#i will mitski.mp3

[potatowitch]

saw #12 of this prompt list (first and last home) and i just had to slap something together so pls enjoy this unedited mess of fenders fluff thank u

fenris doesn't remember his first home.

he must've had one, he supposes. a place where he lived with his mother and sister, perhaps a father if he'd ever known him. he doubts it would have been anything impressive - likely the communal slave quarters under some magister's mansion, or a crumbling hovel in some stinking slum. he wonders if he was happy there, despite everything. he would've had a family who loved him, wanted him safe and warm and fed.

he decides it doesn't really matter anymore. if he had a home before danarius, it's not one he'll ever get back.

his second home is in kirkwall, squatting in a mouldering mansion that's long been abandoned. it takes him a long time to consider it his home - for years, it's simply a roof over his head, somewhere to shelter at night. at first, he doesn't even bother to clean any rooms aside from the master bedroom he claims as his own.

over time, that changes. it's a slow thing, almost imperceptible, but one day fenris catches himself calling the place "home", and he notices the little ways he's made the place his. the greatsword leaning up against the wall, the books piled up beside the bed, the scarf merrill knitted him hung off a bedpost. the realisation makes a funny feeling twist in his chest - he doesn't remember what home should feel like. he's still not entirely sure this is it.

somedays, fenris wonders if anders has a home. he knows the mage had a family before the circle - a mother and father, a farmhouse in the ferelden countryside. he wonders if anders still considers that home, or if he ever found home with the grey wardens - anders speaks of them like they were a small, dysfunctional family, not unlike hawke's little group of friends she's cobbled together.

perhaps anders considers his narrow, rickety bed in the backroom of his clinic his home. fenris doesn't know. he tells himself that doesn't matter, but he can't shake the feeling of disquiet he feels as he watches anders leave his bed and dress after they sleep together.

he asks anders to stay the night the next time, and then the time after that, and the time after that.

the mansion is their first home together. fenris realises this one night as anders dozes against his chest. he looks over his bedroom and notices the little things that make it their bedroom instead - anders' boots by the door, anders' books joined with his in the pile beside the bed, the feathery coat tossed over the chair by the fire. another funny kind of feeling moves in his chest, but this time it doesn't twist. it settles comfortably and solidly behind his breastbone, and he's fairly sure that this is what home is.

the years go by. kirkwall goes up in flames, and fenris runs from it with his hand clutching anders'. they make camp in forests and at the base of mountains and in abandoned barns all through the free marches. they share a bed roll every night, and fenris wakes to anders clutching him every morning. sometimes fenris mourns the old mansion he lived in for seven years. he mourns the little life he built in kirkwall, and the little family he had there. at times, he resents anders for taking that from him.

anders shudders beside him, choking out a sob, and as fenris shifts to rouse his lover from his nightmare, he realises he would rather be right here, lying on the cold hard ground with a rebel mage in his arms than sleeping alone in his mansion. he wonders if he may have misjudged what home is, if home isn't a place, but rather anders and the way he gasps as fenris kisses the tears from his cheeks.

they stay away from the war raging in the south between mages and templars, moving north into tevinter. fenris wants to free slaves, and anders wants nothing more than to be by his side while he does so. they spend their days fighting and healing and their nights holed up in ramshackle safehouses, pressed together in too-small beds. most nights, fenris wakes from an old, familiar nightmare to find anders kissing his temple and running fingers through his hair. i'm here, he says. you're safe, and fenris knows it's not true, that neither of them are ever safe, especially not in the heart of tevinter, but he tucks his head under anders' chin and drifts back to sleep.

the news that the new divine has declared an end to the circles reaches them in the middle of summer in minrathous, and anders sobs with joy against fenris' neck underneath the shade of a pomegranate tree. fenris feels tears well up in his own eyes, and wraps his arms around anders' shaking shoulders. you're free, he whispers against anders' hair, and he never thought the news of southern mages governing themselves would make him so happy he could cry, but here he is, pressing watery kisses against a mage's forehead.

years later, they find their last home together, in an apartment in antiva beside the sea, above a little clinic anders runs. fenris could do without the occasional smell of fish the breeze wafts into their living room, but as he lies with a purring cat on his chest and watches anders stretch in the morning sunlight, he decides the fish smell is an acceptable evil. it's worth it for how warm and safe he feels, listening to the rumbling of cat purrs and anders humming in the kitchen as he makes breakfast.

it was worth it, he whispers to the cat on his chest, and she blinks slowly up at him like she agrees.

[notwench]

anyway not to yearn in this wednesday night but i would like to take the time and this empty dash to talk about romance and brienne and her shit taste and the fact that she’s always falling for unattainable pretty men

[aquariumsoap]

Lowkey am very sad that on Valentine’s Day this year I am going to the dentist to get a filling fixed and then babysitting and not spending the day with my loving girlfriend who does not exist.

[mirroredsea]

second day back to work after recovering from c*vid and i am already feeling [working for the knife by mitski.mp3]. y’know what i had a whole thing here about my usual existential torments but i’m gonna rant about universal harvester instead. mr darnielle i adore you and your music but the more i think about how wasted universal harvester’s potential is i get even more disappointed and frustrated. like this is the most trivial problem to have but this book could’ve been so much better than it is if it was not 1) gratingly meandering coming from someone who enjoys the Nothing Ever Happens genre 2) incoherently lost in its own message/plot/sauce/etc. i understand what he was going for and ideally i would have absolutely ate it up if the execution did not fall so poorly behind the mark. still going to read the devil house but mr darnielle please don’t do this to me ever again

[swordmaid]

my emotional state rn is I don’t smoke mitski.mp3 so if you need to be mean be mean to me I can take it and put it inside of me if your hands need to break more than trinkets in your room you can lean on my arm as you break my heart

[bearsagainstcrackers]

For a good 2 days I was thinking that I should join the peace corps and then I really thought about it and realized I would probably feel like nobody by mitski.mp3 bass boosted the entire time and yeah..perhaps I shouldnt do that..like it might be cool but tbh I KNOW I dont have the dedication to do that kinda thing for 2 years. Itd be rewarding but I'd probably feel worn out and REALLY isolated once it was over