I emerge to cross one of my wip tags off my list. Thank you to the darling @thequeenofthewinter for the tag. I told you that you got me back on my Anders bullshit so this is your fault.
Context: Anders and Hawke are on the run after the Chantry explosion. Marian isn't coping well with the fallout and continues to struggle with the way Anders lied and kept her in the dark. Their travels thus far have been mostly silent and Anders has started to wonder if she would be better off if he left.
Anders looked up, alarm and relief washed through him at the sound of her voice.
“I can see it in your eyes.” She whispered. “I know you’re thinking about it.”
He opened his mouth to say something but he could find no words to protest.
“I know I’m drifting.” She wrung her hands together, “but I’m trying. I’m trying to come back.”
She took a shaky breath as tears fell across her face. “I don’t—I don’t want you to leave. Please don’t leave me alone.”
It wasn't even her words that made him move. It was the trembling of her hands and the way her voice cracked—the same anguished sound she’d made when her mother died.
Anders rose and bound his arms around her. He thought for a moment she might pull back but she melted against his frame and buried her face into the crook of his neck.
“You were never supposed to carry this.” He whispered against her ear. “I thought I could give you a chance for a better life. A free one. I would pay the price and the pain of it would die with me.”
Pulling back, he cupped her face, wiping away tears and strands of hair. “You don’t have to carry this.” His eyes began to sting as he pleaded. “Give it back to me.”
Marian shook her head and Anders choked on his own sob when she spoke.
He bowed his forehead against hers. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
“Tell me what you need.” He whispered. Begged. Anything, she could have anything.
“I don’t know.” She burrowed back into the side of his neck. “Just—just tell me something true.”
Something true. It was the lie he’d used to protect her. And it was the lie that was killing her.
So he whispered the only truth she did not know, pressing it gently against her ear.
He felt the curve of her smile against the skin of his neck. She pulled back, and for the first time in weeks she looked him in the eye.
The shape of it was almost foreign, unfamiliar on his lips. But when she spoke it, the sound of his name was holy in her mouth.
soft tags for @aetherflowers @silent-words @sucksinlosers @bladesingerlily @maagisterpavus @in-the-drowning-deep
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
andulkaphoto
romaincrisis
yousharknotpass
2087
titsay
amandla
