#timesorcerorwrites

[timesorceror]

MER!ANDERS and CECAELIA FENRIS

A gift for @stormdragon as part of the Fenders Wintersend Gift Exchange. Featured in my fic, A Compatible Mate, over on AO3.

[timesorceror]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Anders/Fenris, Anders/Fenris/Anders, Anders/Anders Characters: Anders (Dragon Age), Fenris (Dragon Age), Various Characters Additional Tags: selfcest, giftfic, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Clothed Sex, Threesome - M/M/M, Knotting, Elves knot, Breif mention of Karl's monster dong, Established Relationship

Summary: Giftfic for TeamBlueandAngry's Let It Glow Event. Anders completes a ritual that successfully sends Justice back to the Fade like he'd originally intended to do all those years ago... with one interesting side effect. Now there's two of him, or rather, there's also now a younger version of himself who no one knows quite what to with.

Happy Satinalia, @rhube! I hope this is to your liking. ;P

[timesorceror]

Anders Week #6

Envy // Kindness

The theme could be a side of Anders to explore, or something that has been inflicted/gifted to him by someone else in his life.

@teamblueandangry This one’s short and sweet. Anders likes to be touched, though he knows that Fenris does not. So he tries to be content with what Hayden gives him even though it’s not nearly enough... until one day Fenris surprises him and the two come to an understanding.

It almost feels wrong to want more of what they give him.

Hayden would gladly do so and wouldn’t even think of offering anything else than a few more moments of their time should he but bat an eyelash their way. Anders could not seem to ask more from Fenris than the brooding elf was willing to give however, though that didn’t mean he never wanted to.

Sometimes in the evenings Hayden would get caught up in business with the other nobles and it would be just Anders and Fenris for a little while. Usually they would spend time in the library reading their separate books, or they would head down to the cellars Anders had repurposed into an alchemy lab and Fenris would curl up on one of the blanket draped benches while Anders brewed and poured over scrolls and scrolls of notes on his experiments.

Rarely did they ever share those evenings with an activity that was something other than retiring from dinner early to indulge in some of their more unusual kinks that Hayden was uncomfortable participating in. Still, Anders hungered for Fenris’ touch in the same way that he hungered for Hayden’s.

Was it possible to be envious of one’s own self? 

Anders’ fingers drummed idly on the table as he ate his stew one evening, chewing slowly on the meat while lost in thought. That is until a hand came to rest on top of his, ceasing the movements of his fingers. 

“Anders,” Fenris rumbled, slightly exasperated. “Stop tapping. It grates on the nerves a little.” Anders flushed and ducked his head, fingers still twitching.

“Sorry,” he mumbled into his food. “I just... can’t seem to stop sometimes.” 

Fenris was quiet for a moment before he moved from the table, the movement causing Anders to look up to see what he was doing. Fenris merely slid his own food over and came around to sit next to Anders so that they sat shoulder to shoulder. The hint of warmth that radiated off of the elf seemed to ease Anders’ excess energy enough for him to relax, and his body sort canted to one side reflexively, pressing up against Fenris.

Fenris went still at this, and Anders pulled back slightly.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable...” 

He tilted his head to see Fenris’ expression, though that was as unreadable as ever. Fenris merely shook his head slightly and huffed. “It is... alright. I am merely... unused to such contact.”

Anders raised an eyebrow as he cautiously went back to his eating.

“I knew you were averse to touch before, but at night you don’t seem to have problems cuddling.”

Fenris shrugged. “The two things are... entirely different, somehow. And I try not to let myself become the one in the middle. I prefer the outside.” Anders nodded thoughtfully after swallowing another bite. “Makes sense.” He glanced again between them and frowned at the elf, concerned. 

“Yes, Anders. I’m fine. Go back to your eating and try to tap the table a little less, please. Thank you.” After that was said, Fenris returned to his own meal and left Anders to his food and his thoughts.

The urge to continue tapping returned a little while later while they were indulging in dessert and Anders, remembering Fenris’ request, reached over to take Fenris’ hand instead. Fenris still tensed when Anders’ hand grasped his, but he relaxed when Anders’ thumb began to idly rub against the backs of his fingers in a slow, repetitive motion. 

The motion stopped when Anders realized what he’d done, and before he could pull away again, Fenris’ grunted and muttered in a low growl, “Don’t. This is... alright. Please... don’t stop.”

Anders paused for a moment more before continuing as he replied in a quiet whisper, “Thank you, Fenris.”

A gentle pressure to his shoulder and another grunt served as his answer.

Perhaps he didn’t need to ask more from Fenris. 

Fenris was just as willing as Hayden to give Anders what he needed it seemed, he just spoke a different sort of language than most. His was a language of small gestures and soft touches, given only voluntarily yet not as sparingly as Anders had once thought.  

All Anders had to do was ask.

[timesorceror]

Anders Week #7

Pride // Humility

The theme could be a side of Anders to explore, or something that has been inflicted/gifted to him by someone else in his life.

@teamblueandangry In which Anders and Justice share a rare moment of connection, and Justice comes to realize something important about their host.

Despite his cutting words, his preference for order and cleanliness, Anders was not a prideful man. That was what Justice most liked about their host, their friend. Despite all the other vices and virtues that the mage carried with him, pride was not often one of them.

Justice was glad of it, because they hated Pride Demons.

Rather nasty things. Very difficult to deal with quickly. Their whips were especially unpleasant when they wrapped around you and pumped you full of electricity. Anders had a very vivid memory of the Baroness doing that to him.

Sometimes pride touched Anders’ heart, even still, but rarely was it the toxic sort that often seeped into the hearts of mortals and pushed them to seek dark paths and even darker deeds. No, the pride that often stole into Anders happened in secret, growing like a bright little flower in a ray of noonday sun. It came when Hayden accomplished a difficult spell, or when Fenris started reading potions’ instructions on his own.

Anders was not a prideful man, Justice thought again. 

No, he was most certainly not. 

Since their arrival in Kirkwall, Anders had been running a clinic for the Blight refugees, and later, merely all of Darktown and some of Lowtown who could not afford the exorbitant prices of the Hightown doctors and surgeons. He took no coin from anyone who could not afford it, and sometimes he’d even turn material payments away. At first, these things had been at Justice’s insistence, because why should they take things from people who needed them more?

It was Hayden who opened their eyes to what that meant for Anders, physically.

“Even with Grey Warden stamina, Justice, he cannot function on an hour of sleep and air alone! He has to eat, he has to rest!” Justice had sat back in Anders’ desk chair, staring at the young mage who was not afraid of their appearance. “Do not let him neglect those things, please.”

Justice searched Hayden’s wide, pleasing eyes, but found no pride lurking there either. In fact, despite them standing and he sitting, Hayden seemed much, much smaller than they were.

“Why do you ask these things of me?”

Hayden shrugged. “Because he and I are... lovers? Because it’s what a friend does? Because it’s the least that I can do? Why would I not ask these things? I care about his well being. Someone should, if it is not Anders.”

Hayden was not prideful either. Rather, it appeared to the spirit that their deep concern came from a place of genuine humility.

To Justice’s knowledge, Anders had rarely been touched by the effects of another’s humility. More often than not, it was another’s pride. Pride was etched into the lines on their back, the cuts of their face, the gashes and burns on their sides and front. Above their heart lay the greatest and most dangerous scar of pride that they carried.

Justice knew that Anders feared becoming a true abomination, and he feared becoming a Pride Demon most of all.

Pride Demons were, in Anders’ words, the worst. 

They so often would use the whips they carried to pull you to them where they’d grasp you, hold you, pin you close, all just to whisper your greatest failings in your ear and fill your lungs with the poisonous smoke of the thought that if you just gave in to it, you could be so much better than everyone else...

Suddenly, Justice could feel Anders shudder.

Justice. What are you thinking about? Have I done something wrong?

The world filtered in around the spirit’s awareness as they gently moved forward to press against Anders’ consciousness. Justice noted with some disapproval that they were standing in the Gallows Courtyard, however Anders was not there alone. They stood with Hayden and the elf, Fenris, as they were there to deliver ingredients to the one shopkeeper Anders liked here. Anders’ recent memory informed Justice that the odd dwarf was nearby, and their presence soothed Justice’s concern for the moment. This allowed them to focus on the task at hand: communication.

It was still a difficult thing, communicating with Anders. Emotions were still their primary mode of discussion, and Justice knew it was a terribly inefficient method. Still, they did their best to convey a feeling they knew Anders liked: reassurance, followed by something that they hoped felt like an apology.

A single thought followed these feelings that Justice dared to hope Anders would hear:

My apologies. I was absorbed in an unpleasant memory.

A soft breath of relief tumbled from Anders’ lips as their feet shifted and they leaned against a nearby wall to half listen to Hayden’s conversation with the recipient of their hard-earned ingredients.

One of yours, or mine?

There was a sound, a chuckle, that followed these words, though it did not pass Anders’ lips. It filled the void around the space that Justice occupied and wrapped around them as a quilt similar to the ones Anders had enjoyed in his youth. Anders’ amusement spilled into them, and for a moment their two consciousnesses ran in tandem.

Yours, Justice answered. It was not an action of yours that I disapproved of; do rest easy knowing that.

Justice! 

Anders’ voice once again filled the space they occupied, and though their body showed no outward signs of their internal exchange, Justice became enveloped by Anders’ complex emotions of excitement and relief that were underlaid with fear and hesitation.

These periods of mind to mind communication were still rare and did not often last, but their increasing frequency never ceased to bring Anders great joy.

It was a little overwhelming, sometimes; like now.

Oh, sorry Justice, Anders fretted apologetically. I.. I’m glad, knowing that. But do be careful alright? Many of my memories are unpleasant.

I was thinking about pride demons, Justice replied.

Ugh, why are you thinking about those? They’re the worst.

A spring of amusement welled up from within them, and it filtered into Anders’ thoughts. He could feel Anders smile at the knowledge that he’d made a Fade Spirit laugh.

I... Justice began, searching for the right words, only to find none. 

I find that I do not rightly know, they confessed. But I know that I was thinking about them, and that you are afraid of becoming one... that is because of me, I suspect. 

If there was a spirit version of a concerned mental sigh, that was the sensation that surely passed between them. Anders answered with his own reply of reassurance.

Oh Justice. I don’t think that any more. I thought you knew that.

This... this was news to Justice.

I... do now, suppose. What has changed?

Anders took a few precious moments to gather his thoughts before replying.

This. We’re talking. We couldn’t do that before. Hayden and Fenris have been helping me to help you, I suppose. This lets me know that their effort is working. It lets me know that I haven’t ruined you, or corrupted you. Every time I hear your voice, I am filled with such relief that I sometimes wonder what I did to deserve their help, or yours.

Justice wanted to interject, but they sensed that there moment of connection was fading as Anders was becoming distracted by a commotion across the courtyard. There was little time for what Anders had to say, and Justice wanted to hear it, so they let him finish.

I think in the end, it’s not really about what I deserve. It’s about what I need, and I needed help. I didn’t know it, but that’s what I needed and they’ve given it to me so freely. Well, more or less. Fenris still has trouble with the idea of mage freedom and Hayden would rather I not resort to something like blowing up a building to make a point but... they’re doing their best. Really, that’s all I could ever want from them. Or you. 

Don’t feel guilty about anything you’ve pushed me to do, because I am a better person for it. I... I get the feeling we don’t have much more time right now, so I just want to say that I’m glad for your help, and I still need it. All the time. I don’t deserve you either, but I’m glad I have you all the same.

And that was when Justice sensed their fragile connection beginning to fray again, so he backed off and allowed the world to fade away once more.

Anders was moving on with the others, his thoughts becoming more concerned with the world around him. Justice, having little else to do as a passenger, let Anders’ words roam free amongst the thoughts currently swimming around in their space while they coiled up and mulled them over. Certainly, the sentiments that the words invoked pleased Justice in a way they could not describe.

Justice was glad that Anders had taken those few moments to gather his thoughts. They knew that such moments of clarity were rare for their friend, nor did they often speak so frankly and with so much honesty.

(Of course Anders was often one or the other, but not often both at once.)

Anders was not a prideful man, and this Justice now felt to be a certainty. Anders was kind and gentle, fiery and furious, passionate about the things and the people he loved. However he also possessed more humility than the spirit suspected he thought possible, and that brought a comforting ease to Justice’s previously conflicted mind.

Their dear friend was right about one thing: Justice should not have to worry about Anders fearing becoming a demon. However, Justice thought that this had more to do with the wealth of humility that lay in their heart and not from any repairs to their connection, as grateful as they were for those as well.

Pride stood no chance against the sword of a humble heart, and Justice was glad that Anders trusted them enough to give them the honor of guarding it.

[timesorceror]

Anders Week #5

Wrath // Forgiveness

The theme could be a side of Anders to explore, or something that has been inflicted/gifted to him by someone else in his life.

@teamblueandangry A short piece about the place of wrath and forgiveness in the life of our favorite feathermage.

As a boy, Anders thought he’d known wrath. 

His father would often tell him to be careful near the scythe that was used for harvest, and then one day he cut himself touching the blade, blood running down his arm with pain shooting through him. His mother had patched him up quickly, but when his father found out, Anders had been subjected to a scolding so fierce that he never disobeyed his father like that again.

Until the day he was helping to care for the horses, and a small rattlesnake spooked their draft mare, nearly kicking him in the face as he was cleaning her hooves... and he burnt down the barn in an unexpected display of accidental magic. He never forgot the look on his father’s face as the door to his room was shut and locked while the Templars were called...

“–the boy is a sin! A punishment upon our house! He’s going to the Circle!”

All the color in the world seemed to drain away as he sobbed uselessly, curled up on his bed and clutching one of his mother’s hand-stitched pillows. He was still clutching it as he was carted away, his sobs having reduced to a silence that he would keep for so long that the Templars eventually stopped asking for his name when they’d forgotten it, and he’d ceased to be a boy anymore.

Now he was a young man in the Circle, and his name was Anders. 

As a young man in the Circle, he certainly knew wrath. 

At first, knew a little of it in the sores on his hands as his skin was rubbed raw from the thousand dishes he’d had to scrub, from all the floors of the tower he’d had to mop, and from every shelf in the library or the storerooms as their dust settled over him like a semi-permanent film that lasted for days and made it hard for him to breathe.

Those were just the little things, though. Later he would most certainly know it in the sting of the whip on his back as he was tied to a table and lashed until Greagoir said stop, though in the later years of his time in the Circle the Knight Commander was not always present. Sometimes the Templars liked to have a little fun with him. Sometimes they’d whip him while they used him, and only if they were in a good mood would they use lubricant. 

It was a wrath that left him twitching and bleeding and gasping in pain, magebane coursing through him so that he couldn’t heal the wounds.

So Anders learned that he could handle wrath. Wrath he could survive if he but bit his lip and held on for long enough. 

Neglect, however, left him in the cold and the dark for a year, and during that year he grew to long for the touch of wrath. Wrath meant he was still alive; that he was still him and not an echo of himself that might’ve passed through the veil and into the Fade while no one was looking. Later he would look back on that time and wonder if a part of him hadn’t done that anyway.

In a way wrath was both his greatest enemy and staunchest ally during those dark days. He had been put in the dark because of wrath, and it was through wrath’s pain that he survived.

When the time came to run for the last time, he was no longer a young man. 

As an adult, Anders felt as though he hadn’t stopped running since. His time with the Wardens had been brief; a short reprieve from state of constant fear and fury that had been his existence since escaping solitary. Well, really he’d been that since the day his father had sent him to the Circle if he was being honest with himself, but he was so rarely that these days, even with a Spirit of Justice living in his head.

Justice might abhor the practice of lying, but he couldn’t stop Anders from lying to himself or keep him from his own delusions. Anders was perfectly happy keeping those to himself, especially after the day Hayden Hawke had first stumbled into his clinic.

His first impression of Hayden was of how kind they were, how understanding. He couldn’t be sure, but when he admitted Justice’s existence to them after the Chantry disaster, he thought that their quick forgiveness might actually be as honest as their eyes were bright, and their eyes were very bright indeed.

Anders couldn’t believe that someone could forgive him so quickly, so used to the touch of wrath was he. And then Hayden reached out and took his hands into theirs, as though sensing his disbelief. Anders felt his heart flutter like a blighted butterfly even while still in the throes of grief, and that was when he began to fall headfirst in love with the timid, shy-smiling healer.

That didn’t mean he didn’t still feel wrath’s touch, because of course even Hayden could not keep Anders’ first meeting with Fenris from being any less explosive than it ended up being. Once the elf had learned what Anders was (first that he was a mage and secondly that he was possessed), Anders was certain that he would be forever a thing to hate in Fenris’ eyes, just as he had been in his father’s.

He tried pushing them both away so that he wouldn’t have to feel Hayden’s forgiveness and Fenris’ wrath all at once. The wrath he might deserve to bear, but forgiveness? What had he done to deserve that? And now that he’d felt it again after so long after having gone without it, he almost didn’t want to let it go even though he felt guilty for wanting more.

He couldn’t fathom how it was possible to exist in a state of being the object of one person’s overflowing forgiveness and another’s unfiltered hate. Anders couldn’t see things changing for him with either of them, so he preferred to let them have each other while he kept to his work and his patients.

Fate had a funny way of changing things though, especially when Hayden’s mother died at the hands of a sadistic blood mage and brought the three of them together in their grief over a woman who hadn’t always understood them, but had always been kind to them. Suddenly Anders had not one but two lovers who didn’t hate his every eccentricity and yet found them endearing instead while they forgave the ones that weren’t.

Sometimes he’d wake them at night with his nightmares of the Circle, and they wouldn’t say a word. Hayden would merely wriggle out from between them and move to burrow at his back while Fenris let him cling as much as he needed until a more peaceful sleep came back to him. 

Sometimes during sex a stray touch or caress or a finger that needed just a smidge more lubricant would set him whimpering and instantly Hayden’s hands would be at his sides, gently rubbing and soothing while Fenris’ voice rumbled in his ears:

“You’re not there anymore. You’re here with me and Hayden. You’re safe.”

Safe, and so often forgiven. Even when later, the air itself was on fire and the city was in ruins, they were at his side, holding his hands in a way that said, We never want to let you go. You are ours, and you are forgiven. Hayden he could understand because their forgiveness seemingly knew no bounds, but Fenris...

Fenris’ forgiveness felt like coming home. 

He closed his eyes, and for a moment he was a boy again. A boy without magic and parents who loved him. When he opened them again, it wasn’t to the crushing weight of despair like it had so often been since the day his magic manifested, but to the lightness of hope in his heart.

He was no longer a boy who had never felt wrath, and he never would be again.

However he could be a man who knew wrath and forgiveness in equal measure, and he could accept their place in his life going forward, wherever forward would take him.

[timesorceror]

Anders Week 2017 #3

Greed // Charity

The theme could be a side of Anders to explore, or something that has been inflicted/gifted to him by someone else in his life.

@teamblueandangry In which there is some crying about pastries, and the benefits of having sex on rugs with unfortunate patterns is hinted at.

Anders saw the pastries in the window as he walked arm in arm with Hayden through Hightown one evening. His feet slowed as he caught sight of the daintily placed powdered sugar on top and he remembered a once beloved pair of hands picking some up and throwing it playfully in his face.

“Anders?” Hayden’s voice cut in through the bright gloom of his musings, “Is something wrong, Anders?”

He shook himself and suddenly realized that he’d stopped them right in front of the display. He opened his mouth, quite ready to tell Hayden that it was nothing, that he was absolutely fine… until he felt the wetness of a few tears roll down his cheeks. He sniffled a bit and furiously wiped at his eyes to try to blot away his shame.

“What’s wrong?” Hayden’s voice came again, low and quiet. Soothing.

Anders felt Hayden lean against him a little more heavily, their grasp on his arm briefly tightening to a gentle squeeze. 

“Those madeleines are important, aren’t they?”

Ah, Hayden. Such a kind, clever soul they were. 

Anders sighed deeply, and once he felt that he’d sufficiently blotted up his tears, he nodded. “Karl used to make them,” he replied, clearing his throat after hearing his voice croak from tears he was still trying to hold back.

“He’d make them, in the Circle. We didn’t have them often because we were, you know, filthy mages who didn’t deserve anything good in life but… the kitchen staff liked him and sometimes… sometimes…” Anders sighed again, running a hand through his hair and staring forlornly at the pastries.  “I don’t know why this bother me so much. It’s been… four, five years now?”

“You loved him,” Hayden reminded him. “You lost him. I know how hard that is, to lose someone you love. I still miss my father deeply when the leaves start turning just before Harvestmere, and Bethany… well, I suspect that she was Mother’s favorite child, and she speaks of her often, still. I often wonder if there really was more that I could do, and thinking back on my memories of her…”

They trailed off, shrugging. “Would it help if we purchased some?”

Anders stared at Hayden, stunned, before turning back to look at the elegantly arranged pastries in the window. 

“I don’t know if they’ll soothe the ache in my heart,” he said at last, biting his lip a little and licking it, “but sharing some with you would be lovely, I think.” Hayden hummed in agreement, tugging him along gently towards the shop’s door. “Let’s not tarry then,” they chirped brightly, “it’ll be dark soon.”

They walked into the shop and Hayden bought an assortment of two dozen decorated madelienes, even going so far as to feign an interest in taking up baking to ask for a beginner’s recipe. 

Anders’ heart felt overfull as it swelled with love for the other mage.

They took the pastries home and waited to eat them until after enjoying the dinner Orana had prepared, and Anders surprised himself when he greedily consumed nine of them in one sitting. Hayden had actually been the one to draw attention to it by pulling the boxes away with a grin and teasingly insisting he not make himself sick by eating all of them at once.

“Do you feel a little better?” Hayden asked as they dressed for bed that evening. Anders paused to search his heart, sighing contentedly. 

“A little,” he answered honestly. “Though I’m uncertain how much of it stems from my actually feeling full for once.” A chuckle escaped him as he slipped into one of the pairs of silk sleepwear that Hayden had had altered just for him. “It’s such a rare occurrence.” 

Hayden hummed noncommittally, climbing into the bed and burrowing under the covers. “It makes me feel so content to know that you feel content.” They flashed a smile up at Anders when he slid under the covers to join them. “So, what are we reading tonight, darling?”

“More from that rare book about spirit healing that you picked up at the Black Emporium–Maker, this was such a good find.”

“Sounds lovely,” Hayden murmured, curling up against his chest, arranging themselves so that they could comfortably follow along as Anders read aloud. Anders reached over and pulled the book from the nearby nightstand and began to read, relishing in the twin feelings of contentment that stemmed from both himself and Justice at the thought of the great care that Hayden took to keep them safe and fed. 

He read until Hayden’s yawns became too frequent, and then he marked their place before setting the book back in it’s place on the nightstand. Anders fell asleep, spooned against Hayden’s back, his arms gently holding tight to the other mage.

A little over a year later, Anders would be walking down a familiar Hightown thoroughfare on a cool autumn evening with Hayden on one side and Fenris on the other. He paused again, catching sight of the pastries arranged in the window of a shop they had been to many times before, and his companions took notice when he did so.

Hayden, who looked a little less distraught than they had in weeks prior though still in the midst of recovering from the horrific death of their mother, frowned at him curiously. “Anders?” They asked again, “Is something wrong?”

Anders shook his head. 

“Nothing more than usual,” he answered, jerking his head towards the shop window. “I just saw those pastries and thought to buy a few for you. I know you’re very fond of the savory buns they sometimes sell. Would you like to take a look and see if they still have any in stock?”

Hayden blinked at him, their stunned expression likely mirroring whatever had been on his face the first time Hayden had offered to purchase two dozen madeleines for him. Anders could even see the beginnings of tears forming at the edges of their eyes and he began to fuss a little, wiping them away.

“Oh, don’t cry, it’s alright… have I said something wrong?”

Hayden sniffled, smiling as they shook their head. “No, no, I’m alright. It’s just… I… I would very much like to see if they still have some, yes.”

They sighed, taking one of Anders’ hands in one of their own. “They might not ease the ache in my heart, but a warm dessert after one of Orana’s meals will certainly be enough to fill my stomach.” Hayden giggled, and Fenris frowned, not understanding the reference.

“Am I missing something?” he asked curiously, but Anders just waved the question away. “I’ll tell you later. For now though… would you like something? Some of those apple tarts, perhaps?”

Fenris flushed and Anders couldn’t keep the grin from his face at the sight. The elf really was quite adorable when embarrassed, though Anders knew he would never admit it.  “You want to… to buy something for me?” Anders nodded, reaching to gently grasp one of Fenris’ hands. He wasn’t wearing his gauntlets today; a rarity for the elf. Anders was glad for it however, as it helped him emphasize his next words all the better.

“Everyone should be able to enjoy a sweet treat or two every once in awhile,” he said seriously. “And while I don’t recommend trying to drown your pain with them, sharing such things with the people you care about can be just as fulfilling as the treats themselves.” He smiled, squeezed Fenris’ hand, and was rewarded when the elf gasped and flushed a few shades deeper.

“I… very well. If you insist.”

Anders’ smile widened and he led his two lovers into the shop. He wasn’t able to buy two dozen pastries like that first time, but when they took their treats home and shared them with one another while cuddling on the library sofa after dinner, the quantity of the treats hardly mattered.

“I think I see the appeal of this exchange,” Fenris mumbled, his words muffled by one of the sweet buns filled with sausage and cheese that Hayden had offered him. “This is… nice. I feel… warm. Full. Content.”

“And not just with food,” Hayden added, smiling shyly, biting gingerly into a chocolate dipped madeleine. “Thank you for this, Anders.”

Anders ducked his head, feeling his own cheeks flush with a heat that did not come from the fire in front of them. He attempted to cover up the motion by taking a few nibbles from the apple tart he held perched above his fingers, though from Fenris’ resulting grin he suspected he had not been successful.

“Well, I’m glad you liked them. You’ve both been helping me take care of the clinic lately, and I just… wanted to take care of you in return.”

The last bit he tried to mumble unsuccessfully into his tart, but he only succeeded in getting apple jam on the tip of his nose instead, causing Hayden to nearly fall apart with laughter and Fenris to pull him close so that he could lick the jam right off. 

Anders shifted a little as a suddenly thrill of arousal pulsed down his spine.

“Now, now,” he chuffed, “that’s enough of that. I’m trying to eat here.”

Fenris snorted. “It looked more like you were trying to literally inhale your food instead of eating it.” The elf chuckled, and Anders couldn’t help the little moan that escaped him at the sound of Fenris’ sinfully sultry voice.

“Fenris,” Hayden scolded playfully, “he’s right. That’s enough of that. If you really want to involve… our treats in another sort of treat, we should probably move to somewhere or something we don’t mind staining if we make a mess. We already make things difficult enough for Orana as it is with our sheets, we don’t need to add this sofa to the list… and besides, I’d personally not like to stain this sofa either.”

They grinned, and Anders felt gooseflesh raise all along his arms at the sight of the very indulgent, very predatory once-over they were giving him.

“You know,” he began, pausing to clear his voice after he’d squeaked a little under their deeply arousing stares, “there’s a perfectly good rug right here in front of the fire… and it’s not even a very pretty one.”

Fenris hummed, polishing off his sweet bun before pressing close against Anders’ back to press his lips against the flesh at the nape of his neck.

“Mmm… sounds like it’s quite replaceable then.”

“It is definitely replaceable,” Hayden grumbled. “It was a gift from one of the Hightown noblewomen at that last soiree we had to attend… you know, the very Orleisian one who was obsessed with all things cow printed?”

The three of them stared at the rug, which was not terrible in construction but definitely a little out of place with its… interesting color scheme and patterning.

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy helping you get rid of that,” Anders snorted. 

Yes, sometimes being a little self-indulgent in the name of charity wasn’t such a terrible thing after all. Especially if it got rid of terrible rugs and heartache in equal measure.

[timesorceror]

Anders Week #4

Sloth // Diligence

The theme could be a side of Anders to explore, or something that has been inflicted/gifted to him by someone else in his life.

@teamblueandangry In which there is much cuddling and Anders learns to sit back and catnip for an evening.

As the rays of sunlight began to peek over the horizon of the rooftops outside their bedroom window, Anders stirred awake.

Today was one of the rare times that he had ended up in the middle, sandwiched between Hayden, who was in his arms and snoring very softly in the most adorable fashion, and Fenris who was at his back, face buried in his hair as his arms were curled up and pressed against Anders’ back. 

He loved this feeling. It was so decadent, so sinful...

The tight knot of feelings in his chest that was Justice made itself known by pressing insistently against the boundaries of their connection. Impatience made his legs ache and a pressure form against his sinuses. Anders groaned quietly, turning his head and pressing his face into the pillows in his discomfort.

Anders knew Justice wasn’t trying to hurt him on purpose; rather, the spirit just wanted him to get up and start the day now that he was awake, however...

“Justice, stop that. You let Anders sleep a little while longer, okay?”

Anders lifted his head slightly to glance down at the sleeping form of Hayden, whose voice he’d heard just now. The younger mage still breathed deeply in his arms, and he was loathe to disturb them.

Then Hayden’s lips pursed, and Anders stilled as Hayden, eyes still closed, continued speaking.

“We’ll come help out with the clinic today and run the newest copy of our letters by Varric on the way home. Is that understood?”

Anders sensed that the knot of feelings that was Justice paused at Hayden’s words until, a little guiltily, it retreated from the forefront of Anders’ consciousness. Hayden snuggled closer and murmured into the crook of his in an even quieter whisper, “Go back to sleep Anders.” Though muffled and heavily slurred with the weight of sleep on their tongue, Hayden’s words brokered no argument.

Against his back, Fenris burrowed closer, further sandwiching him in between his two lovers. Anders sighed deeply, giving in to the call of the Fade, and he relished in a few more hours of sleep until the rays of the sun finally made their way into the little haven that was Hayden’s four-poster sanctuary. 

After dropping the revisions to his latest writing project by Varric’s desk in the evening, Anders returned home with Fenris and Hayden to begin immediately pouring over his alchemy set. His lovers had decided to practice sparring in the small courtyard garden, and though Anders longed to go with them, he knew Justice would be nagging at him about sloth if he ignored his brewing.

Years ago before he had even gone down into the Deep Roads with Hayden he’d come up with the idea of a nutrient potion that could help the refugees supplement what little they could afford to buy in the way of food. 

He was close now, he thought, but he often hit walls in his research that made it difficult to keep at it. Luckily, he had Justice to pester him about it, so there he sat, waiting for his latest batch of potion to finish brewing while he read from a book that sat in his lap and his right leg tapped away furiously against the stool he was perched on.

Distantly he registered the sound of footsteps approaching his workstation, but he didn’t look up until there was a slight rapping against the wood of the open door. He expected Hayden to be down here looking for him, but instead he was greeted to the sight of Fenris standing in the doorway looking slightly small and awkward. Anders frowned. It was very unlike Fenris to be timid around him.

“Is it time for dinner?” he asked, electing not to comment on Fenris’ unusual entrance. “Did Hayden send you to fetch me?”

Fenris seemed to finally gather his bearings and stepped into the room, eyes scanning the various ingredients and instruments he had strewn about in a strange combination of organized chaos.

“No, I was... merely curious as to why you decided not to spar with us this evening. Though I do believe we will be having dinner soon and Hayden said they’d be down to fetch us when it was ready.” Anders set aside his book but was unable to completely stop the tapping of his foot even while focused on his conversation with Fenris.

“I’m trying to create a nutrient potion for the people of Darktown. Or, well, for Lowtown and the Alienage as well I suppose, though it started out as just for the people of Darktown. I’ve been working on it for years.” Anders paused to think, glancing up in a particular direction as he tried to remember. “ I’ve probably been working on it since... since before I went into the Deep Roads with Hayden on that disastrous expedition.”

Fenris blinked at him, apparently stunned. 

“You’ve been working on this for that long? That’s... some dedication. I knew you were devoted to your causes, but that sounds more like diligence to me.” The elf flushed and admitted, “I must confess I once thought you incapable of such a thing.”

Anders shrugged. “As I once thought you incapable of having any kind of tenderness for a mage and yet... here we are.”

Fenris grunted. “Touche.” 

The elf then paused again to survey Anders himself, noticing the slight twitching of his right leg. “Diligence indeed,” he muttered. “You are overfull with energy this evening.” He smirked, moving closer and pressing up against Anders. The elf’s warmth did not stop Anders’ jitters, but it certainly had his attention.

“Oh? Overfull am I?” he asked playfully, carefully pulling the elf onto his lap. “What would you like to do about that? Since I missed tonight’s exercise, why don’t we... spar with our tongues instead? Or we could cuddle. This stool is not the best place for that though... though there is a bench on the far side of the room we could utilize. It’ll be awhile before these potions are done.”

“A nice cuddle would not go amiss,” Fenris admitted, though a little begrudgingly. Anders smiled as he unceremoniously swept up the elf in his arms, causing Fenris to yip sharply in surprise.

“I thought you liked cuddles, Fenris,” Anders teased, carrying him over to the bench and setting both of them down on top of the blankets there. Fenris huffed, but remained where Anders had lain him on top of his broad chest. 

“I like them better when I choose to be cuddled... though I must also confess that I find it... rather pleasing to be picked up by up. And a little surprising, though perhaps it should not be, considering how heavy your staff is and the ease with which you twirl it around like a toothpick.”

Anders bit his lip a little at Fenris’ admission. “Oh, sorry about that–”

“Not to worry, mage,” Fenris reassured him. “Just sit back and enjoy the cuddling. You have earned a little time to relax.”

“It is still difficult sometimes, when Justice feels that relaxation is slothful.”

Fenris made a dismissive noise in the back of his throat. “Your spirit can take those feelings and toss them into the void. Even I relax sometimes after a long day of hunting slavers or whatever it is we’ve been doing, and you work just as hard as I if not more so. And Hayden is adamant you take care of yourself better. It would not do to worry them.”

At Fenris’ words, the tension in Anders’ body lifted and he fell lax beneath the elf’s solid weight. A familiar soft guilt flooded his connection with Justice, followed by a tender apology. He sighed contentedly, closing his eyes and finally letting himself sink into the comforting warmth of the room around him.

No more words were exchanged between them, but there didn’t need to be. The silence between them was hardly silence at all with the soft bubbling of a cauldron still going on nearby and the gentle breathing of Fenris atop his chest.

He hadn’t realized he’d slipped into a doze until another knock at the door startled him from sleep, jarring a similarly dozing Fenris as they looked around and finally found Hayden standing in the doorway, staring at them and smiling to themselves as though they’d just discovered Lady Moonpaws doing something cute with her kittens. 

“As adorable as you two are,” they said, chuckling to themselves, “I fear I need to wake you, as dinner is ready now.”

Anders and Fenris untangled themselves and stood up, Anders going to put out the fire beneath the cauldron of his latest batch of potions. He glanced at it and shrugged, figuring that he could bottle most of it after dinner if he asked for his lovers’ help, which they would most certainly give if it meant he could join them in the library for more cuddling faster than he usually did on nights when he usually preferred to work.

Well. Perhaps there wouldn’t be quite so much of that tonight. He had worked very hard and perhaps he did indeed deserve a little rest. There was always more work to be done tomorrow, but for what remained of today... he would relax. One only had so many days in their life, and he wanted to enjoy the rest of his to the best of his abilities.

Thank the Maker his lovers cared so deeply for his health and comfort. He smiled to himself as they made their way upstairs to eat; he would most definitely have to find a way to thank them later.

[timesorceror]

Anders Week 2017 #2

Gluttony // Temperance

The theme could be a side of Anders to explore, or something that has been inflicted/gifted to him by someone else in his life.

@teamblueandangry A bit of some soft Fenders for the soul: Fenris and Anders have a discussion about their drinking habits, both past and present.

Fenris knew that the mage didn’t drink, and that he often attributed his spirit’s dislike of... well, spirits.

“He once told Oghren that calling alcoholic drinks “spirits” was a humiliating word for it,” he recalled Anders telling his Diamondback group one evening. “I do still like the occasional drink, when I can afford the things I prefer.”

“And what things do you prefer then Blondie?” Varric asked. Fenris frowned at the dwarf, who was always asking personal questions so that he might write down the answers to put in his strange memoir. Fenris didn’t care for it, personally, and he knew that sometimes even Anders had his limits as to what he would and wouldn’t divulge to their private playing.

“Sweet things,” Anders surprised Fenris by replying. “Things like berry meads or certain light wines. You don’t often find such things around here.”

Anders had sighed, lamenting the lack of his favorite drinks. When their next session rolled around, Fenris rummaged through the wine cellar to see what other drinks he could offer his guests, only to be surprised when he found a bottle of mead that he recalled Anders mentioning the session prior.

He waited until after Varric and Donnic had left, and then and only then did he present it to Anders. The mage was understandably flabbergasted.

“W-What? Why? Did you... remember what I said last time?”

Fenris nodded, reluctantly.

“If you wouldn’t mind sharing it with me...” 

Anders stared at him, eyes slightly narrowed, assessing him. The mage likely suspected that he had some ulterior motive and planned to kill him, but Fenris had planned no such thing. He hoped that Anders could see that and not devolve into his usual rants of suspicion. Once, Fenris had participated in them wholeheartedly and gave as good as he got, but at some point they became less enjoyable and even started to hurt...

...a fact that Anders seemed to be noticing, but hadn’t yet figured out why.

That was just fine with Fenris. He himself was afraid of the feelings welling up inside him. For one, he knew what they were, and they scared him. 

Anders did not start ranting as Fenris had expected, but even as he nodded slowly and replied, “No, no, I don’t mind,” in a very calm, even tone, there was tension writ into the tightness of his arms, the hunch of his shoulders, and the way his eyes were still trained on him when Fenris led Anders up to his room so that they might share the drink in a more private setting.

“I’m not trying to kill you,” Fenris said as they sat down and Fenris opened the bottle. He’d even found some glasses earlier in the day and placed them on a small table between the plush, high-backed chairs he’d dragged before the fireside. He filled them, and handed one to Anders.

Anders took it, and at last his tension began to recede as he shook his head in disbelief. “I... I hope you do not think me insulting that I thought you were. We do not... this is not...” Fenris chuckled, and Anders startled at the sound, eyes wide with amazement. “I know. But I know that Varric and Donnic are not fond of such sweet indulgences, so naturally you were my choice to share this with.”

“You don’t really discriminate with your alcohol,” Anders said lightly, almost accusingly. “You picked this out for me specifically.”

Fenris looked away and drank from his glass as he stared into the fire. The sweetness of it lingered on his tongue as the rest of the pleasant burning slid down his throat. Neither of them said anything for a long time.

Surprisingly, it was Fenris who broke the silence. 

“You know, at first I didn’t like it,” he confessed, very quietly. Anders didn’t reply, but he could tell that the mage was listening intently.

“Danarius would give me some to taste, on occasion, but he preferred the bitter alcohols like Donnic and Varric, and at the time, I had no recollection of what it tasted like. I was not enthusiastic about the taste, but had to fake my enjoyment anyway. I was not certain of the reaction he’d been hoping for, but enjoyment always seemed to please him.”

“My mother would give me a little of my father’s ale sometimes,” Anders replied when Fenris had finished his story. “And it was Ferelden ale, so of course it was bitter, just like the people who drank it.”

Fenris snorted. “You’re Fereldan. As is Hayden. Neither of you are bitter people.” Then it was Anders’ turn to snort as he let out a bark of laughter. “Ha! Not bitter! I’m more bitter than a mother who’s only child left to become a cleric. I can’t really speak for Hayden, though I know that some bitterness lingers in them. Mostly towards their mother, but I shouldn’t say any more.”

Fenris told Anders about how when he was left with the Fog Warriors, they showed him what a sweeter drink tasted of, and though he glossed over the circumstances of his departure, he said that through them he learned to be more open and discerning about his drink.

Anders regaled him with tales of Circle mages making their own drinks in the dark, mostly forgotten places of Kinloch Hold’s tower, and as Anders continued to indulge in his drink, the stories became more and more elaborate. He did voices too, and sometimes got up to reenact some scenes that had Fenris curled up or bent over with laughter. 

Then the mage seemed to remember something painful, and he sat down with a tired smile. “Those were some of the few happy memories I had of that place... but after Karl was gone, I had no desire to stay.”

“You started escaping again.”

“Yes.”

Anders began to tell the tale of his sixth escape where he made it to Denerim and lived there for a year before being caught again.

“I drank a lot, then. I started out working at the Pearl as just a Healer, but then after one of the servicers talked me into wearing a corset and the Madame caught us doing it... she said I looked good in it and decided to hire me on.” 

A fond smile stretched Anders’ face, and Fenris had the strangest wish that the mage would smile more often. 

“I drank often, with my patrons. Some liked spoiling me, cause I was pretty. Some also shared my preference for sweet things, and couldn’t possibly finish an entire bottle on their own. Some even taught me how to appreciate some of the more bitter drinks, but I knew sweet drinks would always be my favorites.”

Then Anders sighed and bitterness lingered in the words that followed, “It was not to last. Though the Madame kept Templars away from me as best she could, one night there was a really fantastic orgy with like, six or seven people, including me and two other servicers. One of the patrons was a former Templar though, and turned me in right as soon as he sobered up.”

“And... after your escape? Did you drink with the Wardens?”

Anders snorted again as he polished off a glass and filled it up again.

“Did I drink with the Wardens,” he muttered, chortling. “Maker, did I ever. It’s hard to get drunk as a Warden, but I knew a dwarf, Oghren, who was like perpetually drunk. Strangely functional. You would’ve had nothing on this guy. He brewed his own ale that tasted like fire and despair and all you wanted after you finished the first shot was, “Another!””

He raised his glass of mead and downed it in several gulps. He filled it once more, but did not continue to drink as heartily.

“Nate, Sigrun, Velanna... even Rashia would sometimes join us for drinking competitions. Once, I woke up after one of those, layin’ up against the statue of Andraste in the keep’s courtyard, completely nude. My robes had ended up servin’ as my bed, I think, but my knickers –this was back when I’d started wearing them again– had ended up right on top of the head like a crown!”

Fenris descended into a fit of raucous laughter.

“I wish I could’ve stayed,” Anders lamented after Fenris’ laughter died down.

“Why didn’t you?” Fenris asked, and Anders sighed, setting his glass aside and shaking his head. “Some templars joined the order to try to get at me. They nearly would’ve, if not for Justice.” Anders bit his lip, staring intently at the floor.

“Some people might’ve died. Good people. The templars I didn’t care for, but the other Wardens... some of them were my friends...”

Anders pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them.

“After that, I did the only thing I knew I was good at, and I ran away. I haven’t really... really had a real drink since then except this –thanks for this by the way, it was nice– and I kinda figured that me not bein’ able to enjoy shit anymore was penance for my sins. And accordin’ to the Chantry, my very existence is a sin so... I’ve got a lot to be repentant about.”

“Anders...” 

Fenris didn’t like the ache in his chest that Anders’ words seemed to evoke. He figured that a lot of the details were missing and that Anders was probably saying things he wouldn’t normally say, but his tale about leaving the Wardens was... similar, eerily similar to his own sordid past.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he began, and Anders snorted, but Fenris kept going on, “about us being more alike than I thought.”

“What?” Anders’ word was barely above a whisper, but Fenris’ keen elven ears caught the sound. 

“Let’s just say I know a thing or two about killing people I care about and leave it at that, Anders. By your logic, I don’t deserve anything nice either, but Hayden... Hayden has taught me that I do. I can have and enjoy nice things. So can you!” Anders huffed, but a small smile made its way onto the mage’s tired face. “Huh. That’s got to be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me...”

Perhaps it was. Fenris felt guilty now for all of the untrue and hateful things he’d ever said, and he was about to give the mage an honest apology before Anders stood up and dusted off his coat before polishing off his last glass.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” Anders mumbled. “I’ve missed that gentle buzz in the back of my head. It was nice.”

“I still have more of those,” Fenris said, on impulse.

“...oh? Do you?” Anders flashed him a tired grin and Fenris couldn’t help the flush that blossomed on his cheeks. Anders didn’t seem to notice, so he continued with, “Yes. Would you care to join me some other evening to share another? Perhaps with some food? Hayden still complains that you don’t eat enough.” Anders chuckled.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were asking me out on a date,” he mused, and Fenris stilled. Anders merely flashed him another smile and inclined his head to Fenris. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Just swing by whenever you’re ready. You know where to find me.”

And then the mage sauntered out of the room, leaving parts of Fenris very hot and bothered and not at all affected by the alcohol he’d just consumed.

Fasta vass. Now he was going to be dreaming about what that ass looked like underneath that coat and those robes. Did the mage still wear smallclothes, he wondered? Well, there were worse things to dream about, he supposed.

[timesorceror]

Fenhanders Week 2017 #6

Saturday, April 8th - Let’s Grow Old Together

What does the end look like? Where did the trio end up? This is a time for some angst and goodbyes. Tissues suggested.

Question of the Day: Did they have/adopt children? If so, what did they leave behind?

The trio spent their early years after Kirkwall in the isolation of the Amaranthine Forest, merely a few days’ ride from either Vigil’s Keep or Amaranthine itself. All were content in that isolation until it was disrupted by news from Varric about the Inquisition and the Wardens’ false Calling, and that was when they left that isolation for the first time.

Surviving Adamant and the Fade had been like going to the Void and back; with Anders and Fenris having to drag Hayden behind them as Stroud remained behind to hold off the Nightmare. But afterwards, seeing all of the devastation wrought by the Venatori and the Wardens still under their control, they could not bear to leave it. Alistair and Rashia elected to head to Wiesshaupt instead to seek answers from their higher ups, and of course Anders and Fenris remained with Hayden, helping the Inquisition where they could.

Fenris mostly helped on missions, though he rarely left without either of his healers. When not out with Fenris, Anders and Hayden tended to patients and refugees still displaced from the explosion at the Conclave, adult and child alike. Sometimes these children had parents, sometimes they did not. 

Hayden’s heart went out to all of the children without, because they knew the pain of losing a parent in their youth. However, it wasn’t until Fenris brought back a pair of nearly infant twins from an excursion to a dragon-ravaged home that Hayden was struck with a desire to do more than keep them warm and healthy until a place could be found for them.

So, after many long discussions and several battles fraught with danger, the trio returned home when Corypheus was defeated… with two small children in tow.

Anders breathed deeply of the still winter air, and then exhaled slowly, watching as his breath misted and danced before him, mesmerizing. His gaze wandered across the line of trees several yards away from the porch where he sat, seemingly fixed on a point in the distance through the gentle evening snowfall. The wooden chair beneath him creaked slightly as he rocked, but the sound was muffled by the great white expanse that surrounded the area.

“Papa?” A voice called from inside the cabin, making him turn to cock his head in the direction of the sound. 

“Yes darling?” He answered, and coughed once, twice. Wetness rattled in his chest, and he sighed, leaning back in the chair. Distant footsteps grew louder until the visage of an elven woman with dark hair and amber eyes came into view, brows pinched in concern. She held two steaming cups in her hands, offering one to him.

“You’ve been out here for awhile,” she said as he gingerly took one of the cups, and relishing the taste of warm liquid chocolate on his tongue. He hummed noncommittally. “Yes, I know,” he replied in a chiding tone, smirking softly. “Can’t an old man enjoy the peace and quiet of a winter’s evening once in awhile?” He flashed her a slight grin, but was interrupted when a series of small coughs escaped him, threatening to develop into a full fit.

“We’d let you be,” said a man’s voice from the doorway, equal parts teasing and stern, “if not for you being so quiet. Your cough’s getting worse, and when we hadn’t heard anything from you in awhile we feared that you’d just… well.” The man was elven, like the woman, and it was obvious they were related. His hair was dark, like hers, but his eyes were a bright jewel green instead of amber.

Anders smiled sadly at the man. “I’m sorry I can’t put your fears to rest, son. An illness like this can’t be cured with magic or potions, and I’m… not as young as I used to be.” 

“We know, papa,” said the woman as she reached out to take his free hand into her own from her place in one of the other two rocking chairs. “People don’t live forever. We’re not meant to. I just… I want to be there for you.” There were tears swimming in the woman’s eyes, and Anders set his drink aside to reach up and brush a few from here cheeks.

“You are here for me, sweetheart,” he whispered, “and I’m grateful, I am. Both of you came all this way to be with your old man, and you didn’t have to.”

“Course we did,” the man grunted. “I mean, we know you’re never really alone, but with Hayden gone and Father having passed last Harvestmere… Liesel and I figured someone should be here, to keep you comfortable at the very least.”

Liesel snorted. “Faron’s being too humble, as usual. He said to me while we were on our way here actually, “Sister, it’s more than a duty to care for a parent in their last days; it’s an honor.” I mean, really. He spends too much time with Uncle Varric, I think.”

Anders chuckled. “Varric’s still kicking? Huh. What’s he got you doing, that he’s keeping you around for so long, Faron?”

“Dictating a memoir,” Faron grumbled. “The pain in his joints’d made it hard for him to write for years, so I’ve been transcribing everything for him.” He shrugged. “He wasn’t nearly so poetic when we were working on the last installment of Hard in Hightown. I think that thinking about the past has made him wistful. He even said he might tell me the story of Bianca if I ask him at the right time.”

“Bianca? As in the crossbow?”

“Nah, the woman. I mean, I’m pretty sure the crossbow’s involved, but he meant the woman. I’m sure of it.”

“I still say he’s gonna leave you hanging,” Liesel teased. Faron huffed, shurgging as he closed the door behind him and leaned against it. “Never said he wouldn’t. Anyway, his way of speaking gets stuck in my head sometimes and I say stuff weird.” Liesel grinned.

“You meant what you said though. I could tell.”

Anders smiled, picking up his cup and sipping it as he watched his adult children bicker with one another like they were small again. Warmth bloomed in his chest at the memories of raising them with Hayden and Fenris in this very cabin. He was glad to have them here with him during what could potentially be his last days. Hayden had been sick like this a few times before they’d eventually passed. Losing Hayden had hurt deeply, but at least he’d still had Fenris for several more years after that.

This past year on his own had been harder still, and he’d leaned heavily on Justice to keep him motivated to get out of bed each morning. He’d been so caught up in grief that he hadn’t noticed the onset of illness until nearly too late. He couldn’t bear to leave the home he’d built with his lovers, so he’d written to their children in Kirkwall instead, asking them to come if they could spare the time away from their own spouses and children to keep him company.

“Alright you two,” he chided them gently. “You know your father absolutely detested when you bickered without purpose. Why don’t you tell me how my grandchildren are doing? Liesel, isn’t your eldest getting married soon?”

“She is,” Liesel grumbled. “I feel so old, papa.” 

Anders chuffed. “But she’s marrying a good man, yes? Or lady?”

Liesel nodded, her features softening. “A fine young man. I was surprised to learn he has an apprenticeship with the Hightown surgeon, with him being elven like us. I hadn’t thought it possible.” 

“Varric’s done some good in that city, it seems,” Anders sighed, contentedly. “I mean, I doubt he’s erased elven prejudice entirely, but I know things are better there now, for a lot of people. Having all of those terrible Tevinter ruins cleansed of blood magic traces seemed to help a lot too, as I recall.”

“The Circle’s not in the Gallows anymore either,” Faron added. “And it’s not called a Circle. My two boys go there, and they tell me that their classes are quite pleasant. Just last month, Tamaris was showing me this thing he could do with these things he called fairy lights. It looked like the night sky was plastered all around us, without needing to go outside.”

“I used to do that, when I was young,” Anders remembered with fondness. “My first love, Karl, once charmed some to appear in the shapes of red carnations and crystal grace on my bed when I threw back the covers. I used to make some for your father when he would wake in the dark from his nightmares. They helped ground him.” 

Anders chucked, and added, “Hayden liked them too, but they were more like Karl. They’d take your father and I out into the forest during autumn in evenings and we’d watch a magic light show while sharing a picnic by the water.”

“I remember those,” Faron mumbled, lost in thought. Liesel sighed contentedly. “I do too. They were lovely. I had no idea they were Hayden’s way of being romantic.” Anders nodded, laughing. “Well, with small children in the house, the three of us had to get creative with how we flirted. There was a lot of suggestive eyebrows waggling and slightly not so innocent dancing and hugging that went on when you were young.”

“And then it all went out the window that one time I walked in on you and Father having sex,” Faron snorted, and Liesel burst in a fit of giggles. “Hayden was mortified, but they set you and I down while Father and Papa were… finishing up, and we had the sex talk right then and there.” 

A few more snickers escaped her as she held a hand to her mouth and wrapped the other around her side, clutching at her clothes while she tried to laugh silently.

Anders was laughing too, but he had to be careful not to laugh too hard in case he started to descend into a coughing fit instead. Everything ached these days, but the laughter his children brought him made him feel lighter than he had in months, and the ache was easier to ignore.

Eventually the twins coaxed him to come back inside to sit by the fire, and later that evening the three of them shared a hearty meal of steaming noodle broth with fresh vegetables and chunks of butter soft chicken. Shortly before Anders retired for bed, Liesel dug around in her packs, presenting him something wrapped in cheap brown parchment and tied with string.

“I’d almost forgotten this,” she muttered as he began meticulously opening the package. “We found this for you in the estate library before we left–Varric told Faron that it was one of your favorite trashy romance novels and that it was quite important to you.”

Anders gasped when he finished opening the package, pulling the parchment away to find a copy of Fang of the Dragonlord sitting inside. This was the same one that Hayden and Fenris had purchased for him when they’d still lived in Kirkwall, and several of the pages had been dog-eared in honor of the parts that had been Karl’s favorites from the copy he’d kept in the Circle.

“Thank you for being so thoughtful, dear,” he murmured as he pulled Liesel close and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “This will be such lovely bedtime reading, for certain.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will be,” Faron snickered, and Anders just fixed his son with a dead-eyed stare. 

“Boy, I’m a widower well into my twilight years. I am more interested in keeping my plants pruned and my cat fed than getting it up. Besides, the story in this one’s actually good.” 

“Compared to Swords and Shields?”

“Anything’s better than that. The position he describes in the second installment on page 69 is physically impossible, unless you’re a contortionist, and even then it still sounds vastly uncomfortable.” Faron snorted. “True. Still, you know, it couldn’t hurt. Don’t orgasms help… something when you’re sick?”

“That’s headaches, son,” Anders chortled, “and that doesn’t always work.” 

“Whatever. Go get some rest, ok? And call for us, if… if you need us.”

“I will. I love you.” “We love you too, Papa.”

Anders leaned over and pressed a kiss to Faron’s forehead and slowly made his way to the bedroom he’d once shared with Hayden and Fenris. 

It no longer smelled like them, but the room itself was full of several books and trinkets that they’d collected, gifts from their children and their friends. A drawer in the desk by the window was ajar, and inside it Anders knew was a box full of letters from their friends and each other, detailing much of their lives together from their time in Kirkwall onward. Some of Hayden’s old robes still hung in the closet, and in the dresser, tucked behind a sachet of elfroot and rosemary were a few pairs of worn black leggings. 

Anders lit a candle and set it on one of the nightstands, laying the book on the bed. He moved to dress for sleep, but was struck with the sudden desire to wear one of the silk robes Hayden had gifted him, along with a pair of woolen socks that Fenris had knitted for him a long, long time ago.

He paused in front of the small mirror that had been hung on a nearby wall, reaching back to pull out his hair tie. His hair had gone full white in the last year, and a pang of sadness beat deep in his chest at the thought Fenris hadn’t been around to see it.

“We match now,” he whispered, sighing. 

He would’ve laughed, Justice muttered quietly over their shared connection.

Anders chuffed as he brushed his hair and got into bed, skipping straight to the bits that he preferred, instead of the steamy scenes. “He would have, yes. He had teased me about it when we first found those early white strands. I wish… I, I wish…” He sniffed, tears forming in his eyes.

Hush now, Justice soothed. It’ll be alright. 

Anders felt the spirit’s comfort in the core of him, and it helped as he breathed deeply, for once uninhibited by his illness. As his reading came to a close and exhaustion began creeping in, Anders found himself pausing at the last page, unwilling to turn it and close the book.

“Justice, I’m… I’m scared. Are you scared?”

Of what?

“Dying.”

Anders could practically feel the wheels of Justice’s mind turn as he thought, but the spirit’s answer surprised him when it finally came.

Strangely, I am not. In the Fade, there is no life and death. Spirits and demons simply… are. And while I know you hope that your death will return me to that state of existence, I have long hoped that it would not. Should I return as I am now, I would want. I would desire. These are dangerous things for a spirit.

But, in death, in whatever it means to fade from this existence into the next, I would not be a danger. In death, I could keep you company until we are separate beings once more. Our memories combined span more than your lifetime, a life that is well-lived at that. I would be content to retire my existence with you, knowing that good came from our being in this world.

So… no. I am not afraid. But do not feel shame that you are. It is normal, as I understand. Our children understand it. 

Anders felt his breath leave him in a rush as a kind of peace stole over him. 

“Thank you, Justice.”

The response that filled him was not words, per se, but Anders knew it to be a gesture of gratitude nonetheless. He shifted in bed, glancing out the window to see a glimpse of the clear, starry sky. It filled him with nostalgia as he thought on the many nights he’d spent staring at those stars with his lovers, and he wondered if, wherever they were, they missed him as much as he missed them.

After a few more moments, he closed the book and set it aside. He blew out the candle and settled under the covers, feeling the aches and pains from earlier return. Strangely, he welcomed the deep weariness in his bones, one of the signs of that life well lived.

The call of the Fade swelled, and he noted with some amusement that it was different tonight. He closed his eyes, and breathed deeply.

When next he opened them, it was to a familiar voice, saying, “So, mage. We did get to match after all,” while a peal of long forgotten laughter filled the air around them.

A distance away, a shimmering knight smiled, still unafraid as they winked out of existence.

[timesorceror]

Anders Week 2017 #1

Lust // Chastity

The theme could be a side of Anders to explore, or something that has been inflicted/gifted to him by someone else in his life.

@teamblueandangry Here, have an Anders saves Karl AU which explores the bedroom (or lack thereof) side of their relationship.

Saving Karl had been a close thing. 

When Anders rounded the corner and saw Karl being held down by three Templars with a fourth holding the brand above his forehead and several other standing by to watch, he lost it. His sight had gone first white, then blue, and finally black. It wasn’t until he felt and tasted the blood between his tongue and teeth again (thankfully their blood this time, and not someone else’s) that he was able to come back to himself. 

With the last vestiges of Justice’s strength, he tore off Karl’s bindings and sobbed into his robes. He would’ve stayed the rest of the night there until the other mage reminded him that people would be coming soon to investigate and that it would be most unwise to linger.

Anders didn’t dare let go of his hand the entire time they ran through the night and into his Darktown clinic. 

When they arrived, Anders thrust Karl inside and closed the door quickly behind him, back slamming against the rough wood. He breathed harshly, closing his eyes as Karl stumbled, turned around and stepped forward, not wanting to see the hand slip through him like he’d stepped into a living nightmare.

Only it didn’t. Karl’s fingers brushed against Anders’ stubble very briefly before he was pulled flush against the other mage. Anders was surprised to find that it was Karl now who’s face was pressed into Anders’ chest, mostly because Anders was so much taller. When had he gotten so damn tall? He shook his head, deciding it didn’t matter.

A few kisses were exchanged that night, but any potential bedroom exploits for the pair of former lovers were set aside in favor of cuddling and body heat and just generally reassuring one another that they were alive.

Things remained that way for a long time, though Anders could not accurately say why. It wasn’t for lack of desire, or because of Justice.

Justice rather liked Karl. Liked him so much that Anders often felt that sometimes the spirit desired to converse with the other mage, and he’d let them. Sometimes he was even privy to their conversations, and he knew that Karl liked Justice, too.

And some nights he’d wake up from a steamy dream about the Karl in the Fade that hadn’t quite run it’s course... but Karl still lay next to him, asleep.

He never had the heart to disturb the man, and the thought of doing so always somehow sent a curl of fear to wind about his heart, as though waking his sleeping friend might dispel the illusion of their life together. Every day they spent here felt like borrowed time, and as much as Anders wanted to spend it in his bed, with Karl, kissing and touching in all the right places...

Anders sighed, nearly moaned when he felt Karl’s lips at the back of his neck as he stirred a pot of simmering elfroot potion mixture.

“What were you thinking of?” Karl purred, his voice low and soft, just like Anders had once liked it. “You seemed very far away there, in your brewing. Normally you are more... intense when you concentrate.”

Anders felt his body respond to the close proximity and heat of the other mage.

Did he want this yet? Was he ready for it? What the hell was he even feeling right now? Anders sighed again, and looked back with a murmured, “Karl...”

As was their usual pattern these days, Karl merely pressed another soft kiss to his neck and pulled away. “It’s alright. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” Anders pulled his stirring stick from the potion and set it aside as he turned around.

“I–You’re not bothering me, Karl,” he tried to stress. “It–It’s just that I... I don’t know.” Anders decided that he needed to try to figure this out, right here, right now. “I want you. I know I do.” He caught Karl’s gaze and licked his lips. “But when things start to... to go as they were, I... I remember how it used to be.”

Karl’s eyes, always so soft to begin with when they looked at Anders, appeared to soften further. “It doesn’t have to be like that now.”

“In my mind, I know that. My body wants one thing though and my heart wants another.” Anders scowled at nothing in particular, grateful that the clinic was empty for once so that he could collect his thoughts. “I wish I knew what... what I could do for you. For us.”

Karl huffed softly and embraced Anders tightly. Gently.

“Anders. If we never had sex again, yet got to spend the rest of our lives together, I would die a happy man. Besides, you still give me the best kisses. They are like the sweetest ambrosia, your kisses.”

Karl angled Anders’ head just a bit so that he could give the tip of his nose a quick peck, and that made Anders giggle.

“You tease,” Anders hummed, smiling as he pressed his forehead to Karl’s. “And that’s so untrue, you know? For you see, it was I who always thought that it was your kisses that were the ambrosia.” Karl chuckled. “Well, we can’t both be right. We shall have to conduct tests.”

Anders bent low and just caught the edge of Karl’s lip between his teeth, worrying at it a little before fully pressing his lips against the other mage’s. They weren’t chaste kisses either, rather they more of the hasty, open mouthed variety that had Anders’ whole body vibrating from the tips of his hair to his toes and he felt safe here. 

Safe. What was it about these kisses that he was alright with?

Unfortunately he wasn’t quite able to finish that thought, as one of the doors to the clinic opened up and in walked Hayden Hawke, holding a basket full of embrium, rashvine, and other assorted herbs. Anders and Karl froze, right about the same time poor Hayden realized what they were doing, and when Anders caught sight of Hayden’s face, the poor thing was so flushed and wide-eyed.

“Um, s-sorry, I, ah... I can go if you’re, um... busy.”

Anders felt his own cheeks flush as Karl pulled away, laughing as he approached Hayden and moved to put the young mage at ease. Anders went back to his brewing, his thoughts stewing once more. He did not feel quite as dour as before though, with Karl’s assurances still fresh in his mind. 

Whatever issues he was working through would just have to run their course, unless things worsened again, he thought. He had a feeling he would be just fine however, and for some time, he remained content to cuddle and kiss and do little else. Sometimes Karl would hold his hand when they ate together in the quiet clinic, or they’d play footsie beneath Varric’s table during cards, sharing secret smiles with no one the wiser. He never pressed for more.

In the end, it was Anders who made the first move to rekindle their sex life, and it started over something as simple as one rare afternoon they’d both taken off to go outside of the city and pick herbs and wildflowers for the clinic. Anders had been kneeling down, searching a bramble patch for some thistle blooms when he looked up and saw Karl move to get some water.

Seeing the wind gently lifting at Karl’s hair as light caught his eyes and a single drop of water escaped the skin to trickle down his stubble... it summoned a feeling within Anders that caught him off guard. For once, his mind, body, and heart were all in sync, but he waited until they’d gone back to the clinic and put away their spoils to press Karl against the door and practically attack the other man’s lips with his own. 

Karl was the one to put a gentle hand on Anders’ chest to ask, briefly, “Do you want this, Anders?” and Anders could only respond by slowly grinding against Karl, drawing gasps from them both. 

“Do you?” Anders panted back, and Karl nodded enthusiastically.

Karl leaned forward, about to capture Anders’ lips in what he’d hoped would be an arousing, all-consuming kiss–

–only for the door right next to them to open up and Hayden walked through again. This time however the young mage merely yelped and ran off, shouting, “Uh, sorry, I’ll come back later!” as they did so, which had both Anders and Karl laughing, in tears.

“Someday,” Karl wheezed, “that one is going to learn how to knock.”

Anders chuckled. “Oh, I think they’ll have no trouble remembering that now, but do you think we should lock up a bit early? I was... rather enjoying that. We never did finish those ambrosia tests.”

Karl grinned, and after locking up the clinic doors, the two of them disappeared into their bedroom to spend some quality time together and to fully reacquaint their bodies as they had with their minds, and it was one of the most enjoyable experiences Anders had had in bed with another person in a very long while.

It was an experience that, due to his Grey Warden blood, they might have repeated, several times, over the course of the night. 

Anders didn’t mind. It was Karl, and he was safe, but most importantly he was loved, and to Karl, he knew nothing else mattered more.

[timesorceror]

Fenhanders Week 2017 #7

Sunday, April 9th - Putting out the Fires of Kirkwall

What do they do when shit hits the fan? Either a difficult/dangerous situation or just a petty argument between 2 of them, large or small scale conflict. How do they cope? (suggested by @steampunkscarecrow)

Question of the Day: What is one thing Hawke, Fenris, and Anders learn from each other?

From Anders, Hayden learns to find their strength of spirit, to embrace who and what they are and wear that strength as an armor against their enemies. It is a kind of confidence, Hayden thinks, and it is... but simply wearing it isn’t enough. It isn’t until the two of them become three that Hayden learns from Fenris how to take that armor and use it. Under the elf’s guiding hand, Hayden learns to take the mantle of Champion and make it their own; to shield the people of the city from themselves in the hopes of guiding them to a better future.

From Hayden, Fenris learns a thing or two about what it means to be family. When Carver is able to make the trek out to Kirkwall every now and again, he watches as the two siblings bicker playfully while reminiscing about the sister and father he’d never met, and mother he hadn’t known as well as he probably should have. He doesn’t quite understand it, until Anders quietly sits next to him and explains that that’s how siblings are. Or that’s how they should be. He turns and looks into Anders’ face and sees the same bitterness that sits in his heart when he thinks about the sister who betrayed him, but then he looks around again and realizes that he doesn’t need her. He has Anders, he has Hayden, and yes, he has Carver. And he’s alright with that.

And from Fenris, Anders learns just how much he and the elf are alike... and how much they differ. It takes him longer than the others, but he learns to ask after Fenris’ boundaries, his moods, his dreams, his health. Hayden taught him that he deserved to sleep in a little, to eat his share and a bit more, to indulge in a little self love. What Anders learned from Fenris wasn’t so much something he observed from the elf, it was something he learned for him. For Fenris, he learned to become a teacher, a lover, a supporter. A partner. 

“Hayden.” Lyrium-lined hands gripped the top of the sofa, and toes curled nervously into the carpet. 

Fenris sighed and repeated himself with a little more force, “Hayden. Wake up.” 

Hayden, whom Fenris had found napping peacefully on the sofa in his search of the estate for Anders, stirred with a soft, barely audible groan as their eyes fluttered open and slowly they focused on the elf.

“Fenris?” They mumbled, simultaneously stretching and trying to rub the sleep from their eyes. “Sorry I fell asleep again. Did I miss dinner?” 

Fenris frowned, grumbling. “No, but I fear the–I fear that Anders might. He has not returned from the clinic yet this evening. Does this... happen on occasion?”

Hayden blinked blearily at him for a few heartbeats more before they turned to glance at one of their precious dwarven timepieces on the mantle and their expression shifted into something that likely mirrored Fenris’ own. They sighed deeply, swinging their legs onto the floor and moving to stand.

“He might be overwhelmed with patients this evening. It happens sometimes.”

“But what if he isn’t? He mentioned the other night that the Templar patrols were... increas–venhedis, why didn’t I stay with him today?” Fenris watched, his stomach filling with a tight bubble of anxiety as Hayden pulled on the thick coat and boots that were lying in a nearby high-backed chair. 

“If he isn’t, then we shall round up Varric and Isabela and go Templar hunting.”

They looked up and met Fenris’ eyes, and that tight knot of anxiety lessened when he saw the steely determination that filled their gaze. “I doubt that’s the case however,” Hayden assured him, reaching for the staff that leaned against the mantle and ducking under to sling the harness across their chest. “Varric has people watching the clinic when we’re not there. If something happened to Anders, we’d be the first to know.”

Fenris was still tense with nervous energy as Hayden led him down into the cellars, though the location gave him pause. “Why are we down here?” he asked, and Hayden turned to look at him incredulously for a moment before something appeared to dawn on them.

“Oh, right. I forgot that I hadn’t met you yet then. Well. Before I bought this place back with the coin Varric and I found in the Deep Roads, Gamlen had sold it to pay off some debts... to a bunch of slavers, apparently.” Fenris scoffed and scowled, which earned him a smirk from Hayden before they continued.

“Mother... Mother had told Carver that there used to be an entrance to the cellars that led into the sewers, and he wanted to check it out to see if we could find the will our grandparents had written so that we could help her prove the place was rightfully ours. Apparently it leads to an alley not far from the clinic, so it’s pretty much the fastest way there.”

They shook their head and huffed to themselves, muttering, “I dunno why we hadn’t told you about it before. Hnn. Must’ve just forgotten.”

“Be careful, Hawke. You might be growing senile in your old age.”

“Har har.” Hayden turned around and stuck their tongue out at Fenris, who was quite surprised when he retaliated with his own. He didn’t even realize that Hayden’s little trick had eased the rest of his anxiety until they arrived at the clinic doors, which were propped open and full of people going in and out. They entered the clinic and paused to look around to take in the scene, which was as desperate as it was familiar.

Hayden sighed deeply and set off in a direction, presumably where they’d spotted the mage against the far wall where he was knitting together a severe chest wound on a young man who couldn’t be any older than fifteen or sixteen.

“Bone Pit again, Anders?” They asked, and Anders jolted, his healing spell fizzling out a bit as it finished.

Anders looked up sharply and sighed in relief, giving the young man a quick once over before stand. Fenris frowned, watching as the mage swayed a bit on his feet. On impulse, he reached out to steady him, and Anders melted against him with a soft moan. 

“Yeah. I think I’ve finished the worst of it, but I still have more to see off before... before...”

Hayden shook their head vehemently. 

“I can handle the rest, Anders. You sit down and rest. Fenris, can you make sure he does that? Sit on him if you have to.”

Fenris snorted as Anders groaned a bit in protest but didn’t put up much of a fight. He found one of the few unoccupied cots against a nearby wall and placed the mage on it gingerly, sitting down next to him.

“You don’t have to sit with me if you don’t want to,” Anders murmured tiredly when he noticed Fenris’ left leg twitching in a jittery little dance. Fenris grumbled. “I am... not uncomfortable here,” he murmured back, frowning. “It is... it is merely that there is so much going on. Too much noise, too much movement.” The two of them watch from afar as Hayden, with the help of Lirene and a few other assistants, corralled most of the patients into groups of people according to the severity of their injuries.

“You feel as if you should be helping? You should be active, and moving?”

Fenris tried to still his twitching, and with some effort, was able to manage it. He pressed closer against Anders, using the mage as an anchor.

“That is part of it, I think. Another is that Hayden is among all those people, and any one of them might be a danger that only I could see, were I close enough.”

“Hayden will be alright,” Anders assured him. “Even a Carta or Coterie member wouldn’t dare to make a hit on the Champion. They know that this city runs on the free flow of coin and less than reputable employment, and without the Champion, they know that Meredith and the Chantry might decide to start really cracking down on that. And that’s not even taking into account all of the protection charms they had Sandal weave into those robes of theirs. I mean, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“They’re pretty perceptive when they want to be too,” Fenris added, to which Anders nodded, sliding down so that he could use Fenris’ shoulder as a pillow.

“I’ll bet they noticed how late it was. They usually come for me if I’m not home before dinner.” Fenris made a noise in the back of his throat and shook his head even though Anders couldn’t see.

“They’d fallen asleep on the sofa again, actually. I was the one who noticed you were not around and I woke them to ask why.” He shifted, a bit of familiar anxiousness filling him at his next words. “I thought something might’ve happened to you. I was... concerned.”

Anders huffed through his nose and Fenris felt the mage’s smile form against his skin.

“That’s... rather sweet of you,” Anders whispered. “Thank you, Fenris.”

Fenris tried to pretend that Anders’ words didn’t make his heart want to melt and form a small puddle on the clinic floor, but he couldn’t summon up enough denial to try. He felt the flush on his cheeks go all the way up his ears, and a very soft rumbling sound filled the space around them.

It stuttered out a few moments later when Anders shifted to look up at him with wonder-filled eyes, and Fenris felt his face grow warmer under the mage’s stunned scrutiny.

“Oh don’t stop,” Anders gasped quietly. “I rather enjoyed that! It was lovely.”

Anders reached up to brush a lock of hair out of Fenris’ eyes, but the stubborn strands fell back into place as soon as Anders pulled away. He huffed in what appeared to be amusement before he continued with, “Do you think you could do it again? I... I can’t imagine that purring was... encouraged, in your past.”

Fenris frowned, trying to remember what he’d done to start it, but found that he could not. He sighed, shaking his head. “I do not know how. And if I ever knew, then that memory is hidden from me like all the others.”

“We’ll find a way to get those back for you someday,” Anders vowed, and though the words were heavy with the weight of an earnest promise, his expression was full of tender adoration.

Fenris could not help the impulse that followed as he bent his head to capture Anders’ lips in a soft, sensual kiss.

When they broke away, the world seemed to fade around them while their breaths danced across the other’s face. Fenris never wanted the moment to end; he felt so safe here, and so loved. However the two were jolted back into reality at the sound of a throat clearing, and they both turned to see Hayden standing at the other end of the cot, blinking at them in amazement.

“Wow,” they breathed, still looking a little stunned. “That was beautiful. What, ah... what do I need to do to get some of that?”

Anders chuckled softly as he shifted, sitting up properly. 

“All you have to do is ask, darling. I’d be happy to kiss you senseless anytime.”

Hayden grunted, folding their arms across their chest and smirking. “Right. Anyway. We should go home and eat. Orana might even be done with desert by the time we get back.”

“So everyone’s been tended to?”

Hayden nodded. “Everyone who needed a magic touch, anyway. Lirene shoved me off once that was done and said she and the others could handle the rest and close up when they’re done. But...” They sighed, glancing back at the slowly thinning crowd. “...I heard them talk of another attack at the Bone Pit. A big one, this time.” 

Hayden shook their head and scowled. “Hubert’s gonna be in such a snit once he finds out. Better to just look into it before he does.”

Anders frowned. “I’d be careful. I heard them talking about it too, before you came. It sounds like a high dragon attacked the entire complex, and they’re nothing to mess with. I’ve fought them before with Rashia, though to be fair, one of them was technically an undead spirit dragon...”

Hayden’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “A... what now?”

They gestured to Anders with one hand, fixing Fenris with a curious stare. “You sure he’s alright? Because I’m pretty sure he just said something about an undead spirit dragon.”

Fenris shrugged, nonplussed. “You heard correctly. To be fair, you’ve never heard Rashia tell the tale of the Blackmarsh. If he says he fought an undead spirit dragon with her, then he probably did.”

“We found those dragon bones in the Blackmarsh, actually,” Anders added. 

Fenris merely offered Hayden a “case-and-point” expression while the other mage appeared to remain a mixture of awed and skeptical.

“Spirit dragons aside though,” Anders grumbled. “I’m not looking forward to that Bone Pit trip. At all.”

“I’m... kind of curious, actually. Maybe I can harvest some blood for Solivitus.”

“Hayden, only you would be excited to head into certain death,” Fenris sighed. “Only you.” Hayden merely held a hand to their mouth and giggled daintily. 

“Well, the high dragon will likely still be warm when we get to it,” Anders interjected as he stood. Fenris noted that his steps were steadier than before, and it made him smile, just a little. “And dinner won’t,” he finished. “Shall we deal with one crisis at a time then?”

“Maker, this city could learn a thing or two from that,” Hayden mused, chuckling. Anders scoffed as they left the clinic and headed for the entrance to the estate cellars. 

“That’s unlikely, but it would be nice, wouldn’t it?” 

“It would be,” Fenris agreed. “But it’s not likely to happen. Still, that’s no reason for us not to deal with our own problems first. What’s that saying you’re so fond of, Anders?”

“Life is short, eat dessert first.”

“Right. Let’s do that.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hayden agreed, and Fenris could hear the grin in their voice. The high dragon could wait, Fenris thought, because when they arrived back at the estate, dessert was indeed waiting for them along with their dinner. 

So the three of them sat, ate their dessert, and life was good.

[timesorceror]

In Need of Healing - Fenders

Strangely, this was inspired by this art that I saw on my dash this morning and it made me think about how Anders often asks in-game after a fight, “Does anyone need healing?” and how it’s probably just something that he asks out of impulse, out of habit. Maybe, he asks it so many times and Fenris just refuses over and over until, one day, he doesn’t.

This is the story that came to mind. Also, it felt good to write something more than 300 words for the chapter fic I’m currently slogging through. So, enjoy. :)

Anders heard the elf hiss before he glanced down to see the blood dripping from his foot. Immediately, his first thought was to ask, “Do you need healing?”’

But Fenris hissed again, directing his ire at Anders this time as he grumbled.

“Not from you,” was all he said, before calling to Hawke to stop for a moment. Afterwards he limped to a nearby rock and cleaned the cut with a cloth and rubbed a healing salve into it. Anders was about to make an angry retort in response, but then he noticed that the elf was running low on salve.

Later in the evening, when they were arriving back in the city, he cleared his throat and asked Fenris, very quietly, “Do you need any more salve?”

Fenris did not answer; he merely flicked his ears back against his hair and headed into the Hanged Man after Hawke and Varric, leaving Anders alone to contemplate whether or not he should join them for cards. He ended up staying for a few rounds, but left before his losing streak cost him too much coin. (They always gave it back, knowing he needed it for other things, but it still chafed at him to lose as often as he did.)

As usual, he left for the clinic, where he proceeded to start up another batch of healing potions, his thoughts lingering on a certain cantankerous elf.

Another time they were running down the Wounded Coast when they were ambushed by a group of common thieves.

The thieves were dispatched easily, but once again, Anders heard Fenris hiss in pain and noticed that he was bleeding from several cuts. Inwardly, he sighed, knowing what the elf’s answer was going to be to his next question.

“Fenris, do you need healing?”

Predictably, Fenris’ response was, “No, not from you,” and so Anders sighed –audibly this time– and dug in his pack for the jar of extra salve that he’d packed. Fenris, who had tried digging out his own salve and finding it empty, didn’t see Anders’ offering until he looked up, scowling.

Briefly, his expression was transformed into one of shock before Fenris schooled it into his usual mask of indifference.

“I said I didn’t want any healing of yours,” Fenris huffed.

“It’s a salve, Fenris,” Anders grumbled in return. “Look, just take it this once, and if you really don’t want anything of mine, then maybe start buying more salves instead of–” He paused, not certain if he should finish that sentence. Finally, he ran a hand through his hair, mussing up what wasn’t contained by his hair tie.

“Instead of what?” Fenris pressed, and Anders shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever you buy instead of salves. You don’t want my healing? Fine. But seriously, buy more salve if you don’t want me asking you about it.”

He left the salve in front of Fenris and stalked off to see if either Varric or Hawke needed healing. When he came back, Fenris’ cuts and bruised had been healed, and he was pointedly not looking at Anders.

Also, the salve he’d left at the elf’s feet was nowhere to be seen.

Time passed, and it had been a long time since Anders had had to ask the elf if he needed healing. Strangely, Fenris seemed to have taken Anders’ advice and always seemed to have a jar of healing salve ready for his cuts and bruises after a fight, including an extra jar should he happen to discover that his usual one was empty.

Anders wasn’t sure where the elf was getting them, but he did suspect that he knew of at least one source when he would occasionally discover one of his jars having gone missing every so often with a few gold sovereigns in its place.

He wasn’t sure whether to tell the elf that he’d just as easily give him the salves or not, but those extra sovereigns were sometimes the only thing that kept him and his clinic afloat and he wasn’t about to tell the elf off for doing as he’d asked of him. So he let the matter be and business went on as usual.

Until late one evening, it stopped being so usual.

Anders awoke to the rapid rapping of gauntlets on the clinic doors, and suddenly Justice was awake and fully present as well. He listened for the sound of wood splintering or the scent of armor oil and lyrium, but all that followed was the sound of a familiar voice calling, “Anders, open up! Anders!”

Hawke’s voice. Justice retreated a little bit, causing the faint cracks of blue light that split his skin to fade as he leapt from his bed hidden behind the illusion of rubble and threw open the clinic doors. 

Hawke was there with Isabela, supporting an unconscious and bleeding Fenris while Merrill hovered not far behind, her large eyes swimming with tears as she bit her lip in worry. Anders didn’t have time to console her however, and he directed Isabela and Hawke to place on top of the table he used for the rare times a patient required one of the more messy types of healing.

“I know you’re worried,” he told them as they joined Merrill to hover at the doorway, “but you have to leave him here and trust that I’ll make certain he still lives beyond the morning.”

Briefly, he wondered what sort of vision he made, standing before them in only his trousers and ratty under-tunic, unbound hair sticking out wildly in odd directions from a restless night’s sleep, but something about his manner or directness seemed to reach at least Hawke, who gently dragged Isabela and Merrill out of the clinic to leave him to his work.

Anders knew that Fenris would wake up asking him if he’d used magic to heal him, especially if he were fully healed after what should have been a fatal stabbing. So instead Anders poured half a potion down the elf’s throat while he got to work with a salve, doing his best to leave the elf’s clothes on while he did so. However, even after feeding Fenris the other half of the potion, he was still in pretty bad shape.

He ran a hand through his hair, mussing up even further in his frustration. That was when Fenris began to stir however, and this gave Anders hope.

“Fenris, Fenris, can you hear me?”

Fenris groaned, and his eyes fluttered for a few moments, glazed over and unfocused. He seemed to recognize Anders through his haze of pain however, and he coughed, violently and wetly. Anders frowned, knowing that wasn’t a good sound.

“Fenris?”

“Anders...” came a faint whisper from the elf. Anders, forgetting who his patient was for a moment, grasped the the elf’s shoulders firmly to try and help him focus on his words. “Fenris, I think you’ve got some fluid in your lungs. You might be drowning in your own blood. I need to use magic to heal you.”

“No...”

“Fenris, please!” Anders pleaded. “I can’t fix this with salves and bandages and I promised Hawke that you would be alive come morning! I might be possessed, but I’d rather not be a liar as well. Please, it won’t take long.”

Fenris wheezed for a few moments more before nodding faintly, and Anders took that as the best sign of consent he could get in that moment as he turned his focus back to Fenris’ wounds. With magic, it didn’t take long at all, however he did have to remove some pieces of clothing before he could heal some of the more bloody wounds that had caused the fabric to partially cling to the elf’s skin. Anders sighed, knowing that the elf was likely to ream into him about it the next morning, but at least he’d still be alive come morning to do so.

Yet, when Anders woke the next morning to check on Fenris, the elf didn’t say a word about it, to Anders’ growing astonishment. He even let Anders give him a cursory examination with as limited an amount of touching as he could manage before pronouncing the elf well enough to leave.

More astonishing still, just before Fenris was about to leave the clinic, he turned around and called out to him, “Anders!”

“What, Fenris?” Anders sighed, preparing himself for the reaming that he had anticipated the previous night. Fenris’ response, however, was not what he had expected. Instead of a lecture, the elf merely said in a gruff, quiet voice, “Thank you... for last night,” before turning around and quickly disappearing into the tent city, likely headed towards the lifts.

To his credit, Anders at least managed to pick up his jaw off of the floor before the first round of the morning’s patients began to filter in moments later.

Since that night, Anders could sense a change in the elf. Or was it perhaps a change in his perception of him? It was difficult to tell, when he factored Justice into the mix of things.

He got the impression that Justice liked Fenris.

Fenris had been a slave, had escaped his slavery, and now hunted slavers for a living. Justice found such a pursuit, well... just. 

But Anders didn’t know if the spirit had always felt this way and hadn’t noticed before now, or whether or not the cause of the subtle change in their exchanges was something else entirely. This had made Anders forget his previous declaration to the elf when once again, they were traveling with Hawke, this time on the way to Sundermount to seek out a rare ingredient for Solivitus. They had been ambushed by a cluster of some of the excessively large spiders that roamed the area and Anders was going about surveying the damage.

He’d seen to Hawke and Varric and out of habit turned around to Fenris, and before he could stop himself from saying the words he asked Fenris, “Do you need healing?”

And then he froze, his face going slack with shock.

Shock that increased when Fenris did not immediately refuse, and sat on top of a nearby rock, wincing in pain as he clutched his side.

“I... might. Took a bite... from one of the venomous ones. With the orange markings... it burns.”

Anders’ hands flew to the leather pouch where he kept his antivenins. He thrust one into Fenris’ hands and said, “Drink this. It’s the best thing for them. Let me know when it stops burning.” Fenris did so, downing the potion in seconds, wincing and shivering. After a minute or two, he glanced up at Anders and he nodded. “Thank you,” he said again, and Anders was once again astonished that Fenris had actually accepted his aid and thanked him for it.

The entire encounter would continue to occupy Anders’ thoughts for the rest of the trip, and not once did Justice insist that such intense contemplation was a distraction from their cause.

But of course that could merely be an extension of the spirit’s fondness and admiration of the elf. Certainly, it wasn’t because of Anders’ feelings for the elf.

Wait... feelings?

Feelings, indeed. Anders didn’t know what else to describe the things he experienced whenever the elf would accept his offers of healing. 

It was still limited to potions and salves and bandages, but Fenris would even allow Anders to touch him on occasion to clean dirt and debris from wounds and to stitch them up after when a salve or potion wasn’t likely to do the job. It baffled Anders every time the elf thanked him.

Their arguments began to number fewer and fewer as time went on, and it wasn’t until one fateful afternoon that Anders would at last acknowledge that they had stopped being bitter rivals and had become... could become something else, if they so desired.

The clinic was mercifully empty that afternoon.

With no chokedamp or cholera outbreaks, no fevers or Bone Pit miners or laboring mothers to tend to, Anders was once again boiling water for bandages and salves. He was also taking the time to do some much needed laundry, so he was washing a great deal of his clothes, meaning that he was doing all of this in only his boots and trousers, leaving his chest bare.

It felt nice to do so for a change, because that afternoon there was a rather delightful breeze wafting in from the open windows above. It carried the salty smell of the sea but without all of the stink of human sweat, fish, and other similarly delightful aromas that he usually associated with the Kirkwall docks.

The sea smelled fresh and alive, so crisp and clean as it was. Accompanied by the sounds of the gulls cawing happily in the distance, Anders fancied that he could almost feel the call of freedom vibrating in the air around him. He closed his eyes, letting himself be absorbed into the sensations for just a moment.

Then came the knock at the clinic doors.

Anders gave a jolt, and he gasped a little when the too warm water splashed onto his hands. “Um, yes? I’m here. I’m not... um...”

Before he could finish his sentence, one of the doors opened, and Fenris limped inside. His foot was bleeding again, and Anders could detect a few glints from a few pieces of glass that were lodged in the skin.

“...not... decent,” he finished lamely, as Fenris was finally looking up at him after closing the door behind him. 

Fenris stared at him, blinking owlishly when he noticed Anders’ state of undress. Anders chuckled. “Maker, I hope you don’t call upon any of our friends in this manner,” Anders joked nervously. “Some of them I’m not sure I want to see in certain states of undress.”

Anders swore he could see a faint flush blooming on Fenris’ cheeks, but it was difficult to tell with how dark the elf’s skin was.

The slight lift of Fenris’ lips, however, was unmistakeable.

“Isabela would enjoy it, I think,” Fenris offered, stunning Anders with an almost shy retort, even adding to Anders’ terrible joke by saying, “as might Varric, with all of that chest hair. I doubt Merrill would care.”

Anders snorted, finding himself relaxing a little despite the strangeness of the situation. “It’s not their reactions I was referring to, though I agree with you about Isabela. Still, um... did you come here to ask me about your foot?” He gestured to where Fenris was still holding the foot up as he leaned against one of the nearby crates, dripping blood on the clinic floor.

“Because... I, um. I could help you with that, if that is what you wish.”

Suddenly, Fenris started as if from a daze, and sat down on the crate, wincing. How the elf had managed getting to the clinic all the way from Hightown was anyone’s guess.

“I was... cleaning up some of the glass... and accidentally stepped in the pile before I was able to sweep it up. I didn’t want to take a potion... and a salve seemed... most unwise.” Anders nodded, kneeling next to the elf’s feet with a clean cloth, and bowl of water, and a metal tool he used precisely for this purpose. “You would be right about that... though I can’t imagine how you got down here so quickly... may I touch?”

He always asked before he touched. 

“Yes, please,” Fenris told him, twitching a little at the initial contact, but eventually relaxing as Anders worked, gently prying out the pieces of glass one by one. “I came through Hawke’s cellar. There is a passage that exits into Darktown... not far from here.” He hissed when Anders tugged on one particularly stubborn piece of glass, and Anders sighed.

“Looks like this one’s going to sting a bit. Nothing I can do about that, really.”

“It’s... fine...” Fenris grit out as Anders picked up the tool he’d brought and eventually managed to pry the piece from his foot. There were a few more pieces that had to be removed in this manner, but eventually all of the glass was removed. Anders sighed contentedly, setting everything off to one side.

“I suppose I should go get some salve then,” he huffed, cracking his neck before he pulled himself back onto his knees, getting ready to stand.

“No, I–” Fenris stopped him, and Anders paused, glancing up at the elf.

“What? Do you, um... have something, ah... else down here that needs, um. Healing?” Fenris’ face definitely flushed at those words, and he spluttered a, “Venhedis, no!” in response. 

Then after a few heartbeats, the elf sighed and mumbled, almost so quietly that Anders had to strain himself to hear, “No, it’s not that, it’s... magic is fine. There is no need for you to waste resources on my account.” Anders’ brain completely bypassed the last bit and got stuck on the bit about magic.

“What? Really? Are... are you sure?”

“Yes, Anders!” Fenris grumbled, sounding very breifly like his usual self. “It’s fine. Just do it.” So, Anders did as Fenris asked, and he called upon his magic to smooth the gashes and cuts from Fenris’ foot until the skin was as unbroken as before. Anders looked up again to see Fenris’ expression, which was surprisingly one of awe... and wonder.

“It... doesn’t hurt,” Fenris murmured, and Anders sighed and he stood up with his things. “It’s not supposed to,” was his answer. 

Suddenly it dawned on him that Fenris might not have ever experienced true healing magic in all his years as a slave. “Whatever magic you might’ve been healed by, before... was likely not true healing magic,” he said slowly. 

“Sometimes a blood mage can use blood to... knit flesh and bones together, if they’re skilled enough, but I hear it... it feels like your body’s on fire when something like that’s done to you.” Fenris stared at him, wide-eyed. “How do you know that?” The wide-eyed look turned skeptical, then accusatory, and Anders held up a hand.

“Not speaking from personal experience, I promise. The Hero of Ferelden told me about it once, when she encountered this mage she knew from the Circle while she was trying to raise and army to fight the darkspawn.”

His explanation seemed to have placated the elf’s concern, though now that he’d gotten Anders talking, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“So, are you willing to divulge your reasoning behind this impromptu cleaning session of yours or are you just going to thank me and stalk off again?” 

Once again, Anders swore he could spot a rather unusual flush blooming on the elf’s cheeks as Fenris blinked at him, seemingly having difficulty formulating a response. “I, well–” the elf stammered. “I was hoping to, um. Offer you dinner.”

“What?” Now it was Anders’ turn to blink.

“You know, food,” Fenris insisted. “Like, what,” Anders stammered in return, “as in, a date? A dinner date?”

“I suppose, yes. Hawke insists that you do not eat enough.”

Anders wasn’t sure how to react to this... however his body certainly had other ideas about how he should feel. His heart began to flutter like a blighted butterfly in his chest and took up residence in his stomach. Maker, he hadn’t felt like this since... since Karl.

“It, um... might be easier just to bring to food here,” he said at last, and Fenris’ face lit up like the sun. 

“I can do that, yes.” 

Anders flashed him a tentative smile as he turned around to go put his things away and resume tending to his laundry and potion brewing, until he heard a soft gasp from behind him and he stilled.

“Anders?” Came the question Anders had anticipated. He’d forgotten that he’d never shown his back to any of the others.

Sighing, he set down his things and glanced back at Fenris who was staring at him with horror and bewilderment. Then his eyes were drawn to the scar on his chest. “Those... were whip scars,” Fenris whispered, and Anders nodded. “You can ask me about them over dinner, if you like,” he said with a soft sigh.

Fenris nodded solemnly as he stood to leave. “Very well. I shall return later, then.” Anders couldn’t help the slightly crooked grin that sprung to his face as he replied, “Just do be careful, if you happen to resume your cleaning when you arrive home.”

“And if I accidentally forget to be careful?”

Anders chuckled, and the crooked grin became a full-blown smile.

“Well then, you know where to find me if you need healing.”

Fenris returned his chuckle with a dry laugh that Anders recognized from the few times that Hawke or Varric had managed to drag the elf into their witty banter. Something in his chest warmed at the thought that he, of all people, had also managed to make the broody elf laugh.

As the elf left to return home, and Anders was left to return to his washing and brewing, his thoughts were once more lingering on Fenris. Even Justice seemed almost... excited at the prospect of Anders sharing a meal with the elf.

“I hope it’s not because of the lyrium,” he muttered, and he received a strange mixture of refusal and embarrassment.

Maker. The spirit was a little enamored with the elf and his lyrium.

Well, he’d just have to keep that to himself for a little while, at least until he could figure out what in the Void was going through the elf’s head. Still, he figured it couldn’t hurt to enjoy it while it lasted. He’d heard it said once that love healed all wounds, and even if this was merely the elf’s way of attempting to forge a friendship instead, even Anders could admit that sometimes he needed a little healing every now and then too.

[timesorceror]

Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Anders/Fenris Characters: Anders (Dragon Age), Fenris (Dragon Age), Female Mage Warden, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening Ensemble Additional Tags: Domestic Violence, Abandonment, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Fenris (Dragon Age), Omega Anders (Dragon Age), Unplanned Pregnancy, Eventual Happy Ending Summary:

Anders swore he was infertile, or at least the Taint should've made him so. But now, with Fenris' child in his belly as he flees Kirkwall in the wake of the destruction of the Chantry, he is most definitely not. Unfortunately for him, Fenris was opposed to the child's existence, and so Anders must go back to the people he'd been running from in the first place if his child has any hope of surviving.

For that one anon about a week ago, this is for you. Part 2 will come eventually, but Anders week starts today and Fenris week is right after, so it might not get finished for a little while unless I absolutely start to obsess over it.

[timesorceror]

A Precious Gift - A Handers and Fenhanders Story

Inspired by a discussion in the Weird Shit Discord about how it would be absolutely perfect for Anders to have a birthday in the spring and that tiny Anders would be running about with flowers in his hair while all the children in the village gather to help him celebrate his birthday.

That is not really the focus of this story, but it does play a crucial part. Enjoy.

Hayden loved their birthdays back when Malcolm had been alive. He would take them all out to a secluded spot in the forest and put on little magic shows for them in the early morning, and when the twins were still young and Bethany’s magic hadn’t come in, they danced and giggled in the shadows of the fairy lights, stumbling and falling headlong into the multicolored leaf piles.

Later, after Malcolm had died, their birthday became a more subdued affair. Mother and the twins would wish them a happy birthday before the start of the day, and sometimes there was a cake with candles. Sometimes. The year they spent in service to Athenril after they’d fled Lothering from the Blight was the worst, because it had come and went without fanfare. 

Mostly. Carver remembered, and that day he was a little less surly than usual for Hayden’s sake.

Then they went on the expedition. Carver was… gone, but not dead. With the things they had brought back after Bartrand’s betrayal, they had been able to buy back the Amell estate, and Leandra had gotten it into her head that she needed to throw Hayden a lavish party to make up for all the things they had lost. Hayden had seen the idea for what it was and just let her do it; they might not need a lavish party, but she did.

They doubted it would fix whatever was bothering her, but they let her do it anyway because they loved her and just wanted her to be happy.

So here they were, grousing in the darkest corner of the room they could find, watching as half of Hightown milled about, eating the finest food and drink that their mother had been able to cater, all while sharing the latest gossip of the Kirkwall high society grapevine.

Hayden lifted their cup to their lips and took a long drink from their glass. The wine was good, at least, though some part of their hind brain told them that they should probably stop drinking soon.

“Hey handsome,” said a voice that made their insides curl with warm affection, “what are you doing back here, moping about on your birthday?”

There was a pause, and Hayden blinked up blearily as they looked around for the source of the voice and finding Anders standing nearby, frowning.He was still dressed in feathers, but Leandra had insisted that if their friends were going to be coming to this party, then they were at least going to look like they fit in. Anders still stuck out, however, though it didn’t seem to be because of the feathers themselves. They were merely... striking.

“Maker, how many glasses have you had?” he asked, concerned. 

“Dunno,” Hayden replied, their speech slurred. “But prol-prop-prolly… shit. Ugh. Definitely too many.” They shook their head and shrugged, gesturing to the seat nearby. “Came to hide. Don’t mind your comp’ny though.”

Anders sat, still frowning, and they reached out to them gingerly with one hand.

“Hayden, what’s wrong?”

“Too many things,” they sighed again, suddenly just a tad more sober than they wished they were. Stupid magic, burning through that alcohol so quickly. “Mother thinks she can solve everything with a party. I wanna tell ‘er no, but I can’t take more things from her, I just can’t!”

Hayden sniffed wetly, and they heard a chair scrape softly across carpet before an arm was thrown over their shoulders and soft feathers tickled their cheek. 

“Oh Hayden. I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”

You are doing something. This is something.

Or at least that was what they wanted to say. What came out was something more like a soft whine as they turned to bury their face in the feathers to hide their tears. “I want–I, I want my–”

I want my mother. I want my brother. I want my sister. I want my father.

I want my family back.

“Shhh,” Anders hushed him, and a soft pulse of magic filtered through the room that Hayden couldn’t identify. They lifted their head briefly to ask, “What?” very confusedly, but Anders just gently pressed them close and simply said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

And so Hayden clung to Anders and cried. No one saw them. No one came by.

It was nice. Anders’ voice filtered in through the distant noise of the party, soothing Hayden’s nerves. Anders was even slowly massaging little bursts of healing magic into their temples to relive the pain of their headache. Hayden couldn’t remember a time when they had felt so safe and cared for.

While Hayden was pressed against Anders, they listened intently to the story he told, a story about his past before the Circle. A rarity. A precious gift.

“I was born in the spring,” he began. “About halfway through Bloomingtide, if I recall correctly. Mutti used to braid flowers into my hair. White carnations, daisies, gerberas. They grew wild near our village, so there was always plenty of them. Vati would join Mutti in the cooking, or well, he tried to. Sometimes Mutti would just kick him out and shove us both out of the house.” Anders laughed, and it rumbled against Hayden’s cheek, filling them with warmth.

“That was usually when all of my friends would come to play. Some offered me gifts, or more flowers for my hair. Once, this girl who was sweet on me brought a bunch of ribbons and tied them to me and everyone wrapped them around me as though I were a Summerday pole!” Another rumbling laugh, an almost genuine thing that had him snickering. “That was the year before my magic manifested and I’d shot up like some gangly weed, so I could’ve probably stood in for a Summerday pole if I wanted to.”

Then he sighed and the laughter ceased. Hayden looked up and gently extricated themselves from Anders’ hold. He wasn’t quite done, though.

“Vati would always give me some wooden trinket that he’d whittled. A knight, a maid, a dragon. They were quiet detailed, I believe. And Mutti’s cake was just… divine. I still remember the recipe. It had these… outrageous measurements. She always made too much, so I could share with the other kids in the village, because when I was little I had apparently insisted that if I was getting cake, then everyone should get cake. But some of the ingredients are hard to get in the city, so I haven’t… haven’t gotten the chance to make it again.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Hayden said after a while. And then they offered their story about their father’s little light shows in return, and Anders chuckled.

“Oh, if there weren’t all these people here, I would summon some fairy lights just for you,” he said. Hayden laughed and shook their head. “That’s–that’s not necessary, really. You… you gave me the greatest gift, Anders. A story from your childhood. I… I know that you do not often part with those.” 

They sniffed again and wiped their eyes as Anders’ earlier spell began to fade.

“Thank you,” they said, but Anders waved them away with a hand and gently pried their glass from their hands. “Maybe stick to the water for a while. Or the cider. I think it’s got honey in it, it’s very good.”

Anders stood up and Hayden stood with them, grasping one hand perhaps a little too quickly than was necessary.

“Wait. Do you mind showing me where it is? I think I could stomach returning to the party if you’ll do me the honor of sharing a glass.” Hayden swore that there was a flush to Anders’ cheeks at that, but he recovered quickly by flashing Hayden one of those fantastic smiles of his that hinted at the sort of man Hayden imagined Anders might be, in another life.

“Sure, Hayden,” Anders replied, linking arms with them and leading them back out into the light. “But I must insist that it would be my honor to share a glass with you, sweetheart.”

Then it was Hayden’s turn to feel the heat of flushed cheeks, but it was worth it enough to be able to go through the rest of the night with a smile.

Later, many years later, after Leandra was murdered and both Anders and Fenris had joined Hayden’s bed, the first fifteenth of Bloomingtide came and the two of them surprised Anders by waking him early in the morning with a box of flowers in Fenris’ hands, and a plate with a slice of cake in Hayden’s.

Anders recognized it immediately and burst into tears, and after he was finished he asked Hayden how in the world they’d known the recipe.

“I might’ve looked through your journals a few times when you were out collecting herbs,” they confessed. Anders didn’t have the heart to be angry as Fenris offered the red ribbon favor Hayden had given him in place of the usual leather tie that held back Anders’ hair. Hayden took it and tied Anders’ hair with it, and tied the flowers into a crown that they placed on Anders’ head.

“It’s too short to braid them in,” Hayden lamented, “but someday, I want to braid them in. I’ve been wanting to see you with braided hair for ages.” They tugged gently on their own braid while Fenris merely surveyed the scene with a sly grin.

“What’s with that smirk?” Anders asked, and Fenris laughed.

“You seemed a little disappointed after inhaling that piece of cake, mage,” he replied. “So I thought I should inform you that there’s more downstairs. Along with everyone else.”

“Everyone… else?”

“Our friends!” Hayden chirped excitedly. “Come on, they’re waiting!”

And so Anders joined them and spent the day joining in revelry he hadn’t known in a very long time. Even Justice couldn’t seem to bring himself to tear Anders away from it all. Mostly the spirit actually seemed to add to Anders’ happiness, being so impressed at the thoughtfulness of their lovers.

There were more tears later when Fenris offered him a little wooden figurine of a cat. “Why is it wearing armor?” Anders asked. Fenris shrugged. “I remember once that Merrill asked you who knighted that cat you mentioned… Ser Pounce-a-lot. She asked who knighted him, and whether or not he had a little sword.”

Anders looked at the figure, and the cat did indeed have a little sword, and a hat. Sweet Maker. That was when the tears came as he tried to thank Fenris, but all he managed to do was blubber incessantly. The elf merely took the figurine and placed it on the bedside table as the mage clung to him, crying happy tears.

Finally, at night, after a round of amazing if not slightly emotional sex, Anders asked Hayden why they had done all this for them.

Hayden’s answer was simple. 

“You gave me a precious gift once in a time when I was sad. And these days, you never seem to have much to smile about. I merely thought I should return the favor. Happy Birthday, my love.”

And from then on, none of them had an unhappy birthday ever again.

[timesorceror]

Fenhanders Week 2017

Monday, April 3rd: We’ve been flirting for years now…

Fics/Art/Drabbles that explore when these three first knew that they were meant to all be together. Who made the first move? Was it obvious to everyone else but them?

Question of the Day: How do you think they each said ‘I love you’ the first time? Anders said it to Hayden the first night they had sex. He said it in every breath, every kiss, every fiber of his being. Hayden replied in kind that same night, but it was in the way they trailed their fingers across Anders' scars, first with the coolness of their magic, followed by the heat of their tongue. Hayden had told Fenris that they loved him in a similar manner when they had been intimate for the first time, and they thought perhaps that had scared Fenris away. But later, when Fenris whispers the words to him one night, when Anders is fast asleep beside them: they realize that it had merely been the wrong time. So, the next time Hayden tells Fenris exactly how much they love him, Fenris does not shy away. Finally, it takes a long time for Fenris to tell Anders that he loves him. Unlike with Hayden, it is a wild, angry thing that tumbles out of him in a rush during an argument, and suddenly the world stands still. Anders doesn't speak the words when he tells Fenris he loves him; he merely takes the elf's hand and comes to bed without complaint.

Varric had been able to see Hayden’s attraction to their healer from day one. He might not have been all that great with love in his writing or his life (all he needed was Bianca and he was just fine with that), but he knew that Hayden was head over heels for the mage even before Hayden knew it themselves.

And then came the broody elf.

Hayden’s face when the elf came stalking down the stairs, slaver falling at his feet, blood dripping down his gauntlet was nothing short of starstruck. Anders had been there too, and there was definitely attraction there.

But from the moment the elf had called Hayden and Anders vipers, there was already bad blood between them. Well, not Hayden. Hayden had only seemed hurt, crestfallen even. Poor kid. They liked people and wanted so much for people to like them and when that didn’t happen it looked like the world was ending in those pretty blue eyes…

Varric supposed that was what made the elf relent in the end. He apologized and even seemed surprised when Hayden called him handsome in spite of the insult. Hayden was so happy when the elf told him that he’d decided to stick around a while, and Varric had been certain that Hayden’s initial infatuation with the healer would end there.

It didn’t. And Varric didn’t understand it.

Oh, he knew that being attracted to more than one person was a thing, he just didn’t get it. 

He could only hope that Hayden didn’t get hurt, batting those pretty puppy dog eyes at the two people in their party who hated each others’ guts so much that it was hell being in a group with the two of them (which was often, because Hayden took them everywhere). 

Yet one didn’t need eyes to see that hurt was an inevitability. 

It took an entire Deep Roads expedition (which, disaster that it was, could’ve been a lot worse without Blondie along for the ride) and the better part of three years, but the thing that Varric feared occurred not long after a little of Fenris’ past was revealed to their group by his former master’s now dead apprentice. Hayden had tried to ask if the elf was alright, but his only response was to ask, “What has magic touched that it doesn’t spoil?” before he ran off into the night. 

To… the Hawke estate, apparently.

Where they most definitely had sex.

Hayden wouldn’t give him any details, but even if they had been willing, Varric doubted he could’ve understood them. The poor kid was insensible, dark hair unbound, tears and snot; everywhere. They’d tried drinking, but that had only seemed to make things worse. So they stopped, folded their arms on Varric’s table, buried their face into the fabric of their robes, and sobbed up a storm. At some point, Varric caught sight of the elf watching the scene from the crack in the door, his usually unexpressive face wracked with grief.

He’d turned and run once he noticed that Varric had seen him.

So. The elf was hurting too. And he continued to hurt from what Varric could gather when he saw a red favor cloth as well as a fresh potions pouch with a suspiciously familiar crest attach themselves to the elf’s person.

It must’ve hurt even worse when Hayden seemed to move on and bring the mage into their bed and their home, but Varric knew better. Hayden still held a candle for the elf, but they’d needed someone to physical to lean on for support and Anders had finally given in to Hayden’s pleas.

“They still want you, you know,” Varric had said to Fenris one evening at cards when the others were well into their later rounds of ale and it was just him and the elf sitting on the far side of the table, watching their friends. Fenris, for once, wasn’t drinking, and was just slowly nursing a bowl of stew and, of course, brooding. Varric couldn’t stand it when the elf brooded for too long, so he’d had to open his mouth to say something, even if it just might get him killed.

“No they don’t,” was Fenris’ bitter reply. “Hayden moved on. With him.”

Anders. Of course.

Varric sighed. 

“Look, it’s possible for a person to love more than one person. I don’t get it either because my one and only is a crossbow, but trust me, it’s a thing. Now, they were head over heels for Blondie before they ever met you, but you didn’t see their face when they first saw you. Slight gasp, starry eyes, the works. They’ve still got those eyes for you!” 

He gestured to Hayden in a “look here!” motion, and Fenris sat up to do so. 

Hayden, now quite drunk and laughing happily, caught Fenris’ gaze for a moment before they flashed the elf a coy smile and batted their eyelashes at him before realizing what they’d just done and  buried their face in Anders’ shoulder in the hopes no one else had seen.

Fenris’ breath caught in his throat and Varric grunted.

“See? Stars. They’re so bright they’re blinding.”

Now it was Fenris’ turn to grunt dismissively. “It doesn’t. Matter. They’re with Anders now.”

“Blondie was pretty smitten with you too before you called him a viper.”

“What? No. Impossible.”

Varric shrugged. “Yeah whatever, but I’m pretty sure that he was into you. Still don’t believe me? Maybe try talking to the man. It couldn’t hurt.”

Fenris had merely grumbled and got up to leave while the others were preoccupied with their drinking. Well, all except Anders, who had noticed Hayden’s quick flirt and was watching the elf slink off with a slightly pained expression. Yeah, Blondie still definitely had a thing for their broody friend.

Varric had just sighed and hoped that, whatever the elf did, he did it soon because damn if watching him brood didn’t make his trigger finger twitch, and if there was one thing Varric truly hated, it was hurting his friends.

Though, this was mostly because they did enough of that between themselves.

Fenris would make several attempts to speak to either Hayden or Anders about their feelings towards him… though few of those attempts ever made it outside of the crumbling mansion he called home.

Those that did make it out the door didn’t ever make it to Hawke’s because at some point Fenris would realize that he had no idea what he was doing or what he was going to say and he’d panic and retreat to the safety and comfort of his warm, dark room.

Yet one day, he’d somehow found himself standing in Hawke’s foyer, and he was panicking again because he’d found that his carefully constructed words had abandoned him.

Then Anders was there, looking too beautiful in his concern than the man had any right to be, and somehow they had ended up arguing. Fenris couldn’t remember about what, just that they’d argued, and then Hayden arrived home to discover them fighting and was already very upset about… something. Anders and Fenris turned to see the white lilies on the foyer tabletop, and they heard Gamlen’s voice chasing after them from the study.

Had Hayden seen Leandra? She was late for her visit to Gamlen’s.

No, Hayden hadn’t seen her. 

Anders and Fenris exchanged a glance, and for the moment they agreed to put aside their arguments for Hayden’s sake. 

This would turn out to be the first of many such moments, because the evening would turn out to end in disaster: Leandra’s body torn apart and stitched into a horrific amalgamation of people, a blood mage responsible for her death and the deaths of several other young women in the city, and Hayden; devastated.

Fenris, despite knowing he was terrible at comforting people, went to do so anyway, and somehow he ended up finishing the night with Hayden curled up between himself and Anders.

Anders, whose lips had felt softer against his own than anticipated.

How a single kiss could make his heart flutter.

Fenris wasn’t sure that he knew what love was, but if it could do anything to heal the wounds that he’d inflicted upon his relationship with the two mages, he was willing to give it a try.

Of course, just his presence alone was enough for Hayden.

Anders was still asleep, and this was strange because usually Justice would have roused him before the sun even rose, never mind allowed him to sleep in until what appeared to be almost noon.

Hayden blinked blearily as they tried to reach up to wipe the sleep from their eyes, only to find that their hands were curled up and between their chest and Anders’, while their arms were pinned by another arm they weren’t used to seeing when waking up: a thin,wiry, muscled thing with embedded lyrium dancing along the contours of dark brown skin…

The arm tensed, its owner likely realizing that Hayden was awake, and so it retreated back to curl against the elf to whom it belonged. Slowly, so as not to wake Anders, Hayden turned so they were facing Fenris, and they were about to bid him good morning before suddenly Anders’ thin arms wrapped around Hayden and brought them up against the taller mage’s chest. 

Fenris hummed, and remarked upon seeing this happen, “And I thought you were supposed to be the clingy one.”

Hayden chuckled awkwardly. “Um, yeah. Usually. But Anders is also usually up long before now… what time is it?” They craned their head in an attempt to see the small dwarven timepiece Varric had given them as a housewarming gift.

“Ugh,” they groaned, letting their head fall back on the pillows. “Almost noon. We’ve slept the morning away…” 

Their eyes trailed to Fenris, who was almost a good foot away from where Anders’ sleeping form held Hayden captive, and slightly tense for some reason that they couldn’t fathom. However, he was still there. He hadn’t left, even though he looked like he very much wished to.

“Do you wish to leave?” they asked in a whisper, and Fenris frowned in apparent confusion.

“I… I do not know. I still feel as though I am… trespassing. Like I do not belong.”

Hayden wanted to reach up and fold Fenris’ bangs behind his right ear so they could see his eyes better, but Anders’ arms still held fast.

“You aren’t,” Hayden insisted, and a thrill of fear lanced through them. “I… um,” –they sniffed wetly– “you don’t have to stay, but I would very much like you to.” Their breath came in soft pants, and suddenly they were crying softly into their pillows. Something shifted, and there was heat against their front which cause them to look up. They gasped, Fenris’ body was next to theirs, the elf’s face suddenly very close to their own.

“If that is what you wish,” Fenris whispered, and Hayden shook their head.

“Fenris, I’m not ordering you–” “I know,” the elf interrupted them gently, pressing a finger to their lips. “It is my choice to stay. I might be afraid, I might feel a little out of place, but… if having me here is what you need, then… I want to help. And… to make up for the time I have wasted.”

Then Fenris was kissing them, and it was so soft, so sweet, so beautiful–

“Mmm… what a lovely thing to wake up to,” murmured Anders from behind. 

Fenris tensed again, and Hayden caught him with another kiss before he could pull away, teeth gently worrying at the elf’s bottom lip and nuzzling their noses together, hoping to distract him.

It appeared to work rather well actually, because when Hayden moved away Fenris was blinking at him owlishly, apparently a little stunned from the kiss.

“Sorry,” they whispered, smiling sheepishly. “I… well. You wanted to see me being clingy, right? That’s… that’s it.”

Anders scoffed, and Hayden rolled over to see the other mage shooting Fenris a smug, sleepy smile as he shook his head. “No, that’s just how this one says hello. They’re like a limpet on cold nights…”

“Hey,” Hayden growled playfully, “you never complained about those nights.”

Anders chuckled and rubbed the sleep from his eyes before turning to look back at Hayden. “Hey… what time is it?”

“Almost noon,” they answered, and Anders almost fell out of this bed in his surprise. “What?! Noon? Justice, why in the void didn’t you wake me…?” Hayden merely sat up to watch as Anders flitted about the room, gathering his things, Fenris joining them in observing the spectacle.

“Is… he normally like this in the mornings?”

“It’s noon. Normally he’s gone before the sun rises, and even I don’t usually sleep in this late.”

“Yesterday was…”

“I know.” Hayden clutched at the sheets, tears burning in their eyes again as they tried not to cry. “I… I… Maker. I don’t even have a body to burn anymore. What the hell do I do…?”

They drew their knees up to their chest and wrapped their arms around themselves. This time they didn’t bother holding back tears as they sobbed into the silk of their trousers, and they didn’t notice when the sounds of Anders’ panicked movements had ceased until a hand was rubbing at their back and the bed dipped again under Anders’ weight. Fenris was still close by, still not quite sure what to do, but he’d placed a hand on Hayden’s right shoulder and was idly massaging the muscles there with his thumb.

“Hayden,” Anders whispered, causing Hayden’s attention to shift at the sound of their name.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“What about Justice? The clinic?”

Anders shrugged. “The clinic will survive a few days without me. But you’ve just lost a loved one… I would be a fool to leave you alone.”

“They’re not alone,” Fenris grumbled, and Hayden could sense a little of the tension from last night resurfacing between them. However, Anders merely closed his eyes, breathed deeply for a beat or two, and then nodded in agreement. “Yes, you’re right,” he told the elf in a low voice. “I merely meant that the more support Hayden has right now, the easier things will be.”

Fenris studied Anders for a few moments before nodding slowly in return.

“I know. But… thank you.” The for understanding bit went unsaid.

Anders sighed softly in relief and reached for one of Fenris’ hands, pausing just before skin met skin. “May I touch?” Anders asked, and Fenris’ expression was suddenly one of shock, or surprise. “I… yes?”

Long, knobby fingers curled under lyrium lined calloused ones as Anders gently leaned over Hayden to press a kiss to a part of the back of Fenris’ where the lyrium did not touch. 

“You’re quite welcome,” Anders whispered, smiling softly up at the elf, who was… blushing? Yes, Hayden was certain Fenris’ ears were glowing with a soft rosy flush and they were twitching like mad in the way they had once done in the early days of their friendship, drinking stolen wine in a stolen mansion.

Anders released the elf’s hand and looked over at Hayden as he said quietly, “I’m going to go downstairs and see if Orana doesn’t mind fixing us something to eat. Do you want anything?” He glanced at Fenris. “Or you?”

“Just… no fish…” was all the elf seemed to manage, still staring at his hand.

Hayden smiled at the sight before looking back up to meet Anders’ honey-colored gaze. “I… there was… this soup. Mama used to make it when I was sick… I think Orana might know the recipe…”

Anders’ eyebrows rose in surprise. “I actually think I know that recipe. Chicken and rice, yes? With peas, carrots, and… ginger? No. Sage.”

“Yes, that’s it.” Hayden scooted closer to Fenris and stared down at their hands resting in their lap. “I… I’d like some of that please.” Beside him, Fenris tensed a little, but eventually he relaxed again and even pressed back, very tentatively, letting Hayden know without saying a word that he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Alright,” Anders said when Hayden confirmed that was what they wanted, “I’ll be back up in a bit, alright? Then after lunch we can decide what you want to do next, perhaps?” Hayden nodded. “Sounds good. And… thank you, Anders. I’m… really glad you’re staying.”

“Me too,” Anders agreed, and he was out the door momentarily, leaving Hayden alone with Fenris, who was still letting Hayden lean against him, though without any back support the position had to be uncomfortable.

“Do you… want to scoot back?” Hayden asked Fenris in a small voice. “Against the headboard?”

“Sure.” And it was that easy. They moved back and settled against the pillows and the headboard and suddenly things were much easier. Fenris, instead of leaning against Hayden, slouched back a little and lay partially on top of them, being mindful of where their right arm was so he wasn’t laying on it.

Despite normally not minding silence, Hayden couldn’t seem to stand it today. The air seemed too still, too quiet. Never before had they felt such a need to fill that silence, but now… 

“So, um,” they began, briefly clearing their throat, “what was that between you and Anders just now? That looked like… flirting.” 

“We were not flirting,” Fenris grumbled, and a quiet bubble of laughter spilled from their lips. “Yes you were,” they teased gently. “You were blushing. I haven’t seen you blush like that since… since…”

“Since I left?”

“Yes.” And then the laughter was gone and Hayden found themselves in tears again. “Damnit… I wish my face would just pick a thing a stick with it… I hate crying.” Fenris chuckled softly, and a low, stuttering purr started up afterwards, the sound vibrating off of the elf in waves.

Suddenly Hayden was calm again, though tears still fell every now and then.

“Um… thank you. You.. you don’t have to do that, though. I know… I know you don’t like it.”

“I didn’t like it because it wasn’t a thing that I was allowed to do without being told that I could. I am… merely trying to reclaim that part of myself. And… if it helps you in the process, then… well.” Fenris shrugged. 

“But… about Anders… I don’t really know what’s happening there. I know he makes me feel… things. They’re sort of like the things that I feel when I think about being with you… but different.” Hayden tilted his head, despite Fenris not being able to see. “A… good kind of different, I hope?”

“I think so. I told him last night that I would give… us a try. I don’t know what do in this sort of relationship though, or how to behave…”

“I imagine it’s just like any other sort of relationship,” Hayden replied. “It’s not all sunshine and roses. Even between two people, a good relationship takes work. Communication. Compromise. We’ll have to talk things out a lot.” They chuckled quietly and added, almost teasingly, “And maybe sometimes there won’t be a lot of talking at all…”

Fenris groaned. “Anders is rubbing off on you. I am not certain how I should react to this.”

“However you like,” Hayden assured him. “And know that should you ever feel uncomfortable about something; tell us. As for the rubbing… Anders is downstairs. Believe me, I would know if he were doing any sort of rubbing.”

“Fasta vass.”

Hayden laughed, bending down to kiss the crown of Fenris’ hair.

That was the moment Hayden knew they were meant to be together, even though it had taken a lot to get there and they still had a long way to go. But they had Fenris in their arms and Anders not far away; even with Mother gone Hayden knew that they would never be alone again: not if either their feather-loving mage or literal heart-stealing elf had anything to say about it.

[timesorceror]

A Promise Kept: Alternate End

You know it’s bad when you’ve got AUs of your AUs running around in your head. This one’s been stuck with me for a few days now, and it needs to leave. I have a graphic design senior exhibition to prepare for. >.>

Anyway, this is a kind of offshoot of my sex-on-a-fertility-statue/double impregnation fic, A Promise Kept, (which I recommend reading for this to make sense, but you can try reading it without the extra context if you like) in which Anders’ parents somehow come into the little town he and Fenris have settled in and suddenly find out that A) their mage son is alive and all grown up, B) is married to an elf, and C) is pregnant by and has also impregnated said elf.

I just… I like reunion/reconciliation tropes, ok? Lemme indulge. :P

In a little town without a name that was just outside of a few days’ journey to the city of Amaranthine, there was a midwife. Grizelda, as the townspeople knew her, was standing at her kitchen counter preparing some snacks for her visit to the town healer.

Their healer and his husband were a fine pair that never ceased to amuse the midwife, nor did their astoundingly fierce levels of mutual love and respect cease to cause the older woman to swoon in admiration.

The snacks she was preparing were small hand-held apple pies which she knew the couple loved, though the healer’s elf husband loved them even more.

She was just putting them into a basket and about to head off to their home when a knock came at her front door. Hmm. Must be an out-of-towner. It was, after all, an oddity for one of the locals to bother knocking at Grizelda’s door. Everyone knew that if you needed her help, or indeed–the healer’s, you just walked right on in as long it was light out. 

“Coming!” She called, setting down the basket. Finally, she got to the door and opened it, and in front of her stood an older couple not quite yet as old as she, but obviously well into their adult years. 

“So,” she began, planting her hands on her hips, “if you don’t mind an old thing like me saying so, I rather doubt you spring chickens are here for advice on conceiving babies. Whatcha here for?” 

The woman nodded. She had soft, tawny colored hair with reddish hints and only some scant lightening at her temples along with a few scattered streaks of grey-white to suggest her age. Faded lines streaked her face and forehead from a lifetime born more from stress and worry than laughter. 

“Our eldest daughter has been having some trouble conceiving for well over five years now, and our own midwife can’t seem to help her and her husband with the usual advice. We–we heard…”

“We heard that one of the old statues is here,” said the man. This one was tall, broad shouldered, with a strong jaw, sharp nose, and sun-kissed hair tied back in a long ponytail. His features reminded the midwife of someone, though she couldn’t quite place the memory. 

“One of the…” he frowned, mumbling to his wife, “fruchtbarkeitsstatue?”

“Fertility statue,” said the woman, who looked back at Grizelda with pleading eyes. “Is this one genuine? I know the ones that are… can even enable two who are both or neither male or female to have children.”

So, they knew that such statues existed? Curious.

“Might I ask how you came to know about our… local oddity?” Grizelda asked them, folding her arms across her chest. The man’s lips briefly quirked up in a half smile before growing sad. “You, and it, came recommended by our local midwife. The one we used in our youth,” here the man gestured to himself and his wife, “is at a much greater distance away, and we are not as spry as we were then so that we might vouch for its authenticity personally.”

The man’s wife nodded to concur.

“Our daughter would never say as much, but I know that they would prefer knowing that this worked for someone else before they came to try it themselves. We do not live very close.”

Grizelda snorted, and unfolded her arms to replace one hand on her hips while letting the other hang loosely at her side.

“No one lives very close to here, dear girl, and most of the people here are glad for it. Our healer and his husband in particular seem to like to quiet and the seclusion, and they can actually vouch for the authenticity of the statue if you wish to hear their testimony.”

“Healer?” the husband asked curiously. “A rare treat for such a small town.”

Grizelda smiled. “He is a gem. A former Grey Warden, too. His commander actually paid us a visit not too long ago. A good woman, to not insist on dragging him back to the keep, with or without a babe on the way.” Grizelda chuckled and sighed contentedly before nodding.

“Let me fetch a few things first and then I’ll take you by for a visit. He and his husband are due for a check-in anyway.”

Grizelda went back inside and picked up the basket with the apple pies, tossing in another jar of that spiced jam she knew they had been asking her for lately. She went back out to the couple, though not before leaving Brother Jerrell, her recalcitrant housemate, a note telling him where she’d gone.

On the way to the healer’s home, however, something still niggled at the back of her mind, something about the man’s striking features and the woman’s pleasantly refreshing witty attitude and gentle demeanor. 

But even as she grasped the door handle and entered the healer’s home, she still could not place the thing that troubled her.

“Anders! Are you and that gorgeous elf of yours busy? You’ve got visitors from out of town!” The counter and the surrounding kitchen area of the front room was empty, but Grizelda could hear some shuffling about from around the storage room door that was ajar just ahead and to the right of the hallway that lead towards the back of the house.

“Fenris is having a rest in the clinic,” a voice called out idly from around the slightly open door. “And I’m almost done rearranging some of the elfroot that started springing up in the garden. I mean, I know this stuff can even grow in a desert with practically nothing, but give it some proper care in a nice temperate climate and it grows like nobody’s business. I’ll be with you in a moment!”

“Anders?” The man asked, frowning. “Is that truly the man’s name?”

Grizelda shrugged. “He said it has been his name for a long time, and he finds that the name he was born with no longer fits who he is now. I have never bothered to ask about the particulars of how he acquired it, though.”

Their heads turned when the joints of the storage room door creaked open, and out stepped a tall young man, quite obviously pregnant, with reddish blonde hair pulled back in a horsetail and only a hint of stubble showing on his cheeks. His sharp eyes were a bright, honey colored brown that softened when he caught sight of Grizelda, but then they widened as Anders visibly stiffened with fear when he glanced behind her at the couple she had brought with her.

“No,” he mumbled, likely not intending for anyone to hear, “No, this isn’t real…”

Grizelda frowned, and then when the woman beside her let out a small, half sob, half gasp, the midwife turned around and caught sight of the man again. Suddenly, the connection that had been troubling her since she had opened her door to the older couple, made itself known to her at last.

Anders and the woman’s husband shared the exact same nose. 

The woman took a step towards the healer but he recoiled, his whole body shaking in his panic even as his hands reached down to his belly, likely trying to soothe the child within.

“No!” he shouted. “No, I… I…”

He shot a pleading, apologetic glance towards the midwife, and he quickly whispered, “I’m sorry Grizelda, I can’t do this!” before turning around and retreating back into the storage room, locking it from inside. 

The woman lurched forward and called out a name that was most definitely not Anders, but the only response she got was a gentle thud and scrape against the door, followed by soft, muffled sobbing and the words, “No, no, this is a dream, I’m dreaming, I must be, you will not tempt me!”

The last words were a mixture of a growl and a sob, and at last, the man beside the two women seemed to come to the same conclusion that they had, though his gasp was more subdued than his wife’s had been, and his expression became closed; nearly unreadable. Shortly afterwards, a white haired elf came shuffling grumpily out of the nearby clinic, also obviously pregnant, though perhaps even more so than the healer had been.

“Grizelda,” he grumbled, “kaffas, what is–”

He was cut off by the wife, who approached him but immediately paused when the elf retreated behind the counter after hearing the quiet sobs from behind the storage room door.

“Anders is upset,” the elf growled, glancing at Grizelda as he clutched his belly protectively. “Why is he upset?”

He glanced at the woman, who was still in shock and now in tears, before he looked up and locked eyes with her husband, asking in that same guarded tone, “And who are these people?”

Voices. Anders could hear Fenris’ muffled voice from behind the door.

This might still be a dream, Anders thought as he tried to excuse the images still fresh in his mind. A sympathetic and simultaneously chastising wave of feeling flooded him, and Anders could almost hear what Justice was trying to say: Lying to oneself is unjust. This is not the Fade, and therefore what you have seen is no dream.

Yet Anders was not willing to believe otherwise.

The visitors that Grizelda had brought… were his mother and father.

They were older, more tired, more worn than he remembered, but Anders had never been able to forget his mother’s tear streaked face as she was restrained by one templar and the cast-iron skillet in her hands was removed by another as the boy Anders had once been was carted away in chains.

She had only just managed to escape their grasp to give him her meditation pillow before she was dragged away again and he lost sight of her for what he had long since thought was forever…

But his father was here too.

He would also never forget his father’s face the day the barn burnt down and he was locked in his room until the templars came. Fury and fear. That was all he had been able to see in his father’s face on that day and the day the templars had come. That was why Anders had run; so that he wouldn’t see it now.

Because while Anders had been furious with his father for many years, eventually he stopped as the emotion had grown too cumbersome to keep carrying with him. He thought that his fear had gone with it, but it appeared that it had merely gone dormant, and now it had him hiding in his storeroom, crying quietly every time he thought about his mother being just on the other side and just how badly he wanted to hug her again.

“Mutter,” he keened, and there was a muffled cry of his old name in response.

There was more muffled conversation, and eventually he heard a familiar soft grunt as someone –Fenris, he assumed– knelt down on the other side of the door and began to speak to him in a low voice.

“Anders,” Fenris addressed him. “Please let me in. I need to talk to you. And since you told me I should probably try not to use the brands while I’m with child, I would rather not have to break down the door to get to you.”

When Anders did not answer, there was a soft sigh and Fenris pleaded once more, “Fool mage, please. You don’t have to let anyone else in. Just me. I merely wish to see that you’re alright.” Anders sniffed wetly, blinking back tears until he finally managed a soft, “Okay,” that he knew only Fenris’ keen elf ears could pick up through the door.

He heard Fenris grunting and shuffling as he likely struggled to stand, and Anders huffed a little as his shifted center of gravity made his own move to stand rather difficult. After a while he managed it, and he unlocked the door but didn’t open it, though eventually Fenris slipped through and closed the door behind him.

Anders shook like a leaf as he stood before Fenris, rubbing his belly as he tried to soothe the child within.

“Th-They’re real, aren’t they?” Anders whispered, voice shaky. Fenris moved him to a couple crate stacks so that they could sit close and hold one another as best they were able. 

“Yes, Anders,” Fenris answered in a low voice. “And while I do not… entirely trust your father, I see myself in him.” Anders sniffed and turned his head to Fenris. “How so?” he asked.

“Mostly I see a little of the fear I once had of you,” Fenris replied. “Fear and apprehension.”

“Not… anger? Fury?”

“No. Whatever anger or fury he might have once had is etched into the lines of his face and the weight that pulls on his shoulders. I do not believe that he harbors any ill will upon you. And your mother…”

“I want to see her too,” Anders admitted sadly. “I’ve wanted to see her again for twenty-five years.”

Then Anders gasped as the child within him shifted and his hands, having previously been in his rapidly diminishing lap, immediately went to his belly to feel the movements. 

“I think her –Sweet Maker– her… grandchildren want to meet her too.”

Fenris nodded slowly. “Perhaps we should let them? But only if you wish it.” Anders scoffed, chuckling. “How can I deny my mother this? Surely she has wanted this as much as I.” He frowned, sighing. “It is Vater that concerns me.”

“Anders,” Fenris sighed. “Would you deny your father something that you would not deny your mother?”

“He gave me to the Templars, Fenris!”

“Likely out of fear,” Fenris insisted. Anders, unable to keep eye contact with Fenris, looked away and grumbled. “Fear of me, yeah.”

“Or for you,” Fenris shot back. “There was regret there too, I promise you.”

Anders turned to Fenris again, and he was a little taken aback that he hadn’t thought about that before. He sighed, glancing between his belly and Fenris’.

“Perhaps you’re right. It was silly of me to hide like this.”

“I would not say that. You have told me more than once that before Justice, you would dream of them, but it was always demons playing their roles.”

Anders nodded. “Tempting me with a thing I could never have. It wasn’t just my parents and their love that I desired, but to never have been–” He cut himself off, swallowing and shaking his head to clear his thoughts. “I desired to have never have been found to have magic at all, and that was a thing that the demons could never give me.”

“But they’re here now,” Fenris added. “And surely they came with a purpose, since they so obviously didn’t expect you here.”

Anders frowned. What use indeed would his parents have of a midwife?

“Alright. I–yes. Let us find out, and quickly. Before I lose my nerve.”

“You shall not,” Fenris insisted, grasping one of Anders’ hands with his own. “Take a little of my own, as you have often said I have an abundance of it. Come what may, we shall stand strong; together.”

Anders smiled and leaned over to press a kiss to Fenris’ cheek.

“Oh, the things you say, darling.”

Anders got up first and helped Fenris to stand before the two of them finally exited the storeroom. Fenris left first, and Anders followed close behind, still grasping Fenris’ hand, however they only found Grizelda at the kitchen counter preparing tea and refreshments.

“Ah,” she said when she’d noticed then leaving the storeroom at last. “I’ve settled your… parents in the downstairs room. Would you like me to draw the curtains back so that people can see you’re busy?”

Her expression was hesitant and apologetic, and Anders couldn’t help but give into the desire to fuss.

“Of course, of course. And please, don’t worry so much about… all this.” He waved a hand, gesturing to the air around them. “You couldn’t have known. It’s not your fault, really.”

Grizelda scoffed. “Nonsense. Now that I’m properly lookin’ at you, I see it, plain as day. Near spittin’ image of that man, you are.”

Anders sighed. “Thanks… for that.”

The midwife raised an eyebrow at him wearily. “So that’s where the bad blood lies, does it? Well. I could always send them–” 

“No,” Anders said in a firm tone, grasping Grizelda’s shoulder tightly. “They came for a reason, did they not? I should see them, at least as a healer if not as their son.” Grizelda merely stared at him for a moment before her lips formed a slight smile. “I don’t know how much of the man you are today is the boy that they raised, but some of it had to have stuck. Your sense of duty to your calling seems to know no bounds, healer.”

As she said this, she gathered up the pot of tea and her hand basket, which she’d placed the teacups in along with its contents that smelled of fresh baked apples and sweetbread.

Ignoring the intense craving that swept over him, Anders scowled as he scampered after her. 

“I just don’t like the thought of not helping someone that’s in need of healing if I’m specifically the only one who can, Grizelda,” he groused. “It’s not right, not just. I would be a terrible healer to refuse my services even to the worst of my enemies while still offering them to others.”

“See,” Grizelda said, setting down the food and drink before spinning around and drawing back the curtains, “incredible dedication. Though, that might be a Warden thing, hmm?”

“Certainly not,” Anders said, scowling. “I was just happy to be out of the cell that the Templars stuck me in for a year and grateful to never have to go back! I was… no. The person I was then most certainly cared less about absolutely anyone but himself.” Grizelda chuffed, glancing back. 

“So what changed?”

Anders ran a hand through his hair as Fenris shuffled around behind him.

“I… left for Kirkwall and ran a free clinic in the sewers for the better part of a decade? I don’t know.” He sighed. “I made a lot of stupid mistakes, nearly got myself killed half a dozen times… made one really big mistake that I know I’d be hanged for if I didn’t have the protection of the bloody Hero of Ferelden…”

There was a soft gasp from behind that had Anders suddenly remembering where he was, and who was in the room. He turned around, and where he had been expecting Fenris, he found his mother, standing not more than a few inches from him.

Anders stood very still as Grizelda quietly left the room, and his mother gingerly reached up to try to push back a flyaway hair that had escaped its binding, only she appeared just able to reach it and fold it behind his ear.

His breath caught in his throat at the featherlight touch, and tears filled his eyes once more, trailing quickly down his cheeks as he struggled to breathe.

“Mutter,” he sobbed, unable to keep it together anymore as she embraced him tightly, pregnant belly and all. He clung to her at least as hard as she clung to him, and as he cried into her hair she chanted something unintelligible as she shared her years of sorrow with him.

“Mutter, you are too short,” he lamented when it grew too uncomfortable to crane his neck to shed his tears into her hair, and she laughed, brushing back tears of her own.

“Short? You, you are so tall!” She sniffed, pulling back and reaching up to stroke the stubble on his cheeks. “Not my little boy anymore, now.” She glanced down between them, and Anders huffed a quiet dismissal. “No, definitely not… as you can see.” 

There was a beat of silence before a throat cleared behind them and Anders looked up as his mother turned her head.

“Son,” his father addressed gruffly. Anders straightened as he met and held his father’s gaze. Anders felt his face crumple a little as he winced, and he pulled away from his mother’s embrace to seek out Fenris for support. 

Immediately the elf was by his side, grasping his hand.

“I would not be so quick to call me such, Vater,” Anders confessed, voice trembling. “A Grand Cleric is dead and the Kirkwall Chantry lies in ruins because of me. I… I do not believe I am worthy–” 

“That is for me to decide,” his father replied in a low voice. Anders could see that ever present fear still lingering there, and the apprehension that came with it. Yet the thing that was the most present was indeed the regret Fenris had mentioned, and somehow at the sight of it, Anders found the courage to let go of the elf’s hand to approach his father, though he still trembled as he did so.

“Wilhelm,” Anders’ mother pleaded softly as they stood close, putting one hand on her son’s arm protectively even as the older man held up a hand.

“Franziska,” he addressed her sternly, looking away from Anders very briefly to chastise her, saying, “Please, stand back a moment.” He looked back and met Anders’ gaze once more.

“I wish to embrace my son properly,” he stated, cracking a slight smile as the tension in his shoulders, and indeed the rest of the room, seemed to lift as the man opened his arms. “Or, at least as much as I am able,” he added in a half whisper as Anders rushed to embrace his father as his mother had embraced him, though there were fewer tears when they were finished. Afterwards, Anders pulled away and turned to introduce his parents to Fenris.

Anders’ father, Wilhelm, or Wil as the man insisted Fenris call him, and his mother, Franziska were not what the elf had expected.

Upon finding them in the kitchen after his rude awakening, he hadn’t expected to like them… but Franziska’s tears were so obviously genuine that she made his own heart ache in sorrow for Anders, and Wil’s eyes had been full of a deep regret in spite of the mixture of fear and concern that lingered there.

Fenris’ heart hurt so much at the thought of what it might feel like to have his children taken from him, never expecting to see them again… and he’d had to excuse himself from the conversation to see if he couldn’t get Anders to let him in the storeroom to talk.

Eventually he was able to extricate the mage from his place of safety and out into the downstairs room where they’d sat down to speak with Rashia some weeks previously. Now they also sat there after Anders’ tearful reunion with his mother and tentative reconciliation with his father. That first smile that Wil had given Anders suddenly reminded Fenris of the way Anders smirked when mildly amused.

However, it was Franziska who reminded Fenris of Anders more. She fussed just like he did once he’d grown comfortable enough to let her close, and currently she had her hands on his belly as she cooed at the children within.

“You know, your husband was conceived from a roll in the grasses near a statue such as the one that blessed you with these little ones,” Franziska confided, and he glanced back at Anders, who was practically inhaling one of the little apple pies that Grizelda had brought.

“Anders? Is this true?” he asked. Anders, once finished, gently wiped the crumbs from his mouth into a small, white cloth. He shrugged sheepishly by way of an answer.

“How I am to know? It’s not as if there’s anyone I know who can corroborate, except Vater,” Anders answered, somehow managing to pout at Wil while scowling at the same time. Wil chuckled. “Oh, we are fairly certain that statue helped in some way. And your siblings, too, though we only visited the statue just the once.” 

Wil frowned, and thumbed his teacup idly.

“By the way, why do you call yourself… Anders?”

Anders sighed. 

“Because the templars couldn’t be bothered to remember my name, and I refused to give it to them when they asked. Besides, even when they merely called me “the Ander boy” after remembering where you were from, I still ended up being called Anders eventually.” He shook his head and sighed again before continuing with, “So even if I had given it to them again, my name still wouldn’t have been my own.

“It took a long time for me to stop caring what I was called and start caring about the person that name belonged to.” Franziska huffed softly through her nose and looked up at her son with sad eyes. “So my little boy…”

“Will always be a part of me, Mutter,” Anders reassured her. “But the name that belonged to that boy? It isn’t mine anymore. I have been “Anders” for too long.”

Fenris caught Anders’ gaze and was suddenly filled with a light pang of sadness for the boy he had once been, Leto, that his sister had lamented the loss of when she had left Kirkwall. The brief talk Anders had begged him to have with her had certainly been productive, and Fenris had even encouraged Varania to find work elsewhere instead of Tevinter… though things were still strained between them when he watched her board a ship bound for Highever from the edge of the Kirkwall docks.

“It is not always our choice to keep the names we were born with,” Fenris added quietly as he rubbed at a spot where the twins were being particularly active. “However, we can to a certain extent choose the people that we become even unto death. Names are important, true, but I find it is often the character of a person that makes one more memorable than another.”

“So well spoken,” Wil mused, even as Anders chuckled. 

“That, and his willingness to call me out on my bullshit have always been two of my favorite things about him,” Anders said smoothly.

“Hnnn. Now that is bullshit,” Fenris said dryly, which only caused Anders to laugh while Franziska giggled. “Husbands indeed. You’ve been together a long time, haven’t you?”

Anders nodded. “We were only… um, married shortly after we arrived here, but we were together for several years in Kirkwall.”

“What was it like? How did you meet?” she gushed, and Anders sighed, shaking his head. “It was nothing like the stories, Mutter. We actually rather disliked each other near to the point of hatred when we first met. It took many years before we could even carry a conversation without insulting each other.”

“And then I got bit by a spider and apparently confessed my attraction to you,” Fenris muttered as he swallowed down one of his own snacks, the taste of the apples so rich and sweet on his tongue. 

“Must have been some spider,” Wil scoffed, to which Anders nodded.

“Mutant. I think it was because there were so many entrances to the Deep Roads around. Something about the Blight and the Fade just makes them absolutely huge in some places. But yeah. I had no idea you even thought about me that way until then.”

“You were attracted to me too.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t about to say so! It took us forever just to be decent people to one another. I wasn’t about to ruin that by confessing.”

“Why not?” asked Franziska curiously, and strangely it was Wil that answered her. “Because you were a former slave, weren’t you?” Wil jerked his chin in Fenris’ direction. “From Tevinter? I heard you use a Tevene curse earlier.”

Fenris nodded solemnly as Franziska fretted, though he caught her hands and gently held them fast.

“Yes, I was. And my experiences colored my view of your son for many years. Or, at least they did until we eventually found that our pasts were so eerily similar to one another.” He seemed about to go into it, but thought the better of it. Franziska smiled at the pair of them sadly, her eyes lingering on Anders.

“I… we heard you talking at the midwife about spending a year in a cell. Did that really happen?”

Anders nodded in a similarly solemn manner. 

“After I was… in the Circle, I made escape attempts… often. The first few times I was trying to get back to you, but then Greagoir threatened me with Tranquility and I stayed put for a while. It helped that I had grown attached to another mage, Karl.” Anders grew quiet and looked down as he idly rubbed circles into his belly. “Karl didn’t like the Circles either, but he thought that they could be changed from the inside if only we could work hard enough.

“So I stayed. For him. I was a better mage, a better person with him around. But then not long after I passed my Harrowing he was transferred to Kirkwall and I started making escapes again. To try and get to him. My sixth one I spent nearly a year in Denerim trying to earn enough coin for a ship from Highever.”

“As… a healer?” his father asked. Anders’ face flushed deeply.

“Um. Sort of. I… might have worked for the Pearl in Denerim as their healer. And not just as their healer.” Franziska merely leaned over to catch his expression and descended into giggles. “So you had a little fun on the job…”

Anders snorted.

“It’s also what got me caught. And that was how I ended up in solitary confinement for a year. I was all sorts of messed up afterwards, and made my final escape while the Blight was going on. Templars didn’t catch up to me until I made it to Amaranthine, but then darkspawn horde remnants swarmed the fortress and the Hero of Ferelden –who also happened to be a mage I was in the Circle with– just up and conscripts me right in front of the queen!” 

Anders laughed shakily and ran a hand through his hair. 

“Sounds like quite a force, this Hero,” Wil mused as he poured himself another cup of tea. Fenris nodded.

“She is. She came by recently because Vigil’s Keep has been need of a healer for some time, but she decided to let us live our lives here instead and merely offered us a place at the keep should we ever need it.”

“Were you not the healer at the keep before, darling?” Franziska asked, frowning, and Anders sighed. 

“Yes, I was. But then Rashia had to leave the keep on Warden business, and her replacement let in a bunch of Templars who wanted to get back at her for killing Ser Rylock in defense of me. Ser Rylock was the templar who tried to drag me back to the Circle when Queen Anora came riding down the highway after the fortress was clear of the most immediate darkspawn threats. There were several who were upset with the commander for it.”

Anders sighed bitterly and grumbled, “These recruits made it past the Joining Ceremony and tried to kill me, but I escaped and ran to Kirkwall where I had hoped to find Karl, but… things didn’t work out that way. When I met Astrid Hawke, I thought I’d found a group of people who might be able to help me get him out of the Gallows safely, but… he had been made Tranquil in spite of Chantry law saying that all Harrowed mages are safe from such a fate, barring actual, physical demonic possession.”

He grit his teeth and angry tears filled his eyes.

“I… couldn’t leave him like that. We made a promise, once… to end the other’s life if we ever…” He rubbed his eyes furiously, trying to clear them. Fenris had turned away to gently grab at Anders’ arm and press close against the mage. 

“I had to… had to kill him and watch the person I had loved and yet never confessed it to just bleed out on the floor of a Chantry…”

“Astrid helped you burn him, didn’t he?” 

Anders sniffed wetly, nodding. “They even asked Sebastian to preside over the burial of the ashes.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“This was before he left Kirkwall for a few years to travel around the Free Marches looking for people to support his claim to the throne. He wasn’t traveling with us then.”

“A prince?” Franziska tittered, moving so that she could sit across from the couple and next to her husband. “My, what a colorful life you have led.”

Anders smiled sheepishly. “I still… I messed up a lot, Mutter. After Karl died, I was angry and bitter and I spent years trying to find a way to free the mages of the Gallows from serving a similar sentence. Mostly I tried to be peaceful, but as the years wore on, it grew harder and harder to manage that. In the end, I was unable to do so peacefully and I did a really stupid thing that… I fear may come back to haunt me.” He glanced down and hugged his middle tightly.

“I don’t want these babies to end up parentless because of my stupidity.”

“Anders,” Fenris hushed him. “You know Rashia would not stand for it. The Grand Cleric turned a blind eye not only to the mages, but the Blight refugees and the elves and anyone who wasn’t someone with means who could pay good coin to keep the Chantry beds warm and soft, tables filled with rich food, and closets full of finely crafted robes. You did. You healed them for free for years, in what amounted to the city sewers, no less.

“And the Grand Cleric also let the Knight Commander make Harrowed mages Tranquil in droves and her subordinates physically abuse those who were meant to be their charges. That city was already about to explode anyway; you just gave it a push. Your Commander is a good woman with no tolerance for bullshit, and even though you weren’t there on her orders, you might as well have been from what she said to you.”

Anders looked over at Fenris and he could see fond weariness in their depths.

“I know. Rashia is just like that. Apparently she did a lot of stupid things too, when she was trying to raise an army to fight the Darkspawn.”

Suddenly the two of them remembered that they weren’t the only two people in the room and they looked up to meet the eyes of Anders’ parents sheepishly. 

“Apologies,” Fenris offered them, ears flattening against his hair. “I get… rather emotional these days. Especially whenever Anders tries to think I’m going to let us leave these three without parents.”

“Three?” Wil gasped, eyeing his son critically. “Three?”

“Warden stamina and a fertility statue work wonders, apparently,” Anders said dryly by way of an answer, at which point Grizelda finally came back with something that suddenly had Fenris’ mouth watering at the smell of it. The midwife had apparently caught the tail end of that conversation and was chortling to herself as she placed a hot lunch in front of the two couples.

“What these boys aren’t telling you,” she said, sitting down on a stool which she’d dragged in from the clinic, “is that they didn’t know the statue was magic and had to find it out the hard way about a month later.” She served everyone some of the thick, meaty soup with rice and spices and vigorously shook a spoon at the pregnant couple with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Gave them about a week to think things over in case they didn’t want kids.”

“You made a bet,” Anders drawled, slightly annoyed, and Grizelda snorted. “I live with a retired Chantry brother who was almost declared an apostate by heresy about seven different times. I have to get my giggles from somewhere. Besides, I figured you’d want to keep it right away, since you dote so much on the village children.” She fixed Fenris with an assessing stare. “You were harder to guess, but… there was always something about you that I pegged as protective. Didn’t expect the twins, though.”

Franziska laughed. “I remember the mood swings. They were more intense with… you, Anders.” The name seemed reluctant, like she was weighing it on her tongue and trying to decide if she liked it. Then she added, “That… reminds me. About what we came here for…”

Anders gave a start next to Fenris, and he looked over to Anders to see his expression knit in confusion. 

“I had wondered about that. Please forgive me for saying so, but I doubt you came to ask for Grizelda’s consult for yourselves…” His lips twitched into a half grin and he chuckled lightly. “I am rather well into my thirties, after all.”

Franziska smiled and echoed his soft chuckle, but afterwards her shoulders fell and she sighed deeply. 

“We came for your sister, actually. Britta.”

Anders gasped and his brows knit with worry, his hands curling slightly against the fabric of his trousers. “Britta? Is… is she okay?” He frowned, leaning back against the settee that he and Fenris were settled on, muttering to himself.

“She was married about… seven years ago? But she and Isaac didn’t start trying for children until about two years later and nothing has worked since.”

Anders folded his arms across his chest, resting them on his belly as he huffed slowly through his nose. “There’s no increased pain when she bleeds? Or cramps in between bleedings? Painful sex? I–argh. There are a lot of things it might be.” Anders shrugged. “And it might not be entirely her fault or indeed her fault at all. A few couples I treated in Kirkwall were various cases of the reverse. Sometimes it’s the father that’s the trouble. Nothing a few potions and better nutrition can’t fix… unless it can’t. Then sometimes…”

“Sometimes magic is necessary?” came his mother’s quiet question.

Anders nodded. “But, in the event that… I couldn’t help, I’m certain the statue could. Grizelda’s been sending people to it for years when they’ve had trouble. Still, if she’s in pain and isn’t telling anyone… ah, that would be just like Britta, wouldn’t it? She was always like that, wasn’t she?”

“Stubborn, kept to herself,” agreed Wil. “She got worse after… after I had you sent away. She hated me for a long time, I think. Karin was younger. I don’t know how much she remembers you, and… Garth…”

“Did you ever tell him he had an older brother, Vater? He was barely speaking when the barn burnt down.” Anders’ voice was soft and sorrowful, yet Wil winced as though Anders had slapped him with his words. “We did. Britta never let us forget about you, and eventually he started asking questions. I’m sure… he’d love to meet you. Especially when he finds out you became a Warden.”

“Not sure about Karin,” Franziska sighed. “She’s got two little ones to look after. Made Britta all the more bitter when she couldn’t…”

“I would love to see her again, Mutter. You’d have to explain to them about, well… this,” he said gesturing to his and Fenris’ bellies, and added, “at least if you intend to bring them back within the next three months.”

“She would come no matter what we told her,” Wil admitted, “but I suppose we should try to explain it as best we can. She won’t wait long after we tell her about you, especially when she finds out she has more nieces and nephews on the way.” Anders laughed, and Fenris found that he couldn’t recall a time when Anders had laughed quite as much as he’d done today.

“How long was your trip out here?”

“About a week, by horse and cart,” answered Franziska. “Two weeks, plus a few days… if we left now…”

“You don’t have to, Mutti,” Anders insisted. “Please, at least stay the day. I… you might have to use some of the clinic beds, but that’s where our spare space is…” He shrugged. “Maker only knows what we’re going to do when these little ones start needing more than the nursery our neighbors helped us put together.”

“Landry said he and Daniel would help us,” Fenris told him automatically as he finished slurping down the rest of his lunch. “And, um. The carpenter. Fasta vass, why can I never remember that man’s name?”

Anders chuckled and pat his back gently, leaning over to nuzzle at an ear, immediately relaxing them both.

“You’ll get it eventually, Fen. It’s okay.”

“Alright, alright,” Grizelda groused, “I’m going to leave before you kill me with your entirely too adorable displays of affection.” She sighed, grumbling as she stood. “I meant to give you an examination today, but you seem to be fine, yes?” Anders nodded. “I don’t think the little one was happy about all of the stress from this morning, but I should be good for the afternoon.”

“Just take it easy!” she shouted after them, but came back to point a finger at Wil and Franziska. “And you come see me tomorrow morning before you leave. I want to know exactly who told you what in case I need to do damage control.”

Franziska nodded. “Of course, yes. These statues should be protected at all costs. We’ll come by, absolutely.”

Grizelda nodded and shuffled out, leaving the couples together.

After a few heartbeats of silence, Franziska finally stood up and clasped her hands together. “Please, you must show me this nursery! Is it upstairs?”

Anders smiled and nodded, and took a few deep breaths before moving to stand. “Whew! That… gets harder every day to do without help.” He looked back at Fenris. “Do you want to come up with us?”

Fenris shook his head. “My nap was interrupted and lunch has made me sleepy again. I might just… not move from here for a while.” Anders chuckled and leaned over to press a kiss against his hair, grasping the arm of the settee for support. “Okay. Vater, do you mind fetching a pillow and blankets from the clinic? They’re not hard to miss.”

“Of course, of course.”

Anders and his mother went upstairs and his father came back with some pillows and blankets and helped Fenris settle comfortably on his side.

Wil knelt on the floor next to Fenris, and he found that his earlier mistrust of the man had dissipated over the course of the morning. “I was afraid,” he confessed, very quietly. “The way Anders told the story of the day his magic manifested…” Wil huffed dejectedly, albeit quietly.

“He must have thought me quite the monster,” Wil whispered, and Fenris hummed in agreement. “Not as much of the monster he once believed himself to be. He is a spirit healer, and from what he tells me, that is how they are able to work their miracles.”

Wil fixed him with an intense stare. “Is there something he didn’t tell us? That you aren’t telling me?”

“I am telling you now, because I know him enough to know that he won’t do it on his own if he believes that telling you will cause him to lose you again. But… you see,” Fenris said as he offered the underside of an arm to Wil, “these brands were a gift from my former master.” He spat the word just enough to give emphasis as he reached down to rub at his belly through the blankets.

“During my years of service and even in the years after I escaped, they caused me so much pain. In fact, the earliest thing I can clearly remember is pain. Receiving the brands. I hated the man who had put them into my skin, and indeed, all magic and those who wielded it.”

“My son mentioned that you disliked each other when you first met.”

Fenris chuffed. “He was being kind. While I do not believe he hated me at first, I certainly hated him. He was grieving for a lover and involving himself in a campaign to give freedom to the mages of the Gallows, yet I only knew that Karl had been a friend who was made Tranquil, and that I feared he wished to bring about another Tevinter.”

Wil nodded solemnly and shifted so that his position on the floor was more comfortable. “My son was always a bull-headed, foolhardy child… but even now I cannot see that he would want such a thing.”

“He did not. However, I was too blinded by my fear. I goaded him. I baited him. He wasn’t innocent either. He gave as good as he got. And we fancied the same man: Astrid Hawke. It was through Hawke that I learned the thing about your son that made me fear him more than his mageblood: he was possessed.”

Wil sat very still. 

“What? No. He can’t–”

Fenris held up a hand. “I am not done. I have told you where I come from, and that even though I call a mage my partner and husband, I still hold a healthy fear for it. If I believed he were a true abomination, I would have killed him a long time ago. Will you let me finish?”

After a silence that felt like an eternity, Wil nodded.

“I have seen abominations. They were commonplace in Tevinter, they were like party tricks; the magisters so often had them appear at the displays of power they called their “social events.” I killed many of them alongside Astrid and your son, and not once did he become one of them. In fact, he harbors as much of a dislike of blood magic as I do. One of the scant few things we agreed on in those early years.”

Fenris took a moment to breathe, wincing and rubbing soothing circles into his belly as the babies shifted.

“I do not believe there was any one thing that made me see past my hatred. Hate is an exhausting emotion. I couldn’t keep it with me forever… or, my hatred of him, anyway. I watched him heal people for free, heal the rest of the party before himself, and even when I refused magic from him, he offered potions and bandages and salves. He hated me as much as I hated him, and still he never failed to offer healing to me. 

“Then came that night with the spider bite, and I think a part of me knew I would die without magical intervention. Anders is as good with antivenins as he is with potions, but those take time to diagnose and brew. So, magic it was. And… it wasn’t like anything I’d ever felt. All magic had ever done was hurt me, but Anders’ magic… didn’t. Even the after effects of his battle magic only made the brands tingle a little. It was only after that I began to ask him questions and really listen to his answers.”

“…but, the possession,” Wil pressed, very quietly.

“He told me why a few months after we… we had started sharing a bed,” Fenris admitted with a slight yawn. He told the story Anders had told him about the Blackmarsh, getting trapped in the Fade, meeting Justice. “And after all was said and done, they were left with a Spirit of Justice in a decomposing corpse with no idea what would happen next.”

Fenris huffed, annoyed. “And Anders, with his bleeding heart, thought he could help return this spirit to the Fade if only he had more time than Kristoff’s corpse could offer. He thought that, as a Spirit Healer, he should be able to handle having a Fade Spirit in his head for a while. Perhaps his deeper connection to the Fade would enable the spirit to return home that way.”

“It didn’t work out, I assume?” Wil asked tiredly. 

Fenris nodded. “The templars who were recruited to the Wardens didn’t approve of him working so closely with the spirit possessed corpse, whether or not they were told he was working on a way to return Justice to the Fade or not. They joined to get back at Commander Amell for what happened to Ser Rylock, so they likely didn’t care what his purpose there was.”

“They forced his hand? Cornered my son and this… spirit?”

“That is what Anders said, yes. And from the conversation that I was present for between Anders and Rashia, I got the impression he barely escaped with his life. Without the spirit’s intervention, I…” Fenris looked down and sighed softly as he rubbed his belly once more. 

“I would not have met Anders. I would not have seen that while he is not perfect and has most certainly done the most stupid or stupid things in the name of mage freedom… I saw a man who gave all he had and then some to the poor of a city that could and did care less for those in poverty. I saw a mage who refused to resort to blood magic in the face of his fears, and a mage who offered magical and non-magical healing to any and all who needed it. There were a few Templars who knew who and what he was, and even though he still wishes the Order didn’t exist, he didn’t refuse them healing either.”

Fenris sighed and blinked a few more times, feeling sleep creeping up on him as the fullness of the food and exhaustion of his interrupted nap began to weigh on him.

“I would not have learned to love him. These… these babies would not exist without him. I–confront him about his spirit if you wish, but I ask that you do not promise that he can see his family again and then take it away. Please.”

He could feel his eyes brimming his tears, but he couldn’t handle the weight of Wil’s gaze and the thought of what the loss of his family might do to Anders so soon after connecting with them after all this time. He turned his face into the pillows and sniffed wetly, unable to hold back a sob.

“I… I need him. I can’t do this without him. I can’t.”

“Hush, mein kind,” Wil soothed, a hand gingerly patting Fenris’ hair and threading fingers through it to massage his scalp as he quietly cried into his pillows. “It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.”

And then Wil started to sing something that Fenris recognized, and he looked up from the pillows when Wil was finished, blinking at him with bleary eyes.

“I’ve heard Anders singing that some mornings to the babies when he thinks I’m still asleep. I don’t know if he remembers the entire thing, but he tries.” Wil chuckled softly. “Hmm. I shall have to see which verses time has stolen from him so that I might give them back. It was a song my father sang to me as a child and that his father sang to him. It should not be forgotten.”

Wil slowly removed his hand from Fenris’ hair and patted the cushion of the settee with it lightly. 

“Sleep now, and do not worry for your Anders. Spirit or no spirit, I… I too have let hate and fear eat away at me for too long. You know the man that my boy has become far better than I; therefore I trust your judgement. That… and I cannot tear my wife from her son again. She might kill me first.”

He offered Fenris a tired smile, and Fenris was almost certain he smiled back.

“Thank you,” Fenris whispered, yawning again, but louder this time.

Wil chuckled quietly. “Go to sleep. We shall wake you for dinner if you are not up by then.” Fenris grunted. “It is merely a nap…”

The other man might’ve said something more, but by then, Fenris was asleep.

Anders had been just about finished showing his mother the nursery when his father had come up and confronted him about Justice. He thought his mother might be horrified when his father started talking about it, but all she had done was sigh and shake her head as she turned to him to ask, “This was one of those stupid things you mentioned?”

“Yes, Mutter,” he admitted, “but since leaving Kirkwall, Justice has been far kinder to me than I ever was to him. I still want to return Justice to the Fade, but… I don’t know if anything short of death will do that anymore.”

He frowned, then added in a more somber tone, “And, speaking of death… he, Justice… has apparently been keeping the taint in my system at bay since… since we joined.” His father had frowned and his mother’s grip tightened on one arm. “What… what do you mean, tainted?” she fretted. “As in… the Blight?”

Anders nodded. “It is how one becomes a Warden, Mutter. I cannot tell you the particulars of how the ceremony goes, but not everyone survives it because it involves darkspawn blood.”

He glanced up at his father, whose expression had kitted into one of serious contemplation. “You… seem to know that, somehow. Don’t you, Vater?”

His father nodded. “I know about the Calling, too. I’m not supposed to, but…” 

He fixed Anders with an almost hopeful gaze. “Does this mean that it will never spread enough to send you into the Deep Roads to die?” His mother’s grip on his arm loosened and tightened again.

“That is what my Commander believes, yes,” Anders answered, and his mother sighed against him in relief. His father nodded solemnly. “Well, if we have this… spirit to thank for that, perhaps… perhaps we should be thankful.” Anders sniffed, smiling slightly even as tears gathered in his eyes.

“I still feel terrible, that I can’t return him home. But since leaving Kirkwall, he… things have been easier. We’re not as angry at the world as we used to be.”

He glanced down and tightened his arms around his middle protectively.

“We’ve got other things to worry about now.” 

Anders glanced up and noticed his father hovering. “Do you… want to touch? She’s not active right now, but maybe if you talked to her…”

“A she, is it?” His father chuckled as Anders grasped his hand and pressed it to his belly gingerly. Anders huffed. “Grizelda thinks it’s a boy, but I’m adamant about it being otherwise.”

“Could you tell… with magic?” his mother asked, to which Anders nodded.

“I could, but Fenris and I wanted to be surprised. Still think it’s a girl, though,” he grumbled, and suddenly he and his father gasped at the same time as a strong movement within surprised them both. Anders saw that his father had to wipe his eyes a bit as he pulled away, expression dumbstruck.

“It still feels like a dream,” his father breathed. Anders hummed noncommittally.

“It feels like that to me every day, and I’m the one carrying the child.” He shook his head in disbelief. “It still baffles me that such a thing is possible, even with magic…” He sighed contentedly as his mother clucked at him, shaking her head. “I still keep thinking about you and that elf of yours, finding out…”

“It was quite the shock, yes,” Anders laughed. “But… I’ve seen and done stranger things than this, and when Grizelda told it that even like this… it was still possible to… to terminate the pregnancy…” 

Anders sighed, shaking his head. “I couldn’t do it. I had to help too many young women in Kirkwall get rid of a few… accidents, and… I suddenly realized how much I wanted it. In Kirkwall, I helped with more births than I could count, but it was almost like the Circle all over again.”

“How do you mean?” His father asked, head cocked to one side.

“Female mages who get pregnant in the Circle don’t get to keep their children, Mutter. It is why I know as much about how to prevent a pregnancy as how to encourage one. Every child that ever made it to term was always taken away at birth. Mothers didn’t get to even name them or kiss them goodbye. I…” Anders sniffed wetly, frowning. “I’m sorry. I don’t like thinking about it much.”

He shrugged and ran a hand through his hair with a soft sigh.

“Anyway… Kirkwall was different in that the mothers actually got to keep the babies I delivered, but there was always a part of me that… that wished one of them were mine. And now…” he looked down again and rubbed a slow circle over his belly with one hand.

“Now this one is. And the two Fenris carries. He still worries a little about whether keeping his was a good decision, but I think it will work out in the end.”

“And that’s why I won’t bother getting up in arms about this… spirit issue,” his father told him seriously, moving to bring Franziska into a one-armed hug. “That elf of yours worried that telling me the truth might hurt you deeply, even though he didn’t anyway.” Anders winced, head low. “Sorry, Vater. I didn’t know how…”

“I know. It’s probably best it came from him anyway. Former slave with a healthy fear of magic still marrying and having children with my mage son? I trust his judgement.”

Anders and his father shared a look for a moment before nodding. 

“Thank you, Vater. I don’t know what else to say…”

His father chuckled. “You could start by telling me how much of those lullabies you remember. I sang a couple bars for your Fenris to help him sleep, and he told me you don’t remember all of them?”

Anders smiled. “I would love to relearn them. We have a small study up here we could use, come, let me show you…”

The entire day felt like a dream, especially after two weeks had come and gone, and once again, the door opened as Anders was in the storeroom, rearranging things while Fenris was scooping potions into flasks at the kitchen counter. 

“Franziska! Wil!” Anders heard Fenris exclaim from within the room, and immediately he set down what he was working with and went to greet them as well. “Mutter!” he exclaimed, his heart lighter than it had ever been. “Vater…” He hugged his mother and pressed a quick kiss to her hair before hugging his father and receiving a hearty pat on the back that made him tear up again at the memories the gesture brought up.

“You’re back,” he breathed, still unable to believe it. “So then… you brought…?”

“Bruder… is, is it truly you?” A small voice called from the door, and Anders froze as he met the eyes of the woman who stood there.

Her hair was the same tawny color with reddish hints as Franziska’s, though her eyes were a darker, richer brown, more akin to the color of Wil’s eyes. Her face was all Franziska, though there was a definite sharpness to her nose that harkened to Wil’s features. She was staring at Anders, mouth agape, eyes wide. There was no sound but for the conversation of two men outside, unaware of what was currently taking place.

“Britta?” was Anders’ equally quiet question, and that caused the woman to blink rapidly as she immediately glanced down at the swell of his belly. She shuffled forward, a hand gingerly outstretched, and Anders shuffled with her to meet her in the middle, take her hand in his; pressing it gently against him. The baby kicked and she gasped, looking up at Anders, still wide-eyed though now those eyes were shining with unshed tears.

She reached up with her other hand to cup his cheek, and Anders closed his eyes. “Britta…” he whispered again. “I missed you… schwester.”

He opened his eyes again when she laughed and found the woman shaking her head in disbelief. “No, no! You…” She snorted, gently pressing a finger square in the center of his chest. “What was the name of our neighbor’s cat?” 

Anders snorted. “Which one? The scrawny black one that almost got kicked by Vati’s plow-horse about three different times, or the orange and white one that looked like someone smushed its face in with a shovel that had kittens in our barn? I’m not sure either of those had names… other than, well. The things that Vati called them when they got in the way,” he laughed.

At this, the woman squealed with delight and threw her arms around him.

“Oh how I’ve missed you too!” she cried, and Anders nodded as he held her even though she couldn’t see him. “I heard you gave Vati what for all these years,” he told her as two men he didn’t recognize walked in and closed the door behind them. 

“Of course I did,” she replied, moving away and glancing down at his pregnant belly with wonder. “I had to. No one else would.”

“I appreciate it,” he whispered. “I really do.”

Then Anders looked up at the two men and Britta turned when he looked up. “Oh!” she exclaimed, gesturing to the taller of the two who was dark or hair with bright blue eyes and a soft features defined only by high cheekbones and a slightly crooked nose. Almost like he’d gotten in a fight as a child and it had never healed right. Anders wondered if he’d left it that way on purpose.

“This is my husband, Isaac.”

Isaac, who didn’t appear to be much phased by Anders’ unusual state, shook his hand firmly, followed by Fenris, who introduced himself as Anders’ husband. (And didn’t that make his heart flutter wildly like a blighted butterfly?) However Isaac moved further in to reveal a young man in his mid-twenties and Anders was suddenly filled with a rather strange sense of having seen this man before.

Only… in a mirror. About… eleven years ago.

“Hello,” the young man greeted him, a shy smile breaking out onto his face. The smile was familiar too. Anders could hardly believe it.

“You… must be Garth,” Anders said in reply. Garth nodded. “Yes. Karin wanted to come too, but her husband was away on business and wouldn’t be back before we left. She’s probably on her way here, though, with her two boys.”

Garth studied him for a moment. “You… really do look just like Vater, but… younger.” Wil snorted. “Thanks, son.” 

“No problem, Vater,” Garth chirped, and Anders suddenly couldn’t resist the urge to reach out to him. The young man brought him into a unexpected hug, even cooing at the child in his belly when a bit of movement brushed from within that was forceful enough for them both to feel it.

“My, that is strange,” Garth breathed. “The statue’s doing, I assume?”

“I helped,” Fenris deadpanned, which caused the young man to descend into giggles as Anders heard Britta groan. “I… yes,” Anders chuckled sheepishly. “To both of those things. Strange, yes. But worth it.”

Garth met his eyes and nodded, glancing at Britta. 

“Britta will be happy. I’m glad I came. I wasn’t certain at first…”

“You were still in nappies when my magic manifested.”

Garth nodded. “So I hear. But it’s thanks to Britta that I know about you, and now it’s thanks to her we got to meet, even thought the circumstances were… less ideal, I suppose.”

Anders nodded, then suddenly he rounded on Britta and gently grasped her by the shoulders. “I… need to talk to you. About… personal things. Fenris?” Fenris nodded, straightening. “I can settle them in the front room if you want to talk to her in the clinic.”

“Would you, love? I would appreciate it. Oh, and Isaac? Would you come too? Yes, thank you.”

Britta frowned as Fenris herded the others into the front room with the chairs and few settees and Anders led her into the small but serviceable room he used as his clinic space, with Isaac following close behind.

“Personal things?” She asked him worriedly. 

“Yes,” Anders sighed. “Mutter told me what she and Vater came here for. You’ve been trying to have children for five years, without success?” Britta’s face pinched a little as she nodded. Beside her, Isaac cleared his throat. 

“You wanted to examine us, healer? To see if there’s something wrong?”

Anders nodded, huffing a little.

“It might not be pleasant, and I’ll need your consent before I start poking and prodding and, yes, putting fingers in places that a brother’s fingers shouldn’t go,” he chuffed softly, catching Britta’s wide eyes and deep flush, “but… I couldn’t stand not knowing if… if you were in pain and not telling anyone.”

He paused, then added with a little more force, “Are you in pain, Britta? During sex? Between cycles? Sometimes such things are signs…”

Britta sniffed, and Anders helped her to sit on one of the beds with Isaac next to her for support. “I… I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Not… that I’ve noticed. Should I? And what if nothing’s wrong with either of us? What then?”

“Then I can tell you that the statue will most certainly help,” he reassured her. “Just… bring lots of blankets. And maybe some cheese and wine. They really help set the mood.”

Isaac snorted and Britta giggled.

“I don’t remember that wicked sense of humor,” she told him with a tender smile as she leaned against Isaac. Anders shrugged. “It was a cultivated talent. Now, which of you would rather go first?”

After two very thorough examinations with both magical and mundane means as well as an array of personal questions, eventually Anders was able to notice (with a little help from Justice) that there was something off about the pattern of Britta’s cycles. Something in her body was causing them to be too short, and therefore the window in which a child could be conceived was very, very small.

“So we could conceive naturally, if we wanted to?” Britta asked, and Anders nodded. “Theoretically, yes. But you’ve been trying for five years, Britta. If you really want a child before your next cycle, I’d go to the statue. Mutti used one for me, apparently.”

Britta sighed, and looked back at Isaac.

“Five years is an awfully long time to wait, dear,” Isaac told her as he stroked her hair. “I would go with you today if that’s what you wanted.”

“Perhaps you’ll want some time to think it over?” Anders asked, but Britta shook her head and clasped her husband’s hand tightly. “No,” she insisted. “I want to go today. I… I’ve waited long enough.” Isaac merely nodded as Britta fixed Anders with a hesitant stare.

“Do we… is there something particular that we have to do?”

Anders couldn’t help but crack a wry smile. “Other than the obvious? No.”

Britta scowled at him. “I’m being serious!”

“So am I. As far as I know there’s not much else to it. Some of the other couples in the village might have a prayer or two you can offer if you like. Fenris and I never said one, but uh…” Anders felt his face flush and he reached back to rub at his neck in embarrassment. “There was, um… a certain amount of reverence involved, certainly.”

“Reverence, hmm?” Isaac hummed as he leaned over to purr sensually into Britta’s ear.  Anders stood up immediately, deliberately turning around. 

“Alright, I’m out!”

“Wait!”

Anders paused, and looked back at the sound of Britta’s voice. 

“What… what do I call you now?” Britta asked quietly, suddenly somber. “Mutter told me you… have a different name now?”

“Anders,” he told her. “It… It is what it is. I’m still–still your brother, I just… the boy I used to be… that isn’t really me anymore. Hasn’t been me for a long time.”

Britta nodded. “That’s alright. I’m just… glad to see you again. Anders.”

The sound of his name coming from his sister’s lips brought a lightness to Anders’ heart, and he left the two hopefully soon-to-be parents in the clinic to go out and spend time with his husband and the rest of his family.

Two months passed, and only a few days after his parents had arrived with Garth, Britta, and her husband, Isaac, Karin came knocking at Anders and Fenris’ doorstep with her husband and their two children. 

Anders hadn’t been able to stop himself from cooing over the babbling toddler who was his niece, nor his swaddled infant of a nephew. The months old babe brought about such a strong maternal instinct in him when he held the child, he almost hadn’t been able to let go.

Karin had just laughed and gently patted his shoulder, saying, “Soon, you will have your own to hold, yes?”

“Very soon,” Anders agreed. “We’ve only a little less than two months now, if we manage to carry to term.”

“You’re enjoying the sex, I hope?”

Anders had flushed, but Fenris had snickered and nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yes. It is sometimes difficult, given the state of things, but… we manage.”

Despite his embarrassment, Anders couldn’t agree more.

There was also good news from Britta when Anders and Fenris were exactly three weeks shy of their due dates. Karin had come and gone, promising to come back for a visit again when his nephew was older, but his parents, Isaac, and other siblings had temporarily settled in the village (with help from Grizelda and several of their neighbors) in anticipation of the births of the new additions to their family.

Britta came to Anders one morning with a worried Isaac trotting at her heels, complaining of several symptoms that were very familiar to Anders. He still took them aside to the clinic, gave her a quick examination, and took Britta’s hands in his as he smiled at her excitedly. 

“You’re pregnant, Britta,” he whispered, and she burst into happy sobs, clinging to her brother and her husband both.

Anders and (miraculously) Fenris’ due dates came and went, however, much to the amusement and sympathy of all who knew them, until about a week later when Fenris finally went into labor.

The clinic was small, so there were not many people present helping the elf as his labor progressed, though Anders’ own labor pains started just as Fenris was nearing his time to push, and (of course, as was Anders’ luck) rapid labor set in not long after his waters broke as he was changing into the robes Grizelda had provided them.

More visitors came, but only Sora, Grizelda’s elven midwife-in-training, was let in to assist with the births, which went smoothly. Anders and Fenris brought a son and two daughters into the world, which they named Karl, Sage…

“…and Franziska,” Anders finished, looking up at his mother with a tired smile.

Franziska, so touched by Anders’ gesture, could hold back the happy tears that rolled down her cheeks as Anders handed their youngest daughter for his mother and father to hold.

Eventually though, they gave their granddaughter back to their son, who would fall asleep next to his husband with their children nestled in their arms.

A long, hard road lay ahead of them, but when Anders woke the next morning to find the fruits of his and Fenris’ labors still sleeping soundly, he was not afraid. He had his mother, his father, and his siblings back, and even more besides: a niece and nephew from his youngest sister, and another one growing in Britta that would arrive sometime next spring.

To be a mage that was able to rejoin with his family, create one of his own, and have a partner who would do his best to assure him that he would not lose those things for as long as they lived? 

Anders had never dared to dream for so much, but in this little village without a name, sometimes even the most impossible of dreams could come true.