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Despite all they’ve been through together, Anders cannot find it in his heart to go through with Karl’s request. To plunge a knife into his long lost lover’s heart would be like taking it himself, a devastating move for the both of them. Hawke—that horrendously kind and compassionate man—convinces him that there is still hope, convinces him that Karl is best left alive and tranquil than a bloody corpse on the Chantry floor.
It nearly kills him to bring Karl home, to his small dirty hovel tucked into the back of the clinic. Karl deserves more than this, Anders thinks, leading the man between the cots to the small back room. His old lover says nothing, looks nothing, just follows him unquestioningly, and Anders finds himself babbling to fill the uncomfortable silence. ‘It’s not much,’ he says, ‘but it’s home.’ ‘Sorry for the mess,’ he continues, steering him towards his humble bed to sit. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asks later, but Karl shakes his head. ‘Please,’ he begins to beg, ‘say something, anything at all.’
It takes some effort, some guidance and prodding, for Karl to talk to him. Anders asks what he remembers, and it feels like the ground beneath his feet has been ripped out from under him when Karl recounts every memory of their time in the Circle together with no emotion in his voice. As if their stolen moments, secret trysts, and years of finding sanctuary in each other meant nothing to him. ‘Means nothing to him,’ Anders’ mind corrects the tense. The man isn’t dead, though it may feel that way.
The ensuing years are like a mockery of Anders’ wildest dreams of freedom—Karl is at his side, free from the Circle’s clutches. But Karl isn’t the Karl he remembers. No laughter in his voice, no smiles that put small wrinkles in the corner of his eyes. He shapes up to be a fine clinic assistant, saving many lives on his own and making sure less fortunate souls stay comfortable. He requires next to nothing—food, water, a bed to sleep in. Anders would be lying if he said he didn’t appreciate sleeping next to Karl. The man’s warmth and weight was inexplicably comforting, though he tried his best not to indulge. He can’t, he won’t.
After a time, Karl approaches him about it and the proposal nearly drains all life from him. ‘We were a couple once,’ Karl says blankly. ‘Surely you must wish something of me, of my body.’ Anders dashes out of the clinic before he can even consider it. Of course Anders yearns for Karl, for what they once had. He thought he could be happy just to lay next to him, to listen to his breathing when the nights get long, to share in his warmth beneath scratchy wool blankets.
But he learns after many months that he requires more than that, and it is something he cannot ask of Karl. Though he still has those memories, he does not have those feelings. Not anymore. The way Karl proposed it made it seem like a logical solution to a problem, but not one fueled by the love they had for each other. If he were to have accepted, Anders would have been using Karl, and the thought of that makes his stomach churn.
He finds himself on Hawke’s doorstep, and the man takes one look at the wetness forming at his eyes before gently drawing him in. Somehow, Hawke doesn’t ask any questions about his unannounced presence, only silently asks ‘what do you need?’ and ‘what can I do for you?’ while leading him to a quiet space in the mansion. Sitting side by side on the feather mattress of Hawke’s bed, the man turns to him again, his soft expression asking once more, ‘what do you need?’
Anders knows what he needs, and he knows Hawke is not who he needs. But he’ll do. Instead of speaking, Anders takes Hawke’s broad, warm hand in his and presses it against his face. Another hand touches him, hesitant but assuring, wrapping strong fingers lightly around his waist. In an attempt to hide how pathetic he feels, Anders closes his eyes and leans into the tender touches he doesn’t deserve. He’s thankful that Hawke takes the lead, guiding him back against the bed and lets his lips and hands roam across his body. Hawke gives him what he needs, and Anders only gets one moment of pure elation before the guilt comes rushing back in.
Returning to Karl nearly kills him again. Karl greets him at the clinic door, already starting the morning routine in order to take the new patients that are undoubtedly already lining up outside their door. Anders wishes the man could feel emotions like jealousy, or anger. He wishes more than anything in the world for Karl to be angry with him, for sharing his body with another man, for his physical infidelity. But Karl simply looks at him with a blank expression, and Anders continues to visit Hawke’s bed many more times.
Anders throws himself back into his cause, but makes sure that nothing he does can be traced back to Karl. The man has already suffered so much in his life, and Anders would not be responsible for adding to any of it. Seven years have passed since the day he stole his friend from the Chantry, and it feels like seven years too long of suffering at the hands of the Chantry. Knowing he has nothing left to lose, Anders sets his revolution into an unstoppable motion.
‘Anders, you need to go,’ Hawke says after the final battle, holding his face between his large hands. He presses a kiss to his forehead, a farewell, a benediction. ‘Take Karl and go.’ Sullen, Anders nods, realizing that Hawke is a friend whose kind heart is unmatched in all of Thedas, and that he never deserved the man in the first place. While it was not his plan from the beginning, Anders scrounges up as much as he can in as little time as he can, takes Karl’s hand in his, and they flee toward the south, across the Waking Sea.
Three long years they spend on the run from templars, seekers, and generally angry citizens. Then a green hole appears in the sky and countless demons flood their path, making any chance of movement treacherous. They keep quiet, keep hidden, keep an ear open and listening. Upon learning about the Rite’s reversal from a source in the former Mage Underground, Anders does something that surprises even himself. He leaves Karl at their camp, hikes through the forest to the nearest cliff, and he screams to the open landscape. He curses everything—the Chantry, himself, even the Maker. He’s had it, he’s had the cure all this time.
It takes far too much pleading to summon Justice from the back of his mind where he was resting from revolution. It takes far too much pleading to get Justice to correct the injustice that happened to Karl all those years ago. But he does it, the spirit of Justice reaches forth, past the bounds of Anders’ body to touch Karl’s soul, the very essence of him that has been cruelly locked away. It happens in a flash of blue light, and Justice gives Anders just enough time to catch Karl’s limp body as he crumples to the ground.
When Anders brushes the sweat-damp strands of greying hair from the man’s forehead, the brand is still etched into the skin there. He frowns, wondering if the man in his arms is still tranquil, if the reversal was only just a rumor. ‘Anders,’ Karl sobs into the fabric of his coat, his voice scratchy and his hands clutching at him a little too hard. The pained, overwhelmed expression on the man’s features is one that would never be found on a tranquil. ‘Anders, Anders, Anders,’ Karl repeats, crying more, clinging harder. And in just that one word, chanted over and over like a desperate man's’ prayer, Anders knows he has his Karl back.