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Hawke isn’t the type to brood. After laughing at all of Varric’s well intentioned jabs at Fenris and Anders, doing so now feels more than a little hypocritical, but Maker, now he understands. All he can do is stare into the fire and wish that things had been different. Things should have been different. If he’d just been faster, if he’d believed that blood mage, if he’d just been home. He’s out so often traipsing around Kirkwall that he’d barely seen his mother in the days leading up to… Well.
The mansion feels so empty without her. Sometimes he imagines what it would be like if Carver and Bethany and Mother and Father were all there, what it would be like to have a big, happy family. It’d be dangerous to have two apostates in the house, but Father could’ve taught Bethany all sorts of tricks on how to hide and Carver could have joined the guard or found a wife, and Mother would’ve looked on her favorite little son and known that he was alive. Mother would’ve been alive.
It’s hard to stop thinking of those impossibilities. He had attempted to distract himself and complete one of the many menial tasks assigned to him by the people of Kirkwall, but he didn’t have the patience for his usual wit. It didn’t help how some of his friends looked at him with such pity, as if he isn’t a grown man who has already lost so damn much in Kirkwall. It’s far easier just to hide in his mansion and drink.
A fine bottle of Antivan brandy dangles from his hand as he slumps before the fire, the flickering flames only a haze of heat and light to his cloudy mind. There’s something barking, he thinks, then hands on his own gently prying the glass from his fingers. He only gets flashes of awareness after that. Sinking into a hot bath, fingers massaging his scalp, soft cotton against his skin as he’s dressed and laid onto his too large, too empty bed. Even through the haze, he knows enough to grab at those hands, to twine slender fingers with his own and tug, A body, lithe and angular, settles against him, and Hawke doesn’t realize that his own lashes are wet with tears until he lays his head on that thin chest and cries and cries and cries.
When he wakes hours later, those fingers are in his hair again. They’re gentler than he would’ve expected, petting as if he isn’t a warrior or an assassin or a mercenary, but someone who’s loved. Someone who has someone.
Anders must feel him stir, because his hand drifts down the side of his face, fingertips just brushing along the edge where beard meets pale skin.
“How are you feeling?”
No matter how soft or meaningful that question is, Hawke still laughs. It’s a bitter sound that makes him feel worse for hearing it.
“Like I’m the most incompetent man in all of Thedas.” It’s easier to hide behind smirks, though when fingers find his chin and tilt his head up to meet those sad blue eyes, he knows that Anders can see right through him. It’s frightening, sometimes.
“Hawke…” His name comes out on a sigh, accompanied by those skinny arms wrapping tighter around him. “There was nothing you could’ve done.”
Maybe he’s right, but when Hawke thinks of Bethany’s face during the funeral, all puffy and flushed and streaked with tears, it’s so hard to believe. Just like that, his jesting mood is gone, the void in his chest filled instead with an angry bitterness that he knows that Anders doesn’t deserve.
“I should’ve been faster,” Hawke insists. “She didn’t deserve that, Anders, and you bloody well know it. If I had just been a better warrior, or hell, even a better so-“ He snaps his jaw shut before he can say it, because the look on Anders’s face makes it hard to feel anything but regret. He doesn’t flinch when he feels fingertips against his cheek, no matter how much he wants to.
“Love,” Anders’s voice is too quiet, too soft; it’s settling off alarms in Hawke’s head that are usually reserved for battles and tax collectors. “You were about to wish that she had a better son, weren’t you?”
Hawke wants to argue, but Maker, Anders looks so sad that it’s bringing up those stupid tears all over again. He ducks his head so he doesn’t have to meet those eyes.
“...It’s the truth. She deserved to be happy.”
Anders is quiet after that. Hawke isn’t sure if he prefers it this way, when the only thing he can hear is the crackling fire and the mabari’s panting and some far off conversation between Bodhan and Sandal down in the entrance hall. He’s about to push Anders away just to make that overbearing silence stop when he feels lips brush just along his hairline.
“I don’t claim to know your mother, but I’ve seen the effect you’ve had on other people. You’ve done so much for Kirkwall. Because of you, so many mages, so many people, are happy.” Those fingers are at his jaw again, and though Hawke feels like it’ll kill him to do so, he follows the silent urging and looks up. It’s almost painful to see the warmth and the love in those eyes, but he can’t look away. He can’t bear not to have this. Anders’s voice is softer when he continues, his thumb brushing just against the edge of his cheekbone. “You’ve made me happy. Happier than I ever thought would be possible. I would be so lost without you.”
It’s too much. It’s too much, and yet it’s not enough as Hawke clings to him like a baby and struggles not to make a fool of himself all over again. Anders’s nice linen shirt is already damp with tears from his earlier breakdown, and it’s difficult to let himself be so torn without the excuse of a good cloud of alcohol over his system. Still, a few tears soak into that shirt all over again when he shudders against Anders’s chest, holding onto him tighter and tighter until he has nothing left to give. All the while, those clever fingers stroke his hair, his back, anything to calm him.
And, eventually, it does. The silence returns, but Hawke is less eager to break it this time. It’s enough just to lay there in those deceptively strong arms and cling to the knowledge that he has at least one person in this maker forsaken world to take care of him. Even so, as the minutes tick on and on and Hawke regains some sort of dignity, it occurs to him that he should probably say something. Anything.
“I haven’t ruined my image as the mysterious rogue yet, have I?” He nearly winces at the way his voice croaks, but when he looks up at Anders and sees those thin lips twitch up into a smile, it becomes hard to think about something as trivial as that. His eyes slide shut of their own accord when Anders pulls him up to rest their foreheads together, those long fingers curling in his hair all over again.
“I’m afraid so,” he whispers. “But then again, you ruined that image the first time you ended up with a slaver’s arrow in your arse.”
It’s not the strongest jest (or even a jest at all, really), but Hawke still manages a laugh as he wraps his arms around Anders and crushes that lithe body against his own, holding him tight until it becomes difficult to tell where he starts and where Anders ends. If it’s uncomfortable for the mage, he doesn’t mention it.
Time is lost once more, slipping away between dozes and just savoring each other’s warmth. Sleeping next to someone (or even commitment at all) had been a novelty to Hawke in the past, but he’s beginning to see the appeal of having a steady relationship. He can’t exactly think of any ladies in the Blooming Rose that would be willing to hold him and whisper sweet nothings into his hair. Or maybe those sweet nothings are really a spell of some sort, because Hawke sinks into the first deep, restful sleep he’s had since his mother died in his arms. When he wakes again, the fire is banking low in the hearth, but those fingers are still stroking through his hair. He doesn’t notice that Anders is speaking until he feels a breath of air against his forehead.
“You can have anything you need of me, you know. I would give you everything I had just to make you smile.”
Like everything Anders says, it’s too much. It was too much when he admitted that he was obsessed and it was too much when he whispered that first ‘I love you’ against Hawke’s lips. Even so, Hawke’s too desperate to give a damn as he curls impossibly closer, pressing his lips against the sharp line of his collarbone.
“Stay,” he murmurs. “Here, with me. The house is too big now anyway.” He expects Anders to refuse, yet he's weirdly unsurprised when he feels a kiss against his forehead and a slight nod.
“As you wish.”
The oath feels like a vise around his heart, crushing so tightly that he feels the telltale itching in his eyes, so he twists his fingers in long blonde hair and tugs, bringing Anders down and kissing him as if he means to steal every breath of air from his lungs.
For now, it’s enough to make him forget.