Fenris x Anders (Wings!AU), for @dadrunkwriting, @theaiobhan, & @contreparry
“Can you fly?” Fenris hadn’t meant to bring the subject up again, given the way the two brief conversations they’ve had about it have gone, it’s obvious that Anders isn’t comfortable talking about it. But he’s warm and pleasantly buzzed, relaxed as he’s too careful to allow himself to be very often while they’re making their way together back towards Hightown and Darktown respectively after a night of drinking and cards at the Hanged Man, and it’s all so familiar the question flies out of his mouth quite before he can stop himself.
Anders stops on a dime, the instant and fearful dilation of his pupils visible even in the low light of the occasional torch along the row, frantically searching every dark corner for anyone who might overhear them, and Fenris internally kicks himself. Foolish. Except he doesn’t know when else he might ask, it’s not as if the two of them go out of their way to spend any time together outside of the jobs with Hawke, or drinking with Varric.
“I’m sorry,” Fenris apologizes, though if anything this only seems to confuse and scare Anders more, and the elf has to fight down a surge of indignation. Just how poor is this mage’s opinion of him? Does he really think him so heartless, so reckless… “You’re safe, mage,” Fenris whispers, reaching out on an instinct he doesn’t entirely understand and can’t explain to clasp one of Anders’ hands and offering it a reassuring squeeze. “There’s nobody else around,” the elf promises. “But I apologize. I shouldn’t have asked. And certainly not out in the open like this.” Anders draws a shaky breath, then slowly releases the tension in his shoulders, probably his wings too, Fenris thinks, studying his form, trying as he often has in idle moments these last few weeks to find any cracks in the glamour that hide the Darktown Healer’s incredible secret, despite the almost certain futility of it. Anders is too careful, too fearful, Fenris thinks empathetically as he watches the mage continue to eye his surroundings, to make any such mistakes.
“Come back to my place- for a nightcap?”
“Why,” Anders asks a bit suspiciously, suddenly seeming to realize their connected hands as he breaks the connection in favor of wrapping his arms defensively around himself.
“Do you have somebody else to talk about them with?” Anders laughs, though Fenris recognizes the kind of hollow, rueful notes in it.
“Go on then,” Anders nods once they’ve made their way up to Hightown and shut the door of the mansion behind them.
“Does that drain you? Your mana,” Fenris ventures cautiously, “maintaining the illusion?”
Anders shrugs. He’s been doing it so long now, he doesn’t even think about or have to account for the energy it requires. It’s just habit, instinct now. “You know, if you wanted to see them again, you could just ask.” He’s aiming for teasing, but frowns, mentally scolding himself for how vulnerable the words come out.
“Could I,” Fenris asks rather surprised. The healer simply shrugs again. Alone like this, there doesn’t seem any harm now the elf knows his secret. Slowly what before looked like the feathery pauldrons of his robes shimmer and quiver as the glamour falls to reveal large gray wings resting against his back. “They look… a little messy,” Fenris assesses quietly taking them in, with a greater eye for detail now he’s the time and is permitted to look. Again Anders laughs.
“Oh? Whatever happened to that whole ‘you could be a God’ business?”
He could. Fenris is certain of it, though he’s not so blind or stubborn not to see Anders’s point that some might see an opportunity to make him a spectacle or test subject for study and dissection if he were to stop hiding his wings. They are from what Fenris can make of them, though, untidy. A number of the smaller ones and the fluffy down look to be bent or twisted at odd angles, a few larger ones are missing some of their barbs, and they all look dusty. Perhaps, even so much so, they’re not truly gray at all.
There’s a crease over some of the vanes in both wings, starting at the corner of his shoulders and traveling down to the center of his back following leather belt-like straps and Fenris only just manages to stop his hand before he touches them, noticing the way Anders tenses when he reaches out for them.
“Sometimes,” Anders replies. Most times, the healer thinks but manages to bite back saying. There’s something in the way Fenris is looking at him now, though, something that looks almost like sympathy, that makes him wonder if the elf doesn’t already know, or at least suspect the truth of it.
“How often are you able to stretch them out?”
Never, Anders thinks, biting back a derisive snort. Because Maker, when was the last time he felt safe enough to take such a risk? It’s been… far too long.
“Mage,” Fenris prompts, drawing him back from his thoughts.
“Hmm,” Anders hums, perhaps he’s a bit more tired this evening than he’d previously thought.
“Surely that can’t be entirely good for them, for you- keeping them bound up for so long.”
“And just when did you become a healer?” Fenris flinches, it’s only barely perceptible, clearly, the elf is doing his utmost to suppress and control his reaction to the mage’s outburst, but Anders is a healer, used to paying attention to little details others take for granted. And as Fenris is taking a small step backward Anders realizes how sharp his words must have sounded. The elf doesn’t know. And Fenris isn’t speaking down to him for once. He’s simply curious. He… he almost sounds like he cares. And it’s been such a long time since he’s had anybody do that.
“Sorry,” Anders mumbles, a little embarrassed by his own conduct. “I- It’s not really-” Anders admits finally. “Good for them,” he clarifies. “But…” Fenris wasn’t wrong, Anders hasn’t had anyone to talk to about this, any reason or need to put any of this to words in years. “Well, it’s glamour. It’s not a barrier or anything. Just because nobody can see them, doesn’t mean they can’t hurt them. Keeping them tucked up, it just feels safer.” Fenris nods thoughtfully, then frowns.
“I felt them. That night, when you helped heal me. Walking back to the mansion.” Anders nods, wincing a little at the memory, at what he had done in his panic afterward- attempting to erase it from the elf’s memory. “But, if it’s all just smoke and mirrors, you can’t let anyone too close. Can’t risk letting anyone touch you.” Again Anders nods, swallowing down on the lump that suddenly forms in his throat before he answers.
“No,” he agrees.”I can’t.” The furrow in the elf’s dark brows and frown creasing his face deepens.
“That- must be lonely,” the elf surmises quietly.
“You don’t let anyone touch you,” Anders argues, feeling distinctly unbalanced by the way those large green eyes are appraising him now. This isn’t the sort of relationship or rapport he and the elf have with one another. It’s so divergent, so unfamiliar, in fact, Anders finds himself more than a little unsettled by it. He doesn’t know what to expect, what do or say, how to act around this Fenris.
Briefly, the elf considers protesting, making some kind of snappish remark back at him. Because what does Anders now about his personal life or the decisions he makes about his personal space and boundaries? For that matter, why should he care? But then… when did Fenris start caring whether or not the mage is lonely?
“I don’t know,” Anders interjects after the silence between them starts to become a little awkward. “If I could fly,” the healer adds, answering the elf’s earlier question. “If- if there are any others like me, I’ve not heard of them. My mother, she had them. Magic too, but-”
“Your mother was an apostate,” Fenris manages, unable to keep the tone of surprise from his voice. “How is it you were dragged to the Circle, then?”
“Father didn’t know. And I don’t think she ever learned much magic. She certainly never practiced it. She taught me the spell to hide them. But I was young. Impulsive. I didn’t know how to control my magic. Accidentally set the barn on fire in a fit of temper. My father had me locked up in my room and called the Templars. They took me away the next day. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry,” Fenris frowns.
“Why? It’s where I belong, right?” Anders sighs, shaking his head before Fenris can offer up any sort of reply. “No. It’s alright. It wasn’t all terrible. The Circle probably afforded me the opportunity to learn far more about magic than my mother could have ever hoped to teach me. And a few other lessons,” the mage adds, a little less charitably, trailing off. He shakes his head once more, this time, in a gesture the elf is intimately familiar with as if he’s trying to dislodge a particularly stubborn or unpleasant memory. “My third escape attempt,” he continues, clearing his throat softly. “I made it up to the tower roof. I was desperate. Desperate enough to try. I’d never tested them before, scarcely stretched them out, but I thought if I could just get across the lake… I don’t think anyone could really call it flying. They slowed my descent a little, I suppose.” Fenris winces. “Yeah,” Anders nods. “I broke most of my ribs. Nearly drowned. I couldn’t swim so well with the pain and my wings completely waterlogged. I only just managed to hide them again before the Templars found me and dragged me back. Thank the Maker nobody saw me jump. I haven’t tried again since.”
“Is it not safe to… unshackle them in the privacy of your clinic?” Anders shakes his head.
“I don’t like to lock the door, to turn away anyone who might need my help and healing.”
“Even you must sleep sometime, mage,” Fenris points out, but taking in the exhausted slump, the dark circles that ring the healer’s eyes, suddenly the elf isn’t so sure. When is the last time he let his guard down? The last time he had a decent night’s sleep? The elf is suddenly reminded of those first few months on the road after running away from Danarius. Kaffas, the first few years. Even now, four years later, even now he’s allowed himself the luxury of friends, Fenris is still an incredibly light sleeper. “Your De- Spirit,” the elf corrects himself in the interest of continuing their conversation, rather than provoking the mage, “Couldn’t keep watch for you?” If Anders catches his little slip, he makes no comment. He makes no reply either.
“Would you feel any safer doing so here?”
Fenris doesn’t know where in the Void the question comes from. Clearly, the mage doesn’t either if the stunned, wide-eyed expression on Anders’s face is anything to go by.
“Why do you care so much?”
Fenris shakes his head. It’s a fair enough question, but the elf isn’t altogether sure how to answer it. He’s still not entirely made sense of it himself, except that something has shifted since learning Anders secret. Perhaps the healer never intended for him to find out, but the fact of the matter remains, now that he does Fenris holds a kind of power over him, the means to destroy him. He wouldn’t. But the simple fact that he could has done a great deal to assuage, if not his fear of magic, then, at least, one mage in particular. He’s begun to see Anders as a man, both like and unlike any other, and it’s difficult now whatever their differences in perspective, to pretend he hates, or even entirely dislikes him.
They could go on like this. But lately, the inequality of their power dynamic is less satisfying than it was at the start. The healer has grown on him, despite his best efforts. Proven himself better than the mistake he made in his panic to keep his secret some months ago. The idea that Anders has nowhere and no one with whom he feels he can let down his defenses, and that he should be particularly on edge in his company, vexes him. If he allows this to continue, how is he any better than the Magisters he hates? Than Hadriana or Danarius?
With a sigh, the elf pulls off and deposits his gauntlets on the nearby table before setting to work on the staps of his chest plate, then finally as the mage stares on in confusion, and in a swift and practiced motion, he pulls his undershirt over his head.
“It’s bad for the ribs,” Fenris offers, the twitch of a rueful smile at the corner of his mouth as Anders’s eyes track down his body, following the Lyrium brands before they land on the cloth bandages wrapped tight to constrict his chest and draws in a surprised intake of breath. “Binding for too long.” It’s a moment or two before Anders can make his tongue work, and words begin flying out of his mouth quite before he can think about them or entirely decide what to say first.
“Fenris, I- you didn’t have to...” The elf nods patiently as Anders trails off, mentally kicking himself and starting and failing several more sentences.
“I’m going to bed,” Fenris interrupts, cutting off what’s sure to be another eloquent response. “Stay, if you like,” the elf offers softly, catching him off guard once more, and Anders is fairly certain a decent breeze could knock him down just now. “Stretch them out. Plenty of room,” he adds, gesturing to the generous foyer around them. “Bath’s just there,” he points.
Anders is about to ask if this is Fenris’ way of suggesting he stinks or poking fun at the fact he lives in the sewers. It wouldn’t be the first time one of his companions, or even the elf himself has done so, though the sewers around the clinic are just for water runoff and as a healer, he’s always careful to maintain a certain level of cleanliness. His mouth closes almost as soon as it opens, however, because Fenris, it seems, isn’t quite done.
“Bit bare, but the room on the right at the top of the stairs has a bed and a few blankets if you don’t feel like walking back to the Clinic. It is rather late.”
“I-” Anders stammers. He’s dreaming. He must be. What other explanation can there be? The healer waits for a beat for the elf to laugh or rescind his offer, but Fenris simply picks up his discarded armor and begins to make his way towards the staircase. “Fenris, wait,” he calls, carefully pulling lose the straps of the self-made harness and biting back a wince as it slides off, pulling a little at muscles and feathers stiff from disuse. Anders waits as the elf pivots on the first landing turning back to look at him, breastplate and gauntlets held tight to his chest, hiding the bandages. Green eyes land on him and with a small effort, Anders lets his wings unfurl. A few down feathers drift slowly down as the thin layer of dust that coats the floor stirs with a flap of his large wings as they stretch to their full span. Fenris bites the inside of his cheek as he fights the urge to climb back down the stairs, to reach out and touch the marvel that stands before him. “Thank you,” Anders calls gratefully, a slight flush in his cheeks. Fenris nods.
“Goodnight Ma- Anders,” the elf calls, quickly climbing the remaining stairs and retreating to his room.
