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Anders was staring at his cards as if his magic could somehow transform them into a good hand. Sadly, he wasn’t that lucky.“Well, Blondie, looks like you’re the one tugging him to sleep tonight.”
He groaned. Escorting his too-drunk-to-even-stand friend through Kirkwall was not how he had expected to spend the night - not that he had any actual plan.
“Can’t we just get him a room upstairs?” he complained. “It would be much easier.”
“You know how his mother gets. If he doesn’t come home, she’ll think he got himself killed or some shit.”
He groaned again. “Fine!”
Anders rose from his seat and woke up his friend with a gentle tap on the shoulder. He cast a small rejuvenation spell so that the man could at least walk, and helped him get on his feet. Hawke blinked at him like he had no idea where he was, which was probably not far from the truth.
They walked in silence out of the Hanged Man and through the city streets. They had barely walked ten feet through Lowtown when a band of thugs attacked them. This was why Anders didn’t want to be the one escorting him tonight. Drunk Hawke’s idea of “helping” was to cast spells randomly, hoping they would hit someone along the way. And half the time they would hit Anders. If he had still lived with his uncle in Lowtown, Anders wouldn’t have minded. But the Hawkes had recently moved into the old Amell Estate in Hightown, on the other side of the city. This was going to be a long trek, with a lot more ambushes like this to deal with.
But Anders could only feel sorry for his friend’s distress. They had gone into the Deep Roads as four people but had crawled out of them two months later as three. Hawke was convinced Carver had perished despite the Grey Warden’s intervention. Anders had tried to tell him that by now, Stroud would have written a letter of condolence to his family if that had been the case. ‘Then why haven’t we received any news from my brother?’ Because he’s an arse, that’s why, though Anders knew better than to say that out loud. Instead, he had watched his friend laughing and pretending to be fine, until the booze kicked in and he’d pass out in a corner, muttering half-hearted insults at his absent brother.
“Anders?” Hawke asked as they finally approached the mansion. “When are you going to kiss me?”
He blinked, not sure if he heard him right. “You’re drunk.”
“I mean it.” There was a clarity in the man’s eyes that Anders had not expected. “We’ve been running in circles around each other for over a year. So why haven’t you kissed me yet?”
Even drunk, Hawke had a point. They had flirted a lot, and none of it had been subtle. They had both made their respective desires perfectly clear to the other. So why hadn’t any of them done anything about it yet?
“I don’t know, why haven’t you?”
There was a long pause during which Hawke seemed to consider the offer. “I puked behind a bush not five minutes ago.”
Anders snorted. “Ask me again tomorrow then, when you’re nursing the meanest hangover this side of the Waking Sea.”
Hawke showed up to his clinic the next morning without fail, asking for a potion to reduce his pounding headache. Anders already had one ready for him. He made him promise to stop drinking this much and handed him the small vial. After ingesting the sugary concoction, Hawke looked at him with a smug smile curling up his lips and said, “My face still hurts, can you kiss it better?” Anders stilled. He had half expected his friend to have completely forgotten everything about the previous night. “I brushed my teeth, don’t worry.”
Anders chuckled and leaned in towards him. “Where does it hurt?”