Let The Revolution Take Its Toll: Parts 26-30
And part two of the massive ficpost of doom!
Let The Revolution Take Its Toll
A Life Built of Bricks and Mortar
Prompt: city
Rating: PG
Word Count: 367
Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke, Anders (Anders/F!Hawke)
Summary: Kirkwall is supposed to be a temporary stop for him. He'll show up, spread the news of his crusade, of stopping injustice. Heal a few people, maybe help some mages escape the Circle. He certainly doesn't intend to stay.
Justice has always been stronger, more forceful within the walls of a city. It makes sense, once Anders stops to think about it. Cities mean more people, mean more oppression for the spirit to witness and need to stop, dragging Anders along for the ride.
Or something like that, at any rate. Anders doesn't think he can properly describe the feeling of being himself-but-not, of experiencing emotions and needs that he knows come from someone else. Of being a stranger, even to himself. Usually he can ignore it, can go about life as your average apostate revolutionary without giving too much thought to his spirit passenger. Until they reach a city.
Kirkwall is supposed to be a temporary stop for him. He'll show up, spread the news of his crusade, of stopping injustice. Heal a few people, maybe help some mages escape the Circle. He certainly doesn't intend to stay.
But there is always someone else to heal, some injustice to thwart and somehow he ends up with a reputation and an underground clinic. And if Justice is a little stronger, if Anders is a little weaker, it's worth it. He's helping people here.
And then he meets Hawke, the sharp-tongued woman with something to prove and from the minute he meets her it's clear she's never going to leave Kirkwall. Not by choice. It doesn't take much longer for him to realize that he is as bound to her as she is to this damned city and suddenly leaving isn't even an option anymore.
So he is stuck in a city he can't live in with a woman he can't live without and every day Justice holds a little more sway over their shared body and every day he is a little bit less Anders, a little bit more Vengeance and he doesn't know when it will stop. He doesn't know if it ever will. If maybe one day he'll wake up and he won't be Anders at all anymore, he'll be a spirit in the body of a man and the very thought terrifies him because the moment that happens there is nothing he won't do, nothing he won't destroy to see justice done.
Nothing.
Give and Take
Prompt: descriptive
Rating: R (Dammit, Isabela...)
Word Count: 321
Characters/Pairing: Isabela, Anders (Anders/F!Hawke)
Warnings: Mild DAII spoilers, Isabela being Isabela
Summary: Given a choice between a squadron of templars showing up at his doorstep and a pirate captain who smelled a scandal, he would rather have had the templars…
“I’m hurt, Anders. Why is it that I had to hear from Fenris of all people that you finally managed to bed Hawke?”
Anders sighed but refused to look up from his work. Given a choice between a squadron of templars showing up at his doorstep and a pirate captain who smelled a scandal, he would rather have had the templars…
“Go away, Isabela.”
“But I want details! I need details! What’s Hawke like in the sack? Awkward? Inventive? Boring and vanilla? Come on, spill.”
“Go away, Isabela.”
“Anders!”
Maker, he knew he shouldn’t have left the estate today. But he had been woefully neglecting the clinic lately and Hawke had duties that took her elsewhere. It had seemed a safe enough choice. He had not expected Isabela’s inquisition. At least, not so soon. With another sigh, he lifted his head to glare at her. She did not appear at all intimidated.
“All right. Let me put this in terms you might understand. I like sex. Sex is good. Are you with me so far?”
Isabela nodded; this was hardly news to her.
“Good. Now, if I start telling stories about my sex life to you, Hawke will get mad. And don’t tell me she won’t know; you’re completely incapable of keeping your mouth shut when it comes to some things. Now, Hawke is terrifying when she is mad. Mad Hawke will decide that the proper revenge for my big mouth is to cut me off. Entirely. This makes for a sad and frustrated healer. Sad and frustrated healers do not go about dispensing free healing salves to nosy friends with undiscerning tastes, leaving said nosy friends painful and itchy and highly unlikely to find any willing bedmates. Are we clear?”
Anders sat back in his seat with a smirk as Isabela paled and took a step back toward the door.
“I’ll just… leave you alone then, shall I?”
She did not wait for a reply before turning tail and fleeing the clinic.
Point to Anders.
Sweet
Prompt: sweet
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 167
Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke, unresolved F!Hawke/Anders
Summary: She has never liked the smell of lyrium.
She has never liked the smell of lyrium, sickly sweet and heavy enough to stick at the back of her throat until she can almost taste it. It is the scent of a childhood on the run, of growing up too fast. Of youth cast aside in favor of the mantle of the big sister. It is the bond between her father and her sister, a secret club she can never share. It is magic and power and danger.
Anders always smells of lyrium. It clings to his hair, his clothes, his skin, strong enough that Hawke would know him as a mage even without the robes and the staff, stronger than it ever was with Father or Bethany. It is nearly overpowering, how he fills the air with the promise of magic.
No wonder Fenris hates him so much.
She wonders if he would taste of it, too, if his skin would burn lyrium-sweet on her tongue.
She thinks she might not mind if he did.
The Cost of Freedom
Prompt: mortally wounded
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 212
Characters/Pairing: Anders
Summary: He has never killed before.
People die. It’s a fact of life, one Anders has accepted many times over. He is a healer and he has lost patients before, has felt their life dim even as he pours everything he has into keeping them alive.
He has never killed before.
There have been animals, of course, game he has scrounged up for food on his many escapes. This is different. This is a human life in his hands, at his mercy. It is a human life snuffed out by the force of his magic.
That they are templars falling before him does not change anything. Funny. He had thought it would, thought that turning his power on those who had held him captive for a decade would be easy. Cathartic, even.
He had not expected it to be so difficult.
He is staring into the eyes of his last jailer as the man dies, watches the life flicker out. He did that. The thought sickens him even as it empowers him. They were a threat and he removed them. They were people and he killed them.
He wonders if it feels like this every time, if you ever get used to the idea of taking the life of someone else.
He prays he never has to find out.
Ties That Bind
Prompt: run
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 296
Characters/Pairing: Anders
Summary: There is no reason for Anders to still be here.
There is no reason for Anders to still be here. The templars are gone, thrown off the trail by his unexpected conscription. It will take time for them to regroup, to plan their next move: he does not delude himself into thinking they will leave him be. Even the threat of the wrath of the Grey Wardens will not deter the templars from their hunt, particularly when the entirety of the order consists of an elven girl, a drunkard dwarf, and the very mage they sought to kill (regardless of the fact that that elven girl is the blighted Hero of Ferelden and can probably wipe out the entire templar order in her sleep. And Anders would be lying if he said that thought doesn’t make him a little bit too happy.)
But still. The templars know where he is and eventually they will come for him and even vaunted Grey Warden bonds mean little in the face of a templar invasion. Better that he leave no, before he gets attached. Before they turn on him. Save them all some drama. By all rights he should have left ages ago.
So why hasn’t he? There is nothing keeping him here (nothing except ties formed in blood and death, in vows made and secrets shared). He should be twenty leagues away on a ship bound for Ostwick. Rivain, maybe. He should not still be in this corpse of a keep planning missions and adventures dangerous enough to make him doubt his commander’s sanity. (And Maker’s balls, he has a commander now. How did that happen?)
He thinks maybe this is what it feels like to develop a sense of duty. He wonders when he got one of those.
Then he wonders if he can give it back.
MASTERLIST
MASTERLIST IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
Let The Revolution Take Its Toll
A Life Built of Bricks and Mortar
Prompt: city
Rating: PG
Word Count: 367
Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke, Anders (Anders/F!Hawke)
Summary: Kirkwall is supposed to be a temporary stop for him. He'll show up, spread the news of his crusade, of stopping injustice. Heal a few people, maybe help some mages escape the Circle. He certainly doesn't intend to stay.
Justice has always been stronger, more forceful within the walls of a city. It makes sense, once Anders stops to think about it. Cities mean more people, mean more oppression for the spirit to witness and need to stop, dragging Anders along for the ride.
Or something like that, at any rate. Anders doesn't think he can properly describe the feeling of being himself-but-not, of experiencing emotions and needs that he knows come from someone else. Of being a stranger, even to himself. Usually he can ignore it, can go about life as your average apostate revolutionary without giving too much thought to his spirit passenger. Until they reach a city.
Kirkwall is supposed to be a temporary stop for him. He'll show up, spread the news of his crusade, of stopping injustice. Heal a few people, maybe help some mages escape the Circle. He certainly doesn't intend to stay.
But there is always someone else to heal, some injustice to thwart and somehow he ends up with a reputation and an underground clinic. And if Justice is a little stronger, if Anders is a little weaker, it's worth it. He's helping people here.
And then he meets Hawke, the sharp-tongued woman with something to prove and from the minute he meets her it's clear she's never going to leave Kirkwall. Not by choice. It doesn't take much longer for him to realize that he is as bound to her as she is to this damned city and suddenly leaving isn't even an option anymore.
So he is stuck in a city he can't live in with a woman he can't live without and every day Justice holds a little more sway over their shared body and every day he is a little bit less Anders, a little bit more Vengeance and he doesn't know when it will stop. He doesn't know if it ever will. If maybe one day he'll wake up and he won't be Anders at all anymore, he'll be a spirit in the body of a man and the very thought terrifies him because the moment that happens there is nothing he won't do, nothing he won't destroy to see justice done.
Nothing.
Give and Take
Prompt: descriptive
Rating: R (Dammit, Isabela...)
Word Count: 321
Characters/Pairing: Isabela, Anders (Anders/F!Hawke)
Warnings: Mild DAII spoilers, Isabela being Isabela
Summary: Given a choice between a squadron of templars showing up at his doorstep and a pirate captain who smelled a scandal, he would rather have had the templars…
“I’m hurt, Anders. Why is it that I had to hear from Fenris of all people that you finally managed to bed Hawke?”
Anders sighed but refused to look up from his work. Given a choice between a squadron of templars showing up at his doorstep and a pirate captain who smelled a scandal, he would rather have had the templars…
“Go away, Isabela.”
“But I want details! I need details! What’s Hawke like in the sack? Awkward? Inventive? Boring and vanilla? Come on, spill.”
“Go away, Isabela.”
“Anders!”
Maker, he knew he shouldn’t have left the estate today. But he had been woefully neglecting the clinic lately and Hawke had duties that took her elsewhere. It had seemed a safe enough choice. He had not expected Isabela’s inquisition. At least, not so soon. With another sigh, he lifted his head to glare at her. She did not appear at all intimidated.
“All right. Let me put this in terms you might understand. I like sex. Sex is good. Are you with me so far?”
Isabela nodded; this was hardly news to her.
“Good. Now, if I start telling stories about my sex life to you, Hawke will get mad. And don’t tell me she won’t know; you’re completely incapable of keeping your mouth shut when it comes to some things. Now, Hawke is terrifying when she is mad. Mad Hawke will decide that the proper revenge for my big mouth is to cut me off. Entirely. This makes for a sad and frustrated healer. Sad and frustrated healers do not go about dispensing free healing salves to nosy friends with undiscerning tastes, leaving said nosy friends painful and itchy and highly unlikely to find any willing bedmates. Are we clear?”
Anders sat back in his seat with a smirk as Isabela paled and took a step back toward the door.
“I’ll just… leave you alone then, shall I?”
She did not wait for a reply before turning tail and fleeing the clinic.
Point to Anders.
Sweet
Prompt: sweet
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 167
Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke, unresolved F!Hawke/Anders
Summary: She has never liked the smell of lyrium.
She has never liked the smell of lyrium, sickly sweet and heavy enough to stick at the back of her throat until she can almost taste it. It is the scent of a childhood on the run, of growing up too fast. Of youth cast aside in favor of the mantle of the big sister. It is the bond between her father and her sister, a secret club she can never share. It is magic and power and danger.
Anders always smells of lyrium. It clings to his hair, his clothes, his skin, strong enough that Hawke would know him as a mage even without the robes and the staff, stronger than it ever was with Father or Bethany. It is nearly overpowering, how he fills the air with the promise of magic.
No wonder Fenris hates him so much.
She wonders if he would taste of it, too, if his skin would burn lyrium-sweet on her tongue.
She thinks she might not mind if he did.
The Cost of Freedom
Prompt: mortally wounded
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 212
Characters/Pairing: Anders
Summary: He has never killed before.
People die. It’s a fact of life, one Anders has accepted many times over. He is a healer and he has lost patients before, has felt their life dim even as he pours everything he has into keeping them alive.
He has never killed before.
There have been animals, of course, game he has scrounged up for food on his many escapes. This is different. This is a human life in his hands, at his mercy. It is a human life snuffed out by the force of his magic.
That they are templars falling before him does not change anything. Funny. He had thought it would, thought that turning his power on those who had held him captive for a decade would be easy. Cathartic, even.
He had not expected it to be so difficult.
He is staring into the eyes of his last jailer as the man dies, watches the life flicker out. He did that. The thought sickens him even as it empowers him. They were a threat and he removed them. They were people and he killed them.
He wonders if it feels like this every time, if you ever get used to the idea of taking the life of someone else.
He prays he never has to find out.
Ties That Bind
Prompt: run
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 296
Characters/Pairing: Anders
Summary: There is no reason for Anders to still be here.
There is no reason for Anders to still be here. The templars are gone, thrown off the trail by his unexpected conscription. It will take time for them to regroup, to plan their next move: he does not delude himself into thinking they will leave him be. Even the threat of the wrath of the Grey Wardens will not deter the templars from their hunt, particularly when the entirety of the order consists of an elven girl, a drunkard dwarf, and the very mage they sought to kill (regardless of the fact that that elven girl is the blighted Hero of Ferelden and can probably wipe out the entire templar order in her sleep. And Anders would be lying if he said that thought doesn’t make him a little bit too happy.)
But still. The templars know where he is and eventually they will come for him and even vaunted Grey Warden bonds mean little in the face of a templar invasion. Better that he leave no, before he gets attached. Before they turn on him. Save them all some drama. By all rights he should have left ages ago.
So why hasn’t he? There is nothing keeping him here (nothing except ties formed in blood and death, in vows made and secrets shared). He should be twenty leagues away on a ship bound for Ostwick. Rivain, maybe. He should not still be in this corpse of a keep planning missions and adventures dangerous enough to make him doubt his commander’s sanity. (And Maker’s balls, he has a commander now. How did that happen?)
He thinks maybe this is what it feels like to develop a sense of duty. He wonders when he got one of those.
Then he wonders if he can give it back.
MASTERLIST
MASTERLIST IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER