Continued because long fills are my life.

[challengeaccept]

Part one



"It is amazing that you're so young, though," Hawke murmured against the top of my head, nuzzling back into me. "A little scary, actually, but there is definitely something sexy to it. You do act like a petty child often--"

"I'm not anymore. Please don't even joke about treating me like one."

"Maybe I love you for it," Hawke said, completely humourless once again as he rubbed my shoulders. I pulled away to study his face, trying to find where he was being cruel again. It wasn't there-- Just raw honesty. He cleared his throat. "It's remarkable, really. It's something that balances you, peeks out and shows you're still there, under all of what Justice does to you. But it's not just Justice that drives you, is it? I knew that the first time I saw you, too, and I did want you, but not as much as I wanted your maps. You were attractive, sure, but you were so composed, so blunt, yet you were so exposed. You didn't hide, as much as you could've, because there were people who needed you, people who died to protect you. The truth of it is, until you said it was Justice, I'd've sworn the drive in you was compassion. I saw the anger, and the indignation, and the humour, but none of that was what made me want to have you by my side. It was that you saw it as a fair warning to tell me about your pain and to help a stranger so freely after exposing yourself at your weakest, without a second of recovery. I thought it was the most selfless thing I’d ever seen another human being do-- And I loved you for it, even then."

I didn't dare breath; I'd forgotten how. "The fact that Isabela said you'd worked in a whorehouse didn't help any, however. If anything it just made me unable to stop imagining you in bed. Which we should do more with, love."

"You'd have me again?" I managed, still reeling from the confession.

"I haven't had you once yet," he pointed out. "And after you'd so insistently promised you'd be on my cock tonight, too."

"Why is it that you make fun of my age but act so much more like the spoiled kid you think I am?" I sighed.

"You don’t even notice you do it, do you? You really do throw tantrums. And pout. And get upset when things don’t go your way.”

"I'll give you the first two, but if the third were true, I'd never get anything done."

"How is the manifesto going?" I smacked him, or tried to, but he snatched my hand and pulled me back into his arms. I wasn't ready to complain. "See? Not going your way. It's cute, Anders." He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my lower lip, which I realised was jutting out in a pout. "And it's nice to know there's a reason I kept thinking you were adorable every time you got frustrated."

"Even earlier?" He took a few seconds to catch on, then smiled in a way I'd never seen, an aggressive, hungry, toothy thing directed right at me. He didn't let go of me when he reached for the drawer next to his bed, pulling out a leather clothroll tied around the middle. He set it out with one hand while smoothing his other over my back and pushing me down on my stomach next to it, kissing gently over my shoulders.

"No, adorable wouldn't be the right word to describe you earlier," he mumbled against my skin. I couldn't help but smile at the array he'd set up-- It'd been a thief's toolkit, but he'd converted it to a makeshift apothecary of some very familiar oils. I ran my fingers over them all, remembering which ones I'd particularly liked, which ones worked well together. "Go on, pick whichever one you like," he rasped when he must've noticed me looking, busying himself by rolling down my pants further and unlacing my boots.

"Don't be so stupid," I smiled, repeating myself from earlier, before reaching back. "Here, give me your hand." He did so, and I cupped over his fingers with a quick, far too familiar spell. "The best combination I've tried," I explained-- I'd taken some from several of the bottles and stolen from them at once to force them together, unable to just create the best mixture possible from thin air. Grease did not count, not considering what it does to a man's body. Plus I could add a few extra tricks to an existing substance.

"What did you do? It's warm," Hawke remarked as it glided between our fingers, warm and slippery, "And it's strange; the texture's like a cream but it's slick--"

"It'll feel amazing. What, don't tell me you're so set in your ways you've never thought to use more than one at once?" I sighed, feigning indignation as I snatched up a pillow to prop under my chin-- There was no way I was going to miss this. I crossed my arms over it, making an exaggerated sound of disapproval. "Oh, Hawke, you may just be too old for me."

He squawked at that, one-handedly removing my boots and easing his wet hand over the bottom of my back. "Mm, don't waste it all," I moaned as my legs were stripped completely bare. "Although that is sort of nice. It's tempting to ask for a rubdown, I could use one."

"What with all the so-very adult things you do?" he asked, now working both hands over the planes of my back and using up all the slick. "You really do take time to stay in shape for a mage, don't you? Maker, you must have a better body than some of the templar hopefuls at the Gallows."

"Anders," I joked. "Sturdier stock than Fereldans."

"What is your real name, by the way? I've always assumed your parents were cleverly mocking the Fereldan sense of humour."

"I'll tell you, one day, I promise. But if it's the same to you, I prefer the nickname. I also prefer having my thighs rubbed to my back, if you don't mind-- Oftentimes all we had time for in the Circle was a good hard frot and I've become rather sensitive to intercrural-- Maker's magnificent balls, right like that!" He'd slipped in, hand narrowed, and knifed up and down between my legs, spreading a much thinner layer of oil than I'd like but still hitting all those primed little places, several at each second.

"That is rather sensitive," Hawke murmured as I just struggled to remember how good I used to be at this, giving up entirely when he bent down to kiss between my shoulders again and increased the pace of his hand while he graced the other over my sides. "Tell me, any other good things like this I should know ahead of time, or should I just uncover them all?"

"You're in for a surprise, Hawke, I'm sort of sensitive everywhere."

"That is a nice surprise. Should I frot you before I fuck you, then? Since you and Justice both said you like it?"

"Oh, either way," I moaned, rubbing into the sheets and Hawke's piles of tattered clothing beneath me. "You could do the one while working me up for the other, I suppose." But just having this much was enough to keep my fantasies full and my curiosity satisfied for months, if not years. He had such nimble, agile fingers, the rogue in him making them dance against my skin as I'd close tighter against him and move against them. He was turned so that his cock was pressed against my hip as well, and it was a nice bonus to some of my more eager movements to feel him. "Would you rather I turn over for this? I'd love to see your face, but this way works a little easier."

"Your face," Hawke answered. "Since you're so determined to make this a one-time affair, I'd fancy a few memories of my own." I started to shift, but he tapped his knuckles against the small of my back. "We're not ready yet. I've done all this work on this side, so I should keep at it." He pressed those knuckles hard up my spine in a lazy roll, making me gasp hard and bow my back to him. He kept up the movement while he gripped my hip. "You really are sensitive just about everywhere," he purred.

"Also that just feels sodding good after three years of stress."

"Just what the healer ordered, then."

"The healer ordered you to fuck him an hour ago," I growled, pushing back against him. He made a soft noise as he settled on top of me, placing his thumbs against the insides of my thighs to spread me out enough. It was pure bliss when I felt his cock ease in, pushing me down and rocking up so far the tip of him knocked up against my balls, his fingers digging into the front of my thighs as he tried to keep me flush against him. I'm certain whatever sounds I was making were completely undignified but he felt so rutting good I was regretting ever having met Justice at all.

"Well, I've never listened to healers. They're all so certain they know what's best for my body. And how could they? They've never been in it, and I've been in the damn thing for going on twenty-nine years now. How could they know it better than me?" His voice was strained, filled with gasps and pauses, but he'd wanted to get his little joke in. Adorable how he was so much the model of an ideal adult.

"I'll, I'll take a poke around in you, if you're so concerned with hypocrisy," I promised, hoping it sounded half as seductive as I'd meant but that was hard to achieve when he was panting in my ear, his weight solid against my back and all those amazing and perfectly lickible muscles rippling into me.

"After I'm done," he rushed, cursing wordlessly as he burrowed his face into my shoulder. "This is nothing like I imagined it'd be."

"Oh?" He shook his head, lifting himself enough to sneak his hand between us and work his cock for a few quick seconds.

"Way you talked I thought you'd be some wild slut, tossing all your tricks at once and making me come twelve different ways before I could even get my shoes off." He grunted into his palm, moving his fingers up between my ass and rubbing against the hole. "This is... Well, it's nice, for one thing. It's, special. Intimate."

"I could, you know," I told him. "I've got so many tricks. But if..."

"If it really never happens again, at least you should be made love to, right?" I nodded. "And if it isn't, well, it's not like we won't have time to catch up. How many fingers do you want, love?"

"I'm not particular. I don't even need any, really, but it is nice and it has been a while. Stick your whole hand up there for all I care, just fill me with something before you make me come again."

Hawke stopped moving for long enough that I turned and looked up at him. He was gawking, hovering over my ass nervously. "What?"

"What, you mean the whole thing?" he asked. I took a stronger study of the hand in question, then shrugged.

"Why not, if you want. I've had worse."

"In that ass?" I rolled my eyes, reaching back to slap him. It was sloppy, but I managed to graze something.

"If you want. It's not like that's a fetish too, I'm saying you can go as much as you want, love, it won't bother me."

"What are they teaching you kids today?"

"Well, it's not patience," I grumbled, but took it back with a sharp note of pure pleasure when he pressed a finger inside me.

"Better?"

"Vastly," I sighed, starting to move when he squeezed my thigh again.

"Tell me when it's enough," he ordered. "Enough. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Justice wouldn't let you anyway," I mumbled into my arms, smiling wider than I had in years. He scooted further up, every pass of his cock bumping into the base of my own, his body almost completely flush to mine. He was moaning in heated breaths against the back of my neck, fingers digging in so hard I could feel his short, kept nails threatening to puncture my skin.

While it was far from the best sex I'd had, it was paradise. "How 'bout another finger, love?" I sighed, closing my eyes and nuzzling into my own elbows. Bliss, bliss, blessed bliss.

Hawke actually jumped when I'd spoken up. "I-- Right, right, more of this," he babbled, licking his lips so that I could feel just the tip of his tongue against my neck. I brushed my hair back, thinking that I should possibly let it grow out again but more than that it'd be nice to have an unimpeded lick, and he slid in another finger. I shuddered, letting my entire body twist into the motion to get more comfortable, and he muttered, "No, maybe one more first," and gave me a third before settling back in place.

"Feels good," I assured him. "Nice and slow. You do so many things so fast, love, I never thought you had it in you for tenderness."

"Maybe I just want this to last."

"Mm, maybe this is just how you adults like it, taking your time to lecture and discipline us young and unruly ones."

"Hard to imagine you unruly," Hawke grumbled. "You're so uptight."

"Not just the regular sort of tight then? What a pity, after so long you'd think--"

"Trust me, this is fine."

"Good. That's good. I was, you know." I hefted my hips up slightly- the change in angle made his fingers slide deeper, his cock reach further against mine, and it was nearly perfect. "Unruly, I mean. No, I was outright horrid. I don't think I even knew if there were rules, much less followed them. They put me in solitary confinement for an entire year once. Well, not really, but it feels that long when you’re fifteen and there's a window mocking you three feet away." And twenty feet up.

He kissed behind my ear, picking up the pace of his passes. "I'm sure. Flashy little Anders-- Or, I suppose, you weren't so little. You're not much taller than when I met you."

"No taller at all. Still wearing the same clothes, love," I admitted. "Most of the Anders I've met are fully-grown around sixteen or seventeen. We grow quickly. Genetics, I suppose, if we don't age fast we can't fight off the bloody Blights."

"Can you really talk about things like Blights and genetics with fingers up your ass?" Hawke gaped.

"Well, obviously. We're not having real sex. And they're just fingers. Would you rather I talk about how magnificent your fingers are, how majestic your cock, how my entire being is pining for you the closer we are to completion?"

"It'd be nice."

I bounced up, kissing his brow. "I didn't need any of this," I confessed, letting a hand move up his abs and feeling him shudder under it, all of them twitching in delightful tremors. "But considering how little foreplay I've had in my life, it was nice to pretend that time was a luxury. It's always so... touch and go for me. Really. Thank you." I eased off his hand, and perhaps he'd've liked to have heard that my body already felt empty as I lay on my back, arms and legs sprawled wherever they please. "Go on, then. I'll be far less chatty in familiar territory."

"Nothing familiar about it yet," Hawke grumbled, fixing himself so that he was pinning me in again. His thumbs brushed over my chest as his hands travelled down again, once more getting me to bend for him, but he didn't enter me yet. Instead he worked his cock against mine for a moment. "Surprised you haven't already finished again, with how quickly you did the first time."

"It's one thing when it's been three years since someone else got you off. It's another when it's in the same night."

"Suppose I'll get used to it," Hawke agreed, kissing me soundly. Sweet fires of Andraste could the man ever kiss- He was so skilled with his lips and tongue in his day to day, I'd always thought he would be good here as well. But he blew all of my previous kissers away, and that number was significantly higher than the lovers' count.

I was just about ready to start begging for him to just get on with it when he grabbed my legs again, one around the knee to hold it under his arm and the other at mid-calf to throw over his shoulder, thrusting inside me hard and full when I was forced to shift to the new position. At that noise I knew I would give up on everything we stood for if it meant we'd hear it again, until I realised I'd made it. I’d made that delicious sound for Hawke and he was only half in.

He scrambled his arms to push me further up him, scooted his hips forward, curled me more around him, all while thrusting hard and heavy and with wide-eyed wonder. I watched his face carefully as he prodded me for a proper angle-- It'd be hard to find one I couldn't work with, and I very deliberately squeezed around him and milked him in every attempt just to prove it. But the image was already burned into me, his eyes dark with lust and hunger, his lips wet and parted in surprise, cheeks flushed and sweaty with the tips of his bangs stuck to them. I licked my thumb and pushed them aside, not wanting any to fall into his eyes, and he crowed at the simplest touch. "I take it you like it, then?"

"Stop talking," he hissed.

I shrugged. Not like I couldn't keep myself occupied. There were so many little sweet spots inside me he could hit, after all, and I was certain he knew the proper ones, the best ones, glandular instead of nerve. Of course, I could always make him get all the right places, too. His hands lowered to grab my hips again, which was all I needed-- I kept up his choice of position for a few more thrusts, then crossed my ankles behind him to get him deeper in and hear him cry out as I forced him in that tiny bit more before I dragged him down on top of me again for more of those fantastic kisses.

He was chewing my lip happily when I clutched his shoulders and rolled him over, knocking the wind out of him when I shoved him down. "Are you comfortable with magic right now, love?"

"You mean this isn't?" he gasped, his hips and that truly fantastic cock not stopping while I shifted around to top. I scratched down his chest, over his nipples, so he dug his nails into my hips harder to crash us together more.

I kissed the pad of my index finger gently, charging it with electricity before tapping the kiss against his lips so that he got a shock, our saliva working wonderfully as a current. "Not at all, love. If it were magic, you'd know."

He raked his fingers down my thighs, which might've made me buckle for only a second, rasping for breath. "El, electricity thing," he managed to wheeze. "Do that more."

"I already told you, it wasn't what you thought," I warned, planting a hand in the middle of his chest to keep him steady while I took over. "But I suppose I could improvise something." Hawke growled and yelled at the same time, slamming his hand flat against my lower back to keep me in place, and I just knew he was ready to come then and there. That wouldn't do-- So on my downstroke, I flooded him with a wave of cool, healing magic to ease and back him off just a little. "Don't be in such a hurry," I scolded him, dragging his hand to a far less dependant spot.

"Says the brat who got off already tonight!" I couldn't argue that.

"But if we end this now, what's the point of even trying anything magic?" He was going to protest, I knew he was, until I started to give him the currents he so wanted-- From the inside out. "See?"

Hawke grunted out several half-words that were obviously encouragement, so I ran my hands over his chest again, deeply hitting every patch of solid muscle with microshocks and my own kneading fingers. "Mm?"

I had to admire him for it-- It was clear he wanted to lie back and accept this, let me do all the work. And his shoulders did droop a little, he did crane his head back and close his eyes and moan. But he didn’t stop moving inside me, even if it was a lot more slow and controlled, and he didn't ease on his hand. Which was nice, sure, but he didn't actually answer me, so I stopped the shocks and threw my arms akimbo. He cracked open an eye when I'd paused, scoffing.

"What, you need me to say every little approval out loud? Fine, you're bloody brilliant, now please go back to the deep-tissue massages and the milking my dick?" I glared at him, which was apparently all the time he needed to recollect himself with those reflexes of his, his arms both snaking around my waist and bringing himself to meet me, so that I was seated straddling his lap and he was still thrusting in. "You're cute when you pout, Anders, but you're hot when you're wearing me down and I'd prefer if you stopped acting so selfish."

I replied by flicking my fingers and sending shocks directly on his nerves, forcing him to jolt forward and push his face into my shoulder. He responded by biting down, so I grabbed him by the upper arm and dug in. "Do you really want to cut this short, Hawke?" I snarled, giving him more of the therapeutic shocks to streak through his arm, into all those taut muscles in his back.

"Cut this short?" I kissed him before he could continue protesting, all hungry teeth and suckling lips, getting him to grunt again as he returned it with just as much intensity. I settled closer against his hips, trapping my cock against his stomach and having to hold myself back from how I'd completely underestimated. He was a rogue, I watched him move all day with flips and turns and mid-air kicks, but I'd always assumed that was all movements through his legs and that the rest of him was just by-products and from stabbing things. Instead I got limber, flexible, tight muscle that would bend and stretch with every movement his body made, controlling everything at the core so he could go any direction with the barest of twists. And I'd imagined it would feel good beneath my cock if it'd been less solid but present, not lean and hard and moving as I rubbed against it.

'Please don't let this be the last time,' I begged Justice. 'Please don't make me remember this if it is the last time, I take it back, it was better to never know, to be so wrong.'

Hawke pushed us even closer, still biting and kissing while he grabbed my ass with both hands and ground me into that incredible body, thrusting into me and making me wonder why I'd ever even tried another position in my life and Karl who and how could I possibly even think of anything at all and who cared about the stupid mages anyway and why was I justifying myself to Justice he should already know better. I clawed down his back hard enough to make him bleed, which was fine because I immediately sealed the cuts, wanting to get my own hands full of his ass, his much nicer toned ass he used to jump and spin all those ways I'd never be able to watch again when they'd already left me hard and aching for hours before. "Go ahead," he moaned invitingly, still managing to keep a hint of his earlier humour despite being reduced to this. He stopped moving long enough to smile at me, kissing the end of my nose lightly. "Just not the whole thing."

I could barely figure out what he meant, much less concentrate on it, but some instinct of mine had me reach for the ever-lessening oils on my thigh and gather it on my own fingers. The sound he made when I brushed my fingers against him was the rawest one yet, low in his throat and his jaw completely slack as he moved against them. He wasn't biting or kissing anymore, his head bent against my neck and breath warming all the wet patches he’d left on me, stinging the marks and bruises I'd never ever heal if I could help it, and I wondered if he was watching himself move inside of me again. "I love you," he said softly, right when I'd determined I absolutely needed to finger him while he kept going so deep in me.

"I love you too," I said again, pushing two of my fingers in to the second knuckle and getting another satisfying hiss, an impatient little bump inside me, a good solid squeeze with both hands. "How much?"

"Won't matter." He licked up the side of my throat, along the vein, so I rolled my neck back to let him have full access. "I'd fight the Maker himself if it meant Justice would let me see this tomorrow night," he whispered, brushing his lips against my neck with each word. "You have no idea how you look. To say nothing of what you're doing, you're going to have to teach me how to be so thorough with a cock--" He closed around my fingers experimentally, so I shoved them in deeper as he moaned deep and rich. "--I can't keep up any pace at all."

I wiggled them in, curling them to try and get to him. I let my fingers cool, sending the heat from them out into him while I did, pushing further than the angle would let me using force. He went still, letting me take the moment, his body poised, so I prodded once more with a single jolt along the spot I'd finally rubbed into, and he came so strongly I had to unclench so he wasn't cut off. It was the first time he'd been completely silent since I'd started, aside from the collected breathing as he leaned back.

"Good?" I asked, already knowing the answer. I twitched my fingers again, almost in jest, and he shuddered.

"For a kid, yeah," he grumbled. "No-one knows how to fuck at nineteen, like I said."

I swatted him on the back of the head, and was rewarded by him drawing me closer and ducking down to bite right above my right nipple, under my left, lifted up and pressed down again over his softening cock. "Least I can keep it up more than one round."

"Oh, sod off, you took forever. I was beginning to think it'd've been easier if I tied you up and just had my way with you."

When I shook that time, it wasn't from the pleasure, although he was doing quite nice things with his tongue over my ribs. "I'll do anything else, but never restraints."

"Coward."

"Exactly. I can't go back to being chained, not ever. And if you even try, what I do to you will be so much worse than what Justice does-- And he will attack you for that."

"So am I having a threesome or just being talked down by a really lax chaperone? And either way can we do it again in the morning? And tomorrow? And perhaps every night for the next, oh, rest of our lives?"

"It depends on how truly you love us," I said, getting Hawke to stop.

"Oh, so you were there the entire time. Threesome, then."

"He wasn't here," I mumbled, suddenly no longer in the mood. Had he been? "Not really."

"Look at you. Every time he comes out, you wilt. Like he's your babysitter and he's caught you being naughty." I straightened my fingers again, Hawke breathing out sharply at the touch. "I suppose I see your point."

"He doesn't disapprove of love. He just doesn't approve of being used and thrown aside, or when one feels so strongly it encroaches on their oaths to their fellow man." I looked away, ashamed, and took myself off of Hawke. It wasn't right to him or Justice to force their affair. Perhaps all Hawke and I would be able to have were stolen moments, then. I shouldn't have teased so much, if Justice had given me so much time, but then again, perhaps it was the act Justice had given me, and all the time necessary for it. I stepped off the bed, getting dressed again. I didn't want to clean off any of it-- Later, yes, when it became uncomfortable, but for now it was just another thing to savour that I'd not have again tomorrow.

"So you're not going to finish?" Hawke asked, laying back in the sheets. He looked positively inviting, almost painfully so.

"I'm used to being left hard all day," I admitted as I laced up my boots. Hawke had done a thorough job of taking them off-- Not near so thorough as I'd undressed him. I glanced at his clothes, waving my hand over them to restore them properly. "When you're around someone you can't touch, watching them flirt with you and the rest of the world and knowing that you'll never get to feel them, it's a bit expected."

"Oh, right, I remember being that way when I was sixteen, too. But I outgrew it. And you did feel me, Anders, don't talk like that didn't just happen. Come on, back to bed, Anders, we can go another round before we sleep. I should at least suck you after all that, and I know you're up for it."

"No. No, Justice said I had one night," I said as I grabbed my other boot. "And I need to go before he makes me."

"So bloody spoiled. You did so many things wrong as a child you just expect your punishments, don't you? You should fight back. You say you ran away from the Circle, that you'd been a Warden and left over a cat, but I'm beginning to suspect you were dismissed from both--"

"I killed a man!" I yelled, and even I could hear Justice, feeling him through my veins. "A good man, who may have been on the wrong side but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time entirely because of me! And he wasn't the first, he wasn't the last, but I killed a fellow Warden in cold blood and that's when I ran!"

We both let the confession hover, the first time I'd said it out loud in three years, neither of us moving or speaking. Finally, I reached for my shirt, and Hawke took his own clothes back. I watched silently as he wiped himself off and redressed, worrying over my lower lip because I knew it was all of my old fantasies in reverse: him covering every inch of delectable skin from me, concealing himself, shielding himself, putting himself out of my reach. In the time it took for him to get fully dressed again, I hadn't moved my shirt from my hands, and perhaps he was right-- I was punishing myself. I lifted my hand to his cheek, nestling my palm against the coarse hairs, and let magic heal him of any marks and bruises I'd've left on him. I'd keep mine, but it was to spite myself, and I couldn't leave such traces on him. I wasn't that cruel to make him have any proof of me besides memories he could convince himself were lustful fantasy.

He'd said he loved me back, but there wasn't a man in front of him. Just a scared boy who ran away from everything. Ran from Karl, ran from safety, ran from the Circle and the Templars and the Wardens, and now, now I'd run again.

"Was he a templar?" Hawke asked when I'd let him go and gotten round to pulling on my shirt.

"Who?"

"The man you killed. The other Warden. Was he a templar?"

"Yes. But that didn't make it right. And the others weren't."

"And he wasn't the first person you'd killed."

"No," I answered stiffly, taking my next layer and putting it on.

"Would you like to--"

"No."

"It doesn't make it right, but it does excuse your actions," Hawke continued. "If I were the Warden-Commander, I'd understand. I'd forgive you. Anyone would've known not to have you and a Templar in the same place. And it was an accident, the way you tell it--"

"It wasn't."

"Was it Justice, then?"

I stopped buttoning my shirt long enough to think. "Not exclusively," I decided.

"I understand," Hawke started, making me snap to him.

"Could you? Could you understand, having someone inside of your head twisted by your own convictions? Could you understand murder, no matter how justified it is, when even the slightest bit of self-serving was involved?"

"I've killed templars in cold blood, Anders. When I was young myself. Believe me, I probably understand more than you think I do."

"I was fifteen, and I was covered in the blood of my allies, Hawke."

"And if I'd been there, I'd've killed them right at your side." It was a promise, one that even Justice recognised and that tinged with both of us as remarkable, but I kept getting dressed anyway.

"You'd love me, despite all that?" Justice asked, using my voice, my speech, not the combined tone we usually did but the one that Hawke had heard me beg for him in. I hated him for it-- He'd never pretended to be me exclusively, not once, certainly not like this. "Would you tell them, if they came for me? If the Templars came, if the Knight-Commander herself came, all of that, would you love me anyway?"

'Why? Why are you making him say it to me, again and again, like it won't already plague my every thought? Why, when it was already so wrong of you to let me have something I now know I'll never be able to recover from--'

'Because I have tasted love too, child. And because if he would join us in cause, with all he has to sacrifice, he is truer than Aura ever was.'

"Yes. I'd tell them all, if they asked me," Hawke answered, cutting off my questions about Kristoff and Justice.

"Would you have me here, then? Stay with you, and love you the way we should be?"

When Hawke said "Yes," it was Justice, not me, who grabbed him forward and kissed those sweet lips again.

.:+:.

"If you lied to him, I will destroy you," Justice vowed, even as Anders was curled into my side and otherwise purring happily in his sleep. That'd been the interesting thing about being young; So much energy to have sex with, but it all drained so quickly during the actual act. And bugger if a mage ever had any stamina at all, the amount of times Father had needed a piggy back ride was about as dreadful as Carver's incredible luck at drawing lots.

Of course, Anders had been as good as he'd promised in bed, after a little encouragement. And a sneaking part of me, but not the part that normally sneaks, mind, suspected the sex would've been just as phenomenal if I'd even just joked about taking him to bed when I'd first met him.

Sodding hell, I bet that would’ve gotten the maps straight off. Sometimes I wonder why I even think I'm clever.

I stroked back Anders' hair from his beautifully flushed face, keeping the stray strands from tainting those lips that I fully intended to take advantage of in the morning and it wouldn't do for him to have anything tickling me but his tongue, would it? Justice watched me from Anders' eyes, all blue glowy and oh-so-frightening when coupled with the otherwise sated look and those contented little noises he made whenever I'd touch him, whenever he'd nuzzle into me. "With my pedigree, you think I'd have a problem with protecting mages, then? I've always protected the mages I love. Why should I stop because this one doesn't have my blood?"

Anders gave a familiar snore, sort of terrifying on its own right when I remembered he'd been that loud when we met and that it was amazing his balls had fully dropped by then to get such a deep noise, and Justice scowled. "He is a good man, despite his faults. He is concerned he'll hurt you. You promised to love him despite any action he may do."

"Or you, I suppose," I yawned, putting my hand on Anders' back. Mm, such a strong back for a mage, it really was. And it was strong all the way down, too, so I started to run my hand down him, towards that wonderfully tight ass that could grip a cock so completely and not let up. I had just allowed myself to think, a bit perversely, that I really was such a dirty old man for taking advantage of this young, ripe, eager man, and was considering rousing Anders for just one more round of him showing me exactly how much he really did enjoy dirty old men, when my hand was stalled in its descent.

"This is no time," Justice snarled. "His body is sated, but weak. Leave him until he rests. He's no use to any of us if he's dead."

"Yes, well, I probably didn't have another go in me anyway. He really is quite a workout." Anders snored again, louder, more nasal, making me wince. "Sodding hell, how do you put up with that every night?"

"What did you mean by 'or you'?"

"Oh, fine, you'd think I’d not forget every time how much of a bore you are. I meant that, not everything he'll do is his fault. You killed that templar he mentioned earlier, didn't you? Despite what he thinks?"

"Rolan, yes. I did. But to protect him. And Anders did wish it."

"Why do you call him Anders? You must know his real name."

"I would spill his secrets for you to have another word to carry on your tongue when you have so many of your own words that are untrue?"

"Or so I could scream it in the heat of passion along with honest declarations of love and lust and rapture. But I suppose if he kept it hidden, there's no getting it out of you. You should tell him you did it, not him. He's clearly shaken up about it. I killed templars at fifteen myself, you know. To protect Bethany and our father, sometimes just to protect all of us because they wanted to kill us for harbouring apostates, sometimes, I just wanted to keep our family together even if they said they were only taking them to the Circle. They’d’ve been students together, Bethany and Anders, wouldn’t they?"

"They would not have gotten along."

"More's the pity. She rather liked him when they met. Had a bit of a crush herself, giggling over him during dinners like a, well, a teenage girl I suppose. It made dinner talk horribly awkward, the two of us fighting over which of us would be better suited." I stroked up their back again, no lecherous thought in my mind at all. "I should've thanked him, you know. For rescuing her, in the Deep Roads."

"He is selfish and immature and impulsive, as you say. But he has compassion deeper than any human I've come across otherwise. It rivals his anger as his strongest draw, and it has been his downfall more than once.

"Including hosting you?"

"Yes." Justice hadn't even hesitated when he said it, but he was flat, emotionless, perhaps a bit bitter or regretful. Somehow I doubted it, though.

"Well. Tell you what, then. Tell Anders to leave the compassion to me and my knives and my coinpurse, and he can take all the pent-up compassion he wants out on me."

"You said you would love him no matter what."

"I assure you, I meant it."

Justice said nothing more, and when I looked down, there was no more glow, just Anders smiling in his sleep between snores and nursing his cheek into my chest. I drew him close, extinguishing the lamp by my bedside, and held him throughout the night, comforted by the fact that we would have a tomorrow, no matter how tenuous Justice's approval of us was, and that there might even be tomorrows to come after that.

=+=

His mother had approved of us. That was all I could think of, rubbing my hands over my thighs nervously when Hawke tried not to cry. I'd said my piece, a bit wary of adding that part.

His mother had approved of us.

Hadn’t she?

Of course she probably would've rather have had grandchildren, of course. And there was the fact that her son was living the life she’d had, with an apostate, she couldn't have approved of that.

His mother had probably hated me, I realised with a sickening lurch in my gut. She'd been raised noble, and if there was one thing nobility could do well, it was bullshit their approval of anything. Even underaged Anders apostate abomination renegade boys from the slums seducing their only child-bearing son.

Oh, Maker, she must've loathed me.

She loved her son. More than either of my parents had loved me, that was for certain. And I'd been the one to take her daughter away from her, hadn't I? The one who gave her to the Wardens, sentenced her with my own curses and condemned her away from her loving mother and her dear brother and I was no better than the Circle for that.

No. No better than my father.

Hawke was the one in mourning, but I suddenly found myself on the floor, vomiting violently across his fine rug. He tried to comfort me, but I shooed him away-- A healer, the one thing her son had deserved from me, I was a healer, and I could handle a stomach wrung by nerves.

Selfish underaged Anders apostate abomination renegade boy from the slums and I'd never not think it. Selfish. Selfish, selfish, selfish- I could've possibly healed Bethany, although it wasn't likely, but I didn't have to trade her freedom for mine. And I had traded her. I'd been the one to take away a significant part of his mother's life. Of his life. Of course the woman had hated me, tolerated me for her son's sake and possibly hoped every day he'd outgrow the mistake of me.

I suddenly didn't want to heal myself as I emptied out again, drier this time. I'd deserved this sickness.

'Hallo, Justice,' as Hawke always teased. He was remarkably good at guessing between the two of us. Better at it than I was.

"Well, I was going to suggest we go someplace nice for dinner,” Hawke quipped shakily.

"Would you stay with me if we had to flee, the way your mother and father did?" I couldn't help but ask aloud, wincing even as I did. Stupid. He’d just learned about his father, when I betrayed him to the Calling, when I’d lied about the Calling, forced Bethany to the Calling, and he'd just lost his mother, how could I even think--?

"Why do you ask?" He wasn't sarcastic. My love was always sarcastic, always joking, even when I needed him the most sympathetic. He was shaken so strongly, and here I was, the weaker of the two still, when he needed me strongest, and even Justice wasn't able to pull me together because he was busy telling me that his mother was right to hate me and that I was such a fool stupid little boy, just so spoiled, so selfish...

'I should go. I should go away and make things right for you. I want to run away and never come back, to not hurt you. Not betray you.' There was nothing in me to expel this time, but Hawke was at my side, rubbing my back soothingly, making soft noises and telling me it'd be alright as I lurched forward and my innards tried anyway.

"It's all so funny, isn't it?" I asked. "You're just like her, a rich, influential noble, with people who rely and depend on you, and me, I'm just some shit for luck apostate who's managed to sway your attentions. And she, your mother, she gave it all up for love. Would you? I don't want you to." I wanted him to. I wanted him by my side, forever. I wanted to run away from him and the only thing keeping me was that I wanted to stay with him and have him and hear him tell me he loved me forever.

"Are you asking if, say, the Templars came for you and the entirety of Kirkwall was on your hide, would I protect you?"

"I don't want protection. I'm Anders of the Fereldan Circle, I don't fight, I run away. I couldn't stay and be protected, it's just not in me."

"I'd protect you," Hawke said simply.

"Even if I ran away?"

"Especially if you did. I'd join you, Anders, and if we got backed into a corner we'd fight together and continue on. We ran, too. My mother and father, and the twins. Lothering was a stopover for us, nothing more, just a slightly longer one than usual."

"I'd never been to Lothering," I admitted. "Was it nice?"

"It was just farms and a few taverns and the Chantry. Nothing too fancy compared to the Circle."

My stomach turned in a completely different way, but I eased up to sit on my shins, still shivering from my sickness. I was not going to give in to this familiar self-loathing. "I don't want to go back to a farm, not ever."

"It just so happens I have a rather nice mansion to stop off in, if you'd rather use that."

"Tell me about them," I asked, needing nothing more in the world than to get my mind off of farms and fires and disapproval. "Your parents. They are remarkably like us, aren't they?"

"What, you mean the extremely attractive young noble with the heart of gold and the naughty apostate?"

"I will not act out any father issues you have."

"I should hope not, you're younger than my sister."

"Who did say I reminded her of him," I pointed out.

"You do, in a way. There's the apostate thing of course. And he was always so stubborn."

"Oh, I see that he hasn't had any habits pass on to his children then."

Hawke bit back a laugh, nodding. "I want to kiss you, but not until you're cleaned off. And I would like to go out tonight. But not in those clothes."

"Right, let me just get some of my old Circle robes out."

"Brat. Or we could go take a bath, and I'll have Bodahn see about getting you some new ones. Or you could even just borrow mine. You're not much different than me, size-wise."

"Must we? Hawke, I'd... Well, I’m not comfortable going out in Hightown and mingling with the elite," I faltered. "You can go, if you want, I'll stay in, get some more writing done. You can bring me back something, I’m always grateful for a good meal."

"Or," Hawke repeated, "We could go take a bath. Together. And I'll send out for some food for the both of us. And I'll have you all soaked and sedated and seduced and you'll have no choice but to spend the night."

"Are you actually horny right now?" I asked, absolutely boggled.

"Not particularly, no. But I figure a good roll or two might help some." He didn't say it'd help me, but it was implied-- And he was right. He didn't need to be comforted physically, and I did. But his needs were stronger than mine at the moment, the healthier, more mature response, and it made me wince to realise he cared more strongly for my concern than his own, was willing to potentially harm himself and his memories for me. "And you always stay the entire night after sex."

How could I do anything less for him?

"If you don't want to, we shouldn't," I warned. "But I already planned to stay."

"I'd never leave you," he told me. "No matter what."

"Even if you decide you don't want your mother's life?"

He shook his head.

"I always liked your mother. She was very kind to my plight-- I think she thought part of us was just you taking me in because it was something you cared for after your father and Bethany. But she didn't approve of us, did she?"

"She saw the way you looked at me," he said, with an empty cast to his voice that made my stomach knot uncomfortably again.

"Hawke..."

"No, she didn't approve of us," he whispered. "She was trying to arrange me to marry some noble girl. Settle down, and have this life forever."

I felt my nails cut into my palms, and I noticed I'd been tightening my hands into fists. Hawke pressed a finger against my cheek, and it came off shiny, and I couldn't help but wonder how long I'd been crying. The entire time, I'd wager. "You should, you know," I muttered. "You should marry some noble girl and stay in here, and when Kirkwall comes down on me, you should leave me behind and let them chase me."

"My mother gave up this life for love, Anders. You think I wouldn't do the same as her?"

I turned my head away. "I'd hoped she approved of us. I'd liked her. I guess I was too many things wrong for her remaining child."

"She told me that I was going to be all alone now," Hawke said, hushed. I'm not sure I was meant to hear it. "Like I hadn't had someone at our meals every night, in my bed, someone I called my love and who even she saw made me happy. Her dying words to me were her fear that I'd be left alone without her. And you tell me I should find someone better, on the same night?"

Of course. Stupid selfish Anders, bringing up Hawke's worst moments in the hopes that her final words had been some pretense at letting her only son settle with me.

"Perhaps you should go," Hawke finished. "After all, I am alone, aren't I?"

You're less alone than I am, but I'd never say it out loud. "I'll stay, if you still want me to. I'm sorry, I just, I'd've done anything to have had her accept us... Even if it'd've meant letting you marry some noble, and settling for just being something you had on the side, on occasion, yes, it'd hurt, but it'd be, it'd be worth it, to know that she was glad for us. That she didn't die hating anything about you." It occurred to me as I said it that I had grown some-- A year ago, I'd've made a joke about how we'd share, and how it'd be a threesome every night, and how fun could it be to be in the centre of a Kirkwaller noble orgy.

But as I said it, I knew I meant it. I'd be the one shoved aside, the one he occasionally came back to, and if it'd make them happy, I'd not complain out loud that it hurt. Even hearing secret whispers of being loved back was better than never having it at all.

"She loved me, Anders. She still loved me. It was you she wasn't fond of."

I nodded. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not. I fell in love with someone myself. And I loved Mother, too. She would've accepted us, later on, we'd only given her a month. But perhaps you’re right. Perhaps all she could see was the same life she’d had. Only with no children to warm our nights and remind us how in love we are."

"Do you want children, love?"

"No. But it's how she thought. Do you?"

"All I ever wanted in life was the freedom to find love, eat well and kill any fool who tried to stop me, happy and magical as I please." I smiled at the old joke, waving my hand teasingly between lightning flares. I touched his shoulder, more serious when I looked in his eyes, although only just. "I'd much rather a life of adventure with you, constantly on the run with spots of frenzied love-making and epic battles with Templars and blood mages the both of which are sung in tales for generations on end, than to settle down and have a normal life. And I think I'd so very like to take you up on that bath now, because I’d been wanting to kiss you solid myself for the past twenty minutes and I'm not going to snog you after I'd been sick."

Hawke clapped his hands together, standing up. "It's settled. A hot, long bath, with lots of steam and perhaps a few spells, a good, hard snog and maybe a little spot of frenzied love-making then?"

"Sounds quite lovely, actually," I sighed, rolling my shoulder after letting him drag me up. I'd taken advantage of Hawke's baths before, but usually just a few minutes of heated water when I wasn't in the mood for sanitation and heating spells in the clinic. The occasional long soak would do wonders for my own troubles, especially the stiffness that'd been building up and the cricks from all the writing I'd done. "Would you prefer I draw it up while you send for that food, love? I'm not sure how hot you take it."

"Staggering. Burning. Scalding. If my skin doesn't change shades by the steam alone it's not properly hot."

"I think I could manage that." He leaned over to take my upper arms in hand and brushed his lips against my cheek, lingering just past comforting and tickling me with his beard just the way I liked.

"I'd follow you," he said again as he squeezed, holding me at arms' length. "Just like she followed my father, I'll stay with you and damn the Chantry if they try anything to stop us. And we'll never be alone, either of us." He let go, seeing about that food and muttering how he needed to get me fresher clothes and to rouse Orana to clean the mess.

I cleared it up myself with a quick spell, seeing no need to hassle two members of the household, and followed him out of the room to make sure he knew not to.

He'd stopped in front of the alcove for his mother's room. "I haven't been in there since I helped move her in," he remarked when he noticed me, not bothering to turn away from the door.

"I'm almost afraid to go in there and clear it out."

"You don't have to. Not if you don't want to. You can leave it until you can bring yourself to going in her room at all, or you can leave it forever. No-one will say anything, Hawke, she was all you had."

"Not all I have," he choked, the tense shift palpable.

"True," I agreed, attempting to pass at humour. "There's all these things, aren't there? Books and art and casks of wine, I have to say you've rather a lot."

It worked, at least in the dry way I'd hoped, and he smiled as he nodded. "I have rather a lot. I have things, as you say, and I have a sodding gorgeous teenaged boy who'd choke on my cock right now if I asked."

I stepped up behind him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders to give him leverage. "Not right now, he wouldn't," I whispered. "Right now, all you have is a man who loves you enough to know better than to take away your weakness." He held on to my arm then, nodding furiously until he caved, and together fell to our knees when he finally let himself cry.

I held him like that, silent and still in tears myself, for the entire night.

.:+:.

I found Anders mending his pauldrons again. He had a system for it, where he'd catch the birds himself, he'd feather them, cut them into sharp quills, and stab them through hardened leather all by skill alone, then would melt each quill tip down into the leather using magic. One by one. It was tedious work, and usually he only did it to replace the missing ones, or when he was mending the rest of his clothes.

I'd offered so many times to buy him newer things, better quality. He'd taken me up only for when I'd bring him on social calls where a certain sort of dress was required, which he was always wary of but after my mother'd died I couldn't avoid sharing him.

I didn't tell the world I loved an apostate, like he hoped, but I did tell the world I loved him, and lived with him, and shared his bed. He kept himself hidden but it was clear he had enjoyed three years of being social elite, or playing at it.

But he wasn't replacing the feathers this time, I noticed, because he was wearing the grey. "Are you making a new one? I told you, I'll just buy you one." Anything to keep him from wearing the same drab thing over every outfit when we went out, me in fine silks and velvets and him in the same and his gold and ruby jewellery, but decked with pigeon feathers to top it off. It was embarrassing, and we got quite a bit of gossip for it, but it also called attention to him. And he didn't want that.

"You did," he said, a tone in his voice more somber than usual, when he and Justice tried to play at Anders at the same time, as he punctured another through. "You bought the feathers, and the leather. It's good quality. It'll go nicely with the new jacket."

I smiled at that. "So you bought yourself new clothes, did you?"

"These are seven years old now. I'm surprised they lasted as well as they did." He lit the tip of it, fusing it to the leather again. It was an interesting process to watch.

"Those are different."

"Yes. It's starting to get dire out there... It might've been presumptuous, but I assumed you wouldn't mind if I'd switched to raptors instead of scavengers."

I sat down next to him, picking one of them up. "Raptors as in hawks?"

He smiled, but sadly. I pushed my thumb against the corner of his mouth and eased it up. "You'll stay that way if you keep pouting so much, love. And really, you're still far too young and pretty to be disfigured, even if you're a man grown now."

"You don't mind, right?"

"I'll manage. So I no longer have a gorgeous teen to fool around with, it's still pretty nice waking up with a man almost ten years younger than me."

He furrowed his brow. "I meant that I switched to hawks. I felt like... I just wanted to have something about you on me, love. It's stupid." He lowered his work and his chin, eyes going sallow. "Stupid," he repeated, just barely audible.

"If anything, I'm flattered. Wearing my name everywhere you go, proclaiming to the world in a subtle way that you are a Hawke true and true. But black, really, it's so dismal."

He put the project down entirely, walking over to our closet and pulling out the new outfit. "It matches," he explained, hanging them up on the top of the bed and wiping lint off the front. It looked exactly the same, just different colours. Very dismal colours. Well, he had a theme, at least.

"Really? You ordered new clothes, and that's what you bought for yourself, was it?"

Anders didn't answer me, just crossed back to get back to work. "I'll buy you more. I'll put the order in right now, the tailors already have your information. I can have them delivered by tonight."

"I won't be needing more clothes, Hawke, those are fine." There was just something so strange about the tone of it. And after having us crawl through sewage today, I couldn't help but wonder if Anders had finally snapped.

I went to order him some anyway, along with a few other supplies for my next trip out to the Wounded Coast. Bodahn was leaving next week, and I planned to be off myself, so I gave him full use of my coin and had him pick up everything for Anders and me. Surprisingly, Bodahn hadn't already had a list of random things Anders would suddenly need, herbs or salves or bandages or parchment and ink. I had him get the usual in case it had just been Anders neglecting to ask again, like he sometimes did.

Bodahn took Sandal along, and my Mabari, and I decided to answer letters for a bit. I'd gotten through most of them when Anders came downstairs, still half-dressed like he was upstairs, but something about the way his body was set was different.

'He looks his age, for one thing,' I noted. He did, too, with his hair half-unbound from its usual tie and wearing the earring he sometimes put on around the house or parties and his clothes rumpled, and him being disheveled was working wonders for me. But it was the way he carried himself that made me look at him and decide not to pounce him then and there, even though it was far sexier than any look he'd ever had.

He looked confident, more so than I'd ever seen him. Determined, even. His jaw was set, his eyes hard, standing without his usual stoop. And he was looking right at me. I smiled up at him. "Do you need something, love?"

What he said next, I dare not write down here. I swore I wouldn't tell, and this could get in the wrong hands. But I did ask him what he meant, and he said it again, and told me the reason he never used it was it was his father's name too and even before he'd been sent to the Circle he'd been known as the Anders boy from the farm near Honnleath. I'd never known where he was from before, either; Fereldan, sure, despite his name, but he'd never said anything besides that they'd owned a farm. "Why tell me now?"

"Maybe I grew up and decided that if I can die any day, I want to have heard my lover call me my name, just once."

"You don't want me moaning your father's name as you sodomise me, do you?" I teased. He shook his head but came down anyway to kiss me hungrily, the way he did that first time years ago. He was always a good kisser, and many times they'd be frantic and needy in the midst of our sex, but that first kiss had stuck with me from the raw desire behind it, and I realised that Justice was gone for now, that for the first time in three years, I was laying in bed with the true Anders again. "Hello, love," I whispered, the usual jest changed to something more pure and heady when I broke off, hesitant to be anything but tender and wanting so strongly for him to know I knew, that I acknowledged it was a different person here but still someone I treasured.

"I just needed you to know it," he said, bowing his head almost penitently while he knelt in front of me. If it had been the combination, I'd've asked him to suck me, although he'd never been too fond of doing it. Exceptional, to be sure, but it wasn’t his preference.

"Well, now I do. Would you prefer I still call you Anders?"

He nodded, taking my hand as he stood. "Justice has promised me I could have tonight alone with you," he said, voice still weirdly hollow. His shoulders were tight as he led me upstairs.

"Oh?"

"I fully intend to take advantage."

"How fully?"

"If there is anything you've want to do, tonight is the time," Anders answered.

"And what if that was just the usual amount of fooling around with a fertile teenager in my bed?"

"I'm not a teenager," he said, sternly. "Not anymore. And please, don't make light of this. I'd love to have the chance to be with you as I really am, the rest of my life, but tonight is all we have. Justice will have no part of this, no memory of any of this."

"And that's why you told me your name?"

"I want to stop having secrets from you."

Now that was interesting. Aside from his name, he hadn't had any. He'd told me about how he'd been raised, how the Circle had taken him, every person he'd been with in perhaps too much detail. He was there for my darkest secret, the one I myself didn't know about my father's blood magic. Having reached the bed, I let him spread me down on it, to cover me and kiss along my jaw. He always had such a fondness for beards, my Anders, I was glad I'd thought to grow one out but such a shame he still couldn’t manage more than his stubble. I bent and pressed my knee between his, knowing his fondness for rutting against me, and was rewarded with a moan and a steady rate of him grinding down on it. "What's left to tell, love?" I asked as he drew my hands above my head and started to strip us both down.

He told me he loved me, twice, as he did so, and made me swear as he slicked up his fingers and used them and all the magic he'd learned to make me crave, then told me what was left as he pulled my knees on his elbows and entered me.

It was bouncing in my head the entire time he was gasping against me, thrusting almost sweetly, and despite the words, all he would say after was that he loved me and he was sorry and he loved me.

I held him against me as he released himself, sex the furthest thing on my mind as I kissed away his tears, all thoughts on what was happening with the man in front of me, the man I'd teased about his age and his quirks and his drive but had never once made light of his plight, my sister's plight, my father's.

The plight that had allowed my mother to die despite that.

And would now, possibly, take away the man I loved.

He kissed me then, while I was still trapped in thought, and it shifted mid-kiss to the usual one. The one that was only mostly-Anders. "Hello, Justice," I sighed, my usual taunt not feeling quite so satisfying on my lips. I was a bit bitter he'd lied, but Anders had been the one to decide that intensity didn't matter so much as the far purer moment, and Justice had taken it to mean that Anders had had his fill.

"Good?" he asked. I looked in his eyes as I wiped them clear, searching, hoping to determine which of them was really in control.

"Always is, love," I lied, heart clinching at how easy it was to lie to Anders, as easy as it was to lie to anyone else. "You know that by now."

"Do you want me to finish you off?"

If it had still been the pure version of him, I'd've begged. "No. No, I've got more letters to attend to. And I suppose you'll want to finish your clothes."

Anders nodded, a brief hint of disappointment in his eyes, making me wonder whose.

He was too young for this. Too young, and it had aged him too much. Every night he even came to bed lately, most nights he hadn't bothered with anything more than sleep. He was tired all the time despite that, most of his free time sucked up by the trips to the underground he made me promise to not help with, or the outbreaks at Darktown, or trying to feed the people of Darktown, all on him and him alone. When he did manage to get rest, most of those nights either Justice took over and kept him writing until the exhaustion succumbed, or he’d wake up from the nightmares and the Calling.

And he still made time to help me be the Champion of Kirkwall, Solver of Mundane Problems.
He still made time to make love to me. He still tried to be in our bed each night, although there were plenty he just couldn't, just to stay next to me.

He'd told me his age, years ago, and he'd told me he wasn't a child, not even when I met him.
For the first time, I believed him.

He'd gone back to his puncturing, half-done with it, still nude as he worked. I dipped a cloth to soak in cooled water, tugged on my housepants without bothering with my smalls, and sat next to him. I kissed him, taking my time to wipe him clean of us. "I love you," I told him. "Let me take the burden, just this once. Go have fun, go be a kid again, just for a few hours."

He answered by cutting another quill into a point.

"Then at least let me help you here," I said. "I'm better with a dagger. The work'll be faster. And we can be well-rested for tomorrow when I go see the Knight-Commander."

He handed me the dagger and the sack of feathers. I grabbed four, evening them out and cutting the tips into points. "Why do you need to see her?" he asked when I handed them over, putting them in a pile, save one he worked with.

I scoffed as I took another four. "She's got a bug up her ass about something, bugger if I know what. You're coming with me, by the way. Shouldn't take too long, we can have you back to setting legs and lancing boils in no time."

"That's not all I do."

"You'll come with me next week, too, won't you? I could use you on the Coast."

"I'll try to be there," he said, voice strained.

"That's all I'll ever ask of you, Anders."

Concluded here