here comes your man (open, intro post)

[birdhousesoul]

((I have decided to elide the inevitable "I'm on a space station? What's that? Why is T-Pain here, and why am I wearing this nautical-themed pashmina afghan?" sequence.

Scenario I/II is a set piece. Scenarios III and IV invite response, if anyone feels so moved!))

I. A pod begins to shake

Comments

IV

[try_winging_it]

Hawke often spends an evening in the bar. Sure, it brings back some memories she tries not to dwell on--and what on earth would Varric have to say about this place?--but it's a good place for kicking back and having idle chatter about nothing in particular, which is a good way to learn things. Her first few weeks it was one of her primary ways of figuring out how things worked in this weird place, just listening to people and getting used to the context. By this point she has friends and will go just for pleasure or to unwind. Not really for the drink. It's alcohol, technically, but it requires a certain suspension of disbelief to make herself drink it. Actually, everything here requires a certain amount of suspsension of disbelief, come to think of it

[try_winging_it]

Hawke stiffens. Ah. Here we go. "Why not?" she says quietly but pointedly. "It's a pretty small thing compared to some of the other things you asked me to do."

[birdhousesoul]

It would be a low blow if it weren't true. Still - he glances around. Have they got an audience? Not really; people are either busy drinking, or else more interested in Teo than in some irrelevant conversation between two people who aren't involved in any drinking games at present.

He has to step closer to her, to speak as quietly as this, but his voice is taut and hard, and he's so tense he might as well have foregone the damn brickquer for all the good it's doing him. "Talking about that, here, is not a good idea."

[try_winging_it]

"Tell me something else that's obvious, why don't you," Hawke snaps. "What do you expect from me, Anders?" It's the first time she's said his name in this conversation, and the taste of it is strange in her mouth. It's still a bit hard to believe this is real. "To just sit and have a drink with you as though everything's fine? Or to finish the job?"

At her feet, Teo lets out a low, unhappy whine; she winces, reaching down to rub his head again.

[birdhousesoul]

A curious thing happens then: Anders pauses, expectantly, as if he's waiting for something. And the thing he's waiting for just doesn't eventuate.

(Justice is not interested. It got what it wanted at the Chantry. Subsequent justifications are unnecessary. Anders is on his own, and Anders has never been quite such an orator without Justice supplying some of the words.)

He spares a glance for Teo, and a quick mutter: "Sorry, boy, it's no fun for me either." Then raises his eyes to a Hawke ablaze with indignation, and Maker help him, he's always loved her when she's angry because that means she cares about things, deeply and with conviction, cares enough to make things happenThe way she helped him make the revolution happen. Whether she likes it or not

[try_winging_it]

Hawke closes her eyes. I'd say we earned some beauty sleep.. She has been sleepwalking for the past five months since her arrival, taken away from the impossible tangle of disasters that was Kirkwall to a place where she was unconnected, unresponsible. Free to stay unconnected and unresponsible, if she wished. She hasn't, but she's ghosted through her time here all the same, for the most part.

But it was just sleep, and now she's waking to find that all that chaotic emotion is still there, grief and rage and love, yes, despite herself, still love, strong as ever. All knotted so that she can't tell where one ends and another begins. "All I tried to do, maybe," she says finally. "It's easier when you know what the right thing to do is." When there's a choice between right and wrong, instead of bad and worse.

When did she become the arbiter of right and wrong? All she'd wanted was to protect her family, damn it. But family had expanded to include friends, lover, and then the entire city, and then the city's problems had become the

[birdhousesoul]

He's at once relieved and slightly ashamed that his approach has yielded the hoped-for result, so far as he can tell, anyway. Hawke won't make a scene. How many times, he wonders suddenly (it occurs, suddenly, that he should wonder), has she hoped the same of him? Telling off Knight-Commander Meredith in the heart of Templar Hall was perhaps not his finest moment, and Hawke was all that stood between him and immediate arrest as a seditious apostate. And she did that for him, stood by him and let him capitalize on her standing, let him -

He is not thinking clearly, he decides.

Probably a combination of patchouli and brickquer fumes, inducing lightheadedness. That's all. He needs to dunk his head in cold water, or something.

He takes an even, measured breath. "Tell you what. The night's shot anyhow. Why don't I go and ... make myself more fit for human company. Shave some of this off," he cups his chin in one hand and moves his hand a little to feel and hear the gritting of stubble against the skin, it's gotten that bad

[try_winging_it]

Hawke can feel the warmth of his hand through the shirt she's wearing, and suddenly it seems like a very long time since anyone touched her. She allows it, though she doesn't react outwardly. And damn him, he can read her stillness better than most, will know it for deep emotion rather than a lack of it.

But she's never been able to resist Anders' mix of flippancy and heartfelt sincerity, and it's certainly a better idea than standing in the middle of the bar and trying not to make a scene. "On the condition that you don't refer to me as the Champion of Kirkwall again. Not that I ever gave a damn about presentable even when I was that." She lets out a long breath, releasing some of the tension in her body with it. "Are we talking an hour to get yourself cleaned up, or a day?" That half-smile quirks again, because she never could resist a teasing remark even when there's nothing funny about the situation. "Or do you need that month of beauty sleep first?"

[birdhousesoul]

"That depends. How beautiful do you want me to be?" If Anders is overdoing it on the joking-to-serious ratio, he can't help it. Smiling with her, seeing her smile, feels better than he has any right to feel. Certainly better than he thought he could feel before this conversation took place. He knows what she's asking is important, however, and he has to address it carefully if he's not to undo whatever good she and he have accomplished here tonight

[try_winging_it]

She shouldn't be joking so much. It's misleading, not to mention it feels like a further breach of trust, though she'd be hard-pressed to say to whom. But humor's always been Hawke's defense mechanism, and it's a long time since they were able to tease each other. Not just her five months, but those long weeks when they were so busy not saying things to each other that they weren't able to say much of anything at all. "Good luck. You'll need every minute, some of that dirt has been permanently ingrained for years." She shrugs, mostly so that he'll move his hand from her shoulder. "Tomorrow, then. You can meet me at the library, that's where I usually am in the afternoon." That should be safe enough. Neutral territory.

[birdhousesoul]

((oh lord, like half of act 3 where when you right-click on him he snottily informs you that "I think we're better off focusing on the task at hand"? Yeaaaah. THAT needs to be brought up, because WTF ANDERS.))

"The library, then, tomorrow. It's a date," says Anders, who promptly regrets the remark, but it's already been said, so. There's that.

[try_winging_it]

((oh, a lot of things need to be brought up. She should just make a list))

Hawke raises her eyebrow and gives him an eloquent look, not bothering to point out how completely ludicrous (and not in amusing ways) that description is.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders has the good grace to blush. It's the classic Anders blush, right out to the tips of his ears.

"Yes. Well. I'd better get going, then, if I'm to have a head-start on excavating these pores."

((let me know what happens next / when they should next thread! also, edited this for pronoun inclusion ))

[try_winging_it]

"You do that," Hawke says wryly, walking past him towards the bar. She came in here for some alcohol, and by Andraste's pyre she's more determined than ever to get it.

But she pauses just next to him and adds, more quietly and without looking at him, "It's good to see you, too." A breath. "Painful. But good."

She keeps walking before he can say anything else; Teo picks himself up and follows, brushing against Anders' leg as he jogs by.

((give me, uhm, a day or so, Hawke may have some interaction with Zevran and/or Sheeana in the interim and I should at least get that started))