Chapter Text
Hawke tried not to look at the clock on the wall, staring fixedly out of the window so that his eye wouldn’t be drawn to it. He could hear it though – infernal rhythmic ticks and tocks counting out the seconds. The door was unlocked – there had been a conversation with Bodahn about making sure neither he nor Sandal interfered with it, and a slightly more uncomfortable discussion with his mother where he tried to be vague and she clearly understood exactly what was going on – night had fallen, and yet Anders was not here. Hawke refused to count the seconds, so he counted stars instead – eyes flickering across the constellations as the night time sounds of Hightown dwindled, faded, and fell silent.
There was a soft scuff behind him – the familiar sound of wood dragged across carpet as his door swung open. Hawke stared at the stars, swallowing hard, searching for the courage to turn around. It would be Macaroni, he knew it – fed up with being banished to the library fireside and searching for a soft bed to curl up on. He needed to accept the disappointment now, then turn around and make the best of another night sharing the bed with the slobbering, affectionate beast.
Hawke turned, and his breath caught.
Anders stood in the doorway, hovering awkwardly with his lower lip pulled between his teeth. There was a guilty, haunted look to his face – as if he expected to be chased out into the street rather than welcomed. Hawke forced himself to take two cautious paces towards him, not race forward and pin him against the doorframe as he was tempted to. He’d been patient for three years – he wouldn’t scare him away now.
“You’re here,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you would come.”
“Justice does not approve of my obsession with you,” Anders said, finally stepping over the threshold. “He believes you’re a distraction. It is one of the few things on which he and I disagree.”
“So he’s an… unwilling participant in our threesome?” Hawke’s tone was light, but he felt a nasty heaviness in his gut. He hadn’t thought about Justice. He’d been trying not to think about Justice.
“Please don’t call it that.” Anders wrinkled his nose, and for a heart-stopping moment Hawke thought he’d ruined it – his ill-timed jokes had got him into trouble often enough, but this was Anders, this was too important to mess up, if he’d lost him – then Anders shook his head as if to clear it, and thank the Maker, he kept talking. “When I was in the Circle, love was only a game. It gave the Templars too much power if there was something you couldn’t stand to lose. It would kill me to lose you.”
“You aren’t going to lose me.” Hawke’s chest tightened, stepping forward to catch Anders as he ducked his gaze away. He could take in every detail of his face – it was rare that he was allowed to get this close – close enough to see the tired heaviness around Anders’ eyes along with the hopeful, cautious smile that tugged at his lips as he leaned in toward him.
“No mage I know has ever dared to fall in love,” Anders said as he raised his hand to Hawke’s face, fingertips just brushing his cheek, still unsure it was allowed. Hawke leaned into the touch – and for the briefest moment he saw a thin, splintering line of blue dart across Anders’ palm. His touch was warm, soft, and his skin hummed faintly against Hawke’s face. His breath caught as he saw Anders’ gaze dart down to his lips. “This is the rule I will most cherish breaking.”
Finally. Three years of fantasies couldn’t compare to this – Anders’ lips against his, his body pulled close, the warmth of his skin and the soft gasps of his breath. Hawke slid his hands around him to pull him closer, pushing that brief glimpse of blue out of his mind and enjoying the moment – the eager yielding of Anders’ lips as he deepened the kiss, the cautious swipe of tongue against his lips and the way Anders relaxed against him as Hawke groaned softly into his mouth. It was nothing like the desperate, impulsive kiss in the clinic – and Maker that had been incredible – although there was urgency to this, there was tenderness too. In the clinic, Anders had still expected all this to be snatched away. Now, at last, they were here and they were together, and nothing would come between them.
Hawke reluctantly pulled back, but only for long enough to back towards the bed and pull Anders down after him. Anders’ thigh slid between his legs and Hawke’s noble intentions not to rush fled as their lips crashed together again. There were thick layers of fabric between them, and Hawke’s fingers clutched at feathers and suede as he dug them into Anders’ back, but it was still so good to have the weight of Anders’ body firm and heavy and real against his chest. Anders’ hips settled against his, and Hawke couldn’t help but grind up against him, groaning into his hot, wet mouth.
Passion ignited between them, hands roaming over squirming bodies as Hawke’s hips bucked urgently. Even through the heavy coat, Hawke could tell that Anders was hard, and his own cock was responding to the delicious friction of Anders’ thigh. He growled against Anders’ lips, and Anders’ shaky gasp in response made his pulse race and his hands tighten against him. He realised he had no idea what the other man liked, what to expect, a thousand fantasies and he didn’t even really know what he looked like naked, much less how he liked to be touched. Right now though, all he could think about was the pressure against his cock and the eager shake in Anders’ breath.
Anders’ hand wandered from his waist to his hip, hovered there for a few moments and then – Hawke gasped against Anders’ lips – his fingers hooked in the waistband of Hawke’s trousers. A brief tug to loosen them, and a warm, narrow hand was slipping down, fingers brushing through coarse hair, less than an inch from Hawke’s trapped cock and…
Unwilling participant.
Hawke kissed Anders harder, one hand sliding up to grip the back of his head. It wasn’t his business – it wasn’t his spirit – and Anders’ hand was so close, fingertips just brushing the base of his cock, just a few more seconds and he could be thrusting against that beautiful, freckled hand.
“Wait,” Hawke gasped, a frustrated groan following the word as Anders’ hand stilled and his lips withdrew.
Hawke thought of that flash of blue – what was it? An attempt to push him away? An attempt at communication? He couldn’t do this – raw panic rose in his chest at the thought, they were so close but he couldn’t. Not like this.
“Everything alright?” Anders asked, and Hawke could see the same fear in his eyes. There was no way he wouldn’t take this as rejection – a noble sounding excuse to push the abomination away – Hawke knew Anders couldn’t help but take this as confirmation that Justice made him unlovable, undesirable, and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to pull him down and let their bodies take over but…
Unwilling participant.
“About that thing I said before…” Hawke took hold of Anders’ wrist and gently tugged his hand out of his trousers, trying not to feel the aching in his cock, trying desperately not to think about the answering hardness jutting into his hip. “About Justice being an, ah, unwilling participant.”
“I don’t really want to think about it like that…” Anders’ brow creased and he broke eye contact, ducking his head away.
“Okay… but no, really, is he?” Hawke forced a laugh – hating himself a little for it, but he didn’t know how else to have this conversation. “Because forcing myself on a spirit of Justice sounds like a spectacularly bad idea, even by my standards.”
Anders flinched – visibly flinched, his face contorting in pain and fury as he recoiled from Hawke. He rolled off him, not seeming to hear Hawke’s hasty apology as he covered his face with a frustrated, furious groan.
“Please don’t go,” Hawke said, cringing at the pleading tone in his voice.
“He’s taken everything,” said Anders. There was anger in his voice, but it was fading fast, already replaced by bitter defeat. “I don’t understand him – what he thinks, what he wants – I thought he’d accepted this but tonight…” He sat up, his legs hanging off the edge of the bed and his shoulders hunched. “I don’t know. That’s the truth – I don’t know.”
“I know he doesn’t like me,” Hawke said. He sat up beside Anders’ and reached out to offer his hand. Anders took it without hesitation, squeezing painfully hard as if anchoring himself to Hawke, clinging to the moment before he could snatch it away. “And – I don’t know much about spirits. I don’t know if he’d see it that way or if disapproving is just a detached state for him – but he’s – when I talked to him in the Fade, he seemed like a person. You said he was your friend. If we’re not sure – I don’t think we can do this, Anders.”
“It’s my body.” There was no anger in his tone, just a sharp edge of defensiveness barely holding back misery. “We never talked about this. We should have done, but we didn’t, and it’s too late now. He’s gone.”
“He’s not. I met him.”
“Well I didn’t.” Anders’ free hand curled into a fist. “It’s been years and we don’t speak. We can’t. Sometimes things are good for a while, but it’s still – I feel what he feels, sometimes there are images. Usually when he’s trying to torture me for not doing things his way – but when he takes over there’s nothing. Just – blackness.” His grip was bruising Hawke’s fingers, and he shuddered. “We hurt each other,” he admitted. “Both of us, all the time – it’s not his fault and much as I hate myself for it, I don’t think it’s really mine either. We are something that should never have existed. You deserve more than this.”
“You haven’t managed to scare me off yet.” Hawke extracted his fingers from Anders’ grip and wrapped his arm around his shoulders, breathing a sigh of relief when Anders’ stiff body softened and leaned into him. “Look I’ve – thought about this night a lot.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Actually – a lot implies it’s anything less than continuous, and I’m not sure I’ve stopped in three years.” Anders laughed weakly, and snaked his arm around Hawke’s waist.
“But I can wait,” Hawke continued. “If I need to help you talk to Justice somehow, or do whatever it takes to make him trust me enough to stop disapproving – if he just needs time to get his spirity head around all this weird mortal shit, or if…” Hawke rubbed his hand over Anders’ shoulder comfortingly. “If he’s never ready, that’s alright too. If he’ll let you spend time with me like this – and, the kissing is good, really good – if he doesn’t mind that too much…”
“I have to believe it’s not going to come to that.” Anders’ voice shook a little, and Hawke kissed the top of his head with a fervent thought of me too that he managed not to voice. That wouldn’t help any of them. Him, Anders, and the awkward presence between them – silent and unreachable but disapproving. Unwilling. Hawke was sickened at the thought of what he could have done, if that little splinter of light hadn’t stuck in his mind and forced him to think.
“Can you tell what he disapproves of?” Hawke forced a chuckle, his breath ruffling Anders’ hair. “My mother always says I’ll never get a wife if I don’t stop letting Macaroni sleep in the bed, if it’s the mabari smell I could try to do something about it.”
“I’m not convinced Justice knows the difference between dogs and humans,” Anders said. There was a smile in his voice – a shaky one, but Hawke relaxed a little. They would get past this. He wasn’t running straight out of the door. “I – honestly don’t know. It used to be all about how you were a distraction, how you’d pull us away from the cause, but he was impressed by what he saw of you in the Fade – and when we killed Alrik – when you – you calmed him down. He was panicking, I don’t understand why, I’ll never understand why he tried to kill an innocent girl, a mage… but he listened to you. He trusted you – your judgement over his.”
“Well that’s a start. I’ve always said it – there’s nothing more romantic than a date to kill Templars and not kill scared teenage girls.”
“Maker, Hawke.”
“Works every time. A few fresh corpses, a serious argument about the morality of smiting the victim, trust me, it’s a fantastic way to get the spirit of your dreams hot and bothered.”
“Maybe it’s your sense of humour he disapproves of.” Anders sounded vaguely scandalized, but he was laughing too, and the tension had drained out of him. “This isn’t about you seducing Justice. Please, don’t, I can’t begin to imagine how that’d work and I’m not sure I want to.”
That sparked an idle thought that Hawke pushed aside quickly – when he and Justice had been left alone in the Fade, those burning eyes on him, seeming to penetrate his essence and assess what they found – there had been something magnetic about his presence. Just his resemblance to Anders, no doubt – and definitely not something to bring up now.
“So he liked me last week – but he’s gone off me now?”
“Maybe?” Anders sighed. “I don’t know – honestly, he’s been intrusive tonight, I was scared enough about this – about hurting you, about bringing more pain and chaos into your life – I almost didn’t come and then to have Justice feeling like this as well… it’s just exhausting.” He straightened up to look at Hawke hopelessly. “I just want something for myself, for once – I’ve been so selfish, I didn’t even think about him, trapped in my mind, having to live with everything I do as if it was happening to him.” He pulled away from Hawke and put his head in his hands. “I’m no better than the bloody Templars, treating him as if he’s not a person – as if I have the right to just decide what happens to him. Maker… I don’t deserve him, or you.”
“I don’t know him as well as you,” Hawke said gently. “But I think he’d understand – you’re human, you’re not supposed to be perfect.”
“I wish I could just ask him,” Anders sighed. “I don’t even know if he’s saying no, he’s just not saying yes either and it’d be so much easier if I could just talk to him.”
Hawke pondered for a moment, resting his hand gently at the top of Anders’ spine.
“But you know that he disapproves?”
“It’s a feeling.” Anders shrugged. “No specifics, just a general unease – I don’t know why, or even really how much – I don’t know if he’s trying to keep me away from you or trying to keep you away from him. If it’s the first one it’s none of his business but – Maker, you’re right, if it’s the second then we can’t, can we?” Hawke rubbed his back soothingly.
“Do you know what approval feels like?” he asked. Anders laughed bitterly but nodded.
“I don’t get it from him often, but yes – I do.”
“Then we could just ask him,” Hawke said. “I mean – this might be too simple, don’t laugh if it is – I don’t know much about possession but – he can hear me, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then I could try asking him? I don’t mean – he doesn’t have to approve, or like me, but if he’s willing for me to touch you – him – both of you.”
Anders looked at him – face filled with conflicting emotion, fear and anticipation and even after all this, hope. His breath caught, and he nodded.
“Alright. He’s – he’s listening. Ask him.”