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“So, this… fantasy of yours,” Hawke prompted hesitantly one night as he and Anders were undressing for bed.
“Beg pardon?” Anders’ brow wrinkled sharply as he tossed his feathered pauldrons over the back of a chair and began tugging at his shirt.
“What you mentioned during our daring dungeon escape?” Hawke offered as a refresher, sitting on the edge of the bed as he stripped off his boots.
Anders froze with his shirt halfway off and shot Hawke a look.
“Hawke. Love. You’ll have to be more specific than that. Do you have any idea how many dungeons I’ve seen the inside of over the last ten years?”
“Point taken.”
Hawke cleared his throat, suddenly feeling rather silly for bringing up the subject. His boots and shirt were gone, now, and Anders was down to his smallclothes, rubbing his tired eyes as he dropped down onto the bed and spread himself out. Hawke leaned across the space between them on the bed and planted a nuzzling kiss at the side of Anders’ mouth, drawing out both a tiny, contented purr and a small, indulgent smile from his warm, rough lips.
“So, what were you referring to?” Anders asked, affectionately running his fingers over Hawke’s thigh and toying with a loose thread on his pants that he could feel, but not quite see. Hawke plucked Anders’ hand from his thigh and settled himself down on the bed beside him, tucking his arms behind his head and staring up at the ceiling. He hadn't intended to press the issue, but if Anders was asking...
“Our little trip to Chateau Haine,” he said quietly, without further elaboration.
Anders’ brow furrowed in bafflement for a brief moment before his memory dug up that particular reference, and everything suddenly clicked. Templars. Chains. Hawke in shining armor. It had been a while since then, but yes, he remembered. In exquisite detail, in fact.
“Oh. Oh,” he began, groping for words as a sheepish grin overtook his face.
“I take it your memory has been properly jogged?” Hawke continued to look up at the ceiling as if it were the most interesting ceiling he’d ever seen, though he couldn’t help smiling a little at Anders’ somewhat flabbergasted reaction.
“You could say that,” Anders replied lightly. Then, a pause.
“So…?” Hawke trailed off.
“I’ll admit, the idea of watching you come bursting into the Gallows to sweep me off my feet amidst a sea of templar corpses is an attractive one.”
“I think I’ll overlook the fact that the thought of dead templars is a primary featuring detail in one of your… bedroom fantasies, and instead point out the fact that you’re forgetting one very important thing.”Anders couldn’t help but chuckle despite himself as he rolled over, draping himself affectionately over Hawke and nuzzling the size of his neck.
“What could I possibly be forgetting? I thought I had it all quite thoroughly planned out.” His voice was light and lilting as his fingers traced random shapes over the planes of Hawke’s chest.
Hawke freed one arm from behind his head, reaching down to brush at a few stray hairs that had fallen free from Anders’ short ponytail, fondly running his thumb and forefinger along the contours of his cheeks and jaw and chin.
“I’d never let the templars take you to begin with.”
The playful atmosphere suddenly cracked, and Anders froze with his cheek pressed against Hawke’s palm, his stomach twisting itself into a dozen tiny knots. He had no doubt that Hawke meant what he said, and the connotations and implications tied to that statement were worrying. ‘Never’ was a terribly serious, terribly finalizing, terribly dangerous word, and the mood whiplash was startling.
Hawke seemed oblivious to Anders’ sudden emotional shift as he repositioned himself on the bed and tugged Anders tightly into his arms. The brief, cold jolt of fear that had shot through Anders’ veins quickly vanished as he found himself enveloped by Hawke's deeply affectionate warmth, covered with deeply affectionate kisses.
“At least you know I’d save you,” Hawke replied at last, his voice low and soft in the space between their breaths, and Anders could only nod silently and murmur a quiet sigh of agreement.
In reality, he knew far too well that there were things that Hawke would never be able to save him from, things he didn’t want Hawke to save him from, and that those things seemed to be closing in on him at an increasingly alarming rate. But he already thought about such things far too deeply and far too often, and they both needed a moment of precious respite, no matter how desperately brief.
And there, in that moment, in that embrace, the cold, heavy lump of uncertainty and apprehension stuck in his heart and in his throat began to melt away.
There, in that moment, in that embrace—with the reality of Hawke's arms wrapped tightly around him, the reality of Hawke's warmth pleasantly bleeding through the space between them to banish the chill from his skin, and the reality of Hawke's breath against his cheek in rhythm with the rise and fall of his chest—even his greatest fantasy seemed pale and feeble and illusory in comparison.
“You already have,” he breathed against Hawke’s lips when he could find his voice again, and meant it.