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Anders promises himself he isn't going to cry.
Garrett knows something is wrong. He's asked Anders outright four times today if he's alright and hasn't once stopped fretting over him. From a man whose usual idea of concern is dripping with dry, self-deprecating humor, this is an unusual and alarming amount of mother-henning.
And honestly, if Garrett adjusts his coat one more time he thinks he might burst into tears anyway. The man claims to hate it, calls it a feathered monstrosity every chance he gets, but he’s even caught Garrett wearing the damn thing when he thinks no one is looking.
Garrett would support him. Anders knows he would, Champion of Kirkwall status be damned, and that is why lying to him about it has driven more than one dagger through the bloody remains of his own traitorous heart.
One last good day. That is what he can give his love before he sets the world on fire.
“So,” Garrett huffs as they trudge up the narrow mountain path towards Sundermount. “Do I get to know what you've packed into that massive satchel yet?”
Anders grins. “What part of ‘it's a surprise’ did you have trouble understanding, exactly?” he teases. He hopes his smile reaches his eyes as he turns towards his lover and pretends an exaggerated struggle with the pack slung over his shoulder. “It's so dreadfully heavy, and someone keeps slowing us down with all of his questions.”
“Anders!” Garrett stabs his staff into the ground, leans on it with his comically large hands, and pouts. “I've never been very good at patience.”
“I'll make you a deal,” Anders offers.
Garrett raises an eyebrow. “I'm listening.”
“Carry me and this bag the last leg of the way and I'll tell you what's in it.”
He's not sure why he thought that would deter the man, just like how he's not sure why it surprises him at all when Garrett slings the staff into its harness and scoops him up with both arms. The satchel falls to the ground with a muffled thump, the sudden shift in weight throws them both off balance, and suddenly Anders finds himself on top of a very sheepish Garrett Hawke sprawled out on his arse in the dirt.
“Do I get points for trying?” he wheezes when he finally catches his breath.
Anders kisses his ruddy cheeks fondly. “No,” he murmurs. “But that was a very, very sexy try.”
He doesn't notice Garrett nudging the satchel open with the toe of his boot until he sees the man grin in triumph. “Aha!” he crows. “I win—”
He trails off when he notices the contents.
Anders rolls off of him and heaves a sigh. “So much for the surprise,” he huffs.
Garrett only sits up quizzically and paws through the bag. “Anders,” he says slowly as he pulls out a pair of ice skates. “It doesn’t freeze here.”
“And we’re mages,” Anders counters with a sly grin. “You mentioned how much you missed skating on the ponds in Lothering during the winter. There’s a shallow pond ahead that shouldn’t pose a drowning hazard if the ice breaks. I thought between the two of us we’d have enough ice magic to freeze the thing for a little while.”
Garrett laughs incredulously as he holds one of the skates up and studies it. “Where did you even find these?”
“Lirene. I don’t know where she got them. I didn’t want to ask.”
That earns him a snort. Garrett reaches over and ruffles his hair fondly. “Even after all this time, you manage to be full of surprises.”
Anders only laughs and climbs to his feet, dusts the grass from his coat, and avoids looking Garrett in the eye. He’s full of surprises, alright, and tomorrow is going to be the worst one he’s ever sprung on someone he loves, and oh, the clench in his chest at that thought knocks the air from his lungs and replaces it with the worst kind of ache. He feels Justice prickling at the periphery of his mind, feels the spirit trying to shove away the conflicted feelings in favor of his usual passioned determination, but he fights it this time.
He wants to feel the ache.
The very thing he’s giving up is the sort of thing he’s fighting for, after all, and Garrett is his daily reminder of just how fucking much the plans he’s set in motion matter.
He silently begs Justice to leave him alone and just let him be wholly human for once. You owe me this , he thinks so hard he almost whispers it aloud.
One last good day. That’s what this is.
One last bloody good day.
They reach the pond and sure enough it is a shallow thing, so shallow Anders can see the bottom even through the silt-swirling water. He watches Garrett lacing up his skates with giddy excitement and for a moment he forgets all about his worries, his trepidation melting away at the sight of his lover tripping over his own fingers to tie his boots. Garrett sees him watching and offers a thumbs up and a sheepish grin. Anders blows him a kiss and turns to the pond.
Admittedly he hasn’t really considered how he’s going to go about freezing the whole thing. He fiddles with his hands and tries to calculate the best way to go about it when he feels burly arms wrap around him from behind.
“You didn’t think this far ahead, did you,” Garrett says behind him, and damn the man, Anders can hear the grin in his voice. He leans back into his lover’s embrace and tips his head back, lets Garrett kiss him with that damnable tender affection that makes his heart feel ten sizes too big for his chest. “I’m sure we can manage if we work together,” he murmurs against Anders’ lips, and it’s all Anders can do to not crumble beneath the sound of his voice.
Soft. Assured. Somehow both cocksure and tender. Garrett is a man full of contradictions. Anders wants to tell him, Maker, how badly he wants to tell him what he’s planned.
He holds his tongue and lets Garrett palm the backs of his hands and lace their fingers together. “Well, are we going to do this, or what?” Garrett murmurs.
It takes them the better part of an hour to methodically freeze the pond in sections, but eventually they sit on the bank, exhausted, and admire their handiwork. It’s not quite freezing outside, but it is cold enough that the ice should hold reasonably well for a little while at least. Garrett digs through the satchel and frowns suddenly.
“Anders, where are yours?” he asks, his expression puzzled.
Anders forces a laugh and marvels at how some things about himself clearly never change. “I, um. Don’t know how. I can’t very well heal myself if I break my own neck.”
Garrett frowns for a moment. “Well then,” he announces finally after a moment of thought. “I suppose I’ll just have to—”
He trails off, and suddenly Anders finds himself hoisted into the air and draped unceremoniously across Garrett’s arms as Garrett guffaws madly and takes off across the ice. He can’t help but laugh too, then, a genuine laugh that bubbles up from the very center of him despite the turmoil swirling a dark and cloudy storm in his chest. He marvels at how Garrett manages to draw happiness from him and wonders if, in another life, he could have had something more permanent with this man. He imagines a life where the two of them grow old together in the Ferelden countryside and wonders, not for the first time, what sort of father Garrett could be.
What sort of father he could have been himself, if circumstances would have allowed it.
He forces those thoughts back down and allows himself to marvel at how astonishingly graceful Garrett is on the ice, especially with over six feet of lanky mage slung across his arms. He doesn’t particularly mind the precarious angle. Garrett seems to know what he’s doing. Personally, Anders adores the way Garrett manhandles him, and Garrett knows it. Garrett whoops gleefully and spins once, twice, and then on the third rotation he slings Anders around his waist, catches him upright, and plants a searing kiss on his lips as he all but soars across the pond on one foot at a time.
Anders wraps his legs around Garrett’s waist, clings to his shoulders, and returns the kiss with as much fervor as he can muster until it becomes all teeth, tongue, and desperation. He wants to sear this feeling into his memory and fold it lovingly into the pile of things he is going to cling to until his very last breath.
He doesn’t like imagining what it will be like to die alone. He’s spent too much of his life alone, but Garrett, Garrett has reminded him how it feels to be held. How it feels to be adored. To love and be loved in return, in a way he hasn’t known since the Circle all those years ago with another man who briefly held his entire heart before slipping between his fingers like so many grains of sand.
So many moments like these, shattered like glass by a system designed to keep people like them in miserable subjugation.
This is why he fights. Why he does — and will do — what he must.
He feels Garrett stumble and pull back with a breathless laugh. “Kiss me like that again and I may drop the both of us,” he murmurs. He skates backwards — Andraste’s tits, how does he manage to skate backwards — into the bank and lowers them both to the ground. “But I would so love it if you did it again.”
And so he does. He kisses his lover like each one will be the last kiss they will ever share.
The last one may very well be.
One good day. One last kiss before he sets the world on fire.
He does not allow himself much these days, but he will allow himself this, and tomorrow?
Tomorrow he will not look back.