Archive of Our Own

They were just supposed to retrieve “two things” from Anders’ clinic, that was the agreement.

Two things.

Fenris leaned against the wall by the clinic door, arms crossed over his chest while he watched Anders with “just one” patient and then “just one more” and then “but she really needs my help, we’ll go after this one.”

The mage was currently occupied with a young woman who had been brought in by three concerned friends. They were dressed too well for Darktown, even the Upperdark, and on closer inspection, Fenris was ready to wager that they had been slumming Lowtown in borrowed servants’ clothes.

He scowled as the girl tried to catch Anders for a kiss before her friends pushed her shoulders back down on the cot again.

“No...” she moaned. “I want to suck your cock. Let me suck you and Darrin can fuck me and Maura can—” Her friend, Maura put a hand over her mouth to muffle the rest of her propositions.

“He said it was called Green Giant and it would be more fun than getting drunk and our parents wouldn’t smell it on us,” the girl’s boyfriend, Darrin, explained for the third time. “And it was, but it hasn’t worn off for her and the rest of us are back to normal again.”

“Sure you are,” Anders muttered.

“Hold her. What are you kids doing down in Darktown seeing me?”

He turned away, letting their explanations wash over him – the Blooming Rose, a safe place for the night with a bed big enough for the four of them, they’d had... fun and then fallen asleep (passed out) but when they woke up Karina was still...

“Going,” Anders said, returning with a mug of something that steamed in the cold clinic air. “I noticed that the third time she tried to get her hand down my trousers.”

Maura said, “So Madame Lusine said if we didn’t want our parents to find out and we were desperate enough, that there was a healer here in Darktown who wouldn’t talk. And well,” she looked down at Karina, who had stopped talking and was licking Maura’s palm, “we’re pretty desperate. We even paid her for better clothes to wear down here so we’d fit in.”

Anders snorted and moved Maura’s hand before he put a hand under Karina’s head to lift her up and put the mug to her lips. “For you lot, I won’t talk, but I will charge. Hightown kids too scared to tell Mum and Da’ that they were partying at the Rose can bloody well help buy supplies for those who can’t afford to pay.”

“How did you—?” began Marcus, Maura’s boyfriend..

Fenris answered for Anders. “A room for four for the whole night at the Rose? Who else can afford that? In Darktown that kind of coin would feed and house a family of four for the month.”

“Longer,” Anders said while he tipped the mug for Karina to sip from. “Come on, Sweetheart, drink up. Drink it all down and we can all pretend you didn’t just do what you just did. Darrin, you’re supposed to be holding that hand.”

Darrin scrambled to pull Karina’s hand out of Anders’ crotch. “Sorry!”

Anders just snorted again, although Fenris thought he saw a flicker of fatigue on the mage’s face before he covered it with studied, focused neutrality. He held the mug for Karina until she had emptied it, then set it on the floor under the cot.

“Darrin,” Karina whined, twisting to rub her cheek against Darrin’s arm. “You’re not being any fun.”

Darrin looked at Anders with desperation in his eyes. “What are you going to do for her?”

Anders pushed away before Karina could get any more groping in and shrugged. “She should be asleep in a few more minutes, then you’re going to take her home or somewhere safe, and if she isn’t back to normal when she wakes up, you’re going to take her home and tell her parents what she’s been doing. Then they can call a high priced Hightown healer to take care of her.”

He stood up and started gathering up bloodied rags and tools that he had used on the patient before Karina, a dwarf with suspicious wounds that Anders had stitched up with only a comment that daggers were best sheathed in leather and not flesh. He had taken a few silver for the work and sent the dwarf on his way without so much as asking his name.

Karina’s writhing and stream of consciousness promises of the things she would do with her friends slowly faded out until she relaxed and closed her eyes with a last sigh, rolling over onto her side when her friends released her.

Anders nodded to himself and pulled a blanket up over her. “Who did you buy it from?”

Darrin looked at his friends and gnawed his lip until they both shook their heads. “I don’t know. It was this guy. Kinda old. Like your age.”

Anders closed his eyes in a slow blink, perhaps marshaling his reserves of patience before he opened them again. “I’m not going to give him a spanking. I need to know what the drug is and how often it has this kind of effect, because this isn’t an orichalcum overdose. I’ve seen those and they aren’t this nice. You’re sure Karina didn’t take more than the rest of you?”

Darrin shook his head. “We only got enough for the four of us and we all took it at the same time. It came in four little vials, so we all got the same amount. We thought that way we’d all feel about the same the whole time.”

“No other side effects?” Anders asked. “Headaches, nausea, itching, anything?”

The girl shrugged and spoke for the first time. “My skin got really hot?”

Fenris felt his lips twist with ill-concealed contempt. The children of privilege indeed.

“I was thirsty,” her boyfriend said. “And hot.”

“Other than those,” Anders said with surprising patience. “And other than the obvious fun ones.”

All three shook their heads and Darrin said, “No. It really was better than drinking, except...” He blushed. “I wouldn’t take it and go out in public.”

Anders managed a laugh at that. “I guess it depends upon the public, but I get your meaning. Are you sure you can’t tell me who sold it to you? Or at least where?”

All three shook their heads and Anders sighed heavily before holding out his hand. “Five sovereigns and for that I’ll call a couple of people who will help you get you and your friend out of Darktown in one piece.”

Fenris concealed his surprise, but only with an effort. Five sovereigns? Even Lusine’s “royal treatment” was only two sovereigns. Not that Fenris knew from personal experience, but Hawke had dragged him to the Rose on more than one of his pointless errands around the city.

The three put their heads together and finally pooled their money to give Anders a handful of coins that added up to the five sovereigns he had demanded.

Anders stuck his head outside the clinic door and whistled. Before too long a child came running up the stairs to the landing outside the clinic and took Anders’ instructions and a few of the kids’ coins before running back into Darktown. The little girl returned quickly with three large men and a solidly-built woman holding a truncheon.

After another exchange of coins, one of the men unceremoniously hoisted the sleeping girl over his shoulder. She muttered a sleepy complaint and shifted around to some slightly more comfortable position before falling back into whatever drugged sleep Anders had put her in.

“Go on,” Anders told her friends. “Pamela and her crew will see you up to Hightown, but you’re on your own from there. I’ve paid them, but you might want to remember them with a little extra coin when you get to the other side.”

Fenris followed Pamela, her men, and their feckless charges out onto the landing to extinguish the lantern that signaled that the healer was in. He would see the fool mage back up to Hawke’s home. He should be resting and caring for himself for a change.

Except.

Except that in a way, he could see that Anders was caring for himself. He seemed stronger and more confident after spending a few hours in his clinic than he had after a night of broken sleep and nightmares.

He banished the physical memory of weight and warmth in his arms. He tried, with less success, to push away the thought that Anders was less likely to steal the blankets when held close.

“You said two things,” he said gruffly when he returned to the clinic to see Anders making a futile attempt at sweeping away some of Darktown’s ubiquitous dirt. “Get your two things, we are leaving.”

Something in Fenris’ expression made Anders pause as he drew in a breath to argue. He let it out on a sigh and said, “If I don’t you’re going to carry me out of here, aren’t you?”

Fenris let himself smile just a little. Just enough for Anders to disappear into his bedroom to fetch whatever it was that was so precious to him.

“Looks like you two are getting along,” Hawke said from behind him.

Fenris whirled, instinctively drawing his sword to level it at Hawke’s throat before his mind caught up to the reactions that had been drilled into him until they were as natural as breathing.

Hawke looked from the sword tip to Fenris and held his hands away from his sides to show that they were empty. “If this is a traditional Tevinter greeting of friendship and respect, let’s do it the Kirkwall way with coshes and foul language.”

Fenris let the sword tip drop before he slid his sword back into its sheath. “You should not sneak up on people like that.”

Worse, it was not only Hawke who had snuck up on him, but Isabela, Varric, and Sebastian. He believed it, almost expected it from Varric and Isabela, but of all the people in Kirkwall to be stealthy, Sebastian Vael had always struck Fenris as the most implausible. He should be praying or polishing his armor, not sneaking about in the muck with Hawke and his cronies. Yet there he was, gleaming and white amid Darktown’s filth and Fenris had not heard him coming.

Despite that, Fenris’ opinion of Sebastian tended toward the positive. They were all conflicted in one way or another, Sebastian Vael no more or less than any of the rest of Hawke’s friends.

He exchanged a nod of greeting with Sebastian and stood aside to allow Hawke and his friends entrance into the clinic.

“Bodahn said you were probably down here,” Hawke said, “so we—”

“He,” Sebastian said.

“We thought we might come see our favorite healer.”

“Your favorite?” Anders asked as he came out of his bedroom carrying his backpack and staff.

“We being he, and by favorite we mean only and sexiest because Merrill is a terrible healer,” Isabela said, resting her arms on Hawke’s shoulders while she gave Anders such an intensely searching look that Fenris half-expected Anders’ clothes to fall off.

Not that his ridiculous coat couldn’t use replacement anyway.

More gently she asked, “How are your patients?”

Fenris realized that this was one of the reasons he liked Hawke and his friends - they knew that bad things happened and that you endured and got on with living.

Well, most of them did. He was still working on the getting on with living part himself.

In Isabela’s case, she was asking how Anders’ primary patient was doing, and giving him the choice to answer for himself or not.

“My patients are the usual mix of unfortunate and stupid, and in some cases unfortunately stupid,” Anders said, pulling up a wan smile for her.

Fenris thought that this did not clarify whether Anders was speaking of himself or the people who came to him.

Anders settled his pack on his shoulders and fluffed his pauldrons where they had been mussed by the straps. “Have you heard of some new intoxicant called ‘Green Giant’?”

Isabela squealed, making Hawke clap a hand over his ear and shrug her off his shoulder.

“I’d say that would be a big yes from Team Rivain,” Varric said.

“It’s brilliant!” she said, bouncing with excitement. She stopped bouncing and amended, “In the right company. Otherwise, I think we could lean more toward not as brilliant. Back in Rivain there were just as many people selling the antidote as the drug. The antidote was in every smart partygoer’s kit. It cut down on the number of bastards using it to take advantage if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Anders said.

“I don’t,” Hawke said.

“It’s a drug,” Isabela said. “It’s made with orichalcum, but it’s more than that. The stories say that some of the Wilders bury orichalcum at the roots of certain trees out in the Korcari Wilds where the old magic is in everything. Then they come back after a few years and tap the trees and distill Green Giant out of the sap.”

Varric chuckled. “That sounds like a story any good merchant would tell to jack up the price. I would tack on that the antidote is milked from wild halla that are fed on the leaves from the same trees.”

Isabela pouted at him. “Tiny deer. The story is that they milk it from tiny deer that live only in the Wilds and eat only the most tender shoots that the tree sends up out of the ground.”

Varric threw his head back and laughed, quickly joined by both Hawke and Sebastian. Isabela punched his shoulder before she joined in the laughter.

“That still doesn’t completely explain it,” Hawke said.

“It makes you...” Isabela groped the air suggestively while she groped for words. “Very aware of your skin, and everyone else’s skin and keeps you awake so you can enjoy all that skin all night long.”

“A high-powered aphrodisiac,” Anders said.

Isabela shrugged. “Yes and no. I mean, yes, but it also makes you very happy. Anything on your mind just doesn’t seem important for a while and the next day you’re fine.”

“Unless you’re like the girl I treated earlier,” Anders said grimly. “Her friends are fine now, but she’s still trying to hump everything that moves.”

Isabela nodded. “That happens sometimes. I’ve never heard of anyone who doesn’t come down eventually. If you have the time, you can call that a bonus.”

“I don’t,” Anders said, but he smiled faintly. “But there was a time when I would have. It’s good to know, though. I sent her and her friends back up to Hightown with an escort. I don’t babysit recreationally messed up strangers if they can go somewhere else.”

He settled his staff on his back and moved closer to Fenris. “What are you four doing out together? What could possibly require this much sneakiness in one place?”

“Business instead of pleasure,” Hawke said, jerking a thumb toward Isabela where she was bickering with Varric over tiny deer. “I wanted to have a talk with Athenril about letting us have Isabela on a regular basis, since Isabela here went and made a deal with her in exchange for overall control of the Mermaid.

Isabela took a moment away from teasingly fondling Bianca over Varric’s shoulder to say, “Don’t underestimate the call of the sea.”

“Don’t underestimate the allure of running away you mean,” Sebastian said, voicing what Fenris was only thinking.

Fenris gave Sebastian credit for not flinching under the combined glares from Anders, Isabela, and Hawke. Varric just buffed his fingernails and ignored the humans.

“That explains Hawke and Isabela,” Anders said. “What did you need the others for?”

“I’m not just an ‘other,’ Blondie,” Varric said. “I’m a merchant with connections Athenril has been wanting to get an in with.”

Isabela blew Varric a kiss. “I told him I’d forgive his Wicked Grace debts.”

Anders nodded. “That makes sense. But him?” He jerked his chin in Sebastian’s direction. “Did you want to hypnotize Athenril with his crotch?”

Sebastian ignored Anders, leaving Hawke to answer for him. “Sebastian heard that Athenril was getting in shipments from Starkhaven and went for news of home. Smugglers hear a lot for the right coin.”

Fenris said, “Were your negotiations successful?”

“Yes.” Isabela beamed. “If Hawke needs me for something festively bloody and profitable, I can come along without worrying about pissing off half the smugglers in the Free Marches. He’s very persuasive.”

“He has a deep purse,” Hawke said, but brushed his fingers over Isabela’s hand. “And now he wants to celebrate. I didn’t really expect you to say yes, but—”

“But we’re going to the Hanged Man for Wicked Grace and you always get an invitation,” Isabela said. “The party is in Varric’s room.”

Fenris expected Anders to decline. He would have.

Anders hesitated before casting a glance at Fenris. Fenris lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. It is your decision.

“For a little while,” Anders said. “Not that I don’t just love having Fenris glaring at me until I eat something. He has a future as my assistant ahead of him. He can glower my patients into getting better out of self-defense.”

Fenris frowned until his friends laughed.

“Thank you for proving my point,” Anders said, and motioned everyone toward the door.

Anders did not want to be at the Hanged Man. He wanted to be somewhere familiar, somewhere safe where he could lick his wounds and try to get back on his feet. Intuition told him that if he let himself hide from the world, it would only get harder to go back out as time went by.

Besides, what was he going to do? Cling to Fenris?

It was pleasant, but...

Whatever it was that was growing up between them should not grow in ground watered in tears, even just figurative ones. At the moment, Anders felt he had too many literal tears to make clinging a good idea.

And that was without even touching on Justice’s disquiet at recent developments.

He hates mages. He hates you.

Fenris did hate mages, and Anders was having trouble seeing his hatred as irrational at that moment. He also had trouble believing that Fenris hated him. For one thing, Fenris had told him that he did not hate him, which was generally a good sign of not being hated.

For another, he owed Fenris for the fact that he was no longer strapped into that chair.

Just the thought made Anders’ breath catch.

Varric stood up and pushed Anders’ tankard of heavily-watered beer closer. “Drink up, Blondie, Isabela wants more IOUs from you.”

Anders let Varric pull him out of his thoughts and forced a smile. “If Fenris is playing, I think he’ll be getting more IOUs than Isabela.”

Fenris shook his head. “I am not in the mood to play.”

Isabela tossed cards out onto the table, including in front of Fenris. “Too bad. If you’re here, you’re playing. I need a chance to win back some of my money.”

Fenris gave her a hint of a smile and said, “Then I will take the card you are hiding in your bracer.”

Three hands later, Anders folded in disgust and pushed away from the table, shaking his head at Fenris when he put his hand down. “Too much water, not enough beer. I’ll be back if something doesn’t come up out of the privy hole. I’ll scream if it does and you all can come running then.”

Which, in Kirkwall, was not entirely out of the question.

He kept his eyes down, when he left Varric’s room, smiling to himself as the sound of laughter followed him out of the room. Fenris had caught Isabela cheating. Again. That elf had the sharpest eyes.

His heart jumped in his chest when an unfamiliar voice called his name. “Anders?”

Anders reached for his staff before he could stop himself, adrenaline making his skin prickle and itch while part of his mind screamed, I won’t be taken again!

“Anders, it is you.”

Now Anders recognized the speaker, vaguely. He was medium height, with dark skin and darker hair pulled back in a long ponytail, gold hoops in his nose and right ear, and a gold stud below his chin that gleamed in a close-cropped black goatee. A fling back in Denerim, he had a cock that—

Justice did not appreciate that memory, and Anders was not in a mood for revisiting past one-night stands. Even if it had been three nights in the Pearl and – Pietro, that was his name, a Rivaini – and Pietro had gifted him with an extravagant pair of gold arm bands when they parted. Anders remembered that Pietro had made his way in the world with nimble fingers and extremely flexible morals.

Pietro raised a hand to touch Anders’ cheek, but Anders flinched back before he could catch himself.

“So cold?” Pietro moved closer, reaching to clasp Anders’ bicep. “Surely you have not forgotten me.”

Anders pushed Pietro’s hand away and took a step back. “Pietro. I remember, but I’m...” He did not owe this virtual stranger any explanation. “With friends and I want to get back to them.”

“Any friends of yours would be friends of mine,” Pietro said. He moved into Anders’ personal space again until Anders put his hand up in the center of his chest to hold him away.

“It’s a private party, and I’m just... not looking for any company tonight.” He tried to smile, because he did have pleasant memories of Pietro, but the man was just a past fuck, not a lover or even a friend. He owed him nothing more than politeness. “But I’m glad you’re well.”

His fingers tightened on his staff when Pietro’s brows drew down. “Are you with someone?”

Yes. No. Maybe? Anders knew what the man was asking, but it was too complicated to answer. The best answer was probably no, but Anders did not want it to be no.

Pietro’s eyes moved over his face, taking in every tiny flicker of thought that passed there. “Don’t tell me you have become a Chantry brother. I remember your appetites.”

Sometimes you can learn to live with hunger. But that was not an answer he was going to give, and Pietro was starting to get on his already-frayed nerves.

“I’m not hungry for what you’re offering,” he said frostily. “So go back out into the main room, order another round, and find someone who is available. I have to get back to my friends now.”

He pushed past Pietro to return to Varric’s room, deciding that he did not have to piss as badly as he had thought. He rounded on Pietro with a snarl when the man tried to catch his arm again. “I said go!” He felt his control crumble to the point that fire flickered over his right hand where he held his staff, dancing there in the hall’s dim light.

Pietro released him immediately and took a step back, but the look in his eyes made Anders think that he had made a mistake in letting himself slip. Pietro had been on the receiving end of some of Anders’ more pleasant magical skills, but threatening him was another matter. It would be a terrible thing if he had to hurt a man he had slept with over a misunderstanding.

Pietro took another step back and spread his hands, offering a shallow, mocking bow before he turned on his heel and descended the stairs back into the Hanged Mans’ main room.

It did not feel finished between them, but Anders could not trust his feelings about anything at the moment.

He returned to Varric’s room and sat down, cradling his head in his hands and letting his friends’ voices wash over him while he tried to restore his fragile equilibrium.

He did not look up when Norah rapped on the door and sourly announced, “Someone bought a round for the party with ‘his apologies.’” She set fresh drinks around the table, ale, wine, and Anders’ watered beer, shrugging when asked who had sent the drinks. “Go look for the man with more metal in his face than her,” indicating Isabela.

Anders raised his head then and peered past Fenris out the open door. Pietro was just visible down in the main room watching Norah distribute the drinks. He raised his glass to Anders and turned away to say something to Corff, laughing before he drained his drink.

He considered the tankard, remembering being drugged by Nives, but he had been alone then, and now he was surrounded by friends – and Fenris. What was Pietro going to do? Knock him out and drag him away?

Not likely.

Anders picked up the tankard and took a careful sip, tasting only bitter beer and too much water. Looking back down into the main room, he saw Pietro watching him again and raised the tankard before taking another drink.

Pietro nodded and watched him until Norah pulled the door closed on her way out of the room.

Even on a chilly winter afternoon, Varric’s suite grew warm enough that Anders finally gave up and slid his coat off, draping it over the high back of his chair while he tried to focus on the other players at the table. Over the next hour, he lost the next three hands, two of them to Fenris. Sebastian won the third after being cajoled into playing against all objections. Apparently, while being a Chantry brother might do little to teach one the art of reading people, Sebastian’s royal upbringing and rake’s past gave him formidable skills.

When Sebastian promised to donate all of his winnings to the Chantry, Anders threw his hand into the center of the table and stood up.

“I have to piss.”

“Why must you always inform us of these things?” Fenris asked while he gathered up the discarded cards and began to shuffle. Anders watched his fingers for a moment, they were bare of his gauntlets to avoid damaging the cards and Anders found himself momentarily fascinated by the lines of lyrium over his knuckles. .

“I assure you that none of us are impressed,” Fenris went on, barely glancing up at Anders to deliver that judgment.

Anders pulled himself out of his distraction and flapped a hand over Fenris’ hair, ruffling it with the tiny breeze he raised. “It’s a habit,” he said, the words leaving his mouth before he could censor them. “Templars always wanted to know where you were going, what you were doing.”

He gave in to the impulse to actually touch Fenris’ hair and had to bite his lip against a sigh of pleasure. So soft. So fine and silky, and he could just.... He jerked his hand back before Fenris could turn a burning glare up at him.

He shrugged and backed toward the door, but Isabela was already smirking and glancing speculatively between him and Fenris.

“Sometimes I forget. That’s all.”

He fled Varric’s suite, trying to push away thoughts of Fenris’ hair, his fingers naked without those sharp-clawed gauntlets, his lips pressed against Anders’ while Anders leaned into him, please, please, please....

Maker, that image was so sharp, so visceral that it felt like a recent memory and not just a random inappropriate fantasy.

He pushed aside the image along with Justice’s growing disquiet. He was a little too old to let random fantasies have him dying for a quick wank.

I would have you on your knees...

Anders’ knees nearly buckled with a memory. No, it could not be a memory of Fenris growling those words in his ear.

He hurried down the hall to the privy and closed the door for a moment’s privacy, breathing in the reeking air in deep gasps. Something was wrong and he knew that he should be more troubled, Justice knew that he should be more troubled, but all he could think about how soft Fenris’ skin was without all the coarse hair human men grew.

Just managing to take care of the reason he had gone to the privy in the first place took longer than Anders wanted. He had his cock in hand, but every time it seemed as though he could finally let go, some stray thought would distract him – licking the lyrium on Fenris’ chin, lyrium-marked fingers fisted in his hair, oh Maker, seeing Fenris above him, brands lit in the instant when they both...

Damn. No. Now he was so hard he could hammer nails with his cock.

He forced his wandering mind back to other things, struggling just to get soft enough for long enough to take care of business and get out of the privy’s stink and back to excuse himself to his friends.

“Sorry everyone, no more cards for me,” he murmured, giggling to himself. “I need to go home and wank.”

The thought of going back down to Darktown where he would be alone and vulnerable served to chase away his erection for long enough to finally take care of one urgent need.

The simple pleasure of an empty bladder had him groaning loudly enough to attract the attention of someone waiting outside. Anders jumped and yipped quietly when someone thumped the privy door with a fist.

“Coming!”

Not yet.

He tucked himself back in his trousers and opened the door to find himself face to face with Pietro.

The man’s predatory smile should have frightened Anders, but all it did was rouse a memory of their brief time together in Denerim.

Pietro’s cock was short but broad, from the wide flare at the head to its almost impossible thickness at the base, Anders had to strain to open his jaw wide enough to suck him without grazing his shaft with his teeth. He enjoyed the challenge, in part because he could take the full length easily.

He could taste the bitter saltiness of semen while he stared open-mouthed into Pietro’s dark eyes, and suddenly he was hard again.

This time when Pietro raised a hand to touch his cheek, Anders leaned into the touch, toes curling inside his boots at how simply good it felt.

“Not so cold now, hm?” Pietro murmured, using the bare contact of his fingertips on Anders’ skin to draw him closer.

Justice’s manifestation broke over Anders’ skin with crackles of angry blue and a bloom of black smoke, and even that made Anders want to throw his head back to revel in the sensation before he was pushed back into being a passive rider in his own body.

“What have you done?” Justice demanded.

With the detachment that came when Justice took control, Anders could see what he had missed when he drifted down the spiral into his altered state.

His flare of rage bounced right off the wall of pleasure that clouded his mind - the wall that Justice was currently on the other side of, exposed without Anders to protect him.

Maker, he could feel Justice starting to lose himself in the fog.

Let me back in!

Justice raised their hand and barely managed not to caress Pietro, who was still shrinking back from Anders’ sudden change.

“What have you—” Justice buckled under the foreign sensations and ceded control back to Anders so suddenly that he staggered as he gasped out, “—done?”

Pietro had yet to notice the difference even as the smoldering cracks in Anders’ skin closed as though they had never been there.

“Green Giant!” Pietro said before he lunged at Anders with a dagger in his hand.

A crossbow bolt pierced Pietro’s shoulder to pin him against the wall like some collector’s specimen while the dagger clattered harmlessly to the floor.

Green Giant.

Anders began to laugh helplessly, sliding down the wall next to the privy door as a blazing blue-white figure pushed past him to jerk Pietro off the crossbow bolt. Pietro’s wail of pain filled the narrow space and Anders laughed harder. See, he knew Fenris would take care of things.

He hugged his knees to his chest and laughed until tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

“Anders?” He felt someone near him, but no touch. The voice was familiar, a beautiful woman’s voice. He could roll around in her voice and maybe she could come and talk to him naked. They could both be naked and then they could—

“I wouldn't do that. Why don’t you go have a talk with that guy? You know, Rivaini to Rivaini?”

Oh, he liked this voice too. It was smooth and masculine and touchable. He peeked up over his knees and found himself transfixed by Varric’s chest. Oh yes, Varric could get naked too and then Anders would rub his cheek against his chest hair. He was sure it would be soft and warm and Varric’s voice could rumble right against his ear.

“Just keep talking.” Varric might not have understood him with his face still against his knees, but he was trying to keep his hands to himself.

Somewhere that did not matter because it did not have Varric’s beautiful voice, someone else cried out in pain.

Varric crouched near him just out of touching distance. “Blondie? Anders? How are you feeling?”

Anders raised his head to meet Varric’s eyes and had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing again.

“Green Giant, right?” he said, and then he did laugh again until he covered his mouth with his hand and snickered past the blockage.

Varric nodded. “You just can’t catch a break, can you?”

Pietro whimpered something.

Anders caught himself reaching out to pet Varric’s chest and snatched his hand back.

“Probably not,” he said, rubbing his fingers together just imagining the feel of that amazing chest hair under them. “But it’s scared Justice into hiding. I bet I could drink the whole bar without a peep out of him.”

He could probably get laid without a peep from Justice too. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he dragged his eyes off of Varric to seek out... there!

White hair, dark skin still ablaze with lyrium light, Fenris drew back a bloodied fist to strike, but Isabela caught his arm and said something that made Fenris stay the blow.

“Swear it,” Fenris rumbled, making Anders squirm with a need to feel Fenris’ voice and breath against his skin.

“Count on it,” Isabela said grimly. “He’ll wish you had finished him here.”

Anders pushed himself to his feet and lurched toward Fenris, hand outstretched for a touch before Hawke caught his arm and spun him, almost as though they were dancing.

Dancing!

Yes, they should do that.

Hawke turned him to walk back to Varric’s room. “so, weren’t we just talking about Green Giant? I think Isabela’s jealous that you got some first.”

Anders grinned and leaned in to nuzzle Hawke’s cheek. “I always liked you, Hawke.”

“Fenris!”

Yes, please.

“Fenris!”

Fenris wondered how and why he had become Anders’ keeper, but he went at Hawke’s call, brushing past Sebastian, who hurried down the hall with a backpack in his hands.

Fenris mused that possibly it was because he had cast himself in the role of mage-minder when he led Anders’ rescue. But no, it went farther back than that, farther back than watching over a teenage boy in Vigil’s Keep, farther back than nights spent waking the man from a seemingly endless string of nightmares, back even as far as a night under Darktown when he could have left the mage caged with demons with his permission, but had chosen not to.

Maker, which of them was the bigger fool?

And now he was faced with this wild-eyed, grinning madman, and everyone expected Fenris to take care of him.

“Fenris.” Anders said it avidly, reaching out to clasp his cuff. “I just had the best idea. The best!”

Fenris was struck by the sudden realization that he and Anders had touched so often and so constantly that his instinctive aversion and reaction to touch had been blunted. The lyrium did not flare when Anders grabbed him, nor did his anger.

His discomfort, however, blazed at the thought that his friends were observing Anders touching him so familiarly and drawing at least partially-correct conclusions from it.

That, too, was blunted the moment he realized that Anders still had his other arm hooked over Hawke’s shoulder and was toying with his friend’s hair. Instead of discomfort, he felt the rise of a new emotion, one that he did not fully understand, but which made him want to remove Anders’ hand from Hawke’s hair and his arm from around Hawke’s shoulders.

The strange emotion was spurred to an acid burn by Pietro’s pleading behind him.

“Please, I didn’t understand. He used to be different. Surely you know what he used to be like.” The man had turned his pleading on Isabela, who was grimly trussing him up with junk pulled from the backpack Sebastian had brought her – Hawke’s.

She ripped a strip from an already torn pair of trousers to wrap around his arms above the elbows, pulling them back at a painfully awkward angle. “People change.” She pulled the knot tight enough to make Pietro hiss a protest. “When they do, you listen.”

She finished with his bindings and rifled through his pockets and pouches until she found a pouch filled with a tiny vials of a luminous green fluid. She beckoned Varric over for a whispered conversation before giving him the pouch – not before tucking a pair of vials into her cleavage, Fenris noted.

Anders drew his attention back to the other half of the Pietro problem.

“Fenris. Fenris?” Anders tugged on his wrist. “Do you want to know my idea?”

Fenris made an effort to be gentle in prying Anders’ fingers off of his wrist. “No.”

Anders released Hawke to give Fenris the full focus of his attentions. “You should glow again!” Anders said, reaching eagerly for Fenris until Fenris caught his hands. “I’d glow at you, but Justice is hiding.”

Before Fenris could ask for clarification of why Justice was hiding, Isabela laughed behind him. “I would pay to see that. Hawke, I’m going to need your help getting our package moved.”

“What about Anders?” Hawke asked as he slipped past Fenris in the narrow hall outside the privies to help Sebastian hoist Pietro up off the floor.

“Blondie can stay in my suite,” Varric said. “If Fenris is going to keep an eye on him. No way is that boy safe to be on his own.”

Anders raised his hands in Fenris’ grip and bent as though to kiss Fenris’ hand. Fenris saw his tongue dart out across his lower lip and jerked his hands away before Anders could follow through on either kissing or licking him.

“I want to see that one dealt with,” Fenris said, indicating Pietro.

Isabela lightly slapped Pietro’s cheek and gave Fenris a hard grin. “He won’t be finished until long after Anders has slept it off. Varric can bring you two to see him.”

That wasn’t good enough for Fenris. “What are you going to do to him?”

While they talked, Anders began testing the leather spikes on Fenris’ shoulders, poking them with his fingertips and then with the whole palm of his hand. Fenris thought it detracted from the force of the glower he directed at Pietro.

If anything, Isabela’s grin grew harder and colder. “That would be telling, and I don’t want our package to miss the surprise.”

She patted Hawke’s ass on the way past before taking Anders’ hand off of Fenris’ pauldrons. “You would be so much more fun if you had chosen this,” she said, holding his hand between both of hers, lightly stroking over the freckles on the back of his hand with her thumbs.

Fenris was faintly surprised that Isabela was not taking advantage past the light caress that made Anders shiver with delight.

“We’ll take good care of him for you.” She tilted her head at Pietro as Hawke and Sebastian hauled him past, following Varric toward the inn’s locked back exit. “When you’re feeling more yourself, you can decide if he gets to live or not, but I think what I have in mind might do for justice.”

She leaned in to kiss Anders’ cheek and easily shifted to compensate when he tried for a kiss on the lips. She planted a light kiss on his cheek before drawing back.

“If you’re still that willing when you sober up, Sweet Thing, come talk to me. We’ll see how adventurous Hawke is feeling.”

Fenris felt his features turn to stone.

Isabela raised an eyebrow at him and smirked. “Or maybe not.”

She winked at Fenris and turned to follow the others down the hall.

“Waaaant,” Anders breathed, almost swaying in time with her hips.

Fenris grabbed his wrist to drag him in the opposite direction to Varric’s suite.

He slammed and barred the door with a bit too much force, silently seething for reasons his mind recoiled from every time he tried to look at them. Pietro trying to take Anders, Anders with his arm around Hawke’s shoulder and his fingers in Hawke’s hair, Isabela inviting Anders to bed with her and Hawke.

He refused the word that best described what those things incited in him.

Anders breezed past him, oblivious to his anger. He pounced on Isabela’s discarded cup, chortling to himself before he drained what remained of her rum.

“Hah!” He said in triumph, although in triumph over what, Fenris had no idea.

Fenris took Varric’s cup from him before he could drain that as well. The mage hardly needed to be more intoxicated.

Anders pouted and move on to the next cup before Fenris caught his arm and pulled him away from the table.

Unfortunately, Anders went all too readily, bringing their bodies together to steal a kiss.

They had reached a stage where kissing in private was perhaps not asking too much. And, some small part of Fenris’ mind whispered, if Anders were to think of someone in his condition, let it be Fenris, not Pietro, or Hawke, or Isabela.

Anders moaned into his mouth and took Fenris’ willingness to kiss him as permission to press for more.

Fenris pulled away with a startled grunt when Anders palmed his groin, fingers pressing and tracing, seeking the outline of his cock through his leathers.

“No.” Fenris caught his wrist and pulled it away.

“Fenris, please!”

Fenris allowed Anders to kiss him again while he captured both of Anders’ wrists with his hands, but Fenris’ distraction took enough of the savor out of it to make even Anders’ take notice.

“You’re going to say no again.” Anders was crestfallen for the space of a breath before beaming. “Will you pet my hair?”

The man was going to be the death of him.

How was he going to keep Anders from breaking down his resistance with his repeated importuning?

“Lie on the bed.”

Anders’ grin was still startling for their context – Fenris had not expected to see him smile like that for a long time after what he had just been through. It was, perhaps, the only good thing to come from this experience.

“On your stomach,” he added, not trusting what Anders might do if he could pull Fenris down with him.

More honestly, he did not trust what he would do if Anders pulled him down. Just the fleeting press of Anders’ fingers through his leathers had wakened his cock. He was not yet fully hard, but it would take little to get him there.

Anders darted in to lick his chin, his tongue wet and impossibly hot along one of the lyrium lines there before Fenris jerked his head back and pushed Anders away with a hand against his sternum.

“Go!”

Even past the drug, Fenris’ ferocity caused Anders to flinch back.

Fenris snarled a curse and caught Anders’ bicep, pulling him over to Varric’s bed.

“Down. On your stomach.”

Anders half-fell onto the bed before crawling the rest of the way forward to collapse onto his stomach. His low moan and languid roll of his hips against the mattress sent more blood down to Fenris’ cock. And that simply was not fair.

Anders pulled one of Varric’s pillows out of the pile and buried his face against it before looking over his shoulder at Fenris. “It smells like Varric.”

Fenris quelled a violent impulse to snatch the pillow away from Anders. He perched on the edge of the bed and tentatively stretched out a hand to touch Anders’ hair.

His hands were trained to deal out violence, not give succor, but Anders forgot the scent of Varric on the pillow the moment Fenris touched him.

He kept his face turned, but Fenris heard his whisper of “More,” like a shout.

He petted Anders superficially at first, the way he might pet Hawke’s mabari, but his confidence grew with Anders’ every soft sigh and not-so-soft moan.

When he pulled the tie out of Anders’ hair and combed his fingers through it from the crown of his head down to his nape, Anders moaned and thrust his hips against the mattress, leaving Fenris irrationally jealous of an inanimate object.

But it kept Anders content for a while at least, until Fenris saw his hand creep down and under his body.

Fenris was on his feet almost before he realized it.

Anders turned his head to blink at him, pupils blown so wide from the drug that his iris was a thin brown outline around the black. “Why did you stop?”

“Stay there,” Fenris said. He snatched an open wine bottle off the table while Anders’ attention wandered back to Varric’s pillow.

“Fenris.” Anders got bored with the pillow and rose up on all fours to crawl down the bed toward him. “Come to bed.”

Fenris dragged his eyes away from Anders’ arched back and upthrust ass and shook his head. “No.”

The Maker hated him. The Maker hated them both.

Anders slid off the bed, pulling his shirt over his head in one easy motion to toss it carelessly aside. He kicked off his boots next while Fenris took another pull from the bottle.

“Stop!”

Anders had started to unlace his trousers, and it was all getting to be too much for Fenris.

“It’s hot,” Anders said and pushed down his trousers and smalls together.

Fenris had seen Anders naked just the night before, but this was the first time that Anders had displayed himself. Always before they had one or both tried to make some pretense of modesty, but not now. Anders was deep in the throes of the drug now, Fenris doubted that the mage could even remember the meaning of the word modesty, let alone give so much as a nod to it.

Now he was... golden. Or perhaps ivory and gold. Anders’ skin was pale where it rarely saw the sun, but with a light dusting of gold hair on his arms and legs, more hair spread over his chest in a light down and ran a narrow trail down from his navel to his groin where the hair grew in a shade darker, matching his perpetual scruff. The hair caught the light and limned him in gold.

Nor was Fenris able to keep his mind solely on Anders’ body hair.

He was hard, his cock standing away from his body, flushed darker than the rest of his skin.

That was a first between them. Fenris had been more than passingly aware of Anders’ cock on three occasions - once when they were trapped together in a sarcophagus and Anders’ physical reaction had been wildly inappropriate to their brink of death experience, once when they had been chained together and Anders had masturbated while, presumably, he had thought Fenris was asleep, and once when Fenris had held his hip while he poured his own wants into Anders’ ear.

Each time had, in one manner or another, been swept under the rug never to be mentioned again.

This was different. So very different.

Anders drew in a hissing breath, eyelids dropping almost fully closed as he cupped a hand under his genitals, raising them up almost as though he were presenting them to Fenris.

Fenris was simply transfixed by the sight, willing or not, he could not have looked away if he had been bespelled.

Anders flattened his other palm over his stomach, sliding up his body, daring Fenris to choose which to watch – the hand smoothing up over pale skin and golden hair, or the one that cradled his cock and balls while his thumb smoothed over the top of his shaft.

“Come back to bed with me.”

Fenris shook his head and took a step back, his mouth dry despite the wine he could still taste.

Anders’ fingers played over one of his nipples, and for a moment, he seemed to forget everything, even Fenris, as his head fell back, his eyes closed, and a light pinch wrung a long, low groan from his lips.

The sound went straight to Fenris’ cock. The slow swell toward fullness ended with a rush of blood to his groin that was almost painful in its swiftness.

Fenris closed his eyes and tried to summon up an image of Anders the day before, clinging to his cat with tear tracks streaking his cheeks. He held that Anders in his mind to force his body to listen to his will and not that of his amoral cock.

He almost won the fight until Anders touched him.

His eyes flew open at the brush of fingers over his lips to find himself face-to-face with the source of so much of his disquiet.

Past the lies that he had told himself, past the denials he hid behind like a wall, he wanted to see Anders looking at him like this. That realization struck him like a punch in the gut – he wanted to see just this degree of unrestrained desire in Anders’ eyes.

But he wanted it to be real.

Not magic, not some mad connection wrought by Xenon’s wards combined crazily with lyrium and a Fade spirit, and not a drug.

He wanted the kiss they had shared the night before and everything that could come after that kind of kiss, when the time was finally right.

His mind wanted those things like some fool romantic. His body wanted—

Anders replaced his fingertips with his lips and his tongue, hands pressed against Fenris’ breastplate to protect his bare skin from the ridge of metal over Fenris’ sternum.

Maker, he wanted this so much the ache of it made him absurdly grateful that his markings had taught him to endure pain. He let his hands hang helplessly at his sides as the wine bottle slipped from his numb fingers to thump on the floor and tip onto its side. There was nowhere “safe” to put his hands. Every option was just more of Anders’ skin, more temptation.

Anders leaned in to trace Fenris’ upper lip with his tongue and Fenris could feel the light brush of his erection against his thigh. All it would take would be the smallest lapse and this would end with their bodies tangled together in Varric’s bed.

His cock throbbed both from that mental image and Anders’ lips moving against his, barely brushing his skin as he breathed, “Touch me. Please, just touch me.”

He ground his teeth, jaw so tight that it ached, then tipped his head to rest his forehead against Anders’ forehead. “Anders, can you hear me? Really hear me? Are you in there at all?”

Anders moved to try to kiss him again, but Fenris drew back, catching his hands to move them off of his chest. “Control yourself!”

For a moment, he thought Anders’ expression clouded while the mage struggled to the surface. He could see him fighting for coherence before his lips parted and Fenris saw him sliding under again.

“Theuderic!”

Anders blinked and shuddered, but after a deep breath, he was there, he was present.

Fenris spoke quickly, not counting on his coherence lasting. “When we do this, it will not be like this. I will stay with you tonight only if you stay on the bed and do not touch me. Do you understand?”

Anders licked his lips and nodded.

“If you get off the bed, I will leave. I will have Maraas guard the door until I can return with Aveline, and she will watch over you. Do you understand?”

Anders whimpered, but nodded again.

“Tell me.”

Anders sounded little like himself, breathy and distant with the effort of lucidity, but his answer satisfied Fenris. “You’ll stay if I stay on the bed and don’t touch you. Or you’ll leave me.”

Even past the drug, he sounded so forlorn at the prospect of Fenris leaving that Fenris gave in and kissed him one last time, awkwardly bent at the waist to keep their bodies apart.

Just a little. Just a little closer. Just one touch, one caress, one fuck….

He pulled away so abruptly that Anders would have fallen against him were it not for his grip on Anders’ hands. A desire demon could be no more tempting than this damnable mage!

“Go.”

He gave Anders’ hands a light push and took a step back. All it did was give him a better view of Anders’ body, skin, scars, hard cock, and all.

He was never going to make it through this night if he could see Anders like this all night, begging him to come to him.

While Anders made his unsteady way back to Varric’s sleeping alcove, Fenris dragged one of the room’s high-backed chairs over to the foot of the bed. He settled it to face the fireplace, satisfying himself that he could stay near Anders without being subjected to the full show.

Every time he glanced toward Anders he had to make a willful effort to look away. Even the smile that Anders gave him when he saw Fenris looking was completely guileless and inviting.

It would have been easier to resist guile.

Once Anders settled himself on the bed, rolling around on the blankets with blissful noises that did nothing to ease Fenris’ mind or cock, he picked up the fallen wine bottle and shook it, finding enough wine left to make it worth taking with him. He took another long pull from the bottle before he dropped into the chair to watch the fire.

He tried to distract himself during the brief peaceful interlude with thoughts of Pietro and what possible fate Isabela thought was fitting for a man who was ultimately nothing better than a rapist.

He had his own reasons for hating those who thought to take what was not freely offered – be it through force, drugs, or blood magic. Reasons enough both to want to see Pietro suffer and to steel himself to resist Anders’ pleas.

He was not a good man, but he could endeavor to be a better man.

In the background, he could hear Anders moving restlessly behind him on the bed, sighing, murmuring wordlessly to himself, once a long moan that made Fenris want to look around the back of the chair, though he stopped himself.

He stiffened when he heard the bed creak, followed by the sound of the floor creaking under Anders’ weight.

“Get back on the bed.” Fenris kept his eyes trained on the fire, refusing to give in to the temptation to look at Anders.

“I need….”

“On the bed,” Fenris repeated, making his words harsh.

“I need it!” Anders said plaintively, but Fenris heard the bed creak under his weight again.

“What do you need?” Fenris asked once Anders had obeyed him.

“Salve. In my pack.”

Salve.

Fenris did not need to ask why, although the mere thought revived some of his flagging arousal.

Despite his best intention not to ask, the words were out of his mouth too quickly to take back. “Why is there salve in your pack?”

Under other circumstances, Anders might have told a palatable lie about being a healer, but he seemed as incapable of prevarication as he was of self-restraint.

“It can’t always be the wrong time with us.”

Fenris let that statement sink in, stunned by its sheer unexpected optimism, coming as it did from a decision made early in the day when Anders had simply been struggling through the motions of his daily life. More than any one thing he had learned about Anders in the time they had spent together, it made him reassess the mage.

Was it weakness? Wanting to lose himself in another’s body?

Or was it a kind of unthinkable strength to take the psychic wound and still have the ability to turn an eye outward from the pain toward a future where there might be some good? Some pleasure?

That was greater strength than Fenris had been able to summon up on his own.

“Fenris?”

Strong or weak, and Fenris was unsure which was the right answer, Anders was in no condition to see to his own care. In this case, Fenris could be strong for him for now.

He rose from the low chair and retrieved Anders’ pack from under the long table where they had gathered earlier to play cards. He collected an unopened bottle of wine along the way. If he had to babysit Anders all night long, he might need the fortification that came in the bottle.

He kept his eyes on the floor when he returned to his chair, tossing the pack onto the end of the bed for Anders to snatch up.

He could tell without looking when Anders found what he was looking for, both from his triumphant, “Yes!” and the thud of the pack being unceremoniously shoved to the floor.

Fenris found the quiet room to be too loud with the crackle of the fire, the occasional shouts and laughter from the Hanged Man’s main room, and most especially with Anders’ quiet sounds – sighs, gasps, and finally, the subtle sound of flesh sliding along flesh.

His imagination supplied the images to accompany the sounds. Anders on his back with his hand wrapped around his cock, or on his knees, stroking himself while he reached a hand behind himself to press a finger into his—

Anders moaned.

Fenris’ cock strained against his leathers.

“Fenris…”

His mind supplied new images – his mouth on Anders, Anders’ fingers in his hair to guide him down, bronze pubic hair brushing his nose and the scent of sex and sweat and Anders…

He grazed the heel of his hand down the length of his erection under his leathers and hissed through his teeth.

This was not working and he was the sober one.

He stretched his legs out and unlaced his leggings to ease the pressure, but it did nothing to ease the ache as the cool air filtered in to touch his cock through the gaps in the leather. He would rather it were Anders, unlacing him and pulling him free, kneeling between his outstretched legs—

Anders’ groan cut through his thoughts like a hot wire around his spine.

If he turned, he would see what Anders was doing. His breath was coming in faster, harsher pants, the moans more frequent until Fenris had to grip the arms of the chair at the sound of a series of desperate moans that ended with Anders’ breathless call of his name again.

Silence fell, unbroken even by the patrons in the Hanged Man’s front room. He could hear Anders panting and the crackle of the fire and the pounding of his heart. He knew that if he dipped his fingers into his leathers to touch his cock they would come away with the first slick drops of precum.

Surely Anders had to rest now. He could find time to gather his thoughts and perhaps lace his leggings up again before he gave in to the urge to open them enough to pull his cock out into the open air.

Anders let out a long sigh before the bed creaked. He could hear Anders moving around again. Was this the mythical Grey Warden stamina?

“Fenris.” Anders practically crooned his name, so close that Fenris understood that the movement he had heard was Anders crawling down to his end of the bed. “Fenris….”

“What?”

“Let me off the bed.”

“No.”

“Let me off the bed, Fenris.” Fingernails scratched down the back of the chair, sending chills down Fenris’ back as though it had been his skin and not wood Anders’ had touched. “Kiss me, Fenris.” Anders’ words took on a rhythm of their own. “Touch me, Fenris.”

Again the fingernails on the back of the chair, and Fenris had to bite his lip to keep from making a sound.

“Let me off the bed, Fenris, and I’ll go to my knees for you. I’ll kiss you through the leather, I’ll drag my tongue up your laces, Fenris. Hold my head there, Fenris. Let me smell you. Let me feel you hard.”

Fenris’ breath caught.

He had used those words on Anders in Vigil’s Keep. He had held Anders as a youth and he had told him what he would do to him if he were a man.

Those same things.

Anders went on, turning the words into something that wrapped Fenris more tightly than any chains, held him more surely than any spell. “I’ll unlace you when you’re ready. I’ll take your cock out and lick you, taste you, suck away the saltiness from your slit.”

Anders’ voice dropped, a hoarse thickness sliding into the words as Fenris heard flesh on flesh again. Maker, so soon? How could he keep up with the man? “I’ll suck you, pull you deep into my throat, let you fuck my mouth. Fenris, let me off the bed.”

Fenris silently shook his head.

“Fuck me, Fenris.” Fingers curled around the edge of the chair back for a moment before withdrawing. Anders’ voice caught but he went on, the words coming faster. “Pull my legs up over your shoulders. I’ve used my fingers already, I’m ready. I want you inside me.”

Anders groaned, losing the flow of the words for a moment. “Fenris, I want to see you at your most vulnerable. I want to see your head thrown back. I want to feel you lose control, when you lose the rhythm and your hips jerk and for a…” He gasped and Fenris could barely hear the almost-frantic slide of skin on skin over the pounding of his pulse in his ears. “…for a moment you can’t think of anything except me and how I make you feel.”

He sounded as though he were right by Fenris’ ear. “Let me off the bed, Fenris.”

The rest of the world could have been pulled into the Void and Fenris would not have heard. All of his focus existed solely for Anders – his voice, his breathing, the sounds of his movement behind him. The chair back creaked and the chair rocked back just enough to lift its front legs a hairsbreadth off the floor before it dropped again.

“Fenris…” The chair rose and dropped again. He knew that if he looked up, he would see Anders’ fingers clasped over its top edge, gripping it to make it rise and fall that way. Even that was too close.

“Stop!” He rose without thought for what he would do next, stamping a foot down on the seat to keep Anders from toppling over with the chair when Fenris’ weight was gone.

Anders peered over the chair back at him, his hair loose around his face and sticking up wildly in the back, his eyes too shiny from the drug, and the expression of hope he wore left Fenris torn between wanting to flee and wanting to give him everything he had been begging for. Then he dropped his eyes from Fenris’ face to his groin, and Fenris’ emotions shifted to embarrassment mixed with defiance.

Yes, Anders’ pleading had made him hard. Yes, he had unlaced his leathers because it had made him that hard.

He looked down.

Yes, the leather had parted enough to give glimpses of his cock.

He had no surprise to spare when Anders slid off the bed and lurched toward him with a wordless moan of need. He remembered the girl in Anders’ clinic. She had been half-mad with the drug, and Anders had resisted until Fenris had gone and waved his cock at him.

Figuratively speaking.

With the same reflexes that kept him alive on the battlefield, Fenris caught Anders’ outstretched right wrist and let power flow through his markings. The room lit with a sudden wash of blue-white light, and Anders’ knees buckled.

Fenris caught him as he fell, carrying him down to the floor in front of the fireplace almost gently. He had not tried the cuffs’ strange power since the Architect’s laboratory, and after, when Anders had told him not to “glow at him.”

But as desperation measures went, it had been remarkably effective. Without the chain between them, the power had required direct contact, but now Anders was limp and moaning blissfully in his arms while the sharp scent of semen hung heavy in the air between them.

At least one of them was happy.

Anders blinked blearily at him when Fenris hoisted him up off the floor to half-carry, half-drag him back to the bed.

“I told you it was the best idea.” Anders said shakily before he collapsed onto the bed with the fingers of his left hand hooked under Fenris’ breastplate. “Take that off and come here.”

Anders was only fractionally easier to resist when he was not as frantic as he had been minutes before. Fenris could see himself pinning Anders to the mattress, shoving his leathers down his hips, and rubbing himself between Anders’ thighs until that absurd stamina of his had him hard again. He could bring the mage to orgasm over and over again until he had no energy left with which to beg and entice.

He pried Anders’ fingers loose of his breastplate and stood up, casting his eyes around until he spotted Ander’s salve pot, lying tipped on its side near the head of the bed.

“Stay there.”

He took the pot of salve and left Anders sprawled on the bed lazily rubbing his fingers up and down a long scar over his ribs, though his avid eyes never left Fenris’ every move.

He dropped back into the chair with the open pot of salve in his hands, eying it like a vicious enemy until he set it aside with a growl of irritation to free his hands to push his leathers down and off his hips. The seat was cold under his ass, but his cock as it finally slipped free of the leather’s constraints felt hot enough to raise the temperature in the entire suite.

The salve already had deep gouges in the thick cream, reminders of where Anders had dug in his fingers in his desperation for something to smooth his strokes and ease his fingers’ passage into his body. Fenris slipped his fingers into the same gouges and for a moment he could picture his own fingers easing inside Anders, the tight heat of the mage drawing him in deeper while he held his face just above Anders’ groin, daring him to raise up to bring his cock to Fenris’ lips while Fenris pushed another finger inside him.

Fenris opened his eyes with an indrawn hiss, knocking the salve pot to the floor as he jerked his fingers free. When had his eyes even slipped closed?

Behind him Anders sighed and murmured something unintelligible that at least sounded briefly contented.

“I hate you,” Fenris growled under his breath and smoothed the salve onto his cock. He hated him, hated his face, those freckles on his hands, hated the grace in his long fingers. His wrapped his own fingers just behind the head of his cock and twisted his wrist to coat his entire shaft with salve as he slid all the way down to the base for a quick squeeze that made his entire cock throb with the trapped blood. He hated how his eyes were brown as dark as honey, hated the way he crooned to his cat, hated his feathers.

He dragged his lower lip between his teeth and bit down to stay silent as he stroked back up to the tip in one smooth motion. The salve was the perfect tool for the job, making his skin slick but not greasy. He could close his eyes and imagine lips and a mouth perfectly silenced as he slid over the mage’s tongue. He hated him.

Heat gathered deep in his gut, pulling his balls up toward his body.

He hated the weight of him in his arms at night. He hated that stupid crooked smile of his.

The bed creaked behind him.

“Fenris?”

Fenris arched up in the chair, heels digging into the floor, shoulders pushing back against the high back to make the whole chair jitter and scrape back a few inches over the floorboards. Damn that voice, he hated that voice, he wanted to hear more of it, he wanted it in his ear, muffled with a groan against his shoulder or around his cock.

His hand kept moving, stroking the heat out of his belly, through his balls, up his shaft and out, to fall against the leather on his stomach. All his determination and discipline could do nothing to keep him from the quick gasps the moment of stolen pleasure wrung from him until he could drop back in the chair, teeth clenched while he forced himself to breathe through his nose to silence his panting.

He hated Anders for making him care about a mage.

“Fenris, I’m thirsty.”

Fenris closed his eyes and grimaced. Of course he was.

“Stay there and I will bring you something.” He cast around and managed to snag Anders’ discarded shirt with his toes, using it to wipe the semen off his tunic before he pulled up his leathers and tucked his cock away.

“And get under the blankets.”

“Fenris?”

“Mm?”

“I’m feeling more myself.”

Fenris sighed and pushed himself upright in the low chair. “Is this a good thing?” About bloody time was more like it, dawn was showing nacreous grey through the windows up by the roof.

Anders’ laugh was ragged around the edges, but at least he could laugh. “I’m asking myself the same question. I’m… a little embarrassed.”

If he was sober enough to be embarrassed, Fenris had to assume that the worst had passed. “Do not be embarrassed.” If Anders was embarrassed, then Fenris might have to be embarrassed, and he was in no mind for it.

Anders made a scoffing noise, and Fenris could perfectly picture the facial expression that went with it. “Isabela called me a damsel in distress.”

Fenris rose on his knees to peer over the back of the chair. Anders was wrapped in Varric’s blankets with only his face peeking out. He offered Fenris a ghost of a smile and pulled the blankets tighter.

“When did she call you that?”

“Yest— the day bef—” Anders shook his head at time’s vagaries. “When she was getting me out of that chair.”

Fenris knew that he was scowling, but Anders did not flinch or drop his eyes, perhaps he understood that it was not meant for him.

“Never trust Isabela’s mouth,” Fenris told him, leaving the chair’s protection to stretch the stiffness out of his limbs. “Only her actions.”

Anders watched him, but without the near-crazed hunger that had characterized his expression for most of the night. That, more than Anders’ relative lucidity, helped Fenris relax at last.

After an entire night in armor, he shucked off everything except his tunic and leggings, piling everything on the chair to wait until he needed it again. He moved to the bedside to tug the blankets loose from Anders’ clutches until he had freed them enough to slide into their warmth beside Anders.

“Come here.”

Anders blinked before he eagerly slid into the circle of Fenris’ arms, voicing a small protest at the leather’s cold against his bare skin, but still shifting until their bodies were tightly pressed together.

“Are you—” Well? Unhurt? No more wounded than yesterday? Fenris could think of no way to finish the question that was not inane.

“I’m alive, and I owe you. Again.”

Despite everything, Fenris found a small surprised laugh of his own. “Yes, you do.” And he would take his payment when the time was finally right. “Now sleep if you can.”

He would try to do the same, and not spend the hours wondering what Anders remembered from Vigil’s Keep. Unless Anders spoke of it, it would just become another of those things between them that they did not touch.

Anders had a feeling that crept into the deep of his exhausted sleep that he was being watched. He was warm, he was comfortable, he felt safe, but he was being watched.

He felt for his magic and had it ready, gathered somewhere that wasn’t quite his right hand, but would be if they were in the Fade, then cracked open one eye just a slit.

Varric was standing next to the bed, smirking.

Slowly, carefully, eye still slitted, Anders took stock of his circumstances – he was naked, with that whole-body relaxation that came after a night of getting properly fucked, in bed with – he shifted his eye enough to see a shock of white hair at the edge of his vision – Fenris, and the bits and pieces he remembered of the night were….

Oh shit.

And Varric was not going away. The damned dwarf lounged against the wall, smirking to himself and picking his fingernails as though he had all day.

Anders sighed and sat up. There was only one way to handle this kind of morning after – brazen through it.

His motion pulled away the tiny corner of blanket that Fenris had managed to keep, showing him fully clad in black leather.

Oh. Then they… hadn’t…?

Fenris woke with Anders’ motion and stared, frozen, at Varric’s amiable grin and wink.

“Well that’s all right then,” Anders said as much to himself as to Varric or Fenris before he slid, fully naked, out from under the blankets to retrieve his clothes.

His shirt had questionable stiff spots, his trousers and smalls were just dumped on the floor, and his boots had been kicked off in opposite directions, but he pulled everything on without looking at Fenris or Varric and went to retrieve his coat while he did a mental inventory.

How far back did he remember with any clarity?

He remembered Pietro, and losing repeatedly at Wicked Grace, he remembered going back to the privy and running into Pietro again, and he remembered…

Justice wordlessly filled him in on the salient points, including that Fenris had not touched him despite his out and out begging for it.

Justice was impressed.

Anders wanted to be angry at Justice for abandoning him, but he also remembered watching from behind the wall of clarity when Justice had been completely overwhelmed by the sheer physicality of the drug.

And Fenris.. he felt a warm swell of affection as he watched Fenris sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed. He looked so prickly and annoyed under Varric’s gaze, but had done so much for Anders, and had shown more self-control than Anders would have been capable of even with Justice howling in his head.

He wanted to kiss Fenris for that.

The prior night was like a pleasant dream in the middle of a nightmare, and finding that even amid all the bad he had someone he could trust so thoroughly made the dream so much better. It bolstered Anders in ways he could never have expected.

“So,” Varric said when Anders had gotten his clothes on and was fussing with his boots, “Who’s ready for a little trip down to the Lowerdark?”

Pietro was caged.

Anders was not entirely certain how he felt about that just on the surface, but there was so much more to it than that.

Pietro was caged, his clothes lay scattered on the floor of the cage, and Carta dwarves carried on their work around him moving crates and boxes of a distinctive Orzammaran make as they went about their daily routine of smuggling and general organized crime.

Pietro was caged, he was nude, he was surrounded by indifferent dwarves, and he was crazed, thrashing against the bars, reaching out, begging every person who passed anywhere near him for relief. His distinctive short, fat cock hung between his legs, so hard and thick that it made Anders’ throat hurt just to look at it.

Isabela had arranged some small crates nearby to provide her with a comfortable wide seat where she watched Pietro’s every move with Hawke at her side.

As Anders came nearer, she glanced away from Pietro’s torment to offer him a smile. “Look at you, Sweet Thing, did you have fun?”

Hawke rose to his feet and moved forward to clasp Fenris’ forearm and then Anders’. “Don’t mind Isabela, she’s in a mood. How are you feeling?”

“Better than I should,” Anders said, clasping Hawke’s arm in return. His eyes were all for Pietro, who was frantic in his need, reaching through the bars to anyone who might help him. “This was Isabela’s idea wasn’t it?”

Hawke shrugged, but Isabela answered for him, rising from her seat to stalk forward with a seductive grace that was directed entirely at Pietro. “He deserves it. He’s just lucky I was here to make sure none of the dwarves took him up on what he’s been offering.”

Varric said, “His water’s dosed. The drug makes him thirsty, and every time he drinks, he gets more of the drug. With as much as he had on him, we could be at this all week.”

Isabela grinned, hard, feral – a flesh-ripping grin. “Every rapist should get a taste of his own medicine.”

Justice flashed inside Anders, his agreement with the concept tempered by his disquiet at its actualization.

“It’s your call,” she said. “What do we do with him?”

Anders could barely meet her hard stare, turning his eyes to Hawke who looked disturbed, but resolute to stand by whatever came, “It’s your choice.” Varric, who simply shook his head and shrugged, “Your call, Blondie.” And Fenris, who met his eyes and said, “I will do this for you.”

Anders nodded.

He did not look away when Fenris reached through the bars and crushed Pietro’s heart for him simply because he had given him permission to.

It was not justice, but vengeance was sweet.