Chapter Text
Hawke woke up the next morning with his head resting on Anders’ chest. He panicked for a moment, realizing that he was leaning on his injuries. But when Hawke pulled away, he was met with the sight of unmarred skin.
Anders was looking down at him, awake but still looking weary.
“You’ve healed,” Hawke said as he sat up.
“My magic came back in the middle of the night. Couldn’t sleep much, so I just took off the bandages. Justice is back too, and he sure had a lot to say. Lots of yelling.”
“Not at you, I hope,” said Hawke. Hawke was on good terms with Justice now, even considered him a friend on the few occasions they talked, but he knew the spirit could be unfairly demanding sometimes.
“No, not at me,” said Anders. “He was upset by what happened. He didn’t really know what was going on, only that I had been subdued and poisoned.”
Hawke ran a hand over one pectoral, remembering all too clearly what that skin had looked like yesterday. It was kind of amazing how it was just… gone. But it was also still there in the tired look on Anders’ face. Even healing couldn’t completely wash away what had happened.
“I’d like a bath, I think,” Anders said with a forced smile. He got up quickly and headed away, followed by Hawke.
Anders pulled one of Hawke’s house robes around himself as he waited for the tub to fill. Hawke was sometimes still in awe of the advanced plumbing living in hightown afforded him.
After the tub was filled, Anders took a seat on a stool and stuck his hands in the lukewarm water, casting a heating spell.
This was all so normal, Hawke couldn’t help but think. This could have just been another lazy morning.
But it wasn’t. Why was Anders acting like it was? But what else could they do? How could they even begin to address the nightmare of the past two days?
“Join me?” Anders asked after the water was hot. Hawke nodded and undressed, and slipped into the warm water behind Anders.
Anders let out a contented sigh and slid down until only his head and the top of his shoulders weren’t submerged, leaning back against Hawke. Hawke brought his arms around his lover in an embrace, once again feeling the healed skin. Skin he knew had been cut and bleeding mere hours before.
Hawke pulled Anders even closer instinctively, stroked a hand down his arm under the water.
They stayed like that for a long time, and Hawke tried not to cry again. He had almost lost this. If those Templars hadn’t been afraid of retribution from the Champion, he would have lost this. Every day, because of who Anders was, he could lose this.
Hawke could manage to forget that sometimes, when things went right for long enough. Events like the past days shattered that illusion. This was so fragile it hurt.
Before the water got cold Hawke offered to wash Anders’ back and hair, just wanting to touch him more and feel that he was okay. As he ran the washcloth over his skin he kept imagining the blood, the damage. Hawke’s hand glided over a shoulder where a particularly nasty gash had once been.
That was over now.
Anders sat still while Hawke worked shampoo into his hair, massaging his scalp. His shoulders were relaxed at first, until Hawke accidentally caught his hand on a knot and pulled his head a bit too hard.
Hawke felt Anders flinch away and he dropped his hands immediately.
Anders hunched in on himself, took a long breath. Hawke couldn’t see his face, but his body language told enough.
“Love?” Hawke asked, wanting to reach out and touch but knowing that was a bad idea.
“S-sorry,” Anders muttered. “That just… reminded me. They, uh, pulled my hair near the beginning.”
Another new detail. Suddenly the warm bath felt stifling, the heat almost nauseating.
“Continue?” Anders asked, turning to face Hawke with a tired smile. He was trying to brush it off, and Hawke wouldn’t let him.
“Not if that could make you think of that night.”
“Please, Hawke,” Anders asked, pleaded almost. He scooted back and turned in Hawke’s lap, a hand gripping his thigh.
“I need this. I need this to be normal. Just… it felt nice, you washing my hair. I don’t want to have to change what I do because of what happened.”
Hawke considered the man in front of him, could see the stress written across his tired face. Anders was exhausted, clearly in need of the comfort and touch of another.
Hawke would never deny him that, so he nodded in agreement. But even as Hawke continued to lather the shampoo and pause to stroke his lover’s shoulders, he couldn’t help but think Anders would not get his wish. It wouldn’t be normal, and wouldn’t be for a while.
Hawke hoped to the Maker that Anders was right and that he could just let what happened to him slide off like water. Hawke hoped Hawke was wrong.
—————————
Hawke was right. Unfortunately. The next incident happened a few weeks later when Anders had long since returned to his clinic and adventuring with Hawke.
Hawke, Isabela, Anders and Fenris were walking through Hightown on the way to a meeting with a noble contact.
It had been a pleasant walk until the clattering of armor echoed through the streets. Before any of them could react, a whole group of Templars rudely shoved them all to the side as they headed out.
“Bastards!” Isabela called after them, signing something vulgar.
Hawke was about to agree with her, when he saw Anders start walking towards a nearby alley. His footsteps were weak, and before Hawke could get to him he collapsed to his knees.
“Love?” Hawke asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. He was trembling, he was breathing too fast.
“Anders,” Hawke said, sliding into his field of vision. Anders looked up at him with wide eyes, then crumbled within himself and clutched his hands to his chest.
“Fuck,” he muttered weakly. “I’m- im fine. I just… can’t seem to… to breathe right.”
Hawke waited by Anders’ side until his breathing evened out. The other two didn’t say a word, and neither did Anders all the way to the meeting.
Hawke could tell Anders was still upset when they walked home. His face was sullen, embarrassed.
The two men entered the living room and Hawke gestured for Anders to sit on the couch with him. He did, but looked even more nervous.
“You’re going to ask about what happened today,” Anders said plainly, an air of resigned finality to his voice.
“…well, yes. But I know what happened. I just need you to know that I’ll be here if you want to talk about it.”
“That obvious, then?” Anders asked sardonically. He fiddled with his hands in his lap, looking anywhere but at Hawke. “The others didn’t just think Justice was losing it even more?”
“That’s not what you look like when Justice takes over,” Hawke told him gently. “And do you really wish they had thought that?”
“It’s better than them seeing me being… being afraid of Templars!” Anders said this with an air of incredulity, a deep frustration evident.
Hawke honestly didn’t know how Anders hadn’t been afraid of Templars before. And he also knew this wasn’t normal, rational fear anyway.
“I know you’re not afraid of them,” Hawke said, placing a hand on Anders’ hands clasped together in his lap.
“But… but I was,” Anders whispered harshly. He was trying not to cry. Hawke wished he felt free to feel emotions around him, even unpleasant ones.
“I was…in that moment I was afraid. It was the sound of their armor, the feeling of it against me. I don’t even know what came over me. It was like…” Anders took a deep breath. “I was like back in the Deep Roads.”
Hawke remembered that all too well, the pure panic Anders had gone through when Bartrand slammed the doors on them and left them for dead.
Hawke knew the man didn’t handle the dark well, nor enclosed spaces. Hawke hated that he had lived in Darktown for so long, and had relished being able to move him into his spacious manor.
“It was like when you’re anxious about the dark,” Hawke told him. “That’s okay, and this is okay.”
“It is not! I need to be fighting the Templars, I can’t run from them! I can’t just stop functioning when one appears.”
Anders looked bloody miserable, his head hung low and his eyes reddening.
There was a deep coiled anger directed at himself that had the man snared.
Hawke pulled Anders against him, into his lap, and just held on. Anders went willingly, rested his head in the crook of Hawke’s neck. Small breaths ghosted against his skin, and Hawke soothed an arm up and down Anders’ back.
“It’ll be okay,” Hawke told him. “You likely won’t have this reaction forever. You know how I used to freeze on the battlefield when an ogre showed up?”
He felt Anders nod.
“I don’t anymore, but it took me some time to not just go right back to when Carver died. It’s not rational, it’s just our minds. Think of it like a wound. No one is any lesser for having a wound.”
Anders sighed. “Wounds, I can heal.”
“You’ll heal this too,” Hawke assured him. “Not as fast as you’re used to, for sure, but it will heal nonetheless. Give yourself time, love.”
It had only been two weeks. If Hawke had his way, Anders would still be staying in the manor all day and doing less dangerous things. Hawke didn’t give a damn that the physical wounds had healed, he knew no one could just brush off what happened and he had been right.
Hawke could see the toll that night had taken on Anders, even if Anders refused to admit it. Even in the next few weeks he was jumpier than normal, stayed even farther away from Templars.
As Hawke had said before, he no longer took Anders to meetings with Meredith. Hawke’s temper became even shorter with the woman, he could barely see her self-righteous face without wondering if she knew about what happened to Anders and if she approved.
Unfortunately, that last question was answered in one such meeting.
Hawke had taken Fenris, Varric, and Isabela with him. This was usually who he brought because Aveline was always busy and Merrill was too at risk. At risk of what, Hawke didn’t quite know, but that night had shaken the confidence he had in the protection his own status awarded his companions.
Meredith gave Hawke a thinly veiled order to investigate some more runaway mages suspected of blood magic, and Hawke accepted.
“And even if they are not blood mages,” Meredith finished with, “they are still apostates and you will bring them back this time.”
Hawke had a bit of a habit of only bringing to justice mages who were hurting people, often with blood magic. Meredith needed Hawke to appear on her side so the nobles didn’t get any funny ideas about how much Hawke despised her.
“What’s it to you, then?” Hawke asked, feeling his worsening temper getting the best of him. “You don’t send me out to actually catch these people, you do it to show you have me under your thumb.”
“And it may cease to work,” Meredith sneered, “with how you flaunt the company you keep. You ought to really keep them in check. You know well that their protection only extends to their lives.”
Hawke saw red. He stood up from his chair and slammed his hands on Meredith’s desk, startling his companions but not the woman herself.
“You knew!” Hawke accused her.
“After the fact, but yes,” Meredith said with a raised eyebrow.
“Keep your pet on a leash or we will have to muzzle him for you again.”
Hawke raised a fist but was dragged away by Fenris and Isabela. Meredith only smiled.
“Your other friends are wiser. Heed my words Hawke, you bring me those apostates or I won’t stop my men from making a repeat performance. They are very creative, as you saw.”
Hawke’s head was filled with pure rage all the way back to his mansion. He should have known she would approve. Meredith knew if the Templars killed Hawke’s lover that he would refuse to cooperate, but also knew that concern for Anders’ safety would also force that cooperation. Anders was a pawn in her game to control the city, and now she had been handed a way to keep Hawke in check without risking blowing the whole agreement away.
Beaten, tortured, but still alive. Hurt, but still there to threaten to hurt worse. Best of both worlds for their sick minds.
————————
Hawke couldn’t stand the sight of Templars. He had hated them before, but now “hate” was too soft a word.
“Worry” was also too soft a word for how he felt about Anders these days. Meredith’s threats still rang in his ears, and Anders still did missions for the underground.
He still helped even as his breath hitched at the sight of Templars. He was fine now, he insisted. The situation for mages was only growing more dire, he could not abandon his cause.
And lately Anders wasn’t even telling him when he went on these missions. One day Hawke had begged him to stop, told him of Meredith’s words. Anders had only responded that Hawke should stay away then, so Meredith didn’t see his involvement.
“I won’t get caught again,” Anders told Hawke. Hawke found that hard to believe, and every night Anders returned late his heart pounded with worry.
It was even more concerning, then, that one day Anders did ask for his help.
He told Hawke of one Templar’s plan to turn every mage tranquil, and proof was needed to convince anyone in power to stop it before it was already over.
“Why are you asking me for help now?” Hawke couldn’t help but ask.
Anders looked guilty, knowing how much Hawke had wanted to help in the past.
“This is too important for me to mess up, I need backup for this. We’ll need to use the tunnels to access the lowest level of the Gallows, which is where they often keep documents.”
Hawke agreed to help, even roped Isabela and Varric into the plan. If Anders was going on this dangerous mission, Hawke would bring more than just himself for protection. He also knew that if Anders got in trouble, he would move the earth to make sure he wasn’t left alone with the Templars again.
———————————
The mission was… not exactly a success. Justice had completely lost control, almost killing a young girl.
When Anders returned to himself, he ran before Hawke could say anything.
Hawke was slightly too late to respond, and lost track of Anders in the tunnels. The other man knew them better than Hawke.
Isabela and Varric offered to stay behind and look for any proof, which Hawke barely had time to be grateful for because all he could think about was finding Anders.
He went to the clinic first, then the mansion. Not there. Hawke’s heart was racing, he was wracking his mind for locations Anders might find refuge.
Eventually he gave up, his head pounding with worry and his knees about to give out. He had no idea where Anders was. He could be anywhere, anyone could have caught him, the Templars could have caught him and-
The door to the cellar creaked slightly. Hawke bolted to the kitchen, and standing there was Anders.
The man looked listless, lifeless almost but Hawke barely noticed because he was too busy throwing his arms around the man.
Hawke buried his face in the crook of Anders neck and clung tighter, eliciting no reaction. Anders wasn’t even hugging back, just standing there.
“Thank the fucking Maker,” Hawke breathed out. After a few more moments he stepped back, keeping his hands loosely on Anders’ arms. Anders was just staring at him, pale.
“I…” he croaked out, “I only came back to get my pillow. I’m - I’m leaving.”
“What?” Hawke asked, truly dumbfounded.
“I c-can’t stay here Hawke,” Anders told him, a slight tremble in his voice. Otherwise he sounded blank, tranquil almost. Hawke shivered, trying not to think on that too much.
“I almost killed that girl. I’m a monster, and I need to leave where I can’t hurt anybody else.”
The words sounded rehearsed, like he had told himself this a million times.
“You’re not a monster, Anders,” Hawke told him. “You came back in the end, the girl is fine and thanks to you she is free!”
“Only because of you,” said Anders, still shaking but lacking any inflection. His eyes were blotchy like he had been crying, but that was over now and all that was left was emptiness.
“Come here,” Hawke said as he led Anders away gently. The man followed listlessly.
Hawke sat them both down on a couch in the living room, then reached up to brush a strand of hair from Anders’ face. He cupped his cheek, and gave the man a warm smile.
Anders just stared, then looked away.
“I still need to leave,” he said quietly. “You can’t make me stay… you wouldn’t.”
Hawke’s heart sank. “You’re right, I would never make you do anything. But please don’t go.”
It was all Hawke could think to say. Anders was silent for a long while, and the only noise in the room was the crackling of the fireplace. The light danced over Anders’ skin, caught his blonde hair. Even in his misery he looked ethereal.
“You’re spiraling,” Hawke told him gently. “You do this sometimes, remember? It won’t be as bad tomorrow.”
“It will,” replied Anders. “I still will have lost control of Justice. I thought I could keep him at bay, but… he couldn’t stand seeing Alrik again. I could barely- I thought I could handle s-seeing Alrik again…”
Anders was trembling harder, trying to fight back his emotions. Trying to fight back the very reaction Hawke had seen too many times since that night.
Hawke’s stomach dropped, and a chill went throughout his entire body.
“You-“ Hawke started, then had to stop. “You said you just had a “run in” with Alrik.”
This couldn’t be. Hawke hadn’t just walked Anders into a fight with-
Anders would have told him that-
Anders shook his head. “I didn’t want you to worry,” he said numbly. “The mission was too important, I had to try. I thought I could handle it.”
Hawke reached forward and pulled Anders into his arms, resting the man’s head on his shoulder and taking a deep breath.
It had been him. That man in the tunnels had tortured Anders. Hawke had come face to face with the man responsible and he hadn’t even known it.
At least he had the image of Justice ripping the man’s head from his body. At least Alrik died a gruesome death for what he did. For what he did to a lot of mages, it turned out.
“Let’s go to bed,” Hawke said. “You and I both need sleep.”
“I have to leave,” Anders said again, as numb as the first time.
“No you don’t. Not tonight. Tomorrow you can decide, but… please just stay for tonight.”
Anders nodded into Hawke’s shoulder. Hawke breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t even want to entertain the idea that he could not convince Anders to stay.
Even if Anders left, he would go with him. With Carver dead, his mother dead, Bethany with the Gray Wardens… Kirkwall wasn’t his home so much as Anders was his home.
Hawke helped Anders undress and gently guided him to bed. He was in bad shape, even if physically fine.
Hawke wished Anders would have told him who Alrik was, it hurt that Anders didn’t. But wasn’t he right? Hawke would have worried.
Hawke had trouble sleeping that night, but Anders slept almost instantly. He was draped over Hawke’s chest, breathing deeply. This was more sound than Hawke had seen Anders sleep in a long time, and it must be because of how the day had drained him.
Would Hawke really be leaving tomorrow, or would he be able to convince Anders to stay? Another reason he wasn’t sleeping was the fear that he would wake and Anders would just be gone.
But despite that fear, the events of the day got to Hawke too and he drifted to sleep.
——————————
Anders wasn’t in the bed when Hawke woke up, and so Hawke started the day in a blind panic. He scrambled to put his clothes on, ran down the stairs.
Anders was standing in the hallway, wearing one of Hawke’s robes. Thank the Maker, he wasn’t dressed to leave.
“Anders,” Hawke said. “You scared me.”
“Oh,” Anders replied as his face fell. “I’m sorry… I wasn’t really thinking. I’m, um, I’m not going to leave.”
A huge weight lifted itself off of Hawke’s heart.
“Good,” Hawke said earnestly. “If you did leave you know I’d follow.”
“I do know, now that I’m thinking straight.”
It was good he knew last night he hadn’t been in his right mind. He had been confronted by his tormentor and lost control.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Alrik. I know now that was a terrible idea.”
“It’s okay,” Hawke said, taking Anders’ hand in his. “I know why you didn’t tell me. I get what you were thinking.”
There was a small silence before Anders spoke.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do now, now that I can’t control Justice. I don’t know if I can even go out to help you. I’m a liability now.”
“Last night wasn’t normal. It’s not every day that you’ll see someone who… someone who would provoke that kind of reaction.”
“I hope you’re right,” Anders sighed. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for trying to lock you out. Clearly that wasn’t a good idea.”
Hawke waited for Anders to continue, knowing the man wanted to say more.
“And I’m sorry to… well, myself and you that I keep refusing to admit… to admit…”
Anders took a deep breath. His next words were spoken with a thick voice.
“To admit that I’m not okay. That I haven’t been okay since that night. That I’m still healing.”
Hawke could almost cry tears of joy at those words. Sure Hawke could tell the man this every day, but that didn’t mean as much as him saying it himself.
“Take all the time that you need,” Hawke told him.
“….I wish it didn’t hurt like this. I wish I could just get over it. I wish I could just get over every fucked up thing that’s ever happened to me.” Tears slid down his cheeks as he spoke, but he didn’t seem like he was caving in with the effort of being okay. He looked freer than he had been in months.
“Pushing it down won’t do any good,” he continued. “I think Justice made me realize that. I’m not going to be able to control him until I admit I’m struggling.”
Hawke wrapped his arms around Anders and gave him a gentle squeeze.
“I’ll always be here to help you,” Hawke said. “You don’t have to be okay.”
“Thank you, love.”
Anders lowered his head to Hawke’s shoulder to cry, but they were tears of release. Tears that healed.
Hawke held Anders while he cried, rocked them slowly back and forth while Anders let out the pain of the paths months.
After a while Anders looked up at Hawke and smiled. Tears still glistened in his eyes, but he looked hopeful.
Hawke felt lighter, knowing that the real healing could finally begin.