[ The worst of it is, Fenris does blame the templars now. He does see. The abuses perpetrated on him in Tevinter feel dreams away, made shamefully appealing by thoughts of a warm bed and a full belly and light and space and people, so that the indignities and horrors—the boy, drained of blood— Fenris thinks he hears the screams of children here, in this place, too. Sometimes. Sometimes he makes himself listen just because it's preferable to the silence. ]
If you're here, what's out there is not for you.
[ It comes out rougher than intended. The sick heat crawling over his wounds begins to dissipate, followed by an easing of pain, then only an itch. A small amount of light returns to Fenris's eyes, the faint upturn of his mouth unreadable. A little less than comforted, a little less than bitter, a little less than sad.
He swallows around a parched throat. ]
Thank you.
[ It's so freely given, all the pride beaten out of him.
A few seconds pass. His voice suddenly feels stronger, eager, heart seized by a foreign rush of inspiration. ]
[His expression twists. His grip suddenly becomes much more firm, and much less gentle. You could kill me, like it's a blessing, like it's the ultimate answer to everything in this place. Not freedom from it, just an end to it.
Anger lances through him, for the first time since the templars took him, an old and familiar sensation. Because he's right, isn't he. The templars are under no obligation to pretend at the Chantry's guidelines for humane treatment anymore. They can be just as brutal as they always were, only now out in the open, and Fenris isn't even a mage. He's a prisoner. There's no reason to hope for mercy.
Once, a long time ago, sitting alone in the dank, humid gloom of Kinloch Hold's isolation cells, Anders had thought about it too. Idly, the first time, stroking a cat's ears through the door's meal flap, and then again later, not so idly. If only there was someone to slit his throat for him, so he didn't have to muster the energy to crush it himself.
He'd thought it could have been a similarity, before. A thread of understanding beneath all the noise of their differences. Now that he has it, he feels disgusted.]
I could. [Each word has to be drawn out through his teeth, gritted in anger.] But I won't.
[ Fenris laughs hollowly; just breath and a little sound, completely bereft of humor. Of almost any emotion, really, except a sour feeling around which his throat wants to close. ]
Of course you won't.
[ There's a deliciously vivid corner of his mind left that wants to straighten, hurl invective. Point out the blatant hypocrisy of... whatever his reason for refusing happens to be. His wrist aches a little in the grip, but the magic brings him the first merciful ease of his pain in so long, so long. He can't get angry because it would only taint this reprieve with more suffering. He's so tired of suffering. ]
If you asked it of me, I would oblige.
[ This is a lie.
Fenris can't say just how much time passes after that. He fears for the way he's allowed each day to bleed into the next. Their time together is interspersed with the templars' regular grisly harvest of their new lyrium well. Fenris remembers how it used to be, watching and feeling the steady drip and pulse of his life slipping a little further away with every beat of his hammering heart. And he'd always think, this time will be the time. Surely this time, when he passes out, he won't wake up. It used to be he even hoped for it.
Though Anders scarcely fares much better some days, he eases what he can when he can. Fenris offers nothing in return but a standing offer he desperately wishes he hadn't made, flippant and in a fit of pique, on that first night. Fenris does not think he can endure a return to aloneness now, which might make Anders the greatest danger of all. Tonight the templars do as they always have: the door crashes open and Fenris staggers in fast and wipes out on the stone, more thrown than led. He's pale as a corpse. Just needs to sleep for a long while. But for the first time in a long time, he realizes that the prospect of dying frightens him.
Damp Antivan winter is in full swing. Fenris clambers without remembering to his nest of robes (which has gotten bigger in the last several weeks; big enough, maybe, for two people) and pulls one over himself without regarding Anders, unable to do much but shiver violently. There's a poultice slapped crudely over his inner forearm that keeps him from bleeding everywhere, at least. He needs to stay awake so Anders can do his job, he needs— ]
Please... talk. Anything.
[ His request is groggy, half-muffled into the fabric. ]
Did I ever tell you about the time someone's farm dog caught me stealing eggs out from under their chickens? [A distraction tactic, old bedside manner, but here, in this place, it doesn't come as easily as it did before. His voice is rigid with barely restrained anger.] It ends with me stranded in a tree with my robe skirts over my head. I think you'd like that one.
[Despite all the helpless anger, despite everything, his touch is still gentle. Two fingers at the pulse point in Fenris' throat, monitoring the way it flags, the other hand at his elbow, encouraging the arm to extend toward him. They're practiced motions, and not just because of previous patients. Because of this one, in this environment, under these circumstances. It's happened again and again, and it likely will until there isn't any lyrium left to drain.
What he's doing is delaying, not healing. The templars will kill Fenris eventually, for no other reason to fuel their own addictions.
It's naked brutality. He wonders, not for the first time, if he made a mistake, that first night. If they wouldn't both be better off ending each other's misery, if it might actually be the kindest thing they could ever do for each other in their long history. It's not a place he ever wanted to go back to, and he doesn't know how he managed to find his way there on accident.
He swallows back the old memory, and reaches to twitch Fenris' hair back from his forehead.]
[ His answer comes in the form of a sightless flicker of a smile. The sinews in Fenris's bad arm twitch with attempted motion, unfurling toward him, shaky fingers catching on the edge of his robe and tugging ineffectually. ]
Eggs in your skirt, yes. Come h— [ His voice is a wisp-thin croak, confused. He's so tired, freezing cold, and Anders is making a nuisance of himself with his continued non-compliance. ] ...what are you doing?
[ They'd taken to huddling together on particularly clammy nights, ones when the wind and rain swirl freely into the room, but it's a testament to his state that Fenris is willing for the first time to openly reach, touch, demand the warmth he knows Anders can provide. When the rational part of his mind is able to kick back in, he will chide himself for cleaving to the smallest bit of sensory relief like a child or a dumb animal—as he's done his whole existence in one form or another, hasn't he? There's no drinking himself into oblivion here, no escape to be found through battle or cards or—or sex. But there is Anders's warm body to ease the cold, Anders's conversation to ease his mind...
[Before now, any contact has been about grudging necessity. It's necessity still now, true, perhaps even more so than normal, but— different, even still. He's always craved contact, the touch of another person, the way the templars always tried to deny him, the way he denied himself for so long, and now.... He doesn't realize the way his body sways slightly forward when Fenris reaches for him.]
Then— hah. [It's an exhale, more than anything. His fingers catch around where Fenris' hand is at the front of his robe to keep his arm steady.] I could tell you that a dragon swooped down and plucked me out of the tree, for all that you're actually listening to me. You're all right. Just let me do this one thing.
[His eyes scan smoothly back towards the door as he peels the poultice away, a cursory check for anyone hovering outside. Satisfied, his palm glows faintly, following the length of Fenris' arm; the main wound closes, deep blood bruises fade, overstretched muscles relax.
It all feels so insignificant, compared against the delirious state Fenris is in. Important, but still too small to matter. Anders grits his teeth against flashes of new anger; if he can do nothing else, if they're both meant to eventually die in this place, he will at least ensure the templars don't get the satisfaction of causing it.]
All right. Let's warm you up. Hold still for me.
[He leans over Fenris to reach for more scraps of robes to tuck around his torso. Taken together, they could almost be a decent blanket. They won't be enough by themselves, but that's all right. Anders won't have much between him and the stone floor either, but that's all right too. The priority now is making sure Fenris makes it through the night.]
[ Fenris is momentarily overcome with anxiety he doesn't know how to address, the material a shock on skin sticky with cold sweat. He feels his heart racing. He's trying not to pant. It is by virtue of the magic, however, that his body is at liberty to experience these things as they rush in to replace the pain and weakness that rushes out, and Fenris remembers and appreciates this in the sad, sad way of a man who finally feels good enough again to feel bad. He dimly registers a small commotion outside, even through the heavy wards on the heavy door, but by and large he's stopped trying to think of life outside this room. It's been nearly three years, after all.
He's not certain how long he passes out—just that he has a dream while he's unconscious and he can't remember anything about it but Justice blazing bright from the cracks in Anders's skin and summoning shade upon shade into the dark heart of Corypheus's prison. He wakes with a bodily jerk, flailing to find himself constricted, brands flaring effetely through the worn fabric.
It is not Justice he sees in front of him; only Anders. All this time, it has only ever been Anders. Justice has abandoned him, Fenris thinks, having revealed its true colors as an opportunistic demon—or simply knowing, perhaps, that Anders is here because this is the fate he's earned. Fenris, too, for having been, despite all intentions and principles and experiences, so complicit in the end.
His thrashing settles after a moment. His breathing slows but it's still harsh, ragged.
Outside the door it's quiet as death.
We deserve this, he wants to say. What he chooses instead is: ]
Water—?
[ And he's also chosen to ignore his fingers, twisted clawlike in the cloth at Anders's waist. ]
[He's dozing, a little more than half-asleep despite his best attempts to stay awake, but his body knows to react even without his mind being on the same page. He yanks himself back and away, even as he makes a startled, disoriented noise, more a reaction to the glow from the tattoos than anything else—an age old defensive thought of Fenris is finally taking matters into his own hands.
Instinct screams at him to pull himself more firmly away, to retreat from a threat, but after the moment passes and his mind catches up, he only settles back to where he was. He's so tired, and he spent so long running and clawing his way from threats, real and imagined, only to end up exactly where he was trying to get away from in the first place. Compared to that, if Fenris is any kind of threat at all by now, it's a merciful one.]
I don't know that there's any left. Soon.
[His voice is a murmur, thick with interrupted sleep. He hopes he isn't lying. He's taken to trying to hoard food and water when he anticipates the templars might be coming for Fenris again, but their behavior has gotten more and more erratic in recent months, and the two of them already get so little food and water between them as it is.
His hand smooths up Fenris' back to his side to his shoulder, evaluative. Warmer. That's good.]
[ He doesn't do it on purpose, float inward toward Anders's body heat like this, hungry for more touch and more relief. Blindly, in the dark, he encircles his wrist in clammy fingers and tugs his hand to his face before either of them really know what's happening—and by then it's too late and Anders's fingertips make contact with his parched lower lip. ]
You ca—let it melt. If it must.
[ It is cruel to demand this of Anders. He knows. Whatever remains of his well of mana must be dried almost to nothing given how weak they are; whatever remains of that, used to tend his wounds. But it doesn't stop him. Doesn't stop the desperate, drugged way his too-dry tongue slides over a long-softened staff callus, hoping for ice, or maybe at least to raise enough of Anders's ire that he might put him out of his misery. ]
[His breath stutters out of his chest. He doesn't pull away, doesn't resist, only curls his fingers slightly into the touch.
His head is pounding. Everything aches. The idea of another spell feels like scraping the bottom of a barrel with nothing but his nails, splintered and painful. But he owes this. He'll protect Fenris from the templars and their madness, because otherwise he doesn't have anything else.
He reaches again for a thread of the Fade.]
All right. All right.
[The space of a breath, and then frost clings to his fingers, thin tendrils of ice spreading across his skin. His thumb rests against Fenris's jaw, gently, encouraging his mouth to open wider so that Anders can press two fingers inside.
He has to concentrate, needs to keep the temperature lower, not the unnatural, freezing temperatures that normally come alongside offensive ice magic. He wants it to melt, not freeze Fenris's skull from the inside. It's hard to concentrate, what with the way Fenris's tongue drags against his skin, but he manages it.
[ A shudder of relief rips through his aching body, feeling so much more violent than it is. Fenris obeys gratefully, tongue curling against the growth of frost that turns to cold water almost on contact, a steady trickle of liquid down his throat that elicits a needy little noise from a place behind Anders's fingers. It's not much but it's nothing short of a blessing even in spite of the way the chill makes goosebumps ripple over his skin. He drinks greedily and with mindless relish until Anders is sucked dry.
Moreover, he cannot recall a time when he was touched so kindly as this. A breath catches in his chest, convulsive, perilously close to a sob, but it does not escape. He is mad now, he thinks, well and truly. Still he cleaves to the mage's warmth like a frightened child because something's broken open inside of him with just a few icy droplets, something that sends his arm slithering round Anders's waist to fist the fabric at the small of his back as he licks at his skin greedily until it's hot as his mouth.
He comes back to himself in time, aware he's tugged them both to a halfway point on the edge of their nest. The mere thought of moving exhausts him, but he summons the last of his willpower to avert his face with something like shame. Anders's heart thumps softly against his chest. ]
...Thank you. I am. Sorry.
[ His voice is rough in ways water cannot fix, but he will not die here. He tells himself that every day, no matter how insincerely. ]
It's not something he's ever thought before. Fenris had always been physically smaller, maybe, but in Kirkwall it was always understood by everyone that he could have snapped Anders's spine with one finger if he ever so chose. He'd been a force, a presence, all power and defiance and controlled anger.
He draws his hand away—damp fingers against Fenris's jaw, then down the length of his body—and thinks that there's so much the templars have taken away, just because they could.
He sets them cheek-to-cheek when Fenris turns his face away, lips to his ear, voice quiet and husked.]
Don't.
[Apologies don't count for much, not here, not anymore. He could apologize, too, for putting them here, for setting fire to kindling, for any number of things, but it would change nothing. They'd still be here tomorrow, the templars would still come, Fenris would still need whatever he needs, and Anders would still give it. It's a blessing, in a twisted way. It's what keeps him going. What picks his head up off scraps of fabric every day, instead of just letting the Void take him like it always should have.
His thumb traces the line of Fenris's hipbone, stark under skin. He feels silent, understood freedom to touch now, boundaries crossed that he hadn't been able to before. It won't last, maybe; morning might come and chase it away. But he drinks it in while he has it, satisfying old cravings for closeness, contact.]
[ Those things are still inside him somewhere deep, buried, sleeping, just as they were before he'd been free. What Anders could not have known from their years in Kirkwall—mostly because he wouldn't have believed—was that Fenris never had any extraordinary love for the Templars. Indeed, he had come from a world where they were ineffectual at best. A bitter victory for Anders, Hawke, and anyone else who ever attempted to convince him otherwise: Fenris understands now that anyone is like unto a magister with sufficient will and might. ]
Do not ask that of me.
[ An answering hoarse whisper, growing thicker with each word. His eyes squeeze shut against the unexpected sweet tickle of breath; it's almost too much. Fenris knows anyone with a lick of sense would twist away from this parody of an embrace, too aware of the danger inherent in offering a bite of bread to a man who is starving to death. He tries. He truly does. He rises on a shaky elbow and manages to slump into position facing the opposite direction, but that's as far as he gets—at this rate he's no less close to Anders than he was before. Closer even, having somehow brought Anders's cruelly gentle hand with him around his waist to find purchase on his other hip instead, their bodies fitted together as easily and naturally as spoons or lovers.
Does he need anything more, he asks. Miserably, Fenris whispers to the dark: ]
[His fingers spread wide against Fenris's stomach, drawing him back, closer, even with them already flush back-to-front. He feels— raw, desperate for something he can't put a name to, something he's suddenly sure will slip through his fingers if Fenris pulls away from him now. Exhaustion vibrates through him, obvious through the way his chin dips slightly against Fenris's temple, but his hands are steady and firm. Even if this is only temporary, he wants to hold on to it, whatever "this" might be.
He listens, quiet, for a long moment.
He doesn't think about it. His hand slips down, then lower. He palms Fenris through thin fabric, the heel of his hand dragging down the length of him, smooth and unhurried. It could almost be a soothing motion, touch meant to break through the haze. Anders doesn't have much else left to give.]
Then that's a burden the both of us have to carry.
[A murmured admission, barely a breath against his ear. He should be dead. He even wants it again, more badly than anything, but he's still here, alive, and he knows he can't blame that on himself.]
[ A shuddering sigh rushes out of him. He pushes his hips into the touch—nearly automatic, spurred by a southward deluge of blood he didn't know he still had at the precious solid slide of Anders's hand. It is soothing. That's maybe the strangest thing about it. Anders is above and behind, a cozy weight against which to brace. Under Satina's vague light sifting through the barred window, under Anders's whispering mouth, he imagines something almost like a healthy flush tinging the tips of his ears.
He cannot continue like this, doing nothing but take and take. The shame of weakness—and the guilt of his selfishness—are more than he can bear. But it doesn't stop him now. He shifts minutely, an effete squirm of his lower half, warming, thickening in the thin linen of his breeches. The hand not clutching bunches of tattered apprentice robes skates over Anders's wrist as if to stop him but it doesn't, it can't, it just rests there on the knob of bone until Anders touches him in a way that makes his fingers twitch. He doesn't know whether to push forward or back, but he chooses back: a desperate grind of his hips against a waiting, warm lap.
It feels good to forget. For a while. Fenris bites his lip for fear that saying anything will cause this moment to shatter as suddenly as it came, lets his eyes slip shut, breathes deep and slow and tremulous instead. ]
[His breath hitches, a hum caught halfway; old instincts taught from Ferelden's Circle that he never completely unlearned. His hips are rocking forward before he can stop himself, an answering, grinding rhythm. Ten years ago, he would have been appalled at himself for being so needy, so easily distracted, so lacking in finesse. He's hardly thinking that far ahead, now—he's hardly thinking at all now, chasing sensation and friction and warmth.
He can feel Fenris slowly unwinding, even in the way his fingers hang loosely around his wrist. He tries to answer it in kind, presses his lips to the sensitive spot of skin behind Fenris's ear, and murmurs breathy, wordless encouragements, cupping his palm around the slowly stiffening line of his cock. Then his fingers twist, sliding up and back down, this time following the expanse of skin below fabric, where he can grip Fenris more firmly.
Each stroke is deliberately, methodically slow. That much he does focus on, even through the haze of his mind, the restless twitching of his hips. He rolls his thumb carefully around the head each time, languid, encouraging whatever fluid he can to make things a little slicker, a little easier.
It aches. But perhaps it'll be kinder for the both of them, slow and gentle and quiet.]
[ In the midst of the languorous, repetitive way he lets himself be stroked Fenris is dimly aware of Anders's answering press against his arse. So too is he dimly aware that in a previous life such a feeling would be untenable, anathema, this whole helpless attempt at something that isn't suffering. He leaks obediently over Anders's fingers, sticky and aching. Pushes himself a little harder into his fist.
The threads of Anders's voice, so close, seem to want to cradle him as much as his hand. It's okay. It's okay to let go. It's the vague brush of a kiss behind the ear as he does it. These are such simple intimacies, grotesque as they are, and Fenris can feel himself about to split open like a seed. His hips jerk with shallow, irregular urgency, a peculiar reedy sound escaping on a breath that sounds like it's been punched out of his body. A moment arrives where the very last scrap of his wits blows away and suddenly he wants to be kissed so badly he could weep—and then it passes. And everything is a little safer.
Or at least it's safe as it can be when he's reached back for a handful of hip, fingers sunk deep into the place where bone starts to swell into plush flesh, and he's holding tight as they move like there's any honest risk of them separating. It could be enough, maybe. Panting and addled, it's all he can think to give. ]
[There's no pretending that this isn't a mutual relief for them now. He swallows another groan at the grasping touch; this time it comes out as a sigh tinged with his voice, louder than he meant. The movement of his hand and the rocking of his hips gradually slide into sync, each hard, slow push matched by a long stroke and a twist of his fingers. This hadn't been what he'd intended at all, if he'd intended anything, but there's no room for that anymore, not with the sounds Fenris is making into the darkness.
His forehead dips to press against Fenris's shoulder, labored breathing muffled against fabric. He doesn't slow, doesn't stop; if anything, whatever's left of his control starts to unravel. A little bit quicker, a little bit rougher, just by tiny margins. It should be embarrassing, how quickly he feels himself hurtling towards an edge, just from exhausted dry humping on the dirty floor of their cell. But it doesn't matter, he doesn't care, he wants— he wants— he wants.
[ The room is quiet. In the distance, Fenris thinks he can hear the rush of the sea, or the wind, or the blood in his ears, and he doesn't mean to break it with the core-deep shaking moan or the frantic push-hiss of his waistband down bruised thighs, but it's like he's back in himself and he will do anything to hold on a few moments longer. Anders' cock nudges hot against his tailbone in a crushing slide, again and again, through the barrier of his trousers that separates their skin.
His knees part fitfully, instinctively, the spread he desires hindered by his own clothing, struggle for purchase marked by the ankle he hooks around Anders' shin. It's been so long. It'll be over so soon. Anders' mouth is madness, it and everything coming out of it, every soft brush of lips, every breath, every whisper. Another word and it feels like he'll rip apart at the seams. ]
[They're tangled hopelessly now, a twist of limbs and messy desperation. His knee presses more insistently between Fenris's legs, capitalizing on what little space he can manage from what he's being given, hips grinding low and dragging up. Hearing Fenris's voice like that sets a shock of heat through him, and he can't stop the way he pants hard, not without feeling like his heart's about to burst. He lifts his chin up again, lets what is by now more beard than stubble scrape against skin as he presses them fully together and stays there, hip to shoulder to cheek.]
That's it. [His voice is a rough, ragged whisper, all his choked back noises bubbling up under the surface. It's the only thing he can think to say in response. His wrist aches, but he twists it again, pulling hard, harder.] Come on.
[Come, he wants to say, almost does, gasps the hard C out but doesn't finish the rest of the word. He bites hard on his bottom lip to stop himself without understanding why, punch-drunk on the way Fenris is suddenly searing hot against him.
[ Fenris does not expect the almost full-body spasm that wracks his frame, much as his hips buck and his cock surges in Anders's grip and his expression twists to something almost agonized, sounds and pants tumbling over each other so catastrophically that they tangle in his chest and seemingly cannot escape. It has no right to be this good, is his last coherent thought, and then it's all an indistinct mosaic of coming, coming, and Anders heaving in his ear and the feverish pump of his hand and the pump of his hips and the bristle of his face and it has no right.
He's not sure if he blacks out for a second or if his mind simply managed to quiet that completely for the first time in a long time, but the next sensation he's aware of is bone-deep fatigue. He feels wrung out (he was wrung out) and ready to sleep, not able to care that one of them may at some point roll over onto a cold patch of his spend. At some point the heat of their exertions begins to dissipate and Fenris starts to shiver with the loss.
He does not know what to say, or even if there's a point to saying anything. ]
[Fenris goes slack against him, and Anders shuts his eyes so tight that color sparks on the inside of his eyelids. He braces his hand against the floor by Fenris's stomach, lifts himself so that he's half-curled over him. It frees enough space for him to shove his other hand down the front of his own trousers, to pull himself the rest of the way. It hardly takes anything at all, a few rough jerks of his hand. He jumps at the touch of his own palm.
He shudders as he comes, well and truly silent this time, head bowed low. He stays like that, bent, for what feels like a long time. The only thing he can hear anymore is the sound of his own breathing, ragged in his chest, and he wishes it would stop, wishes it would all stop.
He feels worse in the come-down than he did before, exhaustion steeped into every inch of him, and now a cold, miserable lance of something in his chest. He rolls away finally, back flat against the floor, half on their pile of discarded robes and half off. He wipes his hands ineffectually on them, but otherwise doesn't bother cleaning himself up. Instead he slings one arm over his face, hiding his eyes behind the crook of his elbow as he breathes, quick and shaky and unsteady. His heart pounds.
[ Fenris's chest still softly heaves in the dark, but he too is otherwise silent for a while. It's another couple minutes more before he makes himself let go of the pleasant drained haze settling over his bones long enough to tug up his breeches once more, preferring more than anything else to have another layer between him and the cool sea air puffing into the room.
He can only stare at the wall, mind blessedly empty. Already the various pains and stings in his body are crawling back to his senses, but he's tired, and he's... been helped, tonight, no matter how twisted a shape it's taken.
He's been here with Anders long enough to know that the man dislikes prolonged silence and the isolation it suggests, so when an indeterminate length of time passes containing nothing but breathing, he knows. He has taken something that was not his to take, perhaps something that was not even truly Anders's to give, and the worst thing of all is that he is shamed and grateful but he does not regret it.
An apology would be meaningless. What Fenris decides to do instead is drag himself forward a short distance and then turn over, patting his hand once on the warmed patch he just occupied. ]
You'll catch your death there.
[ He sounds ruined, the ache in his belly still echoing pleasantly and not pleasantly. ]
[It's harder than he expected to get his breathing to calm. He doesn't know if that's a result of being locked in here for so long, wet ocean air seeping into his lungs, or something else. He shifts, looks at Fenris in the darkness like he'd forgotten he was even there, wide-eyed and a little wrecked. He doesn't move, at first.
But after a few long moments, he does. He slips close, then closer, letting himself settle back into the familiar huddle they'd established before— this. Tonight. Contact, closeness, warmth. He craves it more now than he did before, and he doesn't know what to do with that feeling.
If his hands hesitate before they land, it's because their old resting places suddenly feel muddled and fuzzy, far away. He can blame that for the way one of them slips into the small of Fenris's back, maybe.]
Fenris. [His name feels bizarre and foreign on his tongue, too loud in the quiet of their cell. He wants to say something. He feels the urge to apologize.] I....
[He can't find the words for it. He's not sure he knows what they are.]
[ Whatever Fenris expected, being held was not it. He sucks in a quiet breath through his nose, shifting onto his stomach and pressing his face into the rags underneath. The change of position essentially results in him lying halfway beneath Anders, like a beast resting in the shade of a tree, bad arm stretched away. They're positioned in such a way that parts of Fenris touch parts of Anders, casual, incidental. As though it's the most natural thing. As though Anders could fit the whole of his body against his and he would neither protest nor mind. It is incredible. Baffling and dreadful.
He truly has no idea how to begin addressing what just happened. Even if he did, exhaustion from the day's ordeals has slowly coiled around him again, squeezing until darkness encroaches on his vision. ]
Rest, [ he repeats, softer this time but firmer, nonjudgmental.
Fenris sleeps better that night than he has in years.
They've learned to take their lives—or what passes for lives—one day at a time. Worry not about what tomorrow has in store, simply concentrate on making it through today. Anders can supply water, if he has power to spare; in suffering his jailors' irregular silences, Fenris has become quite adept at hunting vermin, of which there are plenty. Both valuable and necessary skills, because the templars appear less and less as the days and weeks tick on. Eventually they stop taking him altogether. Fenris knows not why, but he can tell something outside is changing, right along with the dull red glow that starts to burn in their eyes.
Day by day; night by night. Gradually the daylight begins to lengthen, the wind warms, the stars shift against the sky, and Anders and Fenris touch each other in the dark. Every night is so much like that first night: quiet, vaguely somber, usually with only one tending to the other in response to some perceived need, followed by carrying on when dawn breaks like nothing ever happened. But once in a while a night comes where their hands work simultaneously, or they're both too drained by hunger to do anything but close their eyes and pretend they're not holding each other. Eventually it becomes routine—even once the temperature no longer demands they huddle for warmth. Eventually Anders slumps into Fenris's side in mid-afternoon; eventually Fenris rests with his head pillowed on Anders's thigh.
This is where they are tonight, with the sun just starting to slip onto the horizon. It's been some time since they've eaten anything, now that it's spring enough for the rats to go outside. Fenris stares dully at the stones in the ceiling, trying his best to think about anything else. ]
Do you remember, [ he begins, then forgets, then remembers again when some rabble somewhere outside jars him back into the present, ] the time Hawke brought us all the way to Orlais just to watch her dig through wyvern shit?
[ This is the longest sentence he's spoken in... a while, but with it comes a melancholy little wash of fondness. ]
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-12-12 03:56 am (UTC)If you're here, what's out there is not for you.
[ It comes out rougher than intended. The sick heat crawling over his wounds begins to dissipate, followed by an easing of pain, then only an itch. A small amount of light returns to Fenris's eyes, the faint upturn of his mouth unreadable. A little less than comforted, a little less than bitter, a little less than sad.
He swallows around a parched throat. ]
Thank you.
[ It's so freely given, all the pride beaten out of him.
A few seconds pass. His voice suddenly feels stronger, eager, heart seized by a foreign rush of inspiration. ]
You could kill me.
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Date: 2014-12-12 05:29 am (UTC)Anger lances through him, for the first time since the templars took him, an old and familiar sensation. Because he's right, isn't he. The templars are under no obligation to pretend at the Chantry's guidelines for humane treatment anymore. They can be just as brutal as they always were, only now out in the open, and Fenris isn't even a mage. He's a prisoner. There's no reason to hope for mercy.
Once, a long time ago, sitting alone in the dank, humid gloom of Kinloch Hold's isolation cells, Anders had thought about it too. Idly, the first time, stroking a cat's ears through the door's meal flap, and then again later, not so idly. If only there was someone to slit his throat for him, so he didn't have to muster the energy to crush it himself.
He'd thought it could have been a similarity, before. A thread of understanding beneath all the noise of their differences. Now that he has it, he feels disgusted.]
I could. [Each word has to be drawn out through his teeth, gritted in anger.] But I won't.
then it got worse oops
Date: 2014-12-15 07:18 am (UTC)Of course you won't.
[ There's a deliciously vivid corner of his mind left that wants to straighten, hurl invective. Point out the blatant hypocrisy of... whatever his reason for refusing happens to be. His wrist aches a little in the grip, but the magic brings him the first merciful ease of his pain in so long, so long. He can't get angry because it would only taint this reprieve with more suffering. He's so tired of suffering. ]
If you asked it of me, I would oblige.
[ This is a lie.
Fenris can't say just how much time passes after that. He fears for the way he's allowed each day to bleed into the next. Their time together is interspersed with the templars' regular grisly harvest of their new lyrium well. Fenris remembers how it used to be, watching and feeling the steady drip and pulse of his life slipping a little further away with every beat of his hammering heart. And he'd always think, this time will be the time. Surely this time, when he passes out, he won't wake up. It used to be he even hoped for it.
Though Anders scarcely fares much better some days, he eases what he can when he can. Fenris offers nothing in return but a standing offer he desperately wishes he hadn't made, flippant and in a fit of pique, on that first night. Fenris does not think he can endure a return to aloneness now, which might make Anders the greatest danger of all. Tonight the templars do as they always have: the door crashes open and Fenris staggers in fast and wipes out on the stone, more thrown than led. He's pale as a corpse. Just needs to sleep for a long while. But for the first time in a long time, he realizes that the prospect of dying frightens him.
Damp Antivan winter is in full swing. Fenris clambers without remembering to his nest of robes (which has gotten bigger in the last several weeks; big enough, maybe, for two people) and pulls one over himself without regarding Anders, unable to do much but shiver violently. There's a poultice slapped crudely over his inner forearm that keeps him from bleeding everywhere, at least. He needs to stay awake so Anders can do his job, he needs— ]
Please... talk. Anything.
[ His request is groggy, half-muffled into the fabric. ]
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Date: 2014-12-20 05:05 am (UTC)[Despite all the helpless anger, despite everything, his touch is still gentle. Two fingers at the pulse point in Fenris' throat, monitoring the way it flags, the other hand at his elbow, encouraging the arm to extend toward him. They're practiced motions, and not just because of previous patients. Because of this one, in this environment, under these circumstances. It's happened again and again, and it likely will until there isn't any lyrium left to drain.
What he's doing is delaying, not healing. The templars will kill Fenris eventually, for no other reason to fuel their own addictions.
It's naked brutality. He wonders, not for the first time, if he made a mistake, that first night. If they wouldn't both be better off ending each other's misery, if it might actually be the kindest thing they could ever do for each other in their long history. It's not a place he ever wanted to go back to, and he doesn't know how he managed to find his way there on accident.
He swallows back the old memory, and reaches to twitch Fenris' hair back from his forehead.]
It's a long story, Fenris. Are you still with me?
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Date: 2014-12-21 06:46 am (UTC)Eggs in your skirt, yes. Come h— [ His voice is a wisp-thin croak, confused. He's so tired, freezing cold, and Anders is making a nuisance of himself with his continued non-compliance. ] ...what are you doing?
[ They'd taken to huddling together on particularly clammy nights, ones when the wind and rain swirl freely into the room, but it's a testament to his state that Fenris is willing for the first time to openly reach, touch, demand the warmth he knows Anders can provide. When the rational part of his mind is able to kick back in, he will chide himself for cleaving to the smallest bit of sensory relief like a child or a dumb animal—as he's done his whole existence in one form or another, hasn't he? There's no drinking himself into oblivion here, no escape to be found through battle or cards or—or sex. But there is Anders's warm body to ease the cold, Anders's conversation to ease his mind...
Anders's magic to ease the pain.
Incredible. ]
What then?
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Date: 2014-12-22 04:16 am (UTC)Then— hah. [It's an exhale, more than anything. His fingers catch around where Fenris' hand is at the front of his robe to keep his arm steady.] I could tell you that a dragon swooped down and plucked me out of the tree, for all that you're actually listening to me. You're all right. Just let me do this one thing.
[His eyes scan smoothly back towards the door as he peels the poultice away, a cursory check for anyone hovering outside. Satisfied, his palm glows faintly, following the length of Fenris' arm; the main wound closes, deep blood bruises fade, overstretched muscles relax.
It all feels so insignificant, compared against the delirious state Fenris is in. Important, but still too small to matter. Anders grits his teeth against flashes of new anger; if he can do nothing else, if they're both meant to eventually die in this place, he will at least ensure the templars don't get the satisfaction of causing it.]
All right. Let's warm you up. Hold still for me.
[He leans over Fenris to reach for more scraps of robes to tuck around his torso. Taken together, they could almost be a decent blanket. They won't be enough by themselves, but that's all right. Anders won't have much between him and the stone floor either, but that's all right too. The priority now is making sure Fenris makes it through the night.]
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Date: 2014-12-22 05:24 am (UTC)He's not certain how long he passes out—just that he has a dream while he's unconscious and he can't remember anything about it but Justice blazing bright from the cracks in Anders's skin and summoning shade upon shade into the dark heart of Corypheus's prison. He wakes with a bodily jerk, flailing to find himself constricted, brands flaring effetely through the worn fabric.
It is not Justice he sees in front of him; only Anders. All this time, it has only ever been Anders. Justice has abandoned him, Fenris thinks, having revealed its true colors as an opportunistic demon—or simply knowing, perhaps, that Anders is here because this is the fate he's earned. Fenris, too, for having been, despite all intentions and principles and experiences, so complicit in the end.
His thrashing settles after a moment. His breathing slows but it's still harsh, ragged.
Outside the door it's quiet as death.
We deserve this, he wants to say. What he chooses instead is: ]
Water—?
[ And he's also chosen to ignore his fingers, twisted clawlike in the cloth at Anders's waist. ]
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Date: 2014-12-23 03:28 am (UTC)Instinct screams at him to pull himself more firmly away, to retreat from a threat, but after the moment passes and his mind catches up, he only settles back to where he was. He's so tired, and he spent so long running and clawing his way from threats, real and imagined, only to end up exactly where he was trying to get away from in the first place. Compared to that, if Fenris is any kind of threat at all by now, it's a merciful one.]
I don't know that there's any left. Soon.
[His voice is a murmur, thick with interrupted sleep. He hopes he isn't lying. He's taken to trying to hoard food and water when he anticipates the templars might be coming for Fenris again, but their behavior has gotten more and more erratic in recent months, and the two of them already get so little food and water between them as it is.
His hand smooths up Fenris' back to his side to his shoulder, evaluative. Warmer. That's good.]
I suppose I shouldn't ask.
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Date: 2015-02-01 09:08 am (UTC)You ca—let it melt. If it must.
[ It is cruel to demand this of Anders. He knows. Whatever remains of his well of mana must be dried almost to nothing given how weak they are; whatever remains of that, used to tend his wounds. But it doesn't stop him. Doesn't stop the desperate, drugged way his too-dry tongue slides over a long-softened staff callus, hoping for ice, or maybe at least to raise enough of Anders's ire that he might put him out of his misery. ]
Please?
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Date: 2015-02-01 07:08 pm (UTC)His head is pounding. Everything aches. The idea of another spell feels like scraping the bottom of a barrel with nothing but his nails, splintered and painful. But he owes this. He'll protect Fenris from the templars and their madness, because otherwise he doesn't have anything else.
He reaches again for a thread of the Fade.]
All right. All right.
[The space of a breath, and then frost clings to his fingers, thin tendrils of ice spreading across his skin. His thumb rests against Fenris's jaw, gently, encouraging his mouth to open wider so that Anders can press two fingers inside.
He has to concentrate, needs to keep the temperature lower, not the unnatural, freezing temperatures that normally come alongside offensive ice magic. He wants it to melt, not freeze Fenris's skull from the inside. It's hard to concentrate, what with the way Fenris's tongue drags against his skin, but he manages it.
Softly:]
Suck.
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Date: 2015-02-01 10:29 pm (UTC)Moreover, he cannot recall a time when he was touched so kindly as this. A breath catches in his chest, convulsive, perilously close to a sob, but it does not escape. He is mad now, he thinks, well and truly. Still he cleaves to the mage's warmth like a frightened child because something's broken open inside of him with just a few icy droplets, something that sends his arm slithering round Anders's waist to fist the fabric at the small of his back as he licks at his skin greedily until it's hot as his mouth.
He comes back to himself in time, aware he's tugged them both to a halfway point on the edge of their nest. The mere thought of moving exhausts him, but he summons the last of his willpower to avert his face with something like shame. Anders's heart thumps softly against his chest. ]
...Thank you. I am. Sorry.
[ His voice is rough in ways water cannot fix, but he will not die here. He tells himself that every day, no matter how insincerely. ]
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Date: 2015-02-02 06:28 am (UTC)It's not something he's ever thought before. Fenris had always been physically smaller, maybe, but in Kirkwall it was always understood by everyone that he could have snapped Anders's spine with one finger if he ever so chose. He'd been a force, a presence, all power and defiance and controlled anger.
He draws his hand away—damp fingers against Fenris's jaw, then down the length of his body—and thinks that there's so much the templars have taken away, just because they could.
He sets them cheek-to-cheek when Fenris turns his face away, lips to his ear, voice quiet and husked.]
Don't.
[Apologies don't count for much, not here, not anymore. He could apologize, too, for putting them here, for setting fire to kindling, for any number of things, but it would change nothing. They'd still be here tomorrow, the templars would still come, Fenris would still need whatever he needs, and Anders would still give it. It's a blessing, in a twisted way. It's what keeps him going. What picks his head up off scraps of fabric every day, instead of just letting the Void take him like it always should have.
His thumb traces the line of Fenris's hipbone, stark under skin. He feels silent, understood freedom to touch now, boundaries crossed that he hadn't been able to before. It won't last, maybe; morning might come and chase it away. But he drinks it in while he has it, satisfying old cravings for closeness, contact.]
What else do you need?
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Date: 2015-02-02 07:31 am (UTC)Do not ask that of me.
[ An answering hoarse whisper, growing thicker with each word. His eyes squeeze shut against the unexpected sweet tickle of breath; it's almost too much. Fenris knows anyone with a lick of sense would twist away from this parody of an embrace, too aware of the danger inherent in offering a bite of bread to a man who is starving to death. He tries. He truly does. He rises on a shaky elbow and manages to slump into position facing the opposite direction, but that's as far as he gets—at this rate he's no less close to Anders than he was before. Closer even, having somehow brought Anders's cruelly gentle hand with him around his waist to find purchase on his other hip instead, their bodies fitted together as easily and naturally as spoons or lovers.
Does he need anything more, he asks. Miserably, Fenris whispers to the dark: ]
You are the only thing still keeping me alive.
[ It's as good as a yes. ]
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Date: 2015-02-02 06:42 pm (UTC)He listens, quiet, for a long moment.
He doesn't think about it. His hand slips down, then lower. He palms Fenris through thin fabric, the heel of his hand dragging down the length of him, smooth and unhurried. It could almost be a soothing motion, touch meant to break through the haze. Anders doesn't have much else left to give.]
Then that's a burden the both of us have to carry.
[A murmured admission, barely a breath against his ear. He should be dead. He even wants it again, more badly than anything, but he's still here, alive, and he knows he can't blame that on himself.]
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Date: 2015-02-02 10:50 pm (UTC)He cannot continue like this, doing nothing but take and take. The shame of weakness—and the guilt of his selfishness—are more than he can bear. But it doesn't stop him now. He shifts minutely, an effete squirm of his lower half, warming, thickening in the thin linen of his breeches. The hand not clutching bunches of tattered apprentice robes skates over Anders's wrist as if to stop him but it doesn't, it can't, it just rests there on the knob of bone until Anders touches him in a way that makes his fingers twitch. He doesn't know whether to push forward or back, but he chooses back: a desperate grind of his hips against a waiting, warm lap.
It feels good to forget. For a while. Fenris bites his lip for fear that saying anything will cause this moment to shatter as suddenly as it came, lets his eyes slip shut, breathes deep and slow and tremulous instead. ]
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Date: 2015-02-03 04:24 am (UTC)He can feel Fenris slowly unwinding, even in the way his fingers hang loosely around his wrist. He tries to answer it in kind, presses his lips to the sensitive spot of skin behind Fenris's ear, and murmurs breathy, wordless encouragements, cupping his palm around the slowly stiffening line of his cock. Then his fingers twist, sliding up and back down, this time following the expanse of skin below fabric, where he can grip Fenris more firmly.
Each stroke is deliberately, methodically slow. That much he does focus on, even through the haze of his mind, the restless twitching of his hips. He rolls his thumb carefully around the head each time, languid, encouraging whatever fluid he can to make things a little slicker, a little easier.
It aches. But perhaps it'll be kinder for the both of them, slow and gentle and quiet.]
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Date: 2015-02-03 05:56 am (UTC)The threads of Anders's voice, so close, seem to want to cradle him as much as his hand. It's okay. It's okay to let go. It's the vague brush of a kiss behind the ear as he does it. These are such simple intimacies, grotesque as they are, and Fenris can feel himself about to split open like a seed. His hips jerk with shallow, irregular urgency, a peculiar reedy sound escaping on a breath that sounds like it's been punched out of his body. A moment arrives where the very last scrap of his wits blows away and suddenly he wants to be kissed so badly he could weep—and then it passes. And everything is a little safer.
Or at least it's safe as it can be when he's reached back for a handful of hip, fingers sunk deep into the place where bone starts to swell into plush flesh, and he's holding tight as they move like there's any honest risk of them separating. It could be enough, maybe. Panting and addled, it's all he can think to give. ]
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Date: 2015-02-04 05:48 am (UTC)His forehead dips to press against Fenris's shoulder, labored breathing muffled against fabric. He doesn't slow, doesn't stop; if anything, whatever's left of his control starts to unravel. A little bit quicker, a little bit rougher, just by tiny margins. It should be embarrassing, how quickly he feels himself hurtling towards an edge, just from exhausted dry humping on the dirty floor of their cell. But it doesn't matter, he doesn't care, he wants— he wants— he wants.
His next breath rattles in his chest.]
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Date: 2015-02-06 12:21 am (UTC)His knees part fitfully, instinctively, the spread he desires hindered by his own clothing, struggle for purchase marked by the ankle he hooks around Anders' shin. It's been so long. It'll be over so soon. Anders' mouth is madness, it and everything coming out of it, every soft brush of lips, every breath, every whisper. Another word and it feels like he'll rip apart at the seams. ]
T-Tell me—
[ Later, he won't even remember saying this. ]
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Date: 2015-02-06 05:37 am (UTC)That's it. [His voice is a rough, ragged whisper, all his choked back noises bubbling up under the surface. It's the only thing he can think to say in response. His wrist aches, but he twists it again, pulling hard, harder.] Come on.
[Come, he wants to say, almost does, gasps the hard C out but doesn't finish the rest of the word. He bites hard on his bottom lip to stop himself without understanding why, punch-drunk on the way Fenris is suddenly searing hot against him.
He'd been so, so cold before.]
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Date: 2015-02-06 06:33 am (UTC)He's not sure if he blacks out for a second or if his mind simply managed to quiet that completely for the first time in a long time, but the next sensation he's aware of is bone-deep fatigue. He feels wrung out (he was wrung out) and ready to sleep, not able to care that one of them may at some point roll over onto a cold patch of his spend. At some point the heat of their exertions begins to dissipate and Fenris starts to shiver with the loss.
He does not know what to say, or even if there's a point to saying anything. ]
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Date: 2015-02-07 05:30 am (UTC)He shudders as he comes, well and truly silent this time, head bowed low. He stays like that, bent, for what feels like a long time. The only thing he can hear anymore is the sound of his own breathing, ragged in his chest, and he wishes it would stop, wishes it would all stop.
He feels worse in the come-down than he did before, exhaustion steeped into every inch of him, and now a cold, miserable lance of something in his chest. He rolls away finally, back flat against the floor, half on their pile of discarded robes and half off. He wipes his hands ineffectually on them, but otherwise doesn't bother cleaning himself up. Instead he slings one arm over his face, hiding his eyes behind the crook of his elbow as he breathes, quick and shaky and unsteady. His heart pounds.
He doesn't say anything at all.]
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Date: 2015-02-09 08:33 pm (UTC)He can only stare at the wall, mind blessedly empty. Already the various pains and stings in his body are crawling back to his senses, but he's tired, and he's... been helped, tonight, no matter how twisted a shape it's taken.
He's been here with Anders long enough to know that the man dislikes prolonged silence and the isolation it suggests, so when an indeterminate length of time passes containing nothing but breathing, he knows. He has taken something that was not his to take, perhaps something that was not even truly Anders's to give, and the worst thing of all is that he is shamed and grateful but he does not regret it.
An apology would be meaningless. What Fenris decides to do instead is drag himself forward a short distance and then turn over, patting his hand once on the warmed patch he just occupied. ]
You'll catch your death there.
[ He sounds ruined, the ache in his belly still echoing pleasantly and not pleasantly. ]
Rest.
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Date: 2015-02-10 01:31 am (UTC)But after a few long moments, he does. He slips close, then closer, letting himself settle back into the familiar huddle they'd established before— this. Tonight. Contact, closeness, warmth. He craves it more now than he did before, and he doesn't know what to do with that feeling.
If his hands hesitate before they land, it's because their old resting places suddenly feel muddled and fuzzy, far away. He can blame that for the way one of them slips into the small of Fenris's back, maybe.]
Fenris. [His name feels bizarre and foreign on his tongue, too loud in the quiet of their cell. He wants to say something. He feels the urge to apologize.] I....
[He can't find the words for it. He's not sure he knows what they are.]
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Date: 2015-02-10 07:26 am (UTC)He truly has no idea how to begin addressing what just happened. Even if he did, exhaustion from the day's ordeals has slowly coiled around him again, squeezing until darkness encroaches on his vision. ]
Rest, [ he repeats, softer this time but firmer, nonjudgmental.
Fenris sleeps better that night than he has in years.
They've learned to take their lives—or what passes for lives—one day at a time. Worry not about what tomorrow has in store, simply concentrate on making it through today. Anders can supply water, if he has power to spare; in suffering his jailors' irregular silences, Fenris has become quite adept at hunting vermin, of which there are plenty. Both valuable and necessary skills, because the templars appear less and less as the days and weeks tick on. Eventually they stop taking him altogether. Fenris knows not why, but he can tell something outside is changing, right along with the dull red glow that starts to burn in their eyes.
Day by day; night by night. Gradually the daylight begins to lengthen, the wind warms, the stars shift against the sky, and Anders and Fenris touch each other in the dark. Every night is so much like that first night: quiet, vaguely somber, usually with only one tending to the other in response to some perceived need, followed by carrying on when dawn breaks like nothing ever happened. But once in a while a night comes where their hands work simultaneously, or they're both too drained by hunger to do anything but close their eyes and pretend they're not holding each other. Eventually it becomes routine—even once the temperature no longer demands they huddle for warmth. Eventually Anders slumps into Fenris's side in mid-afternoon; eventually Fenris rests with his head pillowed on Anders's thigh.
This is where they are tonight, with the sun just starting to slip onto the horizon. It's been some time since they've eaten anything, now that it's spring enough for the rats to go outside. Fenris stares dully at the stones in the ceiling, trying his best to think about anything else. ]
Do you remember, [ he begins, then forgets, then remembers again when some rabble somewhere outside jars him back into the present, ] the time Hawke brought us all the way to Orlais just to watch her dig through wyvern shit?
[ This is the longest sentence he's spoken in... a while, but with it comes a melancholy little wash of fondness. ]
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