Ficlet: 'Close your eyes, and stay awake'.
Title: Close your eyes, and stay awake.
Rating: G
Pairing: F!Hawke/Anders
Word Count: 527
Crossposted to FF.net
Spoilers ahoy.
I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
- 'It's Beginning To Get To Me' by Snow Patrol
She lies awake, thoughts trained on him like an alert squadron of guard dogs. Mindless, senseless obsession, his memory weaves within her daily routine, the half focused gaze, loose hair in his eye when he brushed his teeth, the cursing and chasing of Dog when he realised his boots had been hidden again.
The brush of his lips against her cheek if he ever left her sleeping in their bed, the frantic scrawl of his infinite manifestoes by candlelight. He constantly stole her quills from her drawer, demanded victory hugs when he added to his finished manifesto supply, danced her until she was dizzy and breathless around her room when a particularly good rescue mission had been achieved.
Their eyebrow-raising, face-pulling competitions over dinner, regardless of the fact they had company or not, the completely unsubtle hand-holding beneath the table. The good natured jeering from their friends, the equally as dry and cheeky rebuttals he had made on behalf of her.
Sometimes he would come home, smelling of smoke and sweat and fear, and she'd know something had changed in that secret life he kept from her. And she'd sit beside him, cooing softly as his gaze burnt holes in the wall, her fingers would rub the tight knotted cord of tension in his back.
There were the nights where he tossed, and turned, and kept her up. They'd talk, quiet murmuring voices beneath the bed sheets, and when he finally slept he would thrash around worse than before, inhuman voices and figures haunting his tainted dreams. Like a premonition, she felt helpless in the face of this, could only hang on until he quietened, or awoke, or until she gave up and drifted away.
Sometimes there would be days where he didn't see her, when his gaze remained distant, his voice silent. There would be days when they fought, when she questioned him for coming home at four, and even on the days he never came home at all. There were days where he'd just hold her, and there were days where he just... Ignored her.
He'd begged her to believe that he loved her, and in her own way, she had never doubted. He'd promised her that it would be better this way, and that it had always been much more than he ever expected. He spoke of his regrets, his dream that no one would go through what they went through in the future, and that he would hurt her no more.
He hadn't even touched her, that one last time. She hadn't wanted to.
Usually so open, so free, so unguarded around him, she had found it impossible to speak, could only nod dumbly and say 'It's Over' to a cause that already abandoned her. To a man she thought she knew - was he a man, still? Her partner, her love of many years, gone in a flash of light to disappear for a mistress of revolution she had never truly won against.
Layers of shock to anger to loathing she had free-fallen through, and she finds that in the end she simply falls into an empty embrace in a bed for two.
-x-
A/N:
I could never run away with a man like Anders. The game allows you to save and reload, but since my poor Hawke in this story won't, this is the most realistic reaction fic I'll write to soothe my nerves... And have a bit of a sob over. I haven't really been able to discuss the events of the game with anyone I know, so it's been festering in my mind. xD
Maybe I'll write one from his POV, but I don't know, because honestly I have doubts he'd think of her much. I don't really believe he loved her as much as he said he did, maybe in the beginning it was true, but by the end it was just overwhelmed by everything he was becoming.
But hey, that's what fanfic is for! Yay alternate realities! Thank you for reading. :)
Rating: G
Pairing: F!Hawke/Anders
Word Count: 527
Crossposted to FF.net
Spoilers ahoy.
I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
- 'It's Beginning To Get To Me' by Snow Patrol
She lies awake, thoughts trained on him like an alert squadron of guard dogs. Mindless, senseless obsession, his memory weaves within her daily routine, the half focused gaze, loose hair in his eye when he brushed his teeth, the cursing and chasing of Dog when he realised his boots had been hidden again.
The brush of his lips against her cheek if he ever left her sleeping in their bed, the frantic scrawl of his infinite manifestoes by candlelight. He constantly stole her quills from her drawer, demanded victory hugs when he added to his finished manifesto supply, danced her until she was dizzy and breathless around her room when a particularly good rescue mission had been achieved.
Their eyebrow-raising, face-pulling competitions over dinner, regardless of the fact they had company or not, the completely unsubtle hand-holding beneath the table. The good natured jeering from their friends, the equally as dry and cheeky rebuttals he had made on behalf of her.
Sometimes he would come home, smelling of smoke and sweat and fear, and she'd know something had changed in that secret life he kept from her. And she'd sit beside him, cooing softly as his gaze burnt holes in the wall, her fingers would rub the tight knotted cord of tension in his back.
There were the nights where he tossed, and turned, and kept her up. They'd talk, quiet murmuring voices beneath the bed sheets, and when he finally slept he would thrash around worse than before, inhuman voices and figures haunting his tainted dreams. Like a premonition, she felt helpless in the face of this, could only hang on until he quietened, or awoke, or until she gave up and drifted away.
Sometimes there would be days where he didn't see her, when his gaze remained distant, his voice silent. There would be days when they fought, when she questioned him for coming home at four, and even on the days he never came home at all. There were days where he'd just hold her, and there were days where he just... Ignored her.
He'd begged her to believe that he loved her, and in her own way, she had never doubted. He'd promised her that it would be better this way, and that it had always been much more than he ever expected. He spoke of his regrets, his dream that no one would go through what they went through in the future, and that he would hurt her no more.
He hadn't even touched her, that one last time. She hadn't wanted to.
Usually so open, so free, so unguarded around him, she had found it impossible to speak, could only nod dumbly and say 'It's Over' to a cause that already abandoned her. To a man she thought she knew - was he a man, still? Her partner, her love of many years, gone in a flash of light to disappear for a mistress of revolution she had never truly won against.
Layers of shock to anger to loathing she had free-fallen through, and she finds that in the end she simply falls into an empty embrace in a bed for two.
-x-
A/N:
I could never run away with a man like Anders. The game allows you to save and reload, but since my poor Hawke in this story won't, this is the most realistic reaction fic I'll write to soothe my nerves... And have a bit of a sob over. I haven't really been able to discuss the events of the game with anyone I know, so it's been festering in my mind. xD
Maybe I'll write one from his POV, but I don't know, because honestly I have doubts he'd think of her much. I don't really believe he loved her as much as he said he did, maybe in the beginning it was true, but by the end it was just overwhelmed by everything he was becoming.
But hey, that's what fanfic is for! Yay alternate realities! Thank you for reading. :)