Chapter Text
Hawke listened closely – and heard nothing.
Not truly nothing of course, the road to Sundermount had its fair share of rustling animals in the undergrowth, the faint hoot of owls overhead, and the wind rustling the trees. But the faint conversation from the tent Varric shared with Anders had drifted gradually into silence, and Hawke knew Aveline well enough to know she would have been deeply asleep the moment she crawled into her own tent. The thin canvas didn’t allow for much real privacy, but the illusion of it was enough – and it was better than at home with shared rooms and barely space to breathe. Hawke turned onto his back and pushed his underclothes down around his thighs.
He’d been half-hard on and off throughout the day – ashamed of how easily the blond mage had got to him, but Maker it had been a while and Anders was impossibly charming. Hawke knew it wasn’t going anywhere – Anders had made that clear enough, and it made sense that being possessed would make relationships tricky to say the least – but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the attention. Anders was often subdued – Hawke knew he would still be mourning Karl’s death, and couldn’t blame him – but when Hawke managed to distract him with a terrible joke or an even worse attempt at flirting his surprised, hopeful smile lit up his whole face.
Hawke was thinking about his smile. Blunt nails skimming down over his belly, hand inches from his hardening cock, and he was thinking about Anders’ smile of all things – the man was going to be trouble and Hawke knew it. He bit his lip and wrapped his hand around his erection – no drawing this out, he needed to get this very bad absolutely never going to happen idea out of his head – before the situation got any worse.
Hawke choked back a groan as he began to stroke himself, slow and steady at first but rapidly slipping into a sharp, quick rhythm as he closed his eyes and let his mind wander. He tried to imagine Anders’ body under that bulky coat – he was slender, definitely, but the way he swung his staff told Hawke there’d be muscle too – wiry arms and fine definition in his chest, and perhaps a dusting of dark gold hair on pale, freckled skin. Hawke’s hips jerked and he bit down harder on his lip, stifling his voice and letting out only a sharp breath as he imagined Anders’ hands trailing over his taut belly to toy with the lacing of his trousers.
Hawke thrust up into his grip, calloused fingers rough against sensitive flesh – he was wound tight and already on the edge of breaking, a wave of urgent heat building under the friction of his hand. He wanted it to last and he needed it to be done – needed to empty his mind of the image of Anders hooking his thumbs in his waistband, dragging it lower and smirking at Hawke, fingers splayed over the outline of his cock. Hawke imagined how it would feel to tease him – make Anders shake with need the way he shook now – to trail his lips across the tented fabric, to kiss and suck and bite his way up Anders’ chest, tug a nipple between his teeth and make him arch and pant and whimper. A sharp nip at his neck and Hawke imagined Anders thrusting up against him, chasing friction and grinding himself against Hawke’s cock through the thin fabric that separated them as his hands clawed at Hawke’s shoulders.
“Fuck me,” Anders whispered in his mind. “Fuck me, Hawke.”
Hawke rolled over, face pressed against the folded blanket that served as a pillow, muffling his groans as his cock throbbed in his grip. His eyes screwed shut, his shoulders shook, and his hips jerked as he spilled across his palm. Hawke gasped sharply as a final wave of pleasure hit, so intense it hurt, nerves on fire under his fingers and skin prickling with every pulse. Every breath trembled and caught, he panted open-mouthed against the blanket and slumped breathlessly, bonelessly, heartbeat thudding in his ears.
Hawke laughed quietly to himself as he rolled over and tugged back a corner of the groundsheet to wipe his hand clean on the grass beneath. Couldn’t even last long enough to get Anders naked in a fantasy, probably a good thing he wasn’t going to be falling into bed with him any time soon. It was fun to have an infatuation again – a pleasant distraction from the chaos his life had spiralled into since the Blight. He’d get it out of his system soon enough, he was sure of that. He and Anders both had bigger problems and honestly, he doubted Anders would want to stay in Kirkwall much longer. Fighting for mage freedom sounded noble enough, but Kirkwall had to be the worst place to start, and without Karl there didn’t seem to be much tying him down.
Hawke drifted off to sleep, listening to the sounds of the dying fire and the whisper of the wind. If his thoughts turned to Anders in his last moments of consciousness, he did not question it, and chose not to remember. Hawke had learned to let go painlessly of what he knew he could not have.
***
Nights were the worst.
The constant push and pull in Anders’ mind ebbed and flowed throughout the day, thoughts that drifted into his conscious mind that were not quite his own, or half formed ideas snatched away and obliterated if he tried to wander from his path. It had been like sea-sickness at first, the storm in his mind pitching him from side to side until his knees gave out, a wave of nausea overtaking him and his head pounding. Justice had howled and scrabbled at the confines of his mind and Anders had felt the crushing horror of the darkness and silence and knew – knew all too well what he had condemned him to – hated himself for it and Justice for feeling it and making him remember. The worst had passed, but the nights were when they both suffered most.
Justice resented sleep, Anders had worked that much out. He thought perhaps Justice didn’t sleep – and the thought of Justice in full control of his body while he slept filled him with horror. He felt a sharp bristle of irritation and after a few seconds recognised it as Justice’s resentment at the thought – after all the chaos he’d caused, he still expected Anders to trust him. Anders caught himself on the verge of spiteful thoughts – that wouldn’t help either of them. Whatever had become of his friend – the only friend he’d had left – it was his own fault. He could live with the consequences, and the guilt.
Anders tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable. It seemed every time he was on the edge of sleep a sharp twist of anxiety around his heart would leave him wide awake. He’d been awake for a two days and the night between, he couldn’t lose another night’s sleep – he felt as if he was losing his mind. Anders rolled onto his back and put his hands over his face with a groan. Let me sleep. Just let me sleep.
There was no reply. There never was. Anders dropped his arms to his sides and looked up blankly into the darkness.
“I’m…” He cleared his throat awkwardly. Speaking aloud to Justice always felt uncomfortable, but it seemed to work, more or less. They could feel each other’s thoughts but couldn’t speak inside his – their – head, but he assumed Justice could use his ears. “I need to get to sleep. I’m going to try – fuck, Maker, you’re in my head, you know what I’m going to try. I don’t know if you can – privacy’s probably a bit much to ask, isn’t it? But if you could pretend not to be watching I’d appreciate it.”
Of all the things Justice complained about, at least he’d always been fairly understanding of this – as far as incoherent, angry, potentially demonic presences inside your own head could ever feel understanding. Anders could get away with very little in the way of selfish desires, but after the first two weeks of fighting to even be allowed to eat or drink, Anders had finally managed to convince Justice that the requirements of his body were his business, not distractions from the cause and no reason for Justice to interfere. He felt the mental equivalent of a shrug, and a slight tugging as Justice retreated into his subconscious mind. At least he thought that was what was happening. It was hard to be sure, and even harder to put into words.
Anders closed his eyes – for all the difference it made – and trailed his hand down over his chest. Justice would object if this became self-indulgent, but he could afford to take a few minutes to remember this was still his body – he still had desires, he still had a life beyond the clinic and the oppressive shadow of the Circle. His fingertips brushed over a nipple, and he let a faint hum of magic build around it, a warm buzz flickering through his skin and making him arch his back. He let his hand move lower, flat over his belly and then gripping briefly at his hip before resting on his thigh. He missed this, the touch of another mage on his body, experimental magic in unskilled hands, on his knees on a hard stone floor pushing robes up Karl’s thighs and…
Anders let the magic fade from his hand abruptly. No magic, then – those memories led nowhere he wanted to revisit, especially now. He gripped his thigh harder, trying to imagine someone – anyone else, an anonymous body, dark hair on his chest, big, warrior’s hands, so different from a mage. Anders slid his other hand onto his chest to circle a nipple, then slid it up to tangle in his hair and tug his head back and yes that’s how he wanted it – someone to fuck him senseless and make him forget.
His cock stirred and Anders wrapped his fingers around it, stroking himself to hardness as his breath quickened. He imagined the man – wouldn’t focus on the face, refused to think about it – but he’d be bearded, a little shorter than Anders maybe but stocky, with thick arms and sculpted shoulders that flexed as his hand worked Anders’ cock and he pulled his hair harder, then leaned down to suck at his neck.
“You like that?” A rough whisper in his mind, a voice that was familiar but he couldn’t quite place – didn’t want to place – as Anders tightened his grip on his cock and imagined the man chuckling in his ear. “You want more, don’t you?”
Anders toes curled and he thrust up against his hand, trying to forget it was his own, lips parted as he panted harshly. He was near silent, but alone in the dark his breath seemed to echo, every harsh gasp rasping against his ears and he could imagine the warrior’s breath catching along with it.
“I could turn you over,” he imagined him saying. “Bend you over the edge of the bed and make you beg to take my cock. Is that what you want?”
Anders’ breath shook and he quickened his strokes, spreading his legs and imagining them being nudged apart by the man’s knees. His cock was slick, moisture beading at the tip and coating his fingers, and he was racing closer to the edge with every jerk of his wrist and every imagined breath against his neck.
“Or perhaps not,” he imagined, another soft laugh and he knew that voice, oh Maker this was a mistake to even let himself want – but he was so close now and it was only a thought, a thought couldn’t hurt Hawke, couldn’t hurt either of them. “Maybe I want your mouth – would you like that? Taste my cock, feel it filling your throat, let me come over your tongue and make you swallow every drop…”
Anders let out the tiniest muffled whimper – in the Circle you might as well scream if you let a sound escape at all, and he knew better, but his imagination was so vivid and the voice was so Hawke and he hadn’t realised until now quite how much he wanted him.
“Come for me,” he heard, conjuring up the voice in the dark, imagining Hawke pulling back to look down at his face with dark hair falling in his eyes and his mouth twisted into that beautiful, teasing smirk. “Come for me, Anders, now.”
He did – heels digging through the thin mattress into the slats beneath, arching and thrusting and throwing his head back as he felt the first warm splash across his belly. Anders twisted his head to the side, gasping against the pillow, thrusting into his hand trying to draw out the overwhelming pleasure for just a moment more. The image was already slipping and he couldn’t quite let go, not yet – couldn’t let the sweet ache of arousal fade to the deeper pain of loneliness. He continued to stroke himself, oversensitive on the edge of pain but he could imagine Hawke drawing this out, wringing every last aftershock from him, pressing light kisses down his neck before nipping his shoulder with a last warm chuckle.
Anders didn’t remember falling asleep – exhaustion claiming him before he knew it. He awoke to find himself clean, a crumpled rag discarded beside the bed, and a scrawled note in handwriting that was not his own – jagged and messy, sharp pen-strokes that had torn the parchment in places.
“HE IS A DISTRACTION,” it said. “I AM SORRY.”