#januanderstakeback

It could be so much worse than it is, and even on the hardest of days, that fact doesn’t escape them. Decades have passed since Divine Victoria ordered an official end to the Circles…a few less since the Hero of Ferelden brought about a cure for the darkspawn Taint that loomed over their shoulders for so much of their lives. Through there will always be mages in agreement that no man was ever less deserving of a quiet retirement among the Antivan hills, each month sees a few travelers who want nothing more than to shake his hand and offer their thanks.

They bring gifts, sometimes. Blankets, books, little trinkets carved or forged or sewn with feathers. Faded notes from when they or their parents lived behind stone walls, counting the wasted years; things Anders gently insists they keep. The really savvy ones bring food.

(“We’re going to be poisoned one of these days,” he once mused aloud, selecting another custard roll. Ain had scoffed gently.

“If they do, I hope it’s another butter cake. I wouldn’t have objected to dying on that butter cake.”)

But Anders is not a healthy man, and hasn’t been since the day they found each other in the Nevarran backcountry. Before Justice took his leave, he regretfully contemplated that perhaps humans only came into the world with so much strength. Perhaps he had pushed Anders into exhausting all of his years before his time. Anders had replied that Justice never expressly forbade him from stopping for a sandwich now and again, and that the blame was as much his as anyone else’s.

He’ll be seventy-eight in Ferventis. He still doesn’t stop for sandwiches.

The cough does not mark the beginning, nor does it mark the end.

Rather, it’s a milestone of sorts; the first time Ain has to run from the house in the dead of night and bruise his knuckles on the healer’s door. He holds his partner’s hand by lamplight, whispering comforting nonsense as the old elven woman slips a needle between the hard, visible rises of his ribs and drains the fluid into a glass jug.

(Until his dying day, Ain will recall that it looked exactly like bad ale, complete with foam head.)

Once upon a time, Anders had taken a pragmatic approach to the passage of time; optimistic in a way he hadn’t been about anything since their earliest days together at Vigil’s Keep. The way he’s chosen to see it, as long as he’s capable of getting out into the forest for his daily walk and feeding the cats in the morning, he's far from being old. After that long night passes, life goes on as usual -- rising too early, drinking their tea together, complaining bitterly about the price of grain this year -- but marked by a series of small, insistent reminders. 

When Anders’ feet grow cold, and when he picks up a stray cut or bruise, how long it takes to heal. 

When the list of draughts and bitter powders the healer prescribed grows ever longer, filling up the cabinets and resting on windowsills. 

When the small aches and pains that have plagued him for years suddenly grow fangs, and neither of them can explain why.

When Ain finds him on the ground by the woodline, last winter’s fallen leaves in his cloak, and spends the next day and a half stroking his hair, wondering if this is how the inevitable finds them.

When he wakes, and admits that maybe, today, the porch will do.

The last time they ever make love, it’s a snowy evening in late Frumentum; fire stoked high as it will go, surrounded on all sides by a copious amount of propped up pillows, and set against the backdrop of knowledge that they’re both going to ache tomorrow. Somehow, despite all of this, it remains one of the few things that can truly make the years fall away.

“Andraste’s gaudy bonnet,” Anders pants, hair falling in his eyes. Ain slips his arms around him, circling fingertips around the bite mark forming on his upper thigh.

“Andraste says to stop invoking her name. It forces her to check in on us and then she just feels greasy.” 

“You’re greasy.”

"Well, not anymore.”

Anders laughs a throaty, satisfied laugh, turns over to look at him, and Ain’s heart stumbles a little, because there will never come a time when Anders isn’t beautiful to him. When he doesn’t want to kiss every inch of his body and devour him until someone complains about the noise. 

They get three glorious minutes in the thick of the afterglow. Three minutes before Anders turns sharply, swiftly, and doubles over. 

The cough that nearly killed him those three years ago never really left. With frantic hands, he grabs the deep, dark medicine bottle from the bedside cabinet -- the one meant to warm his lungs and clear his airway. Three drops on a cloth pad, and he inhales it with wet, uneven breaths for what seems an agonizingly long time. The oil itself smells of Antivan cooking, spicy and sweet, like dipping bread in pungent sauce as they traveled the back roads to reach the sea. It smells like a lifetime away.

Finally, mercifully, it goes to work. Anders spits a final time into the basin, then breathes easy at last.

“Incidentally...thank you for not running when I started coughing up suspicious colors.”

Ain shifts the blankets higher on their cooling bodies. “You tolerate my aching hip. We’re square.”

They lie together in the undemanding quiet, draped around one another, hands roaming without direction. Little by little, their menagerie settles back on the bed...Trifle and Mouse and Ser Stripeknickers, daughter of Ser Wyvernface, daughter of Ser Marmalade the Fat, son of Ser Perchbiter, son of the great and glorious Ser Pounce-a-Lot.

“The healer’s going to snipe at you, you know. She says the loose hair is going to aggravate your breathing.”

“Hm. Time to look for another healer.”

Ain watches him let one cat onto his bare stomach and scratch another between the ears. After a time, he kisses his shoulder, the borderline of his beard, and finally his lips. “I love you. Gods, how I love you...”

“I love you too,” Anders replies, exactly as he always has. As if the words are precious, clumsily stolen, and he wants to taste them before someone inevitably snatches them back. But Ain must be more transparent than usual tonight, because he doesn’t stay wistful for long. “And don’t give me those sorrowful eyes, Fearless Leader. I’ve told you before, you say it plenty.”

Three days after the end of Satinalia, Anders’ health takes a hard, sharp turn for the worst. Like he was waiting for one last unabashedly happy day...or just one last mug of that warm end-of-the-year wine he loves so dearly.

“Would you believe me if I told you this was alright?” he asks, when the act of walking to and from the bed tires him. “When I was an apprentice, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would live to see thirty years. The gallows, the sword, the rite...instead, I’m an old, awful wreck, and there are children who will have to be taught what a Circle was. I couldn’t begin to tell you how any of that happened.”

It’s meant for his comfort, Ain knows. For Anders’ sake alone, he can pretend it succeeds.

He sleeps most of the day away now, eats very little. Whenever he’s awake, however, he makes it a point to sit up and write. As his own failing body robs him of a little more each week, he’s managed to hold tight to this.

Years ago, he drafted a brief adieu to the mages who, for reasons he’s never quite understood, pen songs about him in taverns.  He takes it out now, revisits it often.

Now and again, smooths his hands over the words.

Never forget that the mage rebellion took place in a thousand small battles, most of them shrouded in shadow. Before Kirkwall, before the White Spire, before the Conclave. For every whisper you raise in memory of me, raise ten for the apostates who made a life for their children in secret corners of the world, for the women who camped outside of dungeon cells to defend one another against their jailers, and for the apprentices who chose a tower window over the templar brand. 

Freedom was never a privilege to be seized, but a profound and natural rightness that was always meant to be. The Maker's greatest gift to the mages was always themselves...the indomitable strength displayed by our people simply that fact, in its very purest of forms, holding constant and true.

I have been blessed to see it.

Live gloriously.

A beautiful day in late Eluviesta, the last of the filthy sheets of ice melting to the tentative grass beneath. Ain reads quietly by the window, contemplating making something with the leeks growing in the woods behind their home. Potato soup, maybe, or something with fish. When Anders calls him, his only thought is mild surprise that his partner has woken before noon.

Somehow, he never even considers. Not when he enters the room, and the air feels heavy...not when Anders takes his hand and kisses each knuckle, soothing rough ridges on scarred hands. Hilltops leapt. Horizons jumped.

“...I think I’m ready, love.”

In all their time together, Anders has never called him “love.” Not unless things are serious.

“...Are you sure? You really do look much better today. Do you want me to run for the healer? It could very well be the last of the cold weather wearing you down, I get it terribly myself --” 

Anders’ slow, patient palm on his cheek. An indulgent smile that turns his chest to ice. 

Ain exhales in slow, slow increments, hoping this will keep his voice steady. It does not. “I suppose...this is the part where I tell you I’ll be alright.”

“I wouldn’t make you do that. I doubt I could if this were the other way around...” Ain tries not to hear the way he breathes, the staggering effort. “Just...promise me you’ll get out into the sun? Feed the cats for me?”

When that, of all things, sets his eyes burning, Anders’ thumb stops tracing the curve of his tattoo and sets to swiping them as dry as can be hoped for. Ain swallows down the part of him that longs to shatter, and will. “...If the Countess gives me any lip, I’ll tell her Papa wouldn’t approve.”

“There you go.”

“I’ll tell her you’ll know. That you check in on us sometimes. ”

“I will be.” Ain thinks back to the look he’d carried about him when the False Calling had hit them, and all the times the melancholy had stolen the light from his eyes...that exhausted, battered, broken resignation. If nothing else, thank the gods that that look isn’t with him today. “...It was an odd one, but it was a good one. Wasn’t it? You and I, the whole ride...”

“The very best.”

When Anders settles back against the pillow with a deep, deep sigh of contentment -- as though it’s cold and raining outside, and he’s just learned he has nowhere to be -- Ain chances a moment of selfish, ugly hope. But the minutes drag on like the rises and falls of his chest that come slower and fewer between, and turn into hours. The sweet smelling spring breezes will turn cool with evening, and the shadows will lengthen and turn blue. When Anders speaks again, it will scarcely be a mutter, coming to him from miles away.  

“...Mmm...your hands are warm...”

There are a lifetime of things left to say between them, but that will do. Lips pressed to his palms, hoping the warmth will find him. The irony and the kindness of it won’t settle on Ain until much later.

The way Hawke said his name, slowly, with that stress on the “An” and his jaw setting, Anders knew he was in for a stern lecture. He had feared those for so long, dreading the moment Hawke would finally realize how much of a burden he really was. It had taken him almost three years to finally understand that they were meant to console, not crush, that his lover never challenged who – or what – he was, but the way he doubted himself. This one would be different. This time, it would hurt. Reprimands. Hate. From the one person who had always supported him. Whose trust Anders had betrayed. He deserved it, every piercing word and insult. If Hawke hit him, that too, would be warranted.

But that wouldn’t make it hurt any less.

“The people I love are the only thing I ‘care about’, and you didn’t destroy them. Our friends are here, safe, sleeping peacefully in that cave over there. My sister is with them. Free. You saved her life. She would be dead if it weren’t for you. What you deserve is more than I can give you in a lifetime. But that is not why I stayed with you. I stayed because I love you.”  It was stated calmly, his voice not raised, his hands folded in his lap. And in his eyes, a flame that should have been snuffed by Anders’ deception. Still burning, with steady warmth. Still seeing him.

He had no right to hide the ugliness. Not after everything, not anymore. In the Gallows, he had been selfish, high on Hawke’s support, on the fact that he was still alive. Hawke, this man who had surprised him yet again, deserved more than that.

“Sebastian was right when he warned you I was selfish. I cannot rest until mages are free. I will never abandon my cause for you.”

“Good. You shouldn’t.”

“Hawke, I’m serious. I know I dragged you into this, but you don’t have to…”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence.

“You didn’t drag me into this, Anders. You helped me out of a hopeless situation. You know perfectly well Meredith called for the Rite of Annulment weeks ago.”

“I…I didn’t think you heard…” Anders stumbled through the words in little more than a whisper, all air knocked out of him by the revelation that Hawke had known.

“Of course I fucking heard, sneaking up and listening in on people are what I do. I would have thought you knew that, by now.”

“You didn’t say anything.” He wasn’t in the position to, but he couldn’t help sounding defensive. When Hawke had accused him of having the mages’ blood on his hands, he had known…

“Well, yes, because I was hoping I could fix this without you throwing yourself right into the line of lightning. Seems neither of us has learned much in the last three years.” Hawke sighed, his exhaustion clearly visible beneath the wry smile he sent his way. “I thought with my influence…people would listen. Turns out being the Champion doesn’t mean that much after all. I asked the Grand Cleric to intervene, to send word to the Divine, tell her what a dangerous zealot Meredith was. She refused to get involved. She didn’t care, Anders, not one bit. She wouldn’t go so far as to sanction it herself, but she would have let the whole Circle be slaughtered without batting an eyelid. That’s who she really was. I do feel sorry for Sebastian; I know she was like a mother to him, but I certainly won’t be mourning her. So you see, you didn’t drag me into this. I was right in the centre of this mess, sitting on my arse, pondering what to do while my sister’s life was at stake. If you hadn’t done something…”

A few pebbles came lose as Hawke drove his foot sharply into the ground. They bounced off the ledge, clattering into the abyss behind them. In the screaming silence that followed, Hawke met his eyes. “Why do you think Meredith ordered the tower searched ‘top to bottom’? You know as well as I do that she was looking for a reason. If she had found anything – a papercut, a handkerchief from a bloody nose - she would have annulled the Circle right there. Without anyone around to know or help them. You didn’t condemn them. You saved them. You saved her.” Hawke’s face lost its resolve, his eyes leaving Anders’ to stare at the ground. “I am sorry I didn’t make that quite so clear right when it…happened. In that moment, it was…a shock.” He lifted his gaze back up to his. “But now that the shock has faded, I am not sad to see the Chantry burn. It made my father hate himself. All those years of being free, and he was still a slave to the Circle’s teachings. He drilled them into Bethany, made her afraid of her magic, made her feel guilty for who she was. Two good people, and the Chantry filled them with nothing but fear and self-loathing.” There was a sad smile on his face as he cradled Anders’ face in his palm. “Three good people. Until one of them, the strongest one, the one I will gladly tell the world I love, decided it was finally time to do something.”

Everything he had ever dreamt of hearing, but it wasn’t all there was to it. He furiously tried to blink away his tears, tried to steady his choked-up voice.

“That ‘good man’ just started a war.”

Hawke didn’t let go of his face, didn’t waver. He just nodded, one curt, determined movement. “Sometimes, that is necessary. Not all that long ago, I was in an army that marched right into one. I’ve never heard anyone say that was wrong.”

“That’s not the same; the Darkspawn would have crushed us otherwise…”

“As the Chantry has crushed mages for a 1000 years. It was about time you fought back…we fought back,” he corrected himself. “It’s also about bloody time the rest of us finally stood up for you.”

“It’s not your fight,” Anders protested weakly. He had to give him one last out; he owed it to him.

Hawke heaved an exaggerated sigh. “You really need to work on your listening comprehension. As I said about thirty seconds ago, it is my fight. And as I said about ten minutes ago, I would come with you even if it wasn’t. My happiness was never in Kirkwall. It was always with you. All I need is your stubbly face, my dog and, if you insist, a cat….And well, my sister. I’m sorry, but there’s no way we can keep her from tagging along. She’s a Hawke; we are immune to no.” His gaze turned inward, a warm small playing about his lips. “My sister, the rebel. Finally telling the Chantry just where they can stick it. I must say, I like the sound of that.”

Anders found himself smiling back. “I don’t mind if she comes with us. I like Bethany. She always tried to understand me, to understand everyone…And she said I reminded her of your father.”

Hawke blinked at him, slowly, silently. And blinked again. And again. And ten more times.

“That’s…an image I did not need…Like my father…does that mean I…No,” he shook his head with a fierceness that resembled that of his smelly Voidbeast of a pet, “not going there. Let’s just…get some rest and forget you ever said that. We have a long way ahead of us.”

Anders bit his lip. He had to ask one last time.

“Together?”

Dirty or not, Hawke’s beard tickled the way it always did when he kissed him.