is a letter, received only days before all of this had happened, and it is from someone Anders cares for. A mage, trapped in Kirkwall. Trapped in some place called the Gallows, where the threat of tranquility hangs even more immediately over the heads of the mages there than in the Ferelden Circle. And this rite is something Anders fears, for it takes a mage and separates them from the Fade. Their beautiful humanity is stripped away in an instant, never to return.
It is an injustice. Such an injustice, and something that pains Anders. This man - Karl - is important to him. Justice feels the memory of something like Kristoff's love for Aura, though it is not the same. Affection that has come from knowing this man for years, perhaps? And guilt, he thinks, for something that Justice cannot place. He does not know how the feelings of mortals change, and this is not the same thing that Kristoff's memories had left him with.
He cannot understand this. There are too many variations of emotions, too many nuances. But he knows that Anders cared for this man - still cares for this man - and that they must go to him.
They must go to Kirkwall.
*
And this is where he meets her, in a dank, musty clinic in the worst part of Kirkwall. He has been with Anders for some time, growing used to being a presence within his mind, learning where the two of them overlap and where the two of them are separate. They are not completely the same being, but they are also not purely different. There are places where they are nearly as one, bits of their minds knit seamlessly together.
But they both notice someone enter their clinic, several someones, armed and armored. It is a threat - perhaps one of the many gangs that plague the streets has caught up with them. And they are ready - both of them are ready - to defend this place.
It is one of those odd, strange moments where Justice rises closer to the surface of Anders' mind, his own self bleeding out of this body that they share. It is the anger and sparks of fear that push him forward, the main emotions that seem to tie them together.
Then there is a woman standing there, speaking to Anders, and she is a threat. Anders feels this and Justice feels this, and he is not certain just how dangerous she is. He must be ready to -
But she is talking, just talking, and they are confused. She asks for maps of the Deep Roads and Anders is not willing to simply give them to her.
But maybe she can help them, Justice thinks, and Anders thinks, and neither of them are completely certain who it originates from. They must meet Karl that night, and if something is to go wrong...well, Justice is not certain that the two of them alone will be enough.
They do not expect her to agree.
And then...and then she does.
*
He should have picked up on the fact that she is a mage much sooner than he does, but it is not until they are in the Chantry and have been attacked by Templars that he realizes what she is. Neither he nor Anders realized that the long blade she carried was actually a mage's staff, and they do not do so until they see her wreath herself in lightning that spills from her fingertips and brings Templars to their knees.
But that is getting ahead of himself, and it is still strange, this linearity to how the mortal world works. Time is strange here, so very unlike how it flows in the Fade. It is easier for him to focus on the flare of emotion, either in Anders or in himself.
And when Anders sees Karl standing there, his forehead branded with a symbol that encompassed so many of the mage's fears, there is so much emotion. Anger, hate, and grief, with such self-loathing overriding everything as he realizes that the have come too late.
These are not the things that Justice feels, and yet they are. He is overwhelmed by Anders, the feelings fueling him, and when he hears the woman's warning - there are Templars - he bursts free.
Only...it is not exactly Justice. It is the same being that had been there in those moments after they had first joined together, this seething, corrupted thing, justice untempered by compassion, comprised of anger and hate and grief - so much grief - and it is at once both of them and neither of them.
It is something that is Justice and yet not, and while he is technically the one in command of Anders' body in those moment, there is something that changes the very core of what he is, stripping away all of his control.
But this woman...while her eyes go wide at the sight of them - at the sight of him, the blue cracks that open along their skin and the smoke that surrounds them - she does not turn on them. There are Templars and her attention turns to them. And she fights them, taking Templars to the ground with her magic and the bladed end of her staff, the electric tang of magic thick in the air around her.
And yet it is in a later moment, after Anders is back in control, after Karl has died in their arms, after they have returned to his clinic and Anders has told her of their situation - there is this moment where they both expect her to turn way from them. She is a mage, she knows of abominations, she could easily decide that this is what they are and decide that she will have nothing to do with them. What they are is too close to what mages fear becoming, too close to what Anders fears becoming, and they expect her to leave them and never look back.
But she doesn't. She sits beside them for a time, just talking to them - no, to Anders - and there is this little spark of emotion that wells up within them as she continues to meet their eyes and even smile at them despite knowing what they are. Justice cannot identify what this emotion is, this delicate, new feeling, and he cannot say who feels it first. And there is this confusion that he feels, and that is his own, he thinks.
This woman - Hawke - is the first to learn of their secret, and she has not turned them away.
*
The thing is, Justice is trapped. Within Anders, within his mind, and he cannot get free, not without taking the risk of what Anders' anger might turn them into. But it is not always his choice, he finds, it seems that he is tied to some of the worse things that lurk within the mage, coming free in the moments when Anders feels most threatened or vulnerable.
But then there are the moments when they see something unjust, where Justice's very nature compels him to come forward. And as their cause is that of the mages, it is injustices against them that bring forth the most anger and rage and hurt, and that is when Justice is most able to break free.
Being held within this body, unable to communicate with anyone beyond Anders, it is such a terrible feeling, but this is a thought that he does not share with the mage. He does not wish to trouble the man further, his emotions already tumultuous in both the aftermath of their joining and in the weeks after Karl's death.
And this is also where he finds the differences between them - Justice can feel Anders' pain at losing the man, and it pains him as well, but not all of Anders' affection has been transferred to him. While their cause is a shared one - the liberation of mages, the ending of the tyranny of the Templars and Chantry - they are not as singular in their individual feelings.
And this, then, might be where it starts. Anders mourns, but Justice does not. In those days that they first come to know Hawke, while Anders can look at her and find her an attractive woman, there is nothing within him that sees her as anything more than that. And as for Justice...well, he does not fully understand this concept of 'attraction'. He imagines it is like the call of lyrium or the spark of emotion, and when he thinks of Hawke it is not anything of how she looks that draws him in. It is, rather, the way in which she speaks to them, how as they follow her on her adventures she proves herself to be a champion to mages.
There are little things that she does, little things that blur together because there is little he can do to accurately determine when they happened, but they amount up to something that sits within Justice, something that sings to him like an emotion, but he does not understand it. He concludes that it must be something of Anders' that he is feeling, for it could not possibly be something that is his.
But he feels this want - he thinks that is what it is - to speak to her, particularly after they finally manage to track down the half elven mage boy, the one who's magic sings so loudly and strangely, who is tied so strongly to the Fade.
Despite the protests of the white haired elf that follows her, she does not send the boy to the Gallows. She does not even seem to consider it.
He will go to the Dalish. He will be free of the Templars.
And there is such...gratitude, this sweeping relief that is something of both Anders and Justice. They have not known her long enough to truly gauge what she will do in situations, but with this she shows that she will stand for mages. That she can.
He wishes to speak to her, to try to convey what this action of hers means to them, but he is trapped within this man, unable to utter a word.
It is a torment, and one he can do little about.
It is later and they sit in their clinic, Hawke at their side. She sits upon one of the cots that has been set up for healing, though she is not injured; her feet swing idly as she smiles at them. Warmth builds within Anders' chest at this smile, something shared by the two of them. There is a lightness to how she speak, her words much like how he remembers those that Anders used to say, back when he and Justice were separate. Though...no, that is an unfair comparison. There are similarities, yes, and this is something he has noticed. The humor used to cover for other things, hiding hurts. He does not quite understand this - this humor deflects from the truth of one's words, obscures meaning, and he is glad that Anders does not speak quite as he used to. Justice does not...approve of hiding meaning like this.
But she speaks of the Circle and her sister, and some of this humor fades from her voice. She is the last mage in her family, but there were two more. Two more apostates who defied the Chantry and lived free.
She might not know the horrors of the Circle as Anders does, but she knows the terror of fleeing from Templars, of living in fear. Knows that a boy such as the half elven mage - knows that no mage - would thrive within the confines of a place such as the Gallows.
He wants to tell her what this means. But he cannot.
The conversation slides from topic to topic, things that Justice does not quite understand. Anders laughs, happiness bubbling up within him. There is an ease to how the two speak that Justice has not yet seen in any other of the conversations he has witnessed from behind this man's eyes.
And Justice...he wants. Just to speak to her. Just that. This happiness that Anders feels, Justice wishes to feel it as well.
The conversation twists, something that Hawke says striking at a memory hidden within Anders, something that is an old hurt, but one that still pains him. Family, Justice thinks, and loss.
There are cracks that show, little places for him to slip through, and it is a combination of this vulnerability in Anders and Justice's want for a moment of his own that allows him to come to the forefront. For a moment, and only a moment, this body is his, and he can move and speak and -
And yet whatever it is that had changed them before comes back, and Justice is twisted by anger and hurt. He is barely aware of what this body says, and he sees Hawke flinch away from him just the slightest, the glow that emanates from this body highlighting her skin in blue.
“Anders, you're glowing,” she says, and it is so different, hearing what she says while he is in control of this body. He opens his mouth - and it is so different, moving within a body that is not dead, that can still move as a body is supposed to move and is not at the risk of falling to dust at any moment - but Anders fights his way forward and he is pulled back, those few moment of freedom slipping away.
He hears Anders apologize to this woman that sits before them, and she sets a hand atop theirs as they try to pull away from her.
It is all right, she tells them - tells Anders - and Justice is trapped once more and cannot speak to her.
*
It is like living within a bubble, seeing things, experiencing them as though from a great distance. Words are like echoes, images muted and indistinct. He sees and hears, but he does nothing, the world around him something that he cannot touch.
But it is not all terrible. He and Anders...for all that there is something not right about this, they are so much stronger together. They can do things that neither could do without the other.
He gives Anders a sense of purpose, a drive that the man did not have before. Together, they are the cause of mages. Together, they can change this world.
He does not think that Hawke truly understands this, not yet. She looks at them and sometimes, when Anders speaks to her, when the cracks open up and Justice is allowed out, she has this look upon her face as though she cannot comprehend just how bad things can be. She has been hunted, yes, has lost those dear to her, but she has never been shut up within a tower, never been stripped of her magic again and again and again just because a Templar so willed it.
She knows fear, but not the reality of it, not as Anders knows it.
He fears that it is a trap, when she tells them of a letter sent to her, one asking for help from one who has shown themselves a friend to mages. He fears and Anders fears, but they will not let her go alone.
Hawke takes the pirate woman who Justice knows from Anders' memories and the blood mage with them - he does not understand why she trusts these two, only that she does.
He is glad to see that the broody elf is not here. If this is, in fact, not a trap, then it is best not to risk bringing along one who despises mages.
But when they arrive at the specified location, they are met by a Templar.
And it is a trap, he knows it is a trap, Anders knows it is a trap, and yet Hawke is walking straight into it. And they are ready - he is ready - to do whatever is necessary to keep this Templar from harming her.
Hawke looks to them and sets a hand to their shoulder.
“Let me talk to him before you start glowing,” she tells them.
Trap, trap, trap, he sings within Anders' mind and the mage struggles to hold him back. It is hard, because they are both in agreement on this. But Anders is insistent that they do not show what they are to a Templar, and while there is this seething anger that any Templar should be allowed to live and inflict further abuses upon mages, they cannot risk this. Not yet.
And it is with a sort of dawning awe that they realize that this Templar is trying to help. There are mages within the cave, and he wants to save them. No, not save them - he simply wishes for them not to be killed.
And Hawke...will do anything to keep these mages safe.
The smile that appears when she insists that she will help them- and it is a small smile, barely gracing their mouth - is both Anders' and his own.
*
It is after this - or maybe it is another incident, Justice cannot truly know, his sense of time still so different from that of the mortals around him - that Anders' thoughts of Hawke change from viewing her as a friend to something very different. It is odd and strange, and while Justice is not unfamiliar with the idea of these sort of things, it is something entirely different to inhabit a body that wants and desires and lusts, things that are not virtuous, things that Justice still thinks of as tied too strongly to the demonic.
There is an odd sort of connection between their minds - they are each able to think differently, though most times the thoughts of one will direct the thoughts of the other without the other consciously realizing it.
And this is one of the moments where neither of them will ever be certain whose thoughts were directing the others.
But it starts with this: thoughts of Hawke. One of them thinks of her, one of them dwells upon their memories of her. Justice thinks of her and of mages, and of how she is good and right and just. And Anders thinks of her smile and the touch of her hand to his, her laugh and the flash of mischief in her eyes. Or perhaps they each think of both, the abstract and the tangible, things physical and not. Their thoughts are no longer always upon the writings they labor over in the midnight hours when this body refuses to sleep, or on the plight of mages.
They become distracted by her.
But then Anders' thoughts - and it must be Anders, it cannot possibly be Justice, for these thoughts are not those of a virtue, they cannot be - turn to other things, remembering the briefest touch of her skin to theirs, imagine what it would be like to pull her to them, to cover her mouth with theirs, to tug aside cloth and armor and run fingers across planes of warm skin -
These are not the thoughts of a virtue. They cannot be the thoughts of Justice. They cannot be.
*
And this is how things go, for years, with this slow seeping of what Anders is into Justice, and what Justice is into Anders. It is not so much that they are becoming less separate within this shared body, but that there are fewer differences in how they think. Anders is less human than he was before, and Justice is...far more human than he had ever thought to be.
But through all of this time, an eternity of moments, there is Hawke. And she glitters and gleams, a spark of wild magic within their lives, strong and yet like the gossamer threads of a dream half remembered. Justice does not know how to describe her, does not know how to capture the essence of the feelings that well up within him as the sight of her. She is like lyrium, he thinks, deadly and beautiful.
It takes so long to find the words to describe it, but he thinks that these are appropriate. She is like the songs of lyrium to him, and yet like a mortal drawn to that raw essence of magic, he cannot touch her without risking ruin.
Perhaps he has been too long in the mortal realm now, too long tainted by the things not of the Fade. He is not as he should be, a virtue corrupted by anger, and he knows that in those moments when Anders recedes and he breaks free that he is a danger. But he wants - he wants to much - and he cannot exist solely confined within Anders. Not when there is so much beauty in this world, so much potential, so much that he cannot touch.
There is a moment, one of those many moments when Hawke comes to their clinic and spends hours helping them, talking to them - no, talking to Anders. And in this moment he thinks a bitter thought, thinks that Anders is all she will ever see, never the spirit of Justice who lingers within.
And yet he cannot help the emotions - and how far he has fallen from what he once was, emotion eroding away what was once virtue and changing it to something else - that creep up within him when their heart pounds faster as Hawke allows her arm to brush theirs. No, to brush Anders'. There is nothing here that is about him, about Justice.
He can feel what Anders feels, knows his thoughts and fantasies - he is certain that they are Anders', for they cannot be his - and when the mage allows for their - his - fingers to linger atop hers as he shows her the proper motions of a healing spell, Justice feels a surge of something bitter and hateful, an emotion that he has no name for. It is not the hate he feels for Templars, not what he feels for injustice - this is something twisted and ugly in a different way.
He thinks it might be jealousy. But it is wrong that Anders should be the only one to be with Hawke, be the one that she smiles at and speaks to, the one who causes her to linger as the clinic clears of patients.
And he cannot stand it, cannot stop how strongly he wishes for it not to be Anders who is with her in these moments.
And, somehow, his anger and jealousy are enough to drown out Anders and Justice comes to the surface, blue light spilling from their skin - from his skin.
“Anders?” Hawke asks, words so much more clear, her eyes wide. Her fingers linger inches from their - his - arm, uncertain, and if he could think, perhaps he would be able to realize that she is trying to determine what has allowed him out, why he has appeared.
But Justice can think nothing beyond these few precious moments, this suddenly all-consuming need to be near her, and he steps towards her.
“Anders,” she says again, backing away, and there is something so wrong about that. Her back hits the wall, and she looks at him without fright, her eyes worried. “You're glowing. Stop glowing.”
He remembers the moment in the Chantry when he was still only Justice, when Aura had touched his skin for just the briefest of moments, and he brings his arms up, hands cupping her face. She stills, a breath half inhaled, and he cannot read all of the emotions that cross her face.
The feel of his skin against hers is so strange after being trapped within Anders' mind for so long, and he runs a thumb over her cheekbone, lightly, so lightly. There are tiny imperfections in her skin, he can see them more clearly now, tiny scars and darker spots, the way that her nose is not perfectly symmetrical and slants slightly to one side. He slides his hands back, into her hair, and her breath hitches.
“Anders, what are you doing?” she says then, and her eyes are so wide, confused and worried and yet not at all frightened.
There are little echoes of things that he can only slightly remember, things that are of both Kristoff and Anders, and he tips her head up just the slightest. Her eyes flutter shut for a moment, then open once more, and the light that bleeds from his skin highlights the curves and angles of her face in blue.
“I am not Anders,” he says, and it is his voice that says it.
But then the moment shatters, Anders panicking and screaming within his skull, dragging him back into the darkness, drawing him from all of this, and as the man comes back into control of their body he throws himself away from Hawke, so suddenly that he stumbles, trips over one of the cots that line the room.
And Justice hears as though from a great distances the panicked words of Anders as he demands to know what he has just done, hears Hawke try to calm him even as he grows more and more distressed. She tries to touch his hand, to insist that Justice had not harmed her - and the thought that he would harm her makes Justice's anger spike and makes Anders even more terrified - and Anders pulls himself from her, tells her to stay away. To get out, that she isn't safe here.
Perhaps Anders does not truly know all of Justice's mind, and from the panic that he senses from the mage, Justice thinks that he has mistaken the jealousy and anger from the moments before he took control as directed at Hawke.
And he wonders if, from taking that small moment for himself, he has ruined the chance for any future moment for either himself or for Anders.
*
Except, she does not stay away.
She does not stay away.
And this is strange, a confusion that Justice is not able to understand. Anders seems insistent upon keeping away from her, afraid now, more than ever, that they will do something to harm her. They spend a day holed up in their clinic, Anders trying to distract himself with work. And, to be fair, she does not come back that day.
No, it is the next day - or so Justice thinks, he knows it is a very short amount of time, not months, not years - that they find her in their clinic, sitting on one of the crates stacked by the wall, smiling at them as though nothing had happened.
And Anders insists that she leaves, but she will have none of it. She sits there, legs crossed, hands resting lightly on her knees, and tells them in no uncertain terms that she is their friend, and that she will not leave them to face their demons by themselves.
No, that's not what she says. She tells Anders that he is her friend. And, surely, when she says demon, she must mean Justice.
And the word hurts.
Anders reels at the force of the anger and hurt that courses through Justice, and he stammers out something about not calling him a demon, but Justice cannot bear to listen to the rest of the conversation. He buries himself away within Anders' mind, shutting out the world around him.
Of course she would think him a demon. It is fitting, that a mortal who he cares for would not be able to understand him. Would think him to be something he is not.
He does not think that, perhaps, when she speaks of demons, she does not speak of him.
*
But he does not stop...caring for her. Emotion is wild and tempestuous, he has learned, and he cannot stop it anymore than he can find his way back to the Fade. He can hate his situation, he can hate that she does not know him, but he cannot hate her.
And, even if he could, he cannot stop Anders from...wanting her, and that, in turn, seems to influence Justice's own emotions. Desire, lust, and something soft and glowing that reminds Justice of Kristoff and Aura. But he does not want to examine this emotion, not in Anders, not in himself.
He had once wished to have what Kristoff and Aura had. But he knows that is something he will never have.
Instead of Hawke, he tries to concentrates upon the cause of the mages. That is something he can affect, something that he cannot begrudge Anders. There he sees injustice that he can try to fix.
So they help, he and Anders, and many mages are lead by them from Kirkwall. Conspiracies are born, and they dive ever deeper into the underground movement, as those within the city do what they can for the mages who suffer there. And here is goodness, here is brightness, here is hope. Every apostate living free in the city, every non-mage pledging themselves to the cause, ever shipment of lyrium sabotaged, all of it means a step is being taken to achieve that shining future that they hope for.
But there are whisperings of a Templar plot, one to turn all mages within the Circle tranquil. This strikes at some of Anders' deepest fears, plays off the terror of being alive and yet not. The threat of a colorless world, empty of emotion.
This cannot stand.
But they cannot do this alone, and so, for the first time, they approach Hawke for help in the affairs of the mage underground.
And she agrees.
They take her into the tunnels that stretch far below Kirkwall, running from the dirty streets of Darktown to the prison that is the Gallows.
And this...this is where things shatter and break. Where they find themselves so unlike what they wish to be, so very far from something good and pure.
There are Templars. Templars, and a girl who cowers at their feet, begging for them to not harm her. And it touches something else hidden deep within Anders, at pain and hurt and anger, shame and hate, memories filled with things that the man has never spoken of, and they can let nothing happen to this girl.
Justice breaks free, surges into control of their body as rage courses through them, and he is not himself, not at all. He is Justice, for every mage ripped away from their mother, for every single one that has been beaten, tortured, raped, made to so thoroughly hate themselves and their lives that they would take their own.
They are lost within this, lost within their own need for justice - no, for vengeance - and they cannot see the difference between the Templars and those around them.
And there is a girl before them, surrounded by the corpses of the Templars, and she cowers on the ground before them, the word demon spilling for her lips. And she is with them, she is one of them, and they can leave none who would side with the Templars alive -
“Anders,” they hear, words that feel like they come from so far away, but within his mind, Anders hears it. But it is not enough, not the words that follow, not enough for Anders to wrestle control from him.
And then he hears something that he does not expect.
“Justice,” she says, and he turns his head to hear his name on her lips, turns away from the girl and the bodies of the Templars. “She is what you are fighting for. You cannot turn on her, not when she is the reason you are fighting. Please, Justice.”
And he will never be able to say what it was, whether it was her words or the simply use of his name, but it is enough to break through the anger and the need for vengeance, and Justice fades away as he is replaced by Anders.
*
He had known that it would happen eventually. Some part of him had known, even from those early moments.
In the moments after they nearly kill the mage girl, Anders panics. Justice panics. Together, they flee, this time ignoring the calls of Hawke, leaving her there in that cave below the Gallows, surrounded by dead Templars.
They run and run and run, through the dank tunnel that stretches below the Gallows, through Darktown, until they come to their clinic.
They have to leave. Have to go...somewhere. Self-loathing runs through them, both of them, this twisted horror at what they have become.
And yet...and yet the Templars are dead. The mage girl is not and the Templars who had tried to harm her are, and they have done good.
“No, no, no,” Anders mutters, taking long strides around the room, hands clutching at his hair. “How can you be pleased? We nearly killed that girl.”
Even if Justice could not feel the panic, all of the emotions that well up within Anders, he would know that the man is deeply unsettled. He only speaks aloud as though talking to Justice in moments like this.
And Justice is not pleased that they nearly lost themselves and killed the girl. But the Templars are dead, the one who had sought to turn every mage tranquil is dead. And this is good.
“No,” Anders says again, abandoning his pacing to crouch before the box that holds his few belongings. “We have to leave. We cannot stay here. Cannot take much. This is trash, trash, trash-” He throws things from the box, hands shaking.
But they still have work to do here, they cannot leave, not yet. Kirkwall needs them, and they cannot leave. But Justice can do little to calm Anders, only succeeding in frightening the man more, and the need to flee grows only stronger.
And then Hawke is there, running through the doors of the clinic, out of breath as though she has chased them the whole way. They spare only the smallest glance her way, enough to know that it is her, before Anders forces their attention back to the objects within the box before them.
For a moment, it seems that she does nothing. Then she steps to their side and sinks to her knees, reaching out and setting her hand over theirs. They flinch - Anders is ready to bolt at any moment - but they manage to remain there, small tremors running through their body as Hawke runs her thumb lightly over their skin.
As she speaks, they still, grip loosening on the small embroidered pillow that is the last thing Anders had picked from the box.
There are two things that Justice latches onto in the ensuing conversation. The first is that there was a plot to turn all mages in the Circle tranquil. It barely matters to him that it had gone no further than the Templar who had proposed it; it existed and, as such, had been a threat. Their excursion into the Gallows had been justified, regardless of what outcome had occurred.
The second is that Hawke will not abandon them over this.
She will not abandon them.
He can feel Anders' shock; it is mirrored in his own. She has seen what they have become, how them joining so as to better the cause of the mages has turned them into something dark and terrible, and yet she does not leave.
Anders thinks she is stupid and stubborn and so, so beautiful, And, in this, Justice has to agree.
*
And then there is something else that he had known would happen. It comes an hour or a day or a week later, after Anders has calmed and all his possessions have been replaced within the box. There has been time to think, to feel, and the man has made a decision.
Justice has know for some time that there is a beautiful emotion that has been growing within them, caught within the chest of this body, one that glows and sparks. It is something like what Kristoff had felt for Aura, but this is so much more. This is not a memory, not dulled by time and distance.
And it is not just Anders who feels this, though he thinks that the mage might not realize this.
They are in their clinic - so many moments seem to start in this clinic - and Hawke is there as well, and Anders has made up him mind. There are ways out of this, openings that no one takes, and Justice is swept up within it all as Anders steps close to Hawke and kisses her.
And this - this is so much more than what Justice remembers of the moments like this that Kristoff and Aura shared. He only knows the echoes of their relationship, only knows the memories of the other people that Anders has been with. Only knows of the weight of this action because of the meaning placed upon it by the bodies he has lived within.
If he were only a spirit of justice, untarnished by the world and the emotions of mortals, he would think nothing of this. Feel nothing as Anders presses his lips to Hawke's, nothing as she grips at the feathers upon his shoulders, feel nothing in the later moments where they are no longer within the clinic but within her estate, where clothing is shed and skin slides against skin, where hands and fingers and mouths touch and explore.
But he is no longer that simple spirit of justice that he used to be, and he does feel. Feels the sparks that run through them, feels the catch of their heart and the coiling heat within this body. He feels what Anders feels.
But this is not for him. This is for Anders and Hawke, things shared between them, and it is a hollow, empty thing that Justice experiences, but is not truly a part of.
Bitter, twisted thoughts run through him, thoughts that are a darker shade of justice. Loathing, he thinks, for Anders, for himself, for the injustice of his existence. He is trapped within the mind of a man who loves - loves - the same woman that he does. He can see their happiness, feel their happiness. And yet he has none of his own.
For what is perhaps the first time, he finds the beauty of the world around him to be diminished.