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“Is there a particular reason someone who… cares about you, and you about them, would not want you to – be all theirs?” Fenris asks, holding the jar in his hands. Anders whips around to glare at Fenris from over his shoulder.
“This better not be about Hawke.” Fenris stares up steadily at him and then, after a moment, apologetically shrugs. His groan is long and loud, letting his head loll back, eyes closed, as Anders voices his displeasure. “Why are you even asking me?”
“I wanted to ask Isabela and then she tricked me into taking over her duties,” he admits freely. Anders rubs his face from where he sits upon the top of the small ladder, and then holds out his hand for Fenris to pass him the next jar. Anders arranges it neatly, restocking and reorganizing his clinic. With Fenris’s help.
“I don’t think Isabela is the right person to ask either,” Anders says, a grumbling edge to his words.
“I do not believe any of us is a paragon of romance.” They move from shelf to shelf methodically, in silence. Bundles of herbs and weeds, foul smelling liquid and sweetly wrapped potions. Anders grunts thoughtfully as he crouches down, begins the last shelf.
“Varric’s written a lot of romance novels,” Anders says, “do you think he’s secretly… you know?” He looks up to where Fenris stands beside him. Resting his weight on one leg as he reads over labels which hold no importance for him, crossing his arms as he frowns. He looks at Anders.
“Out of all of us, Aveline is the only one to achieve complete romantic success.” Anders reels, and then his chin drops to his chest.
“Fuck,” he says softly. “Fuck.” Again, as he rises quickly in his feet. Fenris turns slowly, watching Anders pace around the clinic, still muttering to himself. He stops, suddenly, turns on his heel to face him. “Tell me exactly what you said to Hawke.”
“I –” Fenris balks, his hands dropping to his sides as he clenches them into fists. He shakes his head slightly, then, “I am yours.” Muttered low, spoken while turned away, unable to lift his gaze from the floor. He listens to Anders pretend to retch. Fenris rolls his eyes, and turns back to him. Anders stops the crude motions and noises the moment he does.
“So,” he says, “you told an apostate who is constantly in danger of being locked up and having their freedoms taken away and their whole personhood surrendered to an institution and its lackeys that you,” Anders takes a deeply dramatic inhale before continuing to plow ahead, “a former slave, who has had their freedoms taken away and their whole personhood surrendered to specifically another person, that you would now like to surrender all of that, again, to Hawke. Even if you didn’t mean it that way and you’re being sweet, and romantic,” Anders mocks more retching noises, “it’s whose mouth it’s coming from.”
Fenris stands still and silent. A flash: the complicated knot of a wavering frown, the concerned edges of a mouth warbling into an equally uncertain, half-given, smile. “… Thank you,” he says. Anders waves away his thanks.
“Next time you tell Hawke that, make sure you know you’re not making Hawke your new master.” Anders clenches his jaw, moves towards the shelf once again, his back to Fenris as he crouches down. “Hawke doesn’t want you. They want to be with you.” A ragged run of his hand through his hair, only to tousle it messy once again. “If that makes sense.”
“It does. If you’ll excuse me.” He resists until the last moment. Anders drags up his gaze just enough to watch Fenris disappear around the corner. He sighs, and rests his elbows on his knees, puts his face in his hands.
They breathe heavily after, blood soaked and exhausted to the bone. The bandits lie defeated around them. Hawke grins at Fenris, and he can’t help but grin back. “I told you it would be easy,” they say.
Fenris laughs as he walks closer to them, and rests his head on their shoulder. “I enjoy following you,” he tells them, closing his eyes, a smile on his lips.