Chapter Text
They had been back in Kirkwall for all of a week before Anders managed to work up the nerve to go see Hawke.
At first, he told himself he was staying away to give Hawke time – time to settle in, to catch up with his family. Time for Hawke to settle whatever lingering tension or animosity had followed their spat in the Deep Roads, maybe even time for Hawke to miss him. He hadn’t anticipated that it would take very long. For the first few days, in fact, Anders had greeted each new arrival to the clinic with anticipation, expecting that at any moment he might look up and find the doors filled with the other mage’s broad shoulders. The third day, he told him himself Hawke was the one giving Anders the time to settle in. The clinic had been unmanned for weeks, but illness and injury did not take a holiday. There was more than enough to do.
By the fifth day, Anders began to wonder if he was the one being phased out. His words to Fenris after leaving the Deep Roads seemed to taunt and mock him now. He wondered at his blind assumption that Hawke would still have a use for him, would still want him around. Before, Hawke had needed him because he had been a warden. Anders had had maps, he could sense darkspawn, and his healing abilities far surpassed everything Hawke was capable of. Anders had been useful.
All of that was over now – and Hawke hadn’t exactly been pleased with him in those final days.
Anders felt sure that Leo, the sensitive farm boy, would have come to see him now. Leo saw his worth beyond his uses. Leo was his friend. Perhaps, one day, Leo could be more. But Hawke, Hawke the hard, Hawke the humorless, Hawke the asshole – Hawke, however…
In the end, necessity outweighed his pride.
By the end of the first week after their return to the surface, Anders’s share of the earnings from the Deep Road was gone – flittered away between the clinic and the beginnings of the Mage Underground. Anders had no reason to think that Hawke would continue to do his particular work around the city, now that he was titled, but the money from those jobs had helped keep Anders alive over the past year, and he couldn’t deny the need for a steady income. He couldn’t go back to relying on donations alone.
Besides – If Leopold Fucking Hawke wanted Anders out of his life, he could say it to his face.
Anders vacillated between moods as he made his way up to Lowtown. Defiance and insecurity and fear and want. Hunger gnawed at his belly, and for a moment he distracted himself trying to remember when he’d eaten. He’d yet to gain back the weight he’d lost underground. It hadn’t seemed important – not in comparison with other the other places his money could be of use. Hawke would probably tell him he needed to have planned better. If Hawke spoke to him at all.
It was an overly warm day, and the smoke from the foundry was thick, blotting the sun and making the air difficult to breathe. Street corner whores and urchins both seemed lethargic and grey and dull. The Hanged Man was quiet as he passed. The city guards slouched at their posts.
Compared to the sluggish lassitude that seemed to have overtaken the district, the noise that came from Gamlen’s house was downright startling – the sound of hammering, of construction. When Anders knocked, there was no answer at the door, and it was firmly locked. He went instead around to the side of the little house, where a once-broken but seemingly recently repaired gate led into a scrap of what might have once intended to be a garden, but was now a square of brown dirt. Anders could see where sections of the fence had been patched, the back shudders painted and repaired. Someone had put in stakes and a garden border, and the dirt was disturbed and damp, as if something had been planted. Even the little well Gamlen shared with his neighbors seemed to have seen some improvements made to it in the form of a new cover and more stable structure.
A ladder led up to the roof, as if the sound of hammering were not enough of a clue as to Hawke’s whereabouts. Anders steeled himself, and then he climbed.
The ladder scraped against the roof as he climbed, and when Hawke paused in his work, he must have heard him. Breaching the edge of the roof, Anders watched the other mage as he sat back on his heels, wiping a forearm across his sweaty brow. His hair was damp with perspiration, sticking up in odd directions, and the sleeveless undershirt he wore clung to his body. His skin was flush from exertion. His discarded green flannel hung off an edge of the crooked chimney. Anders could see now the boxes of nails and fresh roof tiles. As Hawke pulled up old or damaged tiles, he seemed to be tossing them onto a tarp to be dragged down later. Anders clung to the ladder, and tried not to forget himself under the heat, the overwhelming wave of feelings Hawke stirred up in him. He tried to decide if he wanted to climb further, or flee while he still had the chance.
“That was fast,” Hawke said, glancing back. “You must have had luck.”
Anders saw the pause when the other man realized he wasn’t whoever it was he thought he’d been talking to, but he didn’t see any other change in expression. Hawke looked stern, like he always did. His beard was a little shaggier than usual, less well kept. His voice had held that familiar edge, as if something was bothering him.
“Anders,” he said.
“That’s what it says in my underwear.”
The joke didn’t bring even the slightest hint of a smile. Hawke said, “I thought you were Fenris.”
“Afraid not.” Anders worked to clamp down on the green taste of jealousy. He thought of the changes he’d seen in the yard, the work already completed on the roof. Hawke’s hand on the hammer had bruised and scabbed knuckles. “You’ve – been hard at work I see.”
Hawke grunted and turned back to his task, prying up old rotting roof tiles with the edge of the hammer. “Just seeing to a few things before mother and I leave,” he said, in that hard voice, the one that meant there was more going on than just that and Hawke was not happy.
“You – gardened?”
“Merrill thought I should thank Gamlen with some begonias.”
“And fixed the fence.”
“Aveline thought we should make the place more secure.”
“ – and Fenris is helping with the roof.” Anders wondered if Varric and Isabela had been by as well, and what they might have contributed. Booze and running commentary, maybe. Had Hawke worked inside the house, as well? He watched Hawke tugging on a particularly stubborn piece of roof – watched the muscle that worked in his jaw, and the set to his shoulders, watched his jerky, impatient movements. “What’s wrong?” Anders asked.
The question seemed to surprise Hawke. He glanced at him again, and after a moment settled back on his backside, examining, then tossing away the wooden tile. He wiped sweat from his brow once again. His chest heaved with each breath.
“You want to know – what’s wrong?”
“Well, you don’t have to sound so surprised. Clearly you’re not up here celebrating.”
Hawke grimaced, his jaw still set. He said, “Get off the ladder. Up or down, make your decision.”
“Do you – mind the company?” Anders asked. “I’m not Fenris.” He couldn’t help the bitter addition, though it earned him a look of exasperation.
“Don’t be an ass.”
Anders expected Hawke, annoyed, to return to his work. Instead, the big man merely watched him. Anders chewed his lip for a second, and then he made his decision. Unsteadily, Anders climbed the rest of the way up onto the roof.
Hawke planted the box of nails in his hands with a gruff, “Make yourself useful,” and got back to work.
They were silent for a time. Hawke pulled up rotting tiles, and replaced them with new ones. Anders handed him the nails. Even through the foundry haze on the horizon, there was no escape from the sun’s oppressive heat. Anders could feel his skin beginning to cook. The back of Hawke’s neck was red.
“You know, this would go a lot faster if you used magic,” Anders suggested once, only to be ignored.
Hawke seemed disappointed when the job was done, his stash of new tiles depleted, his nails almost gone. He tossed the tarp of old tiles to the ground with a restrained kind of violence, and swung down, descending the ladder. Anders followed when Hawke stalked across the yard to pull up a bucket from Gamlen’s little well, and watched in silence as he threw the water over his head. Hawke shook it off like a dog, and offered Anders the bucked, already looking around the yard as if impatient for something else to do.
“Hawke,” Anders said.
Hawke said, tightly, “Not now.”
“Hold your applause; the cavalry has arrived.”
Anders jerked at the sound of Varric’s voice, and pulled his eyes from Hawke in time to watch the dwarf let himself into the yard, followed by Isabela and Fenris. Fenris carried a cask of ale, Isabela a basket of food. Varric seemed only to be bearing himself.
“Came back with a bit more than I expected,” Hawke said, a little strained.
Fenris answered, “I tried to lose them. I regret to inform you I failed.”
“That was nasty of you anyway,” Isabela said.
Varric moved ahead of the others to open the back door, holding it for them. “It’s time for you to take a break, anyway. On my insistence. Daisy went to fetch Aveline, and you already collected Blondie, somehow. It’s time for a nice, hearty lunch.”
“I don’t have time for lunch,” Hawke ground out.
Varric made a sweeping gesture. “Hawke,” he said. “Clearly none of this is working. Stop being an ass. Take it from me: it’s time to get drunk.”
--
It was too loud, all of them crammed into Gamlen’s small kitchen, and a part of Hawke had to wonder when this sort of thing had become normal – or, at least, not so very surprising. He couldn’t recall another time when it had been so damned difficult just to get a little time to himself. Used to be, people were happy to leave him to his own devices.
Merrill had produced a table cloth from somewhere, and insisted on a jar of weeds as a centerpiece. Aveline found glasses and plates for them all, even if the set was chipped and stained. It was too loud, and too cramped, and Hawke’s hands didn’t want to be still. He was worried about what they might get up to, if he didn’t get them back to work.
“It’s that little son of a bitch, Junior,” Hawke could hear Varric explaining to the bewildered Anders, though to his credit the dwarf was making an effort to keep his voice down. Fenris helped serve up the food – bread and cheese and cold ham from the Hanged Man – while Aveline poured the ale. Hawke tried to tune out Varric’s words, but he knew what they would be. Carver joined the templars.
“It looks like the flowers are going to grow in beautifully!” Merrill declared, as she came back in from checking them. The repairs had started because Hawke had punched a hole in Gamlen’s wall. They had continued because he would rather punch a hole in Carver’s face. Templar. Carver joined the templars. The repairs, once started, were difficult to stop. He’d fixed the creaky floor in the main room, and the missing rung on the bunk beds. He’d repainted Gamlen’s bedroom, and replaced the windows. He’d insulated the entire attic. Hawke had been working like a madman, afraid of what would happen if he wasn’t busy, if he had time to think, if his hands were still for too long. Most of the week of a blur of work and fury. He couldn’t remember which of his friends had started helping him first. Aveline or Varric. Fenris had spent a lot of time helping him. He knew it seemed he couldn’t turn a corner without finding the elf there, waiting to assist. Their shared silence suited him just fine.
“That’s just what Gamlen needs, some Blighted flowers,” Hawke complained, but Merrill didn’t lose her smile.
“We’ll just have to make sure he knows how to water them,” she said, brightly. “It’ll be a nice spot of color. Lowtown needs more pretty things in it, don’t you think?”
“Think of the garden parties he’ll host,” Fenris said, with dry amusement. “His debtors will undoubtedly be impressed, before they break his kneecaps.”
“You know,” Varric said, “No one ever sends flowers to debt collectors.”
“Oh, they should!” Merrill decided.
Anders took the chair beside Hawke before anyone else could. Hawke avoided his eyes, avoided the reality of the sympathy he would see there. He wasn’t ready for sympathy. He wanted to be angry a little longer.
“Now that’s enough of the attitude, Hawke,” Aveline said, as if she knew what he was thinking. The room grew suddenly, unbearably silent. Aveline didn’t appear to notice. She put an ale in front of him with enough force that some sloshed over the side of the glass, and forced his hand emphatically around the handle. “You’re going to drink this, Leopold Hawke, and you’re going to get roaringly drunk. You’re going to wake up in the morning with the worst headache of your life, and if you still want to fight someone then, you’ll fight me.”
In the sudden quiet, Hawke found himself looking around the kitchen. He half expected the others to start volunteering themselves, as well, though Merrill only giggled. Varric propped his feet up on the table, and lifted his brows significantly. Fenris snickered into his drink.
“Is that an order?” Hawke asked at last.
Aveline said, “You’re damned right it is.”