Hawke knows she's being followed. Two days ago, she was willing to say it was paranoia—spending time in Kirkwall will do that to you—but now she's convinced someone has their eyes on her.
She sits at the back of inn, nursing a pint of something dwarfish, and watches the door. Nobody unfamiliar walks in all night. She's been in this seedy little village for three weeks now, knows everyone, and even though it's a midpoint between two trade cities, everyone looks suspiciously familiar.
She's also aware she may be somewhat mildly—all right, very—intoxicated, but she hasn't really stopped drinking since she fled from Kirkwall. It's the only way she can ignore the devastation in Kirkwall, the fact that mages and Templars around her seem to be crumbling like the very stone that holds them.
"Another," she says to the barwoman, eyes still glue to the door. Perhaps it is paranoia, but she can't shake that itch at the back of her head. After all, Varric did follow her for two days, and after she shook him, she found out that Merrill had followed her for four days more.
Perhaps the morale of this story was that Hawke was very bad at knowing when she was being followed.
Not this time, though. This time she was sure someone was following her. A small part of her wondered if it was Carver, who she had also abandoned in her cowardice.
It all came down to fight or flight that day, and she had been tired of fighting.
Hawke finishes her pint—was it her third or fourth?—and feels a whoosh! as she stands. She always was a lightweight. Oh, well.
Her room is upstairs. She likes it. It's small, barely fits the bed and chest, but it makes her feel secure. She can sit in a corner and see the entire room, and know that she is alone.
But as the door closes behind her, just as she's pulled her robe over her head, the itch on the back of her head triples, and she freezes.
It's only for a second, and in the next she has staff in hand and confronts her stalker. She ignores the fact that she's wearing only her undergarments.
"You," she hisses. She doesn't hesitate, and a snowball melts into her door, clearly missing her target.
Damn those dwarves and their alcohol.
Anders has the decency to look sheepish. He raises his hands. "I had to see you," he says.
There's a roughness in his voice, and Hawke realizes it's almost half-Anders, half-Justice. She glares at him. Her grip on her staff tightens, and she tries to push through her blurry haze to form another, more significant frost.
"I thought," she says, through gritted teeth, "I told you to make sure I never saw you again."
"Didn't you miss me?" he asks, and she realizes that one of them must clearly be insane right now.
"You are responsible for the murder of countless people!" Hawke shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. No, you can't reason with a psychopath. She tries another attempt at casting a spell of him.
He dodges it rather easily. Hawke sneers; must be the perks of being a fugitive—your reflexes kick in better.
"Justice had to be served!" There's a begging in his voice. "We're not slaves. Don't we have a right not to be feared!"
"You don't get it!" Hawkes is aware that the room is small, and they're painfully close to each other. So close, she can smell him, that smell of raw magic and pepper that was so familiar to her. "Innocent people died! The whole world is crumbling around us." She realizes there are tears falling down her cheeks, but she's too mad to care. "All of this so you could prove a point. Do you realize it doesn't even matter? Templars and mages, it doesn't matter anymore. There's no system, no… no real justice in this. It's just chaos."
And suddenly he's invaded her space, the little that she had, and he's kissing her, holding her in his arms, as though nothing had ever happened.
She's aware she could knock him over the head with her staff, but instead it clatters to floor.
She's tired of fighting, but she returns the kiss, because she can feel the magic course through her skin, an aphrodisiac in its own right.
"By the Maker, I missed you," he mutters. And suddenly he's picked her up, and she wraps her legs around his waist.
"You're so beautiful, my love," he moves them to the bed.
"I'm not your love," Hawke says, but she thinks she might have just said it in her head, because he's suddenly kissing his way down her chest. He takes a nipple into his mouth, sucking and licking, and his fingers are pushing between her legs.
Hawke wishes she could hate this, hate him, but right now it only reminds her of times when everything didn't go to shit, and once he pushes a finger inside of her, she knows she's lost the battle.
Anders takes his time. He moves from one breast to another, and then slowly kisses down her skin. He spends time where her hip bone pokes out—one of his favorite spots—before his tongue finds her clit, and he's added another finger.
Hawke wonders is this is what Hell must be like. Being trapped with the person that you simultaneously love and want to kill. Her hands move to his hair, and she removes the band, letting his hair fall. It's pretty hair, she muses. Why did psychopaths get the nice hair?
And then there's a slight sliver of electricity inside of her, and she cums. It feels like she can't stop, and Anders doesn't finish licking and biting and moving his fingers until she does.
"Did you—did you just—" she doesn't finish asking, because he's removed his trousers, and he's suddenly inside her, thrusting so hard and quickly that it actually hurts.
"I love you," he whispers, over and over, like it's his mantra.
Then why did you leave me, she wants to ask, but doesn't, and instead digs her hands into the mattress, moves her hips to meet his, screams when he bites into her shoulder as he finishes.
There's a pause and a thickness in the air, as Anders lies on top of her, and Hawke's drunken haze finally floats away. She thinks if she was Isabella, she surely would have stabbed him by now. If she were Avelin, this would never have happened in the first place. If she were Merrill—well, Merrill probably would have turned into an embarrassed puddle of goo a long time ago.
"You—you should go," she finally manages to say.
Anders tenses, but removes himself from her.
Hawke freezes. Because the man who looks down at her has eyes that glow blue.