Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a few days after the fiasco at the Chantry. Not the first time Cormac had ever seen Tranquil, but definitely the most jarring. What if it had been his brother? His sister? He'd spoken to Anders right after -- right before Anders picked up the whiskey and threw them all out -- but hadn't heard from him, since. This whole thing had been every mage's nightmares come true. And so, he bought another bottle and set off for Darktown. He barely knew Anders, but... A mage, any mage, didn't need to lose someone like that.

The clinic was open, surprisingly, and Anders looked like he'd died and forgotten to collapse, magic flickering weakly at his fingertips as he tried to help the man bleeding on the cot under his hands. "Don't worry, Tom. I'm just a little rough, tonight. Long day, but I'll fix it. You're not going to die from it. I just need to finish closing it up."

And then another hand entered his line of vision, dark, a faint green glow along the fingertips. "You look like you could use a little extra. I'm not good, but I think I'm better than you are, right this second."

"Hawke?" Anders looked up, confused and surprised.

"There are five Hawkes. I'm Cormac." Smiling distractedly at Anders, Cormac looked back at their patient, as he tried to focus on healing. He didn't usually have to do it on quite this scale. "Tom, was it? I'm sorry. It's going to leave a scar. I'm no good at this shit, but at least it won't be gaping."

Anders leaned on the edge of the cot, shaking, as he watched Cormac finish the job. He could have done it, himself. It might have killed him, but he could have done it. Still, when someone outed themselves as a mage, to clean up after you... "Thank you, Cormac. What brings you down here?"

Cormac helped Tom off the cot, still apologising about the scar. As the man left, he turned back to Anders. "You lost a friend, in the worst way I can imagine. I got a little concerned. Couldn't sleep. Here I am." He handed over the whiskey. "It's not the good stuff, but it's better than that pisswater from under the bar at the Hanged Man."

"You were worried, so you brought me a bottle of whiskey, in the middle of the night?" Disbelief settled on Anders's face. Firmly.

"Actually, it's almost morning. More indigo than black, out there." Cormac rubbed the side of his jaw and looked around the clinic. "You look like shit. Should I have brought more than just whiskey?"

"I don't--" The next breath was ragged. "--need--" Anders sagged and sat down hard, legs finally betraying him. He pressed a hand over his eyes and leaned his head against the cot behind him. "He was my best friend. I loved him."

"Hey, hey, not the floor." Cormac circled around the cot between them, to crouch beside Anders. "Come on, the floor's cold, and there's a cot right behind you. You need a hand?"

"Why?" Anders asked, unmoving.

"Because nobody needs this shit. Not you, not me, not anyone else in Thedas. But, here you are, and here I am, and I'm not going to let you freeze your extremely good-looking ass off, sulking on the floor. You can sulk warmly on a cot. I'll even get you a blanket -- I think I spotted one on my way in."

"You cannot possibly know if my ass is good-looking or not." Anders squinted up at Cormac, between his fingers.

"I am trained in the arts of ass-analysis. The line of the coat tells me you either have a good-looking ass or an amazing tailor, and looking around, my bets are on the ass." Cormac held out an arm and helped Anders onto the cot. "Blanket? Potion? Cup for your whiskey?"

"Potion. Over there. Red one and a blue one." Anders slumped back against the wall behind him, still looking dazed. "It's not my ass. It's the coat. I used to have nice shoulders, too. Feathers kind of keep up the illusion."

Cormac brought back the potions, but Anders didn't look much better for drinking them. "So, none of my business, but... I just helped a guy out of here who looked better than you do, right now. You need a...?"

"I'm fine," Anders protested and his stomach growled loudly. "What day is it? Assuming it's morning."

"It's Satinday, now. We went out on Sunday night."

Anders counted. "Four days."

"When's the last time you slept?" Cormac asked, sitting on the corner of the next cot over.

"Sunday morning. I slept in. Blighted lazy, sometimes..." Anders muttered, dropping the bottle of whiskey next to him on the cot.

"I don't think it counts as lazy when you go five nights without sleep, in between." Cormac grinned. "Maybe I could see the argument if it was only two or three nights, but five? Come on."

Anders laughed, despite himself.

"Been eating?" Cormac asked, already knowing the answer.

"I think so. I don't remember. Who has time?" Anders swung an arm out, in a broad gesture, and smacked it into the wall, behind him.

Cormac laughed and leaned forward. "Hey, Anders? You're the healer. Listen to yourself. If somebody came to you and said they hadn't slept in five days and couldn't remember the last thing they ate, you'd...?"

Anders sighed. "Demand they eat and sleep. Obviously. But, I'm not them. I don't need-- I shouldn't need--"

"Again, you look like you've been chewed up and shit out. Should, shouldn't, whatever. I'm going to pick up some breakfast, as soon as it's an hour I can do that. I'll bring you some, too." Cormac picked through his belt pouch, coins jingling. "I think I can do that. I bet I can get a sack of pears and some dried fish."

"There's a man on the plaza who sells dumplings and stew. Sometimes he puts out a cabbage salad -- it's cheap. If I give you a few copper, would you get some?" Anders gave up trying to convince himself he didn't need to eat. He was gluttonous and lazy, and it would bite him in the ass, one day, but maybe he'd at least enjoy it, first.

"If it's only a few copper, don't even worry about it. I'll see if he's out there." It was still barely daybreak, Cormac remembered, and no one would be selling anything yet. "I... do you want me to go and come back, later? Maybe you should catch a nap?"

"I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes, he's there. I should have come sooner. I should have gotten him out." Anders's heel jittered, nervously, where it was hooked on the edge of the cot. "We joked about it, you know -- Tranquility. We were terrified, sure, but it couldn't happen to us. We'd been Harrowed. We were safe. There should have been time. It shouldn't have happened at all. How--? The Chantry forbids this. Exactly this. He should never have been a target, but they were after me. I told him I'd get him out. I promised."

"He told you when to come. You were right where he told you to be, right when he told you to be there." Cormac rubbed his eye with the heel of his palm and studied the space between them. "Still, if it was my -- If it was someone I knew, I'd be right where you are. We still got you out."

"Maybe you shouldn't have." Anders shook his head.

"And then what? You think they'd have stopped? Because they wouldn't have. It would have been proof they could do whatever they wanted, and no one could stop them. We'd all have been just as far up the creek as we are now, but then I'd be the healer, and we'd all be totally fucked. At least, now, we're only mostly fucked." A sharp laugh darted out of Cormac.

Anders snickered, quietly but hysterically. "You -- you really are that bad. You know that, right?"

"Oh, I'm fucking horrible. No talent for it at all." The next sound out of Cormac's mouth was halfway between a cough and a laugh. "So, please, healer. Let me keep you alive for the good of all of Kirkwall."

"Kirkwall," Anders scoffed. "I'm only still here because I can't afford to be anywhere else, now. No reason to be here. Less reason with the Templars after me. Thought I'd get Karl, and maybe we'd run for Qarinus. Chantry'd never dare, if we even made it across the border. But, now... No reason to be here, no reason to be anywhere else. I know there are reasons. There have to be reasons. I just can't find them any more." Justice was strangely silent, but Anders was also dangerously exhausted.

"So, stay for me." Cormac shrugged, as if he hadn't said something utterly ridiculous. "Not forever, but just until you find a decent reason. I'm cute, I'm charming, and I have utterly bullshit healing spells you can borrow when you do shit like this to yourself."

"You make offers like that to every half-dead apostate you find in the sewer?" Anders almost managed something that could pass for humour.

"Nah, just the ones I'm buying breakfast for." Cormac grinned lazily.

"Why are you buying me breakfast?"

"Where were you?" Cormac invoked the question every Fereldan refugee knew.

"I was in the north, mostly. Trying to stay as far from both Kinloch Hold and the darkspawn horde as I could. Wound up in Amaranthine, in the end, but that was after."

"I was in Lothering."

"Oh, shit." Anders reached out a hand, and Cormac moved to take it, taking a seat beside Anders, instead of across from him.

"That's why." It was all Cormac needed to say. Anders would be able to fill in the rest. Just about any Fereldan would. Why? Because he remembered what it was like to lose friends to unspeakable horrors, even if they weren't the same kind.

"You...?" Anders asked, eyes full of the obvious question.

"No one I couldn't replace. We were lucky." Cormac smiled and reached across Anders for the bottle, opening it with one hand and his teeth, as the two of them slumped, shoulder to shoulder, hands together. "I did get punched in the head by an ogre, though. That's a lot less fun than it sounds."

"Yes, I know! I've met ogres!" Anders squinted and blinked at Cormac, who handed him the whiskey. "How are you still alive?"

"There were just enough of us. That thing came over the ridge, and all I could think of was giving my sister enough time to get a shot off. An ogre is a bad thing. An ogre that's suddenly on your side against a seemingly endless horde of lesser darkspawn is a very good thing. So, I ate a fist to the face. We had Aveline with us -- you haven't met Aveline, but she's a scary wall of meat, used to be a soldier -- and her husband, Wes, the Templar -- Don't make that face at me. He could've been a fucking hurlock, and I'd have been glad he was on our side. But, I guess between the two of them, my brother Carver, and the ogre, there was enough front-facing ass-kicking to wipe out the next wave, and then Artie pounded the ogre into paste, before it could notice us again. I don't know shit. I was face-down in the mud with a broken nose, at the time."

Cormac huffed out a self-conscious laugh. "Probably the only mage you know who charged an ogre, shouting 'Fight me, Jimmy!'"

"Of all the things I may or may not have yelled at any number of ogres, I assure you 'Fight me, Jimmy!' was not on the list, no." Anders eyed Cormac with a whole new level of horror and respect.

"Does it help if I tell you I didn't mean to survive that?"

"I don't know if it helps, but at least it makes more sense." Anders rubbed his eye with his wrist and took a drink. "So, these darkspawn... None of them... talked to you or anything, right? Just regular, run of the mill 'grargh, roar, stabby stabby'?"

Horror dawned on Cormac's face. "Darkspawn talk?"

"No. Well, yes, but no." Anders drank more and squeezed Cormac's hand tighter. "I was in Amaranthine for some terrible things. There was... it called itself 'the Architect'. It believed itself to be some kind of darkspawn. And, honestly, it was a pretty well-reasoned bastard, all in all. It had been trying to establish a society of intelligent darkspawn -- like itself, but uglier -- and some shit happened and we crossed paths. So, no? Darkspawn don't talk, unless they're special. I swear that all makes much more sense with the parts I'm not supposed to tell you in it."

"I thought you left the Wardens," Cormac prodded.

"In the end, there's no such fucking thing." Shaking his head, Anders handed back the bottle. "They think I'm dead. Everyone I was with sure is. I just ran. Couldn't do it any more. Doesn't change the fact I'm still a Warden, with all the unfortunate side-effects that brings."

"I've heard some stories about--"

"Legendary Warden stamina? They're all true, and I wish they weren't. It's really kind of annoying." Anders sighed.

"I wondered about that. You haven't slept in five nights, probably haven't eaten in a couple of days, and I walked in on you still using magic. That's really pretty impressive." Cormac left out the part where being in Lothering had let him experience some of that legendary Warden stamina, firsthand.

"Some of that is Justice. I guess you could say I'm a little closer to the spirit than the average spirit healer." Sitting up, Anders noticed, actually seemed to require effort and thinking. "But, he doesn't sleep, so sometimes I don't sleep. There's not much space between us, any more. Less a him and me than an us. We don't sleep."

"Spirits may not eat or sleep, but people do. It's kind of what keeps them people, instead of corpses," Cormac teased, taking a drink. Whiskey before breakfast. Not the day he'd quite meant to have, but he'd take it.

"Enough other ways to make a corpse," Anders muttered.

"Sorry."

"No, I just... I keep thinking there's going to be another letter, full of his politics and his terrible jokes, and then I remember his blood on my hands." Anders squeezed his eyes shut. "I thought it was bad when they locked me up, but I got out, and Karl was still there, just like he'd always been. Heard they moved him to Kirkwall, after everything that happened, so I came here -- let him know I was in town -- and he finally wanted to come with me. Here, this place -- it was too much, even for him. And now he's dead, and I killed him. I couldn't save him."

"More than just friends." Cormac guessed.

"What? No. There's nothing more than friends. Friends are everything." Anders's eyelashes were damp, but he didn't open his eyes. "If you mean I was doing him, of course I was doing him. It was a Circle tower. Who wasn't I doing? But, he was my best friend. Not even two years without him, and now he's ... I can't get him back from this."

"Come up Sundermount with me, after you sleep. We'll build him a monument that looks out over Kirkwall, toward the sea." Cormac hadn't spent much time in the company of apostates he wasn't related to, and his own had stayed clear of the Circle. If this was what came of Circle mages, he was extremely glad he'd given it a miss. Still, the story reminded him that this could have been him, his brother, his sister. His father had told them enough about the tower mages -- like larks in cages, singing to keep from becoming supper. This, though, was beyond anything he had imagined.

"I don't even know where he was from," Anders admitted. "I don't know if he knew where he was from."

"But, you--"

"I was lazy. They didn't get me until I was twelve. I remember everything. He didn't. He was just a kid. Well... you know what I mean." Anders took slow, deep breaths, one after another, focused on Cormac's hand, warm in his.

"I know. I wasn't quite ten. My brother was not so fortunate. We'd just moved, too. It hit him right after it hit me, the poor little shit. Dad didn't know what to do with two of us." Cormac rubbed his thumb over Anders's knuckles, trying not to think too much about how that all happened so quickly. He'd been so proud, and Artie and their dad had been so scared.

A sharp laugh leapt out of Anders. "Two of you. Andraste's ass."

"Three of us, in the end. My poor mother." Cormac shook his head.

"I burned down a barn. You?"

"A barn? Wow. Yeah, nothing as spectacular as you. You should talk to my brother, though. He destroyed a room. Force, if you can believe it." After another drink, Cormac handed back the bottle. "Me, I folded a Templar into a platemail brick."

Hysterical laughter shot out of Anders and he dribbled whiskey down his chin, trying not to spit it all over himself. "You what?"

"Accidentally on purpose... He came for my dad, and I just... I'm an Arcanist, for the love of dogs and dogshit! I hated him so hard he imploded!"

Anders managed to swallow, at long last, wearing almost as much whiskey as he choked down. "I spent seventeen years in the tower, and that is the best one I've heard yet. Imploded a Templar. That's... Hah."

"Right? My poor dad. He didn't sign up for this shit." Cormac laughed. "Well, no, I guess he did. Apostate. Five kids. He had to know that was coming. Mum just tried to pretend it wasn't happening. She loves us, but dad was more than enough for her, on the magic front."

"I'm seething with envy. You just can't see it because I can't feel my face," Anders joked. "Actually, I can't feel much of anything. Shit."

"Need me to get up and do something? Can't quite get food yet, I don't think, but ..."

"Why the fuck are you being so nice to me?" The words were out before Anders could think too much about them.

"I could've been you. That could have been my sister, my brother. You're one of the first mages outside my family I've spent any time with, at all -- we were apolitical and separate, by necessity. The Templars were looking for us, so no other apostate would come near Malcolm Hawke or his family. It was a death warrant to be seen with us, I expect. So, here you are, this magical unicorn of a mage willing to be seen in my presence, and the first thing you do is drag me out to rescue your boyfriend from the Templars. Yeah, I'm in. That was winding up to be the most fun I'd had in years, until it all went wrong."

"Not my boyfriend," Anders muttered, and then, "Magical unicorn of a mage?"

"Piss off, I'm tired. It made sense in my head."

"I don't do bridles and I don't do virgins. If you're very lucky, though, I might let you stroke my horn."

"Andraste's infinitely squeezable buttocks, thank the Maker, there's two of us! My brothers are going to move to Starkhaven in self-defence." Cormac cackled. "That was terrible, by the way."

"Thank you, yes, it was." Anders looked vaguely amused. "And thank you. Really." He squeezed Cormac's hand and held up the bottle.

"It's always better to sulk in good company. Or at least in company that doesn't chew your slippers and shit in your shoes."

"I'm more of a cat person. More of a sleep on your face and puke in your shoes thing, really."

"My little brother has a mabari. Typical Fereldan family that we are, and all. Dog thinks it's hilarious to start fights between my brothers." Cormac shook his head and laughed.

Anders stretched and groaned. "I need to stop sitting up. This isn't working at all."

"So, I'll go get you a blanket, and you can lie down. I'll see if it's late enough for anyone to be selling food, yet," Cormac offered, getting to his feet, and trying to let go of Anders's hand.

"No, I... Stay? Please?" Anders did not look up. His eyes closed, in fact, and he did not look at all. "Because that wasn't completely pathetic, Anders," he muttered.

"You want me to help you get to sleep? I can try. Ditch that coat, while I get a blanket for you. The feathers don't look like they'd be too conducive to a good night's sleep." Cormac squeezed Anders's hand. "I haven't slept either, remember? Not as long as you, but... wouldn't kill me to lose a couple of hours."

"Thank you." Anders still didn't look up, as Cormac's hand slipped out of his. "Blankets in the back are cleaner than the ones in the front. Nobody bled on them, today."

Anders tried to remember how to work the fastenings on his coat, as Cormac went to get blankets. His fingers just refused to cooperate, and the way the stitching seemed to flutter and writhe didn't do him much good, either.

"I can't..." he muttered, as Cormac's feet reappeared. There was a sound of cloth falling beside him and then Cormac had knelt in front of him.

"You want me to try?" Cormac offered.

"There's a slide on the back of the rings," Anders said, instead of yes. "It's not hard. I just can't feel my fingertips."

Cormac got it on the first try. "That's a really nice design. One day, when I have money, I want to meet your tailor."

Anders shrugged out of the coat. "Ask Lirene. It was a gift."

Cormac carefully folded the coat and tucked it under the cot. There were two of them, but it was still Darktown. He unfolded the blankets as Anders stretched out on his side, and then sat back down on the edge of the cot to stroke the healer's hair. "You want me to sit here and hold your hand? I can do that."

"You can lie down. It'll be tight, but... I just can't get warm." Anders looked utterly miserable -- cold, tired, and thin.

"First date and I'm already getting in your bed," Cormac joked, carefully climbing over Anders to lie down behind him. He rearranged the blankets to make room for himself under them.

"Not actually my bed. My bed's in the back. Just can't walk that far right now." Anders reached back and pulled Cormac's arm around him. For a moment, he very nearly relaxed. "Thank you," he said again.

"You keep thanking me. I'm lying in a warm bed -- or something like a bed, anyway -- with an extremely attractive and terribly talented healer in my arms. I should be thanking you, if for no other reason than this beats the piss out of my uncle's freezing cold floor."

Anders made a small, amused sound -- one Cormac felt more than heard. "Extremely attractive?"

"I'm sure you're better looking when you've eaten and slept, but you're still pretty gorgeous. I'm just saying."

"Saying you want to ride the unicorn?"

Cormac laughed. "I'm never living that down, am I? I'm not saying it's an active desire, but if the opportunity ever presents itself, I probably wouldn't turn it down. What? Am I not allowed to just appreciate a good-looking man?"

"It's been a while," Anders admitted, slowly relaxing a little bit at a time, shoulders pulling forward as he wrapped himself around Cormac's arm.

"A constant stream of life and death situations doesn't really lend itself to admirers of your more frivolous qualities. Fortunately, now there's me." Cormac flexed his arm in a half-hug. "Or unfortunately. I'm really pretty annoying."

"I've been told that about myself. We should be annoying, together. We'll be an unstoppable force for annoyance." Anders paused. "I think I'm really tired."

"I'm sure you're really tired. Do you need me to shut up?" Cormac asked.

"No! Please. Don't stop talking." Anders's hand tightened around Cormac's wrist. "You talk to me like I'm real. It's been months of nothing but threats and praise -- doglord this, miracle-worker that. But, you're talking to me like I'm not refugee trash or the beating heart of the Fereldan diaspora. I'm just... some guy. I forgot what that was like."

"No, you're just some healer, which is pretty badass, but I've got some tricks that'll turn your hair white."

"I've got some tricks that'll turn your pants white," Anders shot back.

"If you cast anything, right now, you will die, so let's save the exciting magic tricks for after you get some sleep," Cormac reminded him.

"It's not that bad. I'm the healer. I would know." Anders muttered.

"You're the healer who forgets to eat and sleep. Excuse me if I don't take your word for how bad it is, until you do at least one of these things."

"You're really going to buy me breakfast, later, aren't you?" Anders sounded like he was finally starting to take Cormac seriously. At least a little.

"I'm hungry. You're hungry. If I'm going to go get food, it would be a real asshole thing to do, if I only got enough for me." Cormac rubbed the middle of Anders's chest, idly, until Anders grabbed his hand.

"Not right there. An inch or two in any direction, but not right there. Hurts when I'm tired." Anders loosened his grip. "Sorry."

"You? No. I'm sorry. Andraste's ass, don't apologise because I hurt you." Cormac moved his hand down, rubbing the bottom of Anders's ribs, instead. "Better?"

"Amazing," Anders purred pressing himself closer against Cormac, before he suddenly froze. "Sorry. I don't-- I didn't mean to--"

"Shh. You're just like a kitty. I rub your belly and you purr and squirm." Cormac's voice was warm and reassuring. "I don't mind. You're tired. You want me to stop, tell me."

"Like a kitty," Anders huffed. "Like a very randy tomcat, apparently. And I am very, very much too tired for that, so don't get your hopes up. If that bothers you, you should stop. Otherwise, I don't think I've felt this good in a very long time, so please don't stop. You spoil me."

"Mmm, you've gone from a magical unicorn to a randy tomcat, and all I had to do was rub your belly? Now there's some magic for the ages." Cormac laughed quietly. "I don't care. You're warm and making mostly happy noises, except for the noises where you're worried I'm going to hate you because your knob's got a mind of its own. Not even touching your knob. Wouldn't have noticed. And as the owner of a knob, I'll remind you they're all like that, especially if drunk or tired are involved."

There was a lot more going on here, Cormac noticed, than just a man who'd been forced to kill his lover. As if that hadn't been bad enough. Elves. He'd seen elves react like this, and he'd always just assumed it was a cultural thing -- beware of the humans, they're not like us. But, then, Anders was a mage. 'They're not like us' was a given.

Anders heaved out a sound that was more breath than laugh. "I'm going to regret this later, but right now, I just don't care."

"What's to regret? It's warm. We'll sleep. And then we'll eat. Sounds amazing. Haven't had it this good since we left Lothering. And I'm not going to wake up to one of my brothers tripping over me."

"Ah, the foot in the ass. I don't miss that from the boat," Anders muttered, tucking his head down against his shoulder.

"Fuck the boat," Cormac grumbled.

Anders sounded like he might say something else, but all that came out was a long, low, contented sound as he finally faded out. Cormac kept talking, for a while, not really expecting to be heard, but just to make sure Anders was really asleep, before he drifted off. This was good. Pity there probably wasn't room to get used to it.

Chapter Text

Cormac woke, blearily, to hot breath against his forehead and hips rocking against his thigh. Warm, still wearing his boots... what? Oh, right. He'd come to check on the healer at some unspeakable hour, and ended up in bed. The healer who was, it seemed, still asleep. At least it wasn't one of his brothers, this time, Cormac reasoned. There was only so long you could keep that many people in that small a space, before accidents happened. He'd mostly learnt to ignore it.

A gasp, Anders clutching at his back, and then the healer leapt back, as if waking from a nightmare. Cormac grabbed his shoulder and pulled, to keep him from falling off the cot. He watched Anders wake up, terror first, then disappointment, then horror.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to--"

Cormac backed himself up against the wall and pulled Anders back onto the cot. "You're not related to me. It's a nice change of pace," he joked. "I'm warm and you were sleeping. And I just woke up. And you're ... still cold, aren't you."

"I dreamed it wasn't true. I dreamed it wasn't true, it was all a nightmare, and we-- we were going to Qarinus, in the morning. I dreamed... just one more time..." Anders rubbed at his face, eyes damp. "I don't know how to live like this."

"We're not him, and we never will be, but we liked you enough to walk into that trap with you. I still like you. Promised you breakfast, didn't I?" Cormac huffed out a laugh. "You'll never forget. You'll probably always blame yourself. But, as long as it's not the only thing you have, I think you'll do fine."

"You're insane, you know that? How am I supposed to live with this? How am I supposed to look at myself?" Anders couldn't even look at Cormac, turning his head to look up at the wall.

"Step one, don't look at yourself. Not just yet. I'll look for you, and what I'm seeing is that you need a shave. You grow that out, and nobody's going to be able to look at you -- Maker, man, what are you, part bear?" Cormac reached up and tugged at a bit of that blond beard.

"I'm serious," Anders insisted.

"So am I. I'd say don't let it get to you, but it's going to. It's going to tear you apart. So, let it, for a while. I was not the only one with you, that night, and I don't think any of us are going to let you die of grief. This shouldn't have happened to anyone, but it happened to you. And I kind of like you, which is saying something, considering you threatened me the minute I walked through your door, but I do." Cormac's hand took a gentle grip on Anders's shoulder. "Please, Anders, let us take care of you. We lost one mage, this week. Let's not go for two. Two is a lot. There are so few of us out here."

"Why do you care?" Anders looked baffled.

"Could've been me. My brother, my sister, my dad... We lost a whole village, and half a town of refugees. I haven't seen anyone I knew, since I got here. I want to know you. I've never met a mage I wasn't related to. Not except that healer who was travelling south with the Wardens, and by the time I met her, I needed a healer. Only knew her five minutes."

"Darkspawn?" Anders asked, as he filtered through the rest of that.

Cormac laughed. "Wardens. Sometimes, it's good to be drunk and stupid. I didn't think I'd be getting up for a week, after that, but there she was, all glowy hands and long-suffering sighs. So, of course, I went out and did it again, the next night, but with less Wardens, sadly, since they'd already moved on. The King's army moved on the next day, took two of my brothers along. Templars hung back to protect the town, and so did I, to protect the town from them. Lost it all, anyway."

"You, your family, you stayed to fight?"

"Ten years, and the longest I'd been anywhere. We stayed until the Darkspawn were on our doorstep. By that point, half the Templars weren't local any more, so I told them I was from the tower, on loan to the Wardens. Nobody batted an eye, once the first wave came. My sister had to drag me away. It was my house. The house my father died in. Nothing for it, in the end. We had to go." Cormac curled up against Anders's chest. "We were all we had left. I don't know if anyone made it out, but us. There are no familiar faces here. Ten years, Anders. Everyone's gone but us."

"You have your family," Anders reminded him, one arm finally reaching out to settle over that thick, warm body.

"So do you." Cormac's voice was as thick as his shoulders. "You have my family, too."

"I don't think it works like that," Anders rested his chin against the top of Cormac's head.

"We do."

Anders reflected that he was unwashed, unshaven, starving, had slept about three hours in the last four or five days, and had then woken up humping the leg of a man he barely knew, while dreaming about the friend he'd just killed. And somehow, this man he barely knew had not only forgiven him, but was willingly curled up against him, offering to take care of him. He should have been terrified, and frankly he was. Cormac Hawke was clearly a madman. But, it was an optimistic madness, if a painfully honest one. And really, Anders thought, he could probably do with someone reminding him about the little things -- eating, sleeping, shaving. In time, Cormac would get tired of him and go. But, what was the harm in a little flattery and free food, in the mean time?

"Mmm," Cormac groaned. "Let me up before I fall asleep again, and forget I was going to get us food. You need to eat. I probably do, too, but you're so warm, and this is so much softer than the floor."

"I'm freezing my ass off," Anders reminded him. "You're the warm one."

"Because I'm not on the floor." Cormac groaned again and managed to sit up, the world strangely angular and flat to his sleepless eyes. "Back in a few minutes. Food. Don't die."

Anders laughed and stretched. "If I'm not right here, when you get back, it's because I made it into the back, where I have something even more bed-like. It might have been a real bed, once. Real straw mattress and everything."

Cormac dragged himself to his feet. "A mattress. Two things other than the floor, in one day? How did I get this lucky? A bed. You have a bed. Marry me."

"Fuck the Chantry," Anders muttered. "Mage freedom before marriage. Breakfast before mage rights."

Cormac cackled, exhaustedly, and staggered out into Darktown. Up to the market for food, and then back to this ridiculous half-dead mage who had a bed he was willing to share.

About an hour later, Cormac stumbled back in, to find that Anders hadn't made it to bed. Instead, he was lying on the floor, with half a lyrium potion next to him, trying to shave with no mirror. Lightning leapt to Anders's fingertips, before he realised the footsteps were just Cormac.

"Stop casting before breakfast," Cormac yawned, holding out a sack. "Rolls, apricots, dried fish, cabbage salad. Apricots were free. You know there's a tree by the bridge to the Gallows? Don't think anyone's noticed it. Kind of behind a statue."

"I had a potion, first," Anders grumbled, nicking himself. The mark was gone before it even started to bleed. "I don't have to shave well. I'm a healer. Five minutes, and I'll be done."

It took closer to ten, but he did eventually manage to finish shaving, and without a drop of blood spilled. "Couldn't handle it," he said, sitting up. "Still reek, but at least my face is mine, again. You know how hard it is to get a bath, down here? Water's either foul or seawater, unless you haul it from Lowtown. Privacy's a joke. Half likely to get my pants nicked every time I take them off."

"So, you're saying you want me to watch your pants, while you wash?" Cormac unpacked the food onto a nearby counter and pulled one of the cots closer, so they could sit.

"That would be amazing. Should really wash my clothes, too. I can't remember the last time I had something clean. I have three shirts and two pairs of pants and a handful of robes I don't dare wear, stuffed in a locked trunk -- nobody else should be wearing those, either." Anders hauled himself up, staggered the few feet to the cot by the food, and dropped himself onto it, leaning back against the counter, as he reached for the round loaf of bread he knew contained his cabbage salad. "I just hang things to air them out a bit, when I'm not wearing them. Hope for the best. Lost a few shirts like that. Lost more pants. Still have to hang stuff, even if it's wet, but if it's dry, I can hang it in the cupboard, at least."

Cormac stared for a moment, not chewing the bit of fish sandwich in his mouth. "You... How long have you been living like this?"

"Oh, not even a year, yet. It won't go on forever. People know who I am, now. They don't steal from me as much as when I first got here. A chest full of robes and books and my staff at my back. Nowhere to go. I came later than you. After Denerim. After Amaranthine. Right after Amaranthine, really. Lost a good friend, and just couldn't do it any more. Packed up and came to get my other friend back. Lost him, too. Everything I touch turns to shit."

"That is not true. I'm sitting right here, and you spent a whole three hours wrapped around me. I'm no more shitty than I was before." Cormac grinned, and finally remembered he was eating.

Anders picked at the cabbage salad, scooping it with a bit of bread. "Great. I stink and you're already shit. Apostate power."

Cormac cackled. "I think -- and I do think too much -- that you should let me help you get a decent bath, and then we'll wash your clothes, and you can put on one of those robes you don't dare wear, because if anyone has anything to say about it, they're coming through me to say it. And then we should go lie about in your not quite a bed that is supposedly even better than that rickety cot, which is a definite improvement on the floor. And yes, I did just invite myself to bed with you."

"That's actually kind of flattering. You scrape me off the floor, put food in me, and then offer to come to bed with me? It's my lucky day. My toes are cold." Anders laughed. He left out the parts in between, because he was still trying to sort those. "The only thing I ask is that you stay out here, while I'm in the bath. Bathing without someone watching is one of those luxuries I'm still getting used to, and I'm really kind of enjoying it."

"A luxury? What the fuck happened to you?" Cormac asked, with his mouth full.

"Fifteen years in Kinloch Hold. Happened to everyone, really." The completely placid smile that settled on Anders's face was terrifying. "It's over. I belong to me, now."

"Andraste's brazen ass... There was something dad never mentioned." Cormac shook his head. "All the things he had to say about the Circle, but never that."

"Everything you've heard was probably true." Anders shrugged and kept picking at the salad. "The shit you didn't hear is probably mostly true, too. It all sounds good, on paper, but it never really worked the way it was designed, and that's a fault in the design, that it didn't account for the follies of man."

"You really do sound like my dad, when you say shit like that. But, you know, you're young and gorgeous, very much not like the last time I saw him." Cormac made himself another sandwich.

"You saying your dad was young and gorgeous, once?" Anders elbowed Cormac and grinned slyly.

"I'm saying my dad looked just like me, when he charmed the pants off the daughter of Aristide Amell and eloped to Ferelden with her. You tell me if that counts." Cormac's grin was nothing shy of wicked.

Anders studied Cormac contemplatively. "You've got young, but gorgeous...? Rugged, maybe. Nice shoulders, definitely. Would you settle for dead sexy?"

Cormac sighed, melodramatically. "I suppose. If I must. But, I guess you're gorgeous enough for both of us."

"And now I'm a gorgeous magical unicorn. My, you just keep getting more creative, don't you?" Anders laughed. Food really was improving the situation dramatically, that warm rush of megalomania and invincibility wrestling with the need to sleep more, now that his stomach had seized the blood intended for his brain. "Still going to take some convincing, before I let you stroke my horn."

"Easily nine out of ten people I had my wicked and delicious way with -- and there were way more than ten -- died in the course of a day. I was there. I couldn't save them. You had yours, I had mine. I know now isn't the time, and I got nothing for convincing, any more. You want it, I'm interested. You don't, I'm a hopeless flirt, no big deal. Don't take me more seriously than you want to. I'm just like this. Sometimes, I get lucky. Sometimes, I get punched. Most of the time, people just laugh. I take what I get." Cormac squeezed an entire apricot into his mouth, and tipped his head back. He spit out the pit a moment later. "But, if you're interested, don't think for a second that I'm even slightly ambivalent. I will agree so fucking forcefully, the elves will hear it on the mountain. It's up to you."

"You remember I'm a Warden, right?" A nervous laugh leapt out of Anders, as he started picking apart the bread bowl from his salad.

"Didn't I already share my opinion on Warden stamina? Besides, you're already a healer. If you break me more than I meant you to, you can fix it."

"Break... you?" Anders looked confused and a little distressed at the idea. "I'm not like that. I swear. It's not a Warden thing, whatever you heard."

Cormac laughed, maybe a little harder than strictly necessary. "What? No, not like that. I'm ... I'm into that. I like it a little rough. Okay, a lot rough. I'm into the aching for days thing."

"So, you come flirt with the healer, who's going to reflexively try to fix that, as fast as it happens." Anders shook his head, and finished off his salad and bread.

"The healer part is kind of incidental. I think it offsets the Warden part nicely. Mostly, though, I'm just here flirting with this gorgeous magical unicorn of a mage, who's willing to be in the same room with me."

Anders just smiled and basked in that, for a moment. "Help me stash the food, so we still have some, later? There's that whole no doors problem, down here, and the idea of waking up and already having food is so appealing right now."

"Back in the sack and under the bed?" Cormac suggested, putting things into the bag they'd come out of.

"Exactly what I was thinking." Anders groaned and hauled himself to his feet. "I'm going to ... thing ... water ..." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the overlook.

"Saltwater? Seriously?" Cormac asked, sweeping the rest of the food into the sack.

"I'm not going to try to haul that much water back down from Lowtown, in this condition." Anders shook his head.

Cormac thought about it, for a few seconds. "We're mages. We can do better than this. Show me where you're pulling from, and I'll help you haul water. Then we'll figure out the rest."

"If you're thinking distillation," Anders said, leading the way, "I don't have enough equipment in the right size. Thought of that. Still too poor."

"What if we freeze it, before you haul it up?" Cormac speculated. "Freeze it, haul it, dump it in the tub, melt it, freeze it one more time, pour out the sludge, and then warm it up?"

"I've done that to get drinking water, but you're talking about doing it where people can see it." Anders shook his head. "You'll get us both killed."

"Will not. Who's going to notice? I have amazing aim." Cormac folded his arms across his chest.

"We could do it the long way," Anders pointed out, casting out the hauling bucket. Whoever had designed the contraption must've been Carta, because it was pure dwarven ingenuity. "Double freeze it in the tub. Maybe triple, if we have to haul more water, because it wasn't already frozen."

"I like the way you think." Cormac grinned as Anders cranked the bucket back.

"I think this thing weighs almost as much as I do. Grab a ring? I'm too tired for this." Yawning, Anders lowered the bucket and unhooked it. "Three to fill the tub."

Cormac just picked it up, sloshing water on himself and the ground. "Maybe four, if I keep doing that," he muttered. "I got it."

While Anders bathed, Cormac dried his own clothes with a combination of ice and fire, freezing the water out of the cloth and then heating the damp out, when it stopped working. After a while, Anders reappeared, damp, but clean, in a gorgeous blue and gold robe, in a Tevinter cut.

"Hate wearing this thing, around here. It's like a 'stab me, I'm a mage' sign," he sighed.

"Washed everything?" Cormac asked.

"It's hung up."

"Then excuse me while I solve the bathwater problem, and then the wet clothes problem. You should sit. You're still looking a little pale."

"Cormac, anything would look pale next to you." Anders laughed, but went back to sit on the bed, all the same. He meant to lie down there, anyway. "I'll get it later. When I haven't used most of my magic to compensate for my lack of shaving talents."

"Or, I could just do it, and then you don't have to worry about it," Cormac pointed out, freezing a streak across the floor of the clinic and then freezing the bathwater, so it wouldn't slosh. He kicked the tub and watched it slide a few feet. Perfect. "Back in a minute."

"Why?" Anders asked again, when Cormac returned and stuck the empty tub under the dripping clothing.

"Because there's enough shit going on, and you don't need this." Cormac started freezing the water out of the cloth. "And I'm looking for an excuse not to go home for a bit. It's quiet, here. Dog's not barking, nobody's yelling. And you're here, and we all know what I think about being in a room with you. Completely selfish reasons, honestly."

"Not completely selfish. We both benefit." Anders pushed down the ratty blanket. It looked like it had started life as a down comforter, before ending up in the dump and being dragged into Darktown, but it was still decently warm. He stretched out, close to the wall, head on a small red pillow. "Still coming to bed with me?"

"Templars couldn't keep me away," Cormac groaned, tapping the clothes. "Damp, but not wet. Should be dry by the time you wake up."

He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots and socks, tucking them under the bed. The blanket had been made for a much larger bed, and it hung almost to the floor, concealing everything under the bed.

"Thank you," Cormac said, quietly, sliding into the bed beside Anders and pulling the blanket up

"Me? You're down here carrying my bathwater and buying me breakfast. Thank me. That's crap and you know it." Anders pulled the blanket up to his eyes.

"Your bed is warm and your rooms are blessedly quiet. And you're letting me share this wondrous quiet warmth with you." Cormac hesitantly reached out and squeezed Anders's upper arm.

Anders reached up and just held Cormac's hand for a bit. "If I roll over, would you... would you hold me, like you did, before?"

"Want me to rub your belly again, tomcat?" Cormac teased, letting go so Anders could move.

Anders got very still, for a long moment, and then he rolled over. Just as Cormac thought he might have pushed too far, Anders sighed. "Yeah, I do."

"Calming," Cormac ventured, wrapping an arm around Anders and pulling him close, hand gently circling over the embroidered gold waist of Anders's robe.

"Yeah," Anders choked out, after a few seconds.

Cormac just squeezed his other arm under Anders and crossed it up over his chest to hold on to his shoulder.

"I never wanted any of this. I just wanted to be a regular guy, and live a regular life, maybe with a little more magic and a little less chicken-farming, but minimal excitement. Less Templars. Less bullshit. Less wondering who we'd lose, next."

"You totally wanted to be my dad," Cormac pointed out. "Regular guy, regular life. A wife and five kids, a house in a farming village, when we finally settled down. Minimal bullshit, all things considered."

"Could've done without the five kids," Anders scoffed, sounding a little less maudlin.

"So could he, I'm pretty sure." Cormac laughed. "But, mum wanted a little girl, and didn't give up until she got one."

"Your father's a saint. Five kids..." The 'and an apostate' was understood.

"It's definitely a holy blessing that he didn't kill us all. Saintly patience right to the end, though I sometimes wonder if we didn't shave years off his life, the poor bastard." Cormac laughed. "I almost got killed running around after Dalish legends, so many times, and my little brother always came with me -- not that he had any interest in the legends, I think he was just into the elves. I know he got into at least one elf. The next brother down ... I don't even know what his deal was, but the number of times he got brought home by a prostitute, with his pocket full of coins, the two of them talking about card games and who cheated... The twins ran around and beat each other with sticks, until dad was looking, and then she'd trip her brother and stand on him until he cried -- and that was it, with the twins, too -- she didn't cry. He did. Made the neighbours crazy. I don't know, I didn't pay much mind to the twins. I wasn't home much, by the time they got old enough to be interesting."

"Your family sounds amazing. And now I'm absolutely certain your father should have been sainted. Statues in his honour." Anders turned his head and stifled a yawn against Cormac's hand.

"When I'm king of the world, there will be statues from Lothering to Kirkwall! And maybe one day someone will see one of those statues and tell me where he was really from, and I'll go build a statue there, too." Cormac pressed his face against the back of Anders's neck. "But, I'll never be king of the world at this rate, so maybe I'll just write his name on eggs and throw them at the side of the Chantry, instead."

"If you're egging the Chantry, count me in." Anders hooked his foot around Cormac's ankle. "Maybe we shouldn't use eggs, though. We could be eating those."

"Rotten eggs." Cormac cuddled closer, still rubbing Anders's belly.

"If we're using rotten eggs, we should just crack them and plant them in the flower beds at night. Just below the surface. They'll be trying to figure out where the stench is coming from forever."

"You sound like you've done this before."

"Fifteen fucking years in Kinloch Hold." Anders tossed an arm back, hand settling on the side of Cormac's thigh. "I am a master of terrible things to do with bad eggs."

"Anyone ever mention how unreasonably tall you are?" Cormac asked, noticing how they fit together.

"All the time. Took you long enough."

"I was appreciating your other enjoyable qualities-- your wit, your warmth, your sparkling personality, the fact that you're not related to me."

"Oh, come now, your family doesn't sound that appalling."

"Anyone's family is that appalling when you've been sleeping on the floor of some tiny Lowtown hovel with them, every night, for a year. Five kids. One room. No bed." Cormac huffed against the back of Anders's neck, and Anders shivered. "Sorry. You're tall."

Anders laughed and rolled over, in a tangle of limbs and twisted blanket. He tugged the blanket back into something like the right shape and tucked the edge between his back and the wall. "Better?"

"A little harder to rub your belly like this, isn't it?"

"So rub my back, instead. I don't care. You're warm."

Cormac laughed against Anders's chest. "You're pushy, when you're tired," he teased.

"So are you. Inviting yourself to bed with me?" Anders wound closer around Cormac.

"That's different. I'm pushy all the time." Cormac draped an arm over Anders, rubbing his lower back.

"No you're not," Anders muttered. "And thank you for that. Not my back -- well, thank you for that, too, but I meant not being pushy at the wrong times."

"Don't thank me, yet. I will be, eventually. When it happens, just smack me." Cormac's eyes drifted shut, and he smiled and didn't comment when Anders's leg hooked around his own.

"Just don't get attached to me. I'm not going to be here forever."

"No one is. You're here, now. It's good enough."

"You're out of your mind." Anders yawned and stretched, pressing himself against Cormac.

"That implies I was in it, to begin with," Cormac mumbled. "I could wake up back on the floor in that hovel, and I'd still be happy I had a bed and a warm body that wasn't my brother for one night. You being you just makes it worth remembering."

"I'll disappoint you," Anders muttered against the top of Cormac's head. "I'm really pretty forgettable."

"It's not like I'm consorting with noblemen. I'm just another refugee with a staff. A staff that's going to start paying a lot more attention to the conversation if you keep doing that with your leg."

"You want me to stop?"

"Not really."

"Going to be here when I wake up?"

"You will have to kick me out of this bed to get me to go further than the chamberpot." Cormac cleared his throat. "By which I mean, 'do you want me here when you wake up?'"

"I hope you have the sense not to be. I hope you have the sense to put as much distance as you can get between us, but... yeah, I do. I do want you to be here."

"Fuck sense. I charged a fucking ogre. Sense can go take a flying fuck at the Golden City." Cormac grumbled.

"Careful, I might start thinking you like me," Anders scoffed.

Cormac just snorted.