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Maker, what was he doing?
He was supposed to be detaching. He told himself that for the first time just before their trek into the Deep Roads. He had offered his services as a darkspawn-sensing escort for that venture, and then it had been too late to back out, but once that contract had been fulfilled, he would step away. It was too dangerous, too tempting, spending so much time around her.
Then Bethany had gotten sick, and with her gone to the Wardens, Hawke’s merry band of misfits became short a healer. Merrill was a competent mage, sure, but blood magic and healing were generally mutually exclusive skill sets. He could still step back though. He could provide potions and poultices; surely he didn’t actually need to travel with her to keep her from getting herself killed. And besides, she had made a fortune on what they salvaged from their expedition; surely she would stop putting herself in dangerous situations for the sake of family honor or a bit of gold.
But even when Anders did a good job of trying to avoid her, there she was showing up in his clinic every couple of days. Sometimes delivering a bushel of elfroot and more often sitting on the exam table with a broken bone or a busted lip and always with a grin like he was the only person in the world she wanted to see.
It wasn’t entirely his fault he hadn’t been able to detach. He was trying, he told himself, as he found himself outside of the run-down house that belonged to her uncle, with a book to return in his hand. He had been in the neighborhood, he said, nevermind that he had no answer to why he had the book on him or what legitimate business he had in Lowtown.
He was trying, but Maker’s arse, he was doing a poor job of it.
With a deep sigh he found himself trudging up the rickety steps with an overexcitable hound winding his way through his legs and knocked on the door whilst giving the dog a grudging scratch behind the ears.
“It’s open,” came from somewhere inside.
He pushed open the door and Ruutu nosed past him to dart in ahead. Anders followed the sound of music and dog’s path to his mistress, who was sat in the dingy kitchen. She was reclined dangerously far back in a chair with her socked feet propped up on the table in a way even she wouldn’t have dared had Leandra been at home, and in the middle of knitting what appeared to be a long, deep green scarf patterned with delicate leaves. She looked up from her task and lit up with that usual grin.
He waved the book. “I came by to return this. I’d borrowed it from— well, a while ago,” he finished lamely, not wanting to bring up Bethany. As much as he wanted to make it easy to detach, he couldn’t bring himself to dim her smile if he could help it. He set the book down on the table, and Reed sat forward and put her knitting aside.
“You might as well keep it, I don’t think I’ll be getting much use out of magical theory,” she scoffed, but reached out to thumb through the well-worn book and caress the handwritten name inside the cover anyhow.
“It’s interesting, really, even for someone without magic. And besides, you’ll need something to fill the shelves in the new house. I hear it has quite a library.”
“I suppose so. Varric’s giving me copies of all his books to christen it, and Isabela’s supplying all the extra-tawdry romance novels he won’t own up to having written, but that still won’t fill it. And then the rest of dad’s collection. What we were able to bring with us, at least,” she sighed, and then her eyes narrowed. “I wish they’d hurry up with the renovations.”
“How much longer will it take?” he asked, taking in the half-packed boxes stacked in every spare corner of the tiny house for the first time. It had been easy to miss; the house was in such a constant state of disarray, despite Leandra’s best efforts to keep things tidy. Anders knew all too well that Reed Hawke hit everything she touched like a hurricane. For a tiny person, she tended to take up at least twice as much space (and exponentially more mental space, in his own case at least) than she physically occupied. Everything she did, she did with force and abandon – she didn’t sit so much as throw herself into chairs; she didn’t close doors but slam them shut, if she remembered to shut them at all (and with the further implications of force, impulse, abandon, there went all the mental space she hadn’t already been occupying).
“I’m not sure, but if I’m not out of this shithole by Feastday, I might just end up roasting Gamlen for supper,” she crinkled her nose in distaste, then perked up at a sudden thought. “Speaking of, c’mere.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Speaking of Feastday, not cannibalism. Come here,” she beckoned again.
Reluctantly, Anders moved closer as she clambered up onto her chair to face him. “What are you—?” but his question was answered as she steadied herself against his shoulders, now eye-level with him, and wrapped the green, leaf-patterned scarf she had been working on around his neck. She was close enough to radiate warmth and perfume and cinnamon gum and make his head foggy. “I— I don’t really think it’s my style, you know.”
“Well of course not, this one’s for Merrill. I’m just measuring.” She tugged at the ends of the scarf and leaned back to examine him. “Yours will need to be a bit longer, of course, and you’ll need to pick your colours.” She nodded to a basket of skeins of yarn sitting on the kitchen counter, which had clearly been hastily and haphazardly dug out from the bottom of a carefully packed box nearby.
“Hawke, I don’t need—”
“Oh, the sewers are nice and warm this time of year, then?” Her eyes narrowed again, and she readjusted the scarf a little roughly.
“Darktown isn’t an active sewer, you know. Historically, yes, but—”
“And I’m sure the former sewers are perfectly well insulated, and not drafty and dank at all,” she rolled her eyes, “But that doesn’t get you out of getting a Satinalia gift. Anyway, it’s nice and chilly up in Hightown, and you’ll have to come visit me and my library, and I won’t have you catching cold on the way.”
“That’s not how— colds are viruses, you don’t actually catch them because of the weather. You know that, right?”
She was ignoring him, however, unwinding Merrill’s scarf from around his neck and reaching for her yarn basket. Instinctively, Anders reached his hands to her waist to steady her as she turned back, and he might have noticed her pale face going nearly as red as her hair, had he not been so preoccupied with the buzzing at his temples and the warmth beneath his fingers.
“I could– I could make you a hat, instead, of course.” She held various colors of yarn up to him to compare to his skin tone, his hair, and his signature ratty old coat. “Varric’s getting a hat, since I know he won’t wear even a handmade scarf from his best friend if it gets in the way of showing off his chest hair, you know.” She was babbling and Anders’ head was spinning.
“No, that’s— a scarf would be lovely, if you insist, but I really don’t need—” He let go of her waist, stepping back. “I should— I’ve got to go. Clinic and all. I’ll…talk to you soon, I’m sure,” and he hurried off before she could argue.
On Feastday, a package appeared on the doorstep of his clinic. Inside was a beautifully knit scarf made of soft charcoal heather yarn, along with matching hat, mittens, and a vaguely threatening note instructing him to the Hawke estate for dinner before the group came down there to visit him instead. He sighed and hesitated for only a moment before locking up the clinic and making his way to the secret passage to the Hawke estate cellars. This was, perhaps, the last straw before admitting that detachment was a long lost cause. He gave the empty clinic a last look before heading up the passageway toward warmth, food, and laughter, and thought, for at least a moment, that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing.