#jay writes

Not that they’d made it out unscathed; she felt rather like she’d been chewed on for hours like a mabari with a bone, and now that they’d found a place to stop and rest, she could quite plainly see in the dying sunlight that Anders had fared no better. If she had to guess, she’d bet he was just as—if not more—exhausted as she was. Even so, he was quietly setting wards around the tiny clearing they’d stopped in.

Almost like he was avoiding her. Marian sighed and turned her attention back to her own task: pitching the tent that she’d managed to grab on their way out of Kirkwall. It wasn’t much, but it was shelter. She supposed she couldn’t complain too much. Things could have gone worse. Much, much worse.

The forest had swallowed what was left of daylight by the time she collapsed in a weary heap on the grass. The dark was nearly absolute without a fire to see by, but the risk of the smoke being seen was too high to be worth it. Plenty of people in Kirkwall would have reason to chase after the two of them—any surviving templars who weren’t willing to take orders from Cullen, ordinary citizens who’d lost friends or family in the explosion and the resulting fires, mercenaries hoping to collect on inevitable bounties…

Still, there was nowhere else she’d rather be.

“Do you need any healing?” Anders offered, startling her right out of her thoughts. She glanced towards the sound of his voice to see him standing a couple of paces away, illuminated faintly by a magelight hovering at his shoulder. Where did he find the energy? Trying to summon even the barest spark of magic after the day she’d had felt firmly impossible to Marian.

She shook her head. “Nothing I can’t handle.” Her head hurt, her back hurt, she’d twisted an ankle tripping over a tree root when they’d first reached the forest—but she wasn’t in danger of bleeding to death, and she was tired enough that she knew she’d be out cold the moment she laid down, pain or no pain. While she’d certainly sleep better without the pain, a better night’s sleep wasn’t worth asking an already-tired mage to push just a little bit further.

His shadowed expression was plainly unconvinced. “You’ve been limping for hours, love,” he said gently. “Are you sure you don’t want me to fix it?”

She should have known better than to think he wouldn’t have noticed. “How are you not completely exhausted? I feel like I could fall asleep standing up at this point.”

He offered her a wry smile. “If being a Grey Warden didn’t come with at least a few perks, no one would want to join up.”

“Says the man who ran away,” she teased. “All right, if you insist.”

Anders crossed what little space remained between them, and she could already feel the shift in the Veil as it responded to him. Every time, she was left in awe of how easily magic seemed to come to him—even though she’d come into her magic at the young age of six, Marian had never found it easy. Every spell, every little spark, demanded a level of focus and effort from her that seemed like climbing a mountain compared to how easily Anders commanded the same powers.

His magic felt like warm honey flooding through her veins, slow but steady. It seemed to collect in the spots that needed it—her twisted ankle, her back, her head, a shallow gash in her arm that she’d entirely forgotten—and all the while it soothed her frayed nerves, too. Funny what a little dose of something familiar could do. At ease for the first time all day, her guard slipping, Marian drifted into her usual daydreams. Do the Grey Wardens have rules about marriage?

The magic simply evaporated in an instant, and she shivered. When she glanced up, Anders was just staring at her, as if she’d spouted absolute gibberish. A moment too late, Marian realized that she’d spoken aloud.

“I, uh,” she stammered, “I don’t—it’s just—”

“Hawke,” he said.

She shut her mouth.

For a second or two, Anders didn’t say anything else, as if he was waiting to make sure that she’d stopped babbling nonsense. Then he quietly said, “After everything that’s happened today, I never would have thought… No, the Wardens don’t care.”

Despite herself, despite the embarrassed flush to her face, Marian asked, “Then… if I asked you to marry me…?”

“Yes. In a heartbeat.” He paused for a moment, then added, “It’s just… Most mages never get the opportunity. I never even thought to consider the possibility.”

“Isn’t that the goal? That, someday, mages like us will have the freedom to do the same thing?”

A small, surprised laugh escaped him. “That’s the hope, yes.”

Marian grinned. “Then marry me. We’ll forge the path for everyone else.”

As if in answer, a bird called out somewhere nearby. It was a cheerful little sound, as if the bird was saying goodnight to its fellows in the trees. She smiled faintly at the sound—then turned her attention back to Anders as he said, “Is that our next stop, then? Finding a village Chantry with a Revered Mother who won’t ask too many questions?”

“Sounds perfect,” she said with a laugh. Then, gesturing to the tent at her back, she added, “We should get some rest first, though, don’t you think?”

Anders snorted in response. “Smartass.”

She flashed him her cheekiest smile, then scrambled back into the tent. If you’d told her years ago that she’d wind up running away from Kirkwall with an apostate just like her mother, she would have laughed—and yet here she was. It felt right.

In front of him his friend shifts, cocking his head to the side. Brian mentally amends that statement. If his friend hadn’t been there to scare Alex off then no amount of dodging would have mattered and he wouldn’t have the memory of Alex scurrying off like a plague rat. Something blooms in Brian’s chest, warm and soft.

That was the main difference between him and Alex. He wasn’t alone.

With his best smile Brian gestures towards the first aid kit he had shoplifted from Walmart a couple weeks ago, trying to keep his hands steady. Even if Alex hadn’t managed to get a proper hit on him he was still going to have one hell of a black eye, his world narrowing down to a slit. There was nothing for it. He’d need some help to patch himself up. In his previous life he’d been well versed in First Aid, a set of skills he hoped was similar to riding a bicycle. Doing at home surgery had far higher stakes than making scarier videos in the woods.

But it was simple really. Pour a little bit of alcohol on the wound, make sure your hands were clean, and do a little bit of simple sewing. He wasn’t picky on the stitch, had a good couple of infected wounds already, knew the nearby CVS didn’t have security cameras if worse came to worse. This wouldn’t be the first time he stole antibiotics.

His friend frowns, but then again when was he not frowning? He had Tim’s face, Tim’s perpetually knotted brows, Tim’s dark worried eyes, Tim’s perfectly tousled hair. His friend’s hair, Brian corrects himself. That’s who he was with right now.

“Do you know how to-”

Brian’s cut off by a hand fisting the front of his hoodie and pulling him forward. Grin widening, he tilts his head to the side, exposed, secure. There was no reality where this version of Tim would ever hurt him. Well. Hurt him beyond what was necessary. He lets out a yelp as half the bottle of alcohol is upended atop his head, everything else momentarily obliterated by the pain. Just because he was missing one of his eyes didn’t mean it didn’t sting to have alcohol poured all over his face

“Hey! We need some of that for your hands!”

And as Brian squints, blinking back tears, something wonderful happens. That frown turns into something almost resembling a smile, the corner of his friend’s mouth quirking ever so subtly up. Bastard. Brian was grateful he still had the capacity to see it. If he didn’t he would just accept going to hell for killing Alex because there is nothing he wanted more in the world than to see that grin again and again and again, gorge himself on the joy of it. If he wasn’t careful the hunger for it would subsume everything else.