#realace

-

From groggy depths, Anders hears Fenris pleading. Another nightmare. The last one ended with Fenris nearly tearing his throat out, and was followed by a day of resentful mutual silence that their tentative partnership still hasn’t recovered from. Consequently, Anders is motivated to respond appropriately this time. He struggles to move, body heavy with sleep, clumsy—

A woman replies in Tevene.

Awareness slams down hard on Anders, followed by white-hot panic. The last thing he remembers is an evening meal in a tavern, one he’d insisted on having when Fenris had wanted to move on. His hands and feet are bound, he’s lying in what feels like wet grass, and he’s been poisoned. 

It’s not magebane. That means their captors must not know that he’s a mage, despite the grimy trails of someone else’s spellcasting around them. The poison has dried his mouth out; it makes his vision blur with cascading stars. It also seems to be wearing off, though not as fast as he wants.

“Please, lord, please,” Fenris is repeating, half in Tevene and half in the common tongue. 

“Your friend is awake,” says the woman.

“Please, let me go,” says Fenris, and while Anders might once have fantasized about seeing Fenris humbled, this fearful, submissive tone is something he never wants to hear again. “This man is nothing, he will be missed by no one, you could take him in my place.”

Fenris is talking about Anders, Anders realizes. He has no feelings about that at all.

A second speaker cuts in, a man with a very upper-class accent. “I’d heard you were a sniveling little”—here he spits some word that can only be a slur—“but I didn’t expect you to be stupid. How disappointing. How would we pass off some random bumpkin as you, an elf with such a high price on his head?”

“What was he doing with you, anyway?” says the first speaker. “Can’t imagine who would willingly travel with such a creature.” She and her companion talk like Fenris, weaving their speech between languages.

“Do tell us,” says the second speaker. 

Anders blinks hard, moves his head, and is able to make out part of the moonlit scene. There’s one man in a magister’s robes; a woman in clothing less gaudy but no less fine; and then Fenris, battered and half-naked and on his knees in the grass, his arms locked in front of him and held palm up in a pose of supplication.

Apparently Fenris’s answer isn’t coming fast enough. The second speaker grunts impatiently and turns to the other. “This is childish. Prisca, arm.”

Anders’ vision blurs again, but he doesn’t need to see to know what’s happening. A sick, sharp smell, an unnatural pull, splits the cool night like an ax through a log. Blood magic.

Fenris makes a choked-off noise of pain, residual energy from his brands pulsing. Anders is suddenly alight with rage.

Now, he thinks, would be a great time for you to wake up, Justice. But no response comes. 

“Well?” There’s a smile in the voice of the second speaker, the blood mage who feels entitled to use his companion. He makes a last gesture with his hand, and Fenris jerks like a puppet in the grass before he gathers composure enough to answer.

“I picked him up. I meant to rob him.” The Tevene phrase Fenris chooses has a double meaning with a sexual connotation, more humiliating for him than for the cultural role he’s cast Anders in. The shame in his voice sounds real.

Prisca huffs in disgust; the blood mage laughs. “So we’re this poor traveler’s saviors, then.”

“Just hurry up and decide what you’re going to do, Simeon.”

“It’s hard. We could leave him here, but I like the idea of giving him a show first.” There’s a small gasp from Fenris, drawn in too late; Simeon chuckles. “Does he seem coherent enough to enjoy it?”

Prisca comes over and hauls Anders to his feet. Anders is shaking, still fighting off the poison. He’s too weak and too thin, has been for too long, and he’s not put on enough muscle since leaving Kirkwall. Prisca isn’t especially strong, but he wouldn’t be able to take her.

“Hey, you,” says Simeon to Anders, coming right up in his face. “Can you understand me?”

Anders closes his eyes.

Simeon says, petulantly, “I don’t know why we seem to keep encountering the boring type of stupid Northerner. I thought barbarians would be more fun.”

Prisca says, “Just leave him.”

“If I made him hold his eyes open and watch me—” 

“It’d be my blood you’re wasting. Come on, you’ll have plenty of time to torment the elf before we collect that bounty.”

She’s still holding Anders up. Prisca isn’t a mage; she can’t feel a spell being gathered, and probably thinks his hands are just twitching from the effects of the poison. Simeon has no excuse, aside from being an overconfident idiot who was probably a nightmare to have as a classmate. 

“I wouldn’t have to use your blood,” says Simeon, and close up, Anders hears the snick of a delicate little knife being drawn from some expensive sheath. “I could just use his. Not like he seems to be doing much with it.”

Anders directs lightning through him the second before he touches him.

-

It’s over faster than he expects. Seems like at least some of that blood mage’s arrogance shouldn’t have been misplaced, but there you are. He cleans the mess off as best he can and goes to Fenris.

The elf lies collapsed where he was. Anders sinks to his knees in the grass beside him; he tenses, but doesn’t move.

“Did you really think I’d let them leave with you?” Anders asks.

Fenris opens his eyes, slowly, and the answer is written on his face.

“Right,” says Anders, not bothering to hide his anger. “I hope these idiots also stole our belongings when they decided to drug and kidnap us, because I don’t have anything to heal you with.” He wouldn’t have enough mana even if Fenris let him use magic on him, but he knows better than to mention that.

A hand darts out and closes itself around Anders’ wrist. “You must allow me to explain.”

“Explain what?” Anders snaps, trembling with emotion and the beginnings of exhaustion. The protective fury he had felt on Fenris’s behalf, what seems like minutes before, has fled. “It’s clear what you think of me. Or is it that you wanted them to take you, just so you could get away from me?”

“Mage!” Fenris’s voice comes out as a growl, and his nails dig into Anders’ wrist. He swears a few times before continuing. “Will you cease prolonging my humiliation?” 

Anders knows he isn’t being rational, but he can’t stop. “You thought I would abandon you, after we… You thought I’d just let someone hurt you. In front of me.”

“I am used to pain,” Fenris says quietly. “And I thought you were more injured than you are.”

Anders takes a moment to absorb this.

When he lets his attention fall there, Fenris’s face is open. If he were someone else, he might let Anders kiss him now; because he’s Fenris, Anders only looks at him. His fierce expression softens, and his grip on Anders’ wrist goes gentle.

“You know,” says Anders, keeping his tone light, “this is my fault, since I wanted to dine in that tavern so badly. If you wanted, you could say ‘I told you so.’”

“No need.” A flicker of a smile crosses Fenris’s face. “You will keep telling yourself, long past the point where I take any benefit from it.” The smile turns to a grimace when he tries to sit up.

-

Anders had learned a long time ago, longer than he preferred to admit, that it wasn’t safe to let anyone know he wanted something. They would take it, or use it against him, or parade it around in front of his face until he begged for it. Even kind people who treated others well did this. Even people who had professed to care for him. 

The safest thing was to pretend that he had no desires, or to lie and mask them with something adjacent—“I’m horny, not lonely; I drank to drink, not to weep”—that kind of silly, facile thing, or in recent years something more complicated. Occasionally he could succeed at hiding his desires perfectly behind another person’s, making them believe that he was just doing what they wanted, and how could they blame him for trying to please them? 

Unfortunately, that strategy didn’t always work. Especially with Fenris.

“We need to be on our way, mage.” Fenris’s voice, impatient but not yet flat with irritation, cut into Anders’ contemplation.

“Right, sure,” said Anders, and went back to packing up the campsite.

The journey so far had been long, and there was still much ground to cover before they met with Hawke. Anders dreaded it. A week ago, he would’ve said it was because he was afraid of himself; could not bear what he had done, despite or perhaps because of the fact that he believed it had been necessary; and no longer saw any reason to live.

Less weighty concerns preoccupied him now.

Fenris was busy with the tent, so Anders could stare at him. His hair had been growing. He was wearing it up and pulled back hard, in a way that looked painful and emphasized the sharpness of his thin face. If Anders ran a finger along the edge of that jaw, he was sure it would make him bleed.

He shook his head to disperse his thoughts. They had run across a lot of elfroot the other day, had managed to gather more of it than space was budgeted for, and the pack with healing supplies needed to be carefully organized if Anders was to carry it without tiring or losing anything.

He devoted himself to this task so thoroughly that he didn’t notice Fenris’s approach. Well, he noticed that Fenris was near, because he always did—the lyrium brands called to the spirit, or demon, inside him who had lain sleeping since their exit from Kirkwall, melodic and impossible to ignore—but it startled him when arms wrapped around him and a sharp-chinned face pressed to his back.

“You smell good,” said Fenris, sounding surprised. 

“I need a bath,” said Anders, because he did.

“Hah.” Fenris did something with his face that—yes, that was nuzzling. A week ago, Anders might’ve thought him incapable of even conceiving of such an action. “You do.”

Anders held his breath. He didn’t shrink or make himself stiff, as that might make Fenris pull away, but he didn’t do what he wanted either, which was to lean back against Fenris and bring his arms around him tighter. Then start begging. 

“Is it that I smell like elfroot?” he said.

“No, you smell like human.”

“No need to sound so disgusted, elf.” 

“If you disgusted me, I would not be touching you. We will bathe tonight,” Fenris announced, and released him. “At the inn.”

“The inn?” said Anders. No inn had been mentioned to him before. They hadn’t slept under a roof in weeks, unless caves counted, and to Anders they didn’t.

“There is a certain spring, supposedly not far from here, where an inn serves those desiring to take the waters. Hawke has a contact there.”

“Well, I can’t say a bed won’t be a welcome change of pace,” said Anders. “But…”

“You can work through your doubts on the road,” said Fenris. “Now, finish your task.”

“You were the one who interrupted me!” Anders protested, and went back to arranging the healing supplies. He could still feel the warmth of Fenris’s body, and it made his chest ache. His mind turned, as it had many times in the past week, to thoughts and urges he’d hoped he would never have again.

-

There was an inn. Just as Fenris had said, Hawke had a contact there: the owner, a very small, very bright-eyed old Fereldan woman who retained her hulking nephew as the sole employee. The inn didn’t get many visitors this time of year, so they were free to take their pick of the rooms.

It had been a long day. After they ate and drank, the nephew brought up water for the bath. Anders bathed first, as he suspected Fenris would goad him into it otherwise. 

Fenris occupied himself with laying out clothes for the morning, his back to Anders. Anders dampened a rag and wiped off the worst of the grime on him before getting into the bath. Soaking in the water made him feel loose and tired, and soothed cramps and pains he hadn’t realized he had. 

When he was done, the water was cold, so he heated it. He didn’t realize what he’d done—he was too focused, perhaps, on trying not to look at Fenris, or see if Fenris was looking at him—until they switched places and he heard Fenris exclaim.

Surreal, Anders thought. A week ago, would he have cared if Fenris drowned? (Answer: Yes, he would have, but that care would’ve had nowhere to go.) Now here he was, leaping across the room like an anxious young mother to make sure the water wasn’t too hot.

“That was careless of you,” said Fenris. His face was flushed, hair a little wavy with steam. Anders couldn’t bear to regard him for long, but instead chose to aim his attention slightly off, so he got blurry flashes of elf out of the side of his vision. “Someone could have noticed the use of magic.”

“The innkeeper’s nephew carried my staff upstairs.”

“He might have really thought it was a walking stick,” Fenris grumbled.

“It’ll be fine,” said Anders. “It’s Hawke’s contact.” He turned away, but a wet hand caught his wrist. He glanced at Fenris in fear, finding a grim look in his eyes. Then another hand grabbed the front of his nightshirt—rude!—and pulled him down into a hot, damp kiss.

“You have a water thing,” he accused breathlessly, when he was let up.

Fenris’s brow wrinkled. As he remembered what Anders was referring to, he smirked. “This is coincidence.”

“If it happens a third time, you have to admit that I’m right.”

“I have to admit nothing.” He pulled Anders down again. There was sweat involved at this point, and tongue. A lot of water got on Anders’ nightshirt.

Anders tore himself away, and Fenris didn’t pursue him. “I have to wear this to bed,” he complained, trying to wring out the nightshirt.

“Not necessarily.”

“Well, aren’t you smooth,” said Anders, but panic was coiling inside him. If what was between them was only flirtation, and Fenris tired of him after one try, or if Fenris discovered how much he wanted and was threatened or repulsed by it… “Some other time, maybe. I’m tired.”

He wasn’t lying. He managed to fall asleep before Fenris could join him in the bed. 

-

Anders awoke mid-scream from a nightmare about the Mother. Hadn’t had one of those in a while. He gulped in air, trying to stagger his breaths enough to slow his racing heart.

“Mage? Are you yourself?” Fenris stood on the other side of the bed. His markings gleamed in the darkness, not lit but singing with potential, and he held his hands up in a defensive posture. 

Anders realized that he had been glowing. As soon as he noticed, the glow faded out.

“Uh,” he said. “I think so.”

He felt Fenris watching him. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down.

The elf’s weight hit the bed. “Anders,” he said, and Anders felt him crawl tentatively towards him.

“I had a nightmare,” he explained. “It’s just one of those Grey Warden things. You must have heard me having one before.”

“Not so loudly before.” Fenris moved closer. His bare knee brushed Anders’ leg.

“Did you sleep naked?” said Anders, cracking an eye.

“Yes,” said Fenris, unnecessarily, with what sounded like a deliberate lack of embarrassment. “I… had hopes for the morning. But you need not concern yourself with that.”

“Ah.”

“You would prefer that I were dressed.”

“No, I,” Anders took in a breath. “Can you hold me? Just hold me. You don’t have to do anything else.” He turned on his side so that he didn’t have to see Fenris’s expression, as little as could be made out in the darkness. 

There was a moment of silence from Fenris, during which Anders resigned himself to the literal or figurative tearing out of his heart; and then a strong, wiry body was carefully pressed to his back.

“Like this?” said Fenris, draping an arm over his waist.

“Fuck,” said Anders, and made himself relax.

He had wanted to keep it at that, but his body was restless and greedy, made bold by the press of skin and the tangling of bare legs. His nightshirt was cool with sweat and Fenris felt so warm.

He shifted and felt Fenris harden, cock just grazing his ass.

Anders rolled his hips back.

Fenris froze. Anders pushed back against him, harder.

"Changed my mind," he said. Before he could think twice, he took hold of Fenris's hand and moved it under the hem of his nightshirt.

Fenris sucked in a breath. He ran his hand over Anders' torso, up over his chest, and then down to his stomach, hips, thighs. His fingers curled around Anders and stroked, the friction already eased by his arousal.

"You want me." Fenris sounded uncertain and a little confused.

Anders squeezed his eyes shut. "I do."

He reached behind himself, awkwardly, and found Fenris's other hand. Lips were pressed to his shoulder through the nightshirt; he would have preferred to feel them on bare skin, but didn't want to push it. Then Fenris tugged the collar of the nightshirt aside to bite him, and his surprised gasp quickly became a moan.

Arms encircled Nathaniel from behind, pulling him back against a warm, bare chest. He allowed the embrace to occur, neither recoiling from it nor leaning into it, his gaze fixed on the few slivers of pre-dawn scenery he could make out through the small window.

A kiss was dropped in his hair, and a voice still rough from sleep said into his ear, “You know, most people go off by themselves to have their crisis of conscience after sleeping with me.”

“Right,” said Nathaniel.

“Templars excepted, of course. As a rule, Templars prefer to have crises of conscience where there’s someone around to take it out on.”

“Who says I’m having a crisis of conscience?” said Nathaniel.

“Mmm.” Anders inhaled for the drama, or possibly sniffed him. “Why else would you be standing in a dark room, staring at the wall, when you could come in my mouth twice before breakfast? Unless you’re brooding about your lost family honor again.”

“You overestimate your allure,” said Nathaniel, holding himself very still as Anders’ tongue traced a wet line along his neck.

“I’ve got a pretty accurate idea of my allure, actually.” Anders tugged the collar of Nathaniel’s sleep shift aside at the shoulder and mouthed a kiss there; Nathaniel suppressed a shudder. His other hand slipped down Nathaniel’s front, ever so slowly, curving to rest over his—

Nathaniel caught Anders’ wrist.

He felt Anders smirk against his skin. The captive fingers wriggled teasingly, and the body at Nathaniel’s back pressed a little heavier, hips nudging his ass. “You were saying?”

-

“I wasn’t brooding,” Nathaniel felt the need to clarify some time later. He had been herded back into bed and stripped, and was now lying on his back while Anders blew him. It still wasn’t dawn, but it would be dawn soon, and the light in the room was gray and unreal.

Anders, mouth occupied, hummed in a way that might be taken as a question.

“I was”—Nathaniel reached out to pet Anders’ hair—“thinking. And some of it was about my family, though I’d rather not go into detail.”

Thankfully, Anders’ reply was muffled to the point of unintelligibility. He might have just been adjusting his jaw.

“Suffice it to say that my life was supposed to be different in a number of important ways, some of them more and some less obvious.” Nathaniel met Anders’ gaze, and felt something twist and spark in his chest when Anders forced another half-inch of his cock down.

Nathaniel thrust up involuntarily, but Anders just took it. His eyes slipped shut, his hair fell over his face. There was a flush to his cheeks and chest even in the low light. He looked so…

“You look so good like this,” said Nathaniel, more softly than he had intended, and was rewarded with a quiet moan.

Anders was very tolerable like this, even sweet. Not that Nathaniel was inclined to tell him so; Anders would be sure to react with barely restrained anger, which he would then deflect with sarcasm and half-serious accusations that Nathaniel would prefer him Tranquil. No, Nathaniel should keep it to himself.

He wondered if he’d be able to look at Anders the same way after this. Perhaps the crisis of conscience was happening now.

To distract himself, and to prevent Anders from noticing any changes in his demeanor, he said, “You said twice in your mouth before breakfast, but maybe I’d like to come on your face.”

Anders shot him a hooded, unreadable glance, though he did not falter in his task.

“Never mind,” Nathaniel decided, feeling his voice go low and breathless. “What I really want to do is—” And here a long stream of filth poured out of him, describing various uses of his anticipated spend and Anders’ mouth. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but he couldn’t stop once he got started.

Anders kept sucking him through it, doubling his attentions when Nathaniel got especially riled up and then pulling back before he could finish. It happened a few times in a row before Nathaniel realized it was on purpose.

“You’re a tease,” he accused.

Anders smiled around him and fluttered his lashes. Then he did something devious and tingly to the space behind Nathaniel’s balls and the underside of his cockhead simultaneously, which had him tensing, gasping, and coming so hard his ears rang.

As soon as Nathaniel caught his breath, Anders attacked him. In a maneuver directly inspired by Nathaniel’s lust-addled ravings of minutes before, he shoved his tongue into his mouth and forced him to accept his own come. Nathaniel kissed back and twined a hand in his hair, using the other hand to grip his ass while Anders rutted against his thigh.

The kiss was desperate at first, but gradually gentled, as did the rhythmic press of Anders’ body. It was a slow, off-center glide by the time Anders seized, froze, and sighed into his mouth.

He laid his head on Nathaniel’s chest and snuggled in, languid and comfortable despite the stickiness between them. “That was lovely. I’d entertain your moral crises over a Templar’s any day.”

“I can still smack you around if you’d like,” joked Nathaniel, and felt him stiffen. “Ah, not the time.”

“We can’t all have wits like mine, Howe.”

Nathaniel didn’t take the opening, choosing instead to stroke his hair.

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he heard was the newest recruit, a freed slave rescued from a den of smugglers, yelling “BREAKFAST” and banging pots and pans together as she tromped down the hallway.

It had been Sigrun’s idea to start up “Breakfast Call.” In its second or third iteration, the custom had grown well beyond its initial goal of antagonizing Oghren, and was now looked forward to by half the Keep (usually the half assigned to Breakfast Call) and dreaded by the other (usually the half not assigned to Breakfast Call).

Velanna, in particular, hated Breakfast Call. Sometimes the Warden-Commander herself had to be called on to wake her, and even she invariably left Velanna’s quarters with thorn scratches. Or possibly cat scratches. It was never clear where Anders' cat spent his nights.

“Breakfast Call,” Nathaniel said to Anders, unnecessarily.

“Mrrmmmrrrrm. Tell me this is one of those nebulous but oh-so-important things that would be different if you were the Arl of Amaranthine.”

“I’ve always been a morning person,” Nathaniel confided.

Anders groaned, pushed away from him, and started moving down his chest. “Right, we have about seven minutes before the second phase starts and Justice is banging on the door. Do you want that second orgasm or not?”