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Marian’s nails dug into the soft skin of Anders’ back, his warm heat pressed against hers, only thin fabric between them. His tongue was behind her teeth, briefly, a ghost on her lips. Anders kissed like a spring breeze— her mouth never felt too warm or wet, always caressed and softened and occasionally bruised.
Hawke met Anders with gentle suction on his lower lip, moving to kiss a trail up to his temple, twisting her fingers in his hair. Quiet pants came from his lips when hers departed, his mouth chasing her skin and finding purchase on her neck. Anders’ hands made space between fabric and skin, sliding Marian’s chemise up further and further til she felt the chill of the room and pulled him toward the bed.
“I’m cold, Anders. Could we slip under the covers?” Hawke asked. She threw the chemise to the floor.
“Anything for you. I would do anything for you.” Anders answered, a beatific look on his face. Hawke laughed softly.
“Well! I only ask you take off your clothes and come under the sheets. Could we arrange that?” Marian’s voice was coy and sultry. Anders could hardly get out of his dressing gown for his excitement, getting his elbow caught in sliding it off. His lover laughed again, pulling the cloth for him, wadding it up and tossing it at a far wall. Anders smiled broadly. Marian felt she’d be bashful in such a situation, but his face was undeterred, unphased, full of excitement.
Anders pounced at Marian with rapturous enthusiasm, pawing her face and cupping it desperately. He trapped her lips in his own, and when she gently squirmed, he rolled back to his side, then prone, freeing her. Marian, grateful for the space but unwilling to stop so soon, gave chase and mounted Anders’ midsection. Her legs straddled around his hips, Marian felt the press of Anders’ erection and the slipperiness of their sex against one another.
Marian rocked herself over Anders’ sex, her lips parting with ecstasy. He grit his teeth, pressed his thumbs into her hips.
“Hahh… Hawke…” Anders whimpered, barely able to keep his eyes open in such pleasure. Marian was wet and soft to his hardened cock, providing resistance to it’s natural spring. Marian’s nerves were on fire, the blood pooling in her nethers. Her clit could’ve danced, swollen and needing.
Anders eyes met with Hawke’s, pleading. Marian could not meet his desire with such intensity, such fire as that in his irises, but she knew what to do. She curled a nail against the shaft of Anders’ cock, watching it twitch, hearing his breath catch. She reveled in the hitching of his throat, the way his eyes rolled back.
Marian thumbed the head of Anders’ cock gently, slickening her fingers in his precome. She motioned to pick his member up; enter herself— and instead began to touch her own hot sex, gasping when her fingers met her clit. Anders let out a soft noise of great desire, his eyes locked on Hawke’s hand, her heat against his. He brought his own hand to his cock, his thumb rested softly to the head, a quick but deliberate friction against the thin strip of foreskin still left behind on his glans.
Marian outstretched a finger to stop Anders, biting her lip, then continuing her circular ministrations.
“Not yet… love. Me… me first.” Hawke requested. Anders eyes darkened, then something flickered within. He retracted his hands from himself, placed them above his head, closed his eyes. Just as Marian thought to close her own, his hips bucked up into her, catching her. A moan slipped from her lips, and she pressed her hood with greater need, daring to swipe a finger over the sensitive clit. Anders bucked again and Hawke cried out, moving her hand to grip the hard slant of his hips.
Anders smiled, in control, and held Marian about the pelvis. He rocked his hips, moaning gently with her. Hawke slanted her mouth hard, and opened a tightly closed eye at him.
“I wanted to be first, Anders,” she complained, her tone betraying how much she enjoyed his lead.
“And I was missing out on the fun…” Anders explained, rocking down and up so that his cock slipped close to her wet entrance. Marian gasped, her eyes wide, and raised her eyebrows again.
“Fine. If you’re so impatient, let me help,” Hawke said. She took his member in hand and guided it into herself, biting her lip. Anders gasped loudly, shutting his eyes. Marian could see the lower part of his mouth retract where he bit down within.
She pulled his cock out just as quickly, then rubbed the head against her hood, careful not to directly touch her sensitive clit. Anders made more involuntary hisses of want and Hawke answered with pressure on his member— it blushed hot red and the slit shined with fluid.
Hawke, deciding to play a new game, pushed herself backwards down the bed. Her feet began to dangle and she rose up on hands and knees over Anders’ midsection, maintaining a direct look at Anders’ closed eyes.
“Oh, Anders, my sweet?” Hawke asked in a honeyed tone.
Anders eyes opened just a sliver, then wider, then creased again as he smiled.
“Hawke. You spoil me.”
“Of course I do,” Marian paused, looking away, then down, “and you’ll spoil me right back.” Hawke flicked her tongue out, just the tip grazing the hard erection before her. Anders shivered and let loose a sigh. Hawke grazed his sides with a feathery touch, reveling in the way her lover writhed beneath her.
“Of course. Anything.”
“Anything?” Hawke asked, curling her finger up the shaft of Anders’ cock yet again.
“You know that.” Anders explained, breathlessly. His hips hitched.
“Then… beg.” Marian said with a wicked smile. She lay against his body, pressing his cock to the pad of hair around it. Her hands restrained Anders’ wrists, fashioning rippling electric cuffs. She lathed his arms with her own, pushing against his middle as a distraction. Hawke fashioned similar cuffs to his ankles.
“Haw… Hawke? Have you—“ Anders strained against the wrist cuff, the static electricity snapping his wrist back, “you creative little something or other. What am I in for?”Anders asked, a smile to his voice.
“I’m going to tear ze ecstasy out of you. You’re going to wish you never came here— I’m going to ruin you.” Hawke purred, devilishly, taking on a northern accent. Anders’ cock jumped at her words. Marian took the flesh in her hand, almost too tight, earning the sharp hiss from Anders again. He quickly followed with a sigh of relief as his lover released him. Suddenly, Marian was no longer in sight.
Anders felt the hot sting of leather against his hip, the burn as it came away. Hawke was back, leaning over his left side, a crop in hand. He sucked his teeth, eyebrows raising.
“You don’t have a horse. Is there a single horse in Kirkwall?” Anders asked, cocking an eyebrow, smirking through his words.
“Ze boy shall shut his mouth,” Hawke said, miming a mustache with her finger to match her affected masculine Orlesian accent, “or he shall be tickled.” Marian lowered a devious brow, swooping close to Anders’ face. Anders laughed despite himself, but pulled a serious face at Hawke’s behest.
“No, serah Poncypants. Not the tickling. Please, not the tickling!” Anders plead. Hawke was pacing in front of the bed now, clapping the crop in her hand. She pointed severely to Anders.
“A tickling. A Poncypants spanking for ze boy! And zen, ze tickling.”
Hawke maneuvered a hand over Anders left ankle, removing the static. She took his foot in hand and ran a nail down the center, causing Anders to kick.
“Hawke…” Anders warned. He was sensitive about his feet. Marian gripped it, pushing his left leg to cross his right and expose his bare asscheeks to her.
“Ze tickly boy’s feet are not for playing!” Hawke announced, snapping the crop in her palm.
“But… Ze tickly boy’s bottom!” Marian snapped the crop on Anders’ behind, leaving an angry red rectangle. Anders sucked in a breath and sighed wistfully. Marian repeated the gesture twice more, then again, the marks blending together to suggest hearts.
“Serah Poncypants… I’m not sure you can trust me. I think I need a bit more punishment.” Anders cooed, straining his neck to look behind him. Hawke reached down to press a thumb into the knot of muscles in Anders’ neck and massaged firmly. He made a noise of contentment.
“Zis can be arranged, pretty mage boy. I will show you ze power of… ze quill!”
Marian disappeared again, coming back to Anders vision holding his inkwell. She dipped a finger in the liquid, drawing it back and smearing the ink between her fingers. Hawke briefly dropped the accent.
“I’ll clean this off directly afterward. I won’t touch you anywhere visible,” she said, then the affectation was back. Ser Poncypants was gone from sight and Anders felt the cool liquid on his cheeks.
Hawke spelled her name across her lovers’ ass, with faint stain. She pressed a thumb to the heart-prints, leaved her finger’s impression behind in the last of the ink. Anders, crossed sideways against the bed with only one foot free, bent his knee to caress Hawke with an ankle. Marian pushed it back, firm but gentle, and scratched ever-so-softly on the man’s legs. She moved to his ankle, eliciting a small giggle from the pillow Anders’ head lay buried in. Hawke tented and relaxed her fingers over his calves, pulling at the hairs on his legs and finally resting the back of her hand in the crook of Anders’ knee.
“Anders. I miss you,” Hawke confessed. She bent to place a soft kiss at the base of Anders spine, and rest her cheek in the indent. Suddenly realizing her lovers restraint was not his own doing, Hawke rose long enough to undo his electrical bonds. Anders rolled fully to his side, dipped a cloth in a bowl of washing water by Marian’s bed, and gave it to her.
“You miss me? I’m right here, love,” Anders supplied.
Hawke cleaned her fingers with the cloth thoroughly, clearly focused elsewhere, a look of consternation on her face.
“You’re… different, Anders. Not now. When we’re in bed, you’re the man I met six years ago,” Hawke smiled to herself, then explained, “well— I know you a bit more fully than I did then.”
Anders placed a hand on Marian’s shoulder, and leaned against her. He sighed, closed his eyes.
“My love, is this about my speech in the square?” Anders asked.
“It’s not. I love the passion you bring to what you do, Anders. You’ve always been proud of what you do, and I think you always would’ve given a vague speech about cages.” Marian was very conscious of the weight on her shoulder and gently shrugged to adjust Anders’ weight. He sat back up, instead.
“You’re not telling me what’s wrong, Marian.” A fear was present in Anders’ eyes. One Hawke hadn’t seen in a long time. She wanted to kiss him and pretend it away, but pressed on, cupping his jaw.
“You’ve been giving away your things. I’ve seen it. When you talk to Varric, you won’t joke with him. Our other friends, you’ve always danced a bit of a tightrope with. It’s always been tense with Aveline or Fenris or Merrill, because they think so differently to you, and are so vocal about it. I’m not as vocal, I come back and apologize or explain, and they don’t. But now when we’re out together you’re just… vicious. Unless we’re at the tavern.”
Marian felt her throat hitch with her words and her eyes began to sting. She bored holes into Anders’ temple, where he stared at the floor. A vein was working in his forehead that tensed and relaxed with his eyebrows. Anders spoke under his breath.
“Stop. Stop. Let me… I need to talk!”
Marian pursed her lips. His outburst was not directed at her; this was part of her concern. The whites of his eyes tinged faintly blue, then white again. She felt guilty. It seemed she dragged her lover into more and more mental and emotional decay. First the Fade, where he’d been completed superseded by Justice— sharing a body and mind in the tangible world but completely overridden in the Fade. Corypheus, though, had been the worst of it— a Grey Warden faux-Archdemon call adding yet another opinionated voice to the inside of his head. One with a pull of death. Hawke had been amazed at his handling of the battle under the circumstances.
Anders’ breathing steadied, and his chin leveled. He spoke.
“I have a harder time, these days. I have always had a hard time separating the thoughts, since I accepted Justice’s help— I learned how with a lot of concentration. Meditating on my past, trying to pull memories of who I was to discern what I would have though before I became two people, or part spirit, or. Vengeance. I don’t know.”
Anders took a shaky breath. He continued.
“Sometimes. I remember things from before and I wonder why I made this choice. I remember how hard it was to be free by myself, and have to recall that the thought that every mage should be as free as I wanted to be— that was why.”
Marian looked very deeply at Anders, but he only stared forward, at the door.
“Love, I am the plight of mages. I am the cause. I cant be asked to step away from it because I am the thought that a just way of living exists, and the only way—“ Anders voice began to rise. Hawke rested a hand on his forearm, stroked it. The blue of his eyes calmed to amber.
“The only way?” Marian asked, softly, concerned. Anders took another steadying breath.
“I am convinced the only way forward is to make them pay. This was not how I felt before. I lost moments in time, like… like with Ella. And now I don’t lose those moments so much, but I am so violent. I feel the only time I am not violent and full of rage is when you make me so happy I cant see anything else.”
Both were quiet, a long moment stretching between them. Hawke broke the silence.
“I have a question,” Hawke paused to leave space for Anders to stop the conversation. She chose her words carefully.
“I imagine the past and knowledge Justice has will be more helpful in arriving at an answer here. So. Are there spirits of forgiveness, or acceptance?”
Hawke left the air silent again. There was no response.
“If spirits are at risk of becoming demons through the perversion of human intervention… I’ve, I’ve been reading on this, I want to help… could they also commune with other spirits? Could Justice work with Forgiveness, with Acceptance, with Compassion or Empathy to understand another viewpoint? I hate Templars. I hate the Circle as a concept, the way it is used to the advantage of people in power. But. Could you forgive or accept— could the elimination of more bloodshed be your Justice?”
Anders was very, very still. His mouth gaped, just a small opening.
Hawke looked forward, quiet for a moment. She spoke.
“I think we should leave Kirkwall. I think—“ Hawke paused, considering her words again. How could this be stated the most persuasive way?
“I think that to do well by the mages here, you must go somewhere else. You have to find power from outside of Kirkwall, and bring that here. You’re only one man-- one man and one spirit— and I’m scared for you.”
Anders could’ve been mistaken for a statue. Even his chest did not fall and ride with life. His nostrils flared and his mouth twitched, but he was silent.
Marian could not speak. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. The words that came from her lover’s mouth left her shocked.
“Marian,” Anders began, his voice cold and threatening, “are you still seeing Orsino tomorrow morning? About that note he left?”
“I am.”
“Perhaps tonight, we should pack bags. Travel lightly. See what he wants, if we can help him and the other mages,” Anders paused, his voice even colder, “if they’re still alive.”
Marian wiped her cheek.
“I could have been there. I wasn’t,” Anders continued, “who knows if I could’ve made a difference.”
“Anders, you do make a difference. You have helped so many—“
“Nobles. Those already above me in station. You, a noble. And nonmages who would spit on me outside of my clinic.” Anders had retreated deeply within himself, his eyes tinged and fiery. Hawke steeled herself.
“Not just nobles!” Hawke protested.
“You have helped so many of your fellow mages. You have helped poor Fereldan outcast refugees, people who can’t get a leg up at all. You helped me,” Hawke paused, tracking Anders’ eyes until they met hers, “and I have helped you, and we are worth more than martyrdom for this blighted city.”
The room was very still as Hawke took Anders’ chin in her hand. He looked at her and she could tell he so desperately wanted to kiss her. The spark died.
The fuzzy, bluish tinged aura that accompanied Anders so often these days faded, softening to catch only the yellowish firelight in their bedroom. Anders eyes remained trained on Marian. Something in them dove deeply within him, something Hawke felt and fell with.
“I need to tell you something I’ve done, Marian. And I need you to never, never tell anyone. If it comes out, I need you to pretend you don’t know. I—“ Anders paused, fighting himself internally. Something won out.
“I trust you. I trust you not to throw your life away for mine.”
Hawke’s mouth contorted in frustration. Her anger and fear was not concealed as she spoke.
“Anders, what the fuck have you done?”
Anders looked deeply into Hawke, piercing her.
“I’ve set a bomb. In the chantry,” Anders looked away, back, then dedicatedly at the door, “and I was not going to tell you.”
“I can fucking tell.” Marian shot back, under her breath.
“I was scared you’d be held accountable. But you said… you said ‘martyr’. That’s true. I wanted to martyr myself. To remove the neutral option from the equation— that pompous grand cleric— and force someone’s hand. The mage’s hand, the Divine’s hand.”
Anders paused only for breath. Hawke’s mouth opened, but she shut it again.
“Mages are so oppressed here. Impossibly threatened to the point they sell themselves, like I— to the point they commit atrocities or hurt themselves. I cannot wait. It is unjust to make them wait.”
Hawke’s frustration manifested in the sheets she twisted around her hands. She wrestled internally, turning the thought over in her mouth, in her brain— and she conceded.
“I… see your point.”
Anders’ shock was visible on his face. Marian wanted to reach out and close his mouth, were she not so incredibly compromised herself.
“I understand. I am so, so disappointed you did not trust me. I am terrified for what will happen. Do you know when and how it will discharge?”
Anders was tightlipped. Marian proceeded, her eyes rolling gently.
“Ah. No details. I’ll just avoid the chantry as long as possible. And I’ll try and keep Fenris and Sebastian away, of course.”
Anders made a noise, which Hawke quickly shut down.
“I’m not saying anything to either, and there is nothing just about killing our friend, the ex-slave. And much as I dislike our prince friend sometimes, there’s no need to lose him either. I can’t imagine he’ll take Elthina well, though. I admit... I’m not taking Elthina well.”
Hawke stared at the ground. She shook her head.
“I don’t want to think about it.”
She continued.
“Anders. After everything. Why wouldn’t you trust me?”
Anders was quiet. Quiet for so long, in fact, Marian decided she would not ever receive a response. Until she did.
“I do trust you. I trust you so much, I go to war in my head every day to keep you. Some days it feels nonsensical to leave you-- others it seems idiotic to stay with you. I hurt you,” Anders voice got quiet and deeply steeped in shame as he continued, “I’m hurting you now.“
“I decide what hurts me, Anders, and what hurts me is you lying. Not you fighting for the rights of mages. You’re right. We need big change, we need a force to be reckoned with. And I need....” Hawke trailed off, sorrowful, “I need you. Alive.”
Anders finally ceded a smile, the smallest hint of his lip lifting.
“I always thought you might... I was scared. No matter how I love you, how much I thought we aligned, I always thought I would be the martyr. That you would have to kill me. Or someone else would.”
“No one will kill you tomorrow, Anders. I will ensure that.”
And a faint flicker of blood crept through Marian’s eyes, in assurance.