[Open]

[apurrstate]

Who: Anders and Open
Broadcast: Yes (Day after action)
Action: Malum
When: The action takes place a day or so after this happens and the broadcast takes place the next morning

Action
[It hadn't been his first thought to go to the bar. Not even fourth or fifth, but it had popped up eventually. When everything became too much all at once. His clinic was too quiet despite not changing, he was too vulnerable despite not being in any danger. Everything had changed and he hadn't even considered how much until Justice was gone.

Anders went to the only place he could think to go. True, the Space Bar might be a better environment for noise, but Fenris was exactly the last person he wanted to accidentally run into tonight, so Crowley's bar it was. The sound of other people was helpful, at least. And the first drink he basically inhaled helped more. It made it easier to ignore how that persistent hum at the back of his mind was gone, how there wasn't a flux and flow of emotions not quite his own always licking at the edges of his thoughts, how there was only one set of feelings and opinions about everything now left in his head. He'd foolishly tested, half hoping to feel the burst of righteous anger and power as his thoughts drifted to blood magic and the plight of mages and every damn other thing he'd spent the last ten years fighting for.

Suddenly...it was like it had been someone else's problem. Someone else's fight. Like before.

He didn't like it.

He ordered another drink.]

Something strong this time. If it burns my taste-buds into ash, even better.

Voice
[There's a side-effect to drinking. One he hadn't had to deal with in roughly a decade. But, oh, was he dealing with it now. And every time he tried to send a pulse of healing magic into his own head, the hangover he was nursing would just pulse brighter and pang harder and make him think maybe a broodmother would be a blessing right now. It could kill him viciously and in some disgusting way and it would be far kinder than what his head was doing to him.

Perhaps Justice had been doing him a kindness all those years after all. Maker have mercy.

He turned on the broadcast, clumsily hitting video and then voice so a flicker of his disheveled and pathetic appearance can be seen to those who happen to be looking at the time, but then it's gone again and replaced with his voice. Which wasn't really in any better shape.]

Does anyone have any...faster ways with dealing with hangovers? I'd normally take care of it myself but...well, I can't. And thinking isn't too easy right now, so any help would be appreciated. Smartass comments are not, however. Thanks.

Comments

[apurrstate]

The Taint, it's gone.

[He looked away, eyes staring off at nothing while he worked together the explanation he knew Hawke would need. It almost was too good to be true, Anders couldn't blame him for a second for being hesitant about the whole thing.]

I could feel it right after Allen pulled out the sword, I felt cleaner, lighter like I'd been sick for a long time and suddenly got better.

Riona confirmed it with me, she can't sense any darkspawn blood in my system anymore.

[His eyes went back to Adalwolfe with a small smile.]

[wolfehawke]

[For a moment, Anders' words don't have meaning. Adalwolfe can't even comprehend what the other mage is saying. The Taint is gone? That shouldn't be possible. And yet.

His mind goes back to their private conversation in the Vimmarks. He'd pulled Anders aside, after he'd found out about the Calling. After he'd also found out about Malcolm's blood magic, about just how many lies his life had been built on and wrestled with what had really changed.

He'd held Anders close, kissed him deeply, and clung for dear life despite knowing even that that Anders had always expected to die.

"It's all I've known," Anders said. "The Wardens or the Templars will have me eventually, love. I've no illusions about that."

And now Hawke looked at him, really looked at him, and Anders flinched at what he saw there; the grief, the anger. In a low voice, shaking with some odd sort of rage, Hawke snarled, "No. No."

"Hawke," Anders said, carefully.

Hawke shook his head; his teeth were bared. He strode away from Anders, his hands going to his hair. "No," he hissed. "I am done giving things up to the fucking Chantry. I am done hating myself for my magic. I'm - they took my childhood, they took safety, they had my father so fucking desperate he turned to blood magic just to make a family - no. They will not have you. And I don't care if I have to butcher half a hundred Alriks with my bare hands to make that happen. Never!"*

He'd never yelled at Anders before then, never snarled but that, that had broken through his careful composure, the tendency to always deflect, to worry about other people's problems and not his own. That had nailed into his heart and stayed there, a constant pain and worry. No matter what he did, no matter how many times he saved Anders from the Templars, no matter if he moved heaven and earth, the Fade and the Void, Anders still had a time limit.

He had nightmares. The ones he would never talk about, the ones that left him shaking and unable to go back to sleep. The reason why he had the highest score on that stupid unicorn game. He had nightmares of Anders curled up in their bed, hands over his ears to blot out the sounds that only he could hear. Of waking up to find his love had gone, vanished into the Deep Roads. Or worse, Anders dragged there by a horde of darkspawn, fighting tooth and nail until the horde takes him and he vanishes in a sea of spiked armor and misshapen flesh. And there's nothing Hawke can do.

All of that... now gone.

He stares at Anders until his eyes sting and his vision goes cloudy, until he can't swallow the lump in his throat and his breath comes out as a silent keen, buried suddenly in his lover's neck for once not out of passion but to hide his face.

He holds Anders so tightly he's certain it will likely bruise, but he can't bring himself to let go.]


((*Memory passage taken from here and is not my own writing.))

[apurrstate]

[Relief he expected, maybe even a lack of anything like Anders had had, unable to even properly process the idea immediately. Instead, it seemed Hawke had processed it just fine, this wasn't just normal relief, this was an aching release of pent up...fear? Pain? They didn't talk about the Taint if they could help, certainly not after Hawke learned the true nature of it through Larius. He remembered their conversation afterwards and how desperately angry and scared and sad Hawke had been. Anders had never seen him that way before or since.

The sound Adalwolfe made broke his heart and put a tightness in his throat that he knew would result in nothing. He just wrapped his arms tight around his love in return, his hands stroking at Hawke's back, shoulders, arms, anything that happened to be under his touch.

There was nothing else to say that couldn't wait until the other mage was calmer, so Anders simply waited and held Adalwolfe close.]

[wolfehawke]

[He doesn't cry. That is, he doesn't weep. There are no wails, no hitched breaths and heavy sobbing. Just a few tears that leak out to signify the catharsis this simple yet monumental news brings to him. Yet still it's a long time before he's able to speak with any confidence, to explain just why it is that such happy news brings on this sort of reaction.]

I thought I was going to lose you.

[He swallows, licks his lips, tries again.]

Not immediately, but someday. There was nothing we could do. I don't know if you can understand just how terrified I was to leave you alone when we got Varric's letter, even knowing that Calling was false. I'd--

[He has to pause and take in a breath, look at the ceiling for a moment to remaster himself.]

After our time in the Vimmarks, I tried to make good on my oath, you know I did. The Templars, the Chantry, they would never have you, but the Wardens? Their curse? That wasn't a thing we could fight. All those times I dreamed of waking up to a cold bed, of watching you disappear into the dark alone...

[He laughs helplessly, looking at Anders directly for the first time since he'd reacted to the news. There's still a wetness around his eyes, but it gets lost in the crows feet that crinkle at the edges, Wolfe smiling so hard his face might ache.]

All I've ever wanted was for you to be safe, and now... here we are.

[apurrstate]

[The crushing relief from Hawke broke Anders' heart and swirled his emotions together too tightly to pull them apart. All this time and this had been what terrified Hawke? Something Anders had long accepted as a price to his freedom and then an eventuality when that freedom had still been threatened. He'd been so caught up in his own thoughts and fears, it had never crossed his mind.

He'd caught a glimpse of it all those years ago when they'd talked, the pure freezing rage that had overtaken his usually so calm and diplomatic lover. Anders had simply thought it had gone from Hawke's mind with time and everything else that had happened.

And what was worse was that he couldn't even promise those fears had been unfounded. He knew himself to know he might just have left in the dead of night thinking he was sparring the man he loved the heartbreak of letting Anders go himself. Anders had never wanted to go into the Deep Roads when the time came, he hated it there and the thought of not seeing the sky when he died, of only seeing stone no less confining and capturing as the stone of the tower, scared him. But turning into Larius, a ghoul barely scraping sanity together as blight blinded him to the world...he couldn't imagine doing that to Hawke or himself either.

Anders' arms renew their tight hold around Adalwolfe and he buries his face into Hawke's shoulder.]

I'm so sorry, my love. I'm sorry you feared that so intensely. I'm sorry I couldn't put those fears to rest before now.

[He pulled back again and pressed kisses to Hawke's face until he finally covered those lips.]

We're safe now, together, because we protect each other.

[He knew how desperately Hawke had protected him from Templars and the Chantry, especially over the last few years when status and titles carried less weight than a feather, but all he wanted to do now was protect this perfect man himself. Better than he'd done the last few years when he'd healed his body and mind, he needed to protect Hawke from ever feeling that kind of fear again.]

[wolfehawke]

[He lets Anders pepper him with kisses and soft words, with sweet things he's longed to feel and hear even when he'd know them to just be the sorts of things to say when nothing will solve the problem, when all there is to do is pretend.

It still feels like that, a little. He knows that there's no Calling now to pull them apart, no Vengeance corrupted from the strength and truth of Anders' convictions to force him into detrimental decisions no matter how necessary. No expectations laid upon Wolfe to fix everything, no matter how much those were in his head to begin with. He knows all that is gone, but he still can feel it. That burn of anxiety underlying everything, pressing him forward ever forward.

He knows, but he doesn't know because nothing is ever this simple. Nothing is a happy accident that lets them live in peace and safety for the rest of their lives. No matter how much he wants that to be the truth, nothing has ever shown him that the world would be so kind. So Adalwolfe just lets Anders bury him in kisses, lets a tear more leak out, and lets those words settle in his chest with a weight he's never allowed himself to before, but all with the knowledge that something will certainly threaten it again because that's simply part of being alive.

But it doesn't mean he's going to give this up. Not for anything.

When he kisses back, it's more than just with love. It's with conviction.]

[apurrstate]

[Anders lingers in the kiss, letting the weight of their lips leave imprints in each other so the sensation won't easily fade when they part. A hand comes up to cup the side of Hawke's neck, Anders' thumb brushing gently against the line of his lover's jaw. When he finally pulls away, it isn't far, leaving their foreheads to touch instead of their lips.]

I know what you're thinking, I can hear it as loud as my own thoughts. You're waiting for the catch, for something to go wrong after all of this because when does anything good ever happen to us for long? I understand.

I can't tell you what it will be or when it will come, but I can promise we'll get through it as we have anything else.

[Really, how could they not? They got through Anders nearly killing a little girl and Hawke losing his mother, they got through the Arishok and Meredith and the Chantry, they'd made it this far on the run and even made a small life for themselves in Orlais. Yes, the Inquisition and Corypheus had cocked it all up again, but despite all odds, including the ones he'd put on himself, Hawke had made it out of the Fade and safely away. Safe enough for Anders to go and find him again. No matter how dire, they'd come out the other side alive and together and how could Anders ask for anything else?]

[wolfehawke]

Yes.

[That simple answer given, Adalwolfe swallows on its heels, mouth dry at the sinking feeling in his stomach over not being able to hide that thought from Anders. The last thing he wants to do is undermine what should be happy news with his wariness.]

Doesn't it bother you? Feeling like it won't last? That this peace is just a calm before some storm we can't see yet? I hate to think that but I can't shake the feeling the floor's about to drop out; it's how we've always had to live and I didn't realize until coming here just how exhausting it is.

[apurrstate]

It does...but in the same way I know life doesn't last. I could die tomorrow without knowing it's coming or being able to do anything about it. But I'm not going to cower here and hope nothing happens.

We can't put our lives on hold simply because it might start getting hard again. We'll spoil the good things we have that way.

[Good things came so seldom in the Circle, they had to be treasured when they were presented. Wiggums rubbing up against his legs, that cute girl in braids smiling at him two weeks after he got there, soft, slow, kisses with the rough scrape of Karl's beard on his face the only confirmation they even existed in that blind moment. And then they were all gone, taken for one reason or another.

Hawke was his good thing, had been his good thing for so many long years. Anders clung so tightly to him because surely his luck would run out sooner rather than later and something would happen to make him lose this brilliant man. But he wasn't about to cling so tight he choked Adalwolfe either, he had to take what joy he could while he could.]

[wolfehawke]

I've just... I've lost so many people, Anders.

[He's tired. He's so tried of thinking like that, that people will go. Die. He has one sibling left out of his entire immediately family. He'd watched each of them fall to one thing or another, unable to stop it. He'd had to cut down Fenris himself, had to leave Aveline behind, leave Carver. When Varric and Merrill had gone that was the hardest of partings, leaving Adalwolfe sullen for days, trying vainly to cover his sense of emptiness with sorry jokes that were poor armor against Anders who'd worn them all years ago.

But they were his family. His friends. He hadn't had proper friends before Aveline, not for fear of their apostasy being found out. But she knew and she deemed him a good man anyway and that's not gone. He knows that, but it's so far away now. She can't associate with him openly anymore, not do that and keep her station, and he can't begrudge her that. Everyone else too. He's a marked man. He's too dangerous to keep anyone by his side for long anymore. Anyone but Anders, marked with the same brush.

The hard thing is he would do it all again, exactly the same, because it's what was necessary. But the thought of losing Anders too, the one person he has left by his side who still might vanish back to their world without this gift, or without him entirely. That thought kills him, and in the quiet of morning, naked and entangled with his love from the night before, he can't hide just how exhausted the thought of having to protect himself makes him feel. He can't keep doing it, but he doesn't know what else to do with so much uncertainty.]

He runs his thumb against Anders' cheek, watching its path instead of his love's eyes.]

I want to believe this...

[apurrstate]

I know, love. You don't know how much I wish I could change that for you.

[If it meant never having Hawke for himself or even in his life, Anders would take the opportunity to go back in time and heal Malcolm Hawke's illness, distract the Ogre long enough to spare Bethany, stop Leandra from going out that day...anything and everything to spare the Hawke family and the man he loved so desperately all of that pain.

The blight would have come, they would have fled and Kirkwall would be their new home. With Malcolm there, they would surely be protected from prying eyes and perhaps the red lyrium would never see the surface without Anders' damn maps. At the end of the day, Adalwolfe's life would be better for it and Anders could still do what was needed, if it was still needed in the end.

Karl would still be alive. And Fenris. And Hawke wouldn't keep himself up with fear of losing everyone around him all because he'd lived it already.

Maker, if only.

But he couldn't. In this, he was useless.

Anders shifted and crawled on top of Hawke to straddle his hips and press their chests together. Long arms curled behind broad shoulders and Wolfe's head to cradle him to Anders.]

I know it's a tall order, but believe me instead, my dearest.

We have each other.

[wolfehawke]

Alright.

[He surrenders, pressing his nose into Anders' shoulder and curling his arms around to meet at the small of his love's back. Skin on skin and nothing so much sexual as intimate. There's the scrape of Anders' stubble against his temple, the soft rise and fall of their discordant breathing, the general creaks of older bodies in comfortable positions. Normalicy. He doesn't trust it, but he wants to, and he decides to try.]

You win.

[There's a soft laugh playing behind his voice, a helpless expression of surrender that he's happy to take. He feels all the lighter for it.]