WARNING! END-GAME SPOILERS!
"Don't worry, my dear little demon, love and vengeance, hunting together, will always strike down their prey." (Honoré de Balzac)
LOVE AND VENGEANCE
by moondusted
It was never quiet in Darktown. There was always a background murmur of too many people forced into too little space, under unspeakable living conditions and deprived of any hope. The sounds of a sort of jungle with its own singular predators and prey and those who tried very hard to become neither. Some distant yelling was always there, harsh voices pitched to anger or pleading underscored by the muted clash of weapons just barely sharp enough to kill.
Even so, Darktown had a rhythm to it, like any city, and after so long Anders knew it by heart. Always, every night, there was a brief pause when the sound ebbed up and his clinic emptied of patients, leaving him alone in that narrow moment when the night had grown too old and the morning hadn't quite began yet.
Anders had never been able to decide whether he liked that hour or not. It did offer him a respite, a break from the constant strain of healing, a chance to rest and regain his strength. He could even go home, then, without feeling the sting of guilt for abandoning these people. Sometimes - ever more rarely, and that realisation grated - he went to the Hanged Man, where the same odd rhythm applied and it was nearly as quiet. But Isabela would be there, willing for a round of cards, trading dirty banters, and Varric would lounge by the fire ready to tell a new story or listen to one.
At the same time, always, every night, the sudden silence threw him back onto himself. He could hear himself think and inevitably that meant he began trying to pierce apart the components of his personality he could still recognise, as if he could label them all, find some order that allowed him to keep something precious of himself secured somewhere while the borders had long since vanished anyway. It was a futile effort, of course, and he certainly knew as much, but he couldn't stop himself, smarting under the sense of loss as it wound around his throat tight and bitter and hard.
And now, this night like all nights before, he didn't even have the option of leaving. He couldn't run away, couldn't go home or get drunk, because there was something else he needed to do, fending off half-lost memories and guilt all the while.
The small pile of paper looked badly abused, edges torn or ground away, the writing stained by water and not a little blood, crushed in bags and under robes, now spread out on his worktable at the back of the clinic. Every time he looked at it, he remembered that talk he'd had with Dworkin. Idle, pointless chattering when that thunderstorm kept them all locked in the Keep for days. Even then, he had realised that infusing Dworkin's explosives with raw magic rather than just lyrium would make them massively more effective than they already were. He might even have said so, but then events had started moving too fast and they had not found the time to pursue the theory.
Having nothing better to do, Anders had scribbled what he remembered of the recipes down on the journey to Kirkwall. It had been something to pass the time, then, so he didn't have to think about how he was confined to a ship surrounded by water. There was a chance he had always been lying to himself, he knew that now, and the roots of this plan had began back then, had perhaps began before that, on those long rainy days ago in Amaranthine.
He didn't actually need the notes and he barely looked while he worked, immersed, lost in what he was doing, fending against the roaring silence in his mind and the sense of dread he couldn't quite place. Everything was coming to an end, he knew, every breath he took brought him one step closer to the edge and there was nothing he could do to stop himself.
Something moved. He saw it from the corner of his eyes, a tiny flicker only, not accompanied by sound. It was familiar long before he had time to turn his head, a sudden, harsh rush of joy from some subconscious level. Stilling his hands, soiled with the dusty powder of the drakestone he had been patiently grinding, he looked to the side and the cat looked back.
It was large, scrawny and looked like it had had several run ins with hooves and cartwheels and possibly an entire pack of wolves. One ear in tatters, old, hard scars surrounding one bright yellow eye and forcing it half-shut. It's black fur was ruffled and thin in a few places where some more recent fight had left its marks. It's eyes were bright and curious and utterly fearless.
"Hey there," Anders said and got a condescending ear-twitch in response.
Anders put down his work, carefully wiped his hands and turned to face the cat. "I'm not sure whether offering you milk would offend you," he remarked. "Maybe that brandy Isabela brought is more suitable?"
The cat kept looking at him, considering, than yawned lazily and padded softly towards him, pressing against his legs.
"Sounds good, I see," Anders quipped. He didn't think much was likely to startle this particular creature, but he crotched down slowly anyway, unwilling to risk scaring it off after all. He shifted to a sit cross-legged on the floor, scattering dust. He tried to keep the clinic clean, but there was only so much that could be done in Darktown. Dirt permeated the very air and had a way of sticking to things.
The cat tipped its head back, then rubbed its neck against his knee.
"So what's your story?" Anders asked, holding out his hand. The cat seemed to crinkle its nose at the scent of drakestone still on his fingers, then seemed to shrug inwardly, setting its front-paws on his legs and stretching up. Anders responded to the gesture, bent forward and bumped his forehead against the cat's.
The cat meowed and if it had been human, it would have smirked. It lunged for the feathers on his shoulder, nudging them.
Cranking his neck, Anders picked a long feather and unceremoniously pulled it from the pauldron. He was losing more of those every fight and he looked like he wore a partially plucked goose anyway. The cat pounced on the feather, but allowed Anders graciously to draw back from under its grip.
"You know, I've been here for years," Anders told the cat, making the feather flutter. "Why did you show up only now? And don't lie to me, you've been around."
There was a unyielding nagging at the back of his head, telling him he had work to do. Was he really willing to abandon his crusade for the sake of such childish play? He knew the thought wouldn't go away, would eventually drive him back to his feet and his workbench, the crumbling notes of utter destruction and all the smattering of his old life that still clung to them. Would it make a difference to work at those things with a cat sleeping in some warm corner of the room? Would it rend his heart?
A claw hooked under his skin, the sharp sting pulling him back. He stopped moving immediately, relaxed against the pinpoint pain. The cat withdrew deliberately, looking at him. "Never mind," he told it. "I've had worse." But the clever little thing apparently knew the game, having its prey distracted, it shot forward, knocked the feather from his hand and grabbed it between its teeth, then trotted off a few steps, just out of easy reach.
Anders had to laugh, wondering faintly when that had become to make his face feel strange.
"If ruining your coat gives me this reaction, I'd have given up trying with witty remarks ages ago," Hawke's voice said from behind.
At least one door of the clinic was always open. Anders told himself because he wanted people who needed help to know they were always welcome, but of course it had more to do with his hatred of being locked up anywhere. Closed doors, no matter how easily they might be opened, always left him feeling trapped, powerless and he had come too far to allow that ever again.
Anders swivelled around, leaned back on outstretched arms. "You could always go for ripping, it's a classic, after all," he offered reflexively.
And occasionally, the open door would yield him a sight like this. Outlined in red and auburn leather, Hawke had one shoulder pressed against the doorway, hands tucked in his trouser pockets and his head tilted to the side, as playfully as the cat's. Hawke's presence always changed everything, as if it could possibly be more powerful than all spirits and demons of the Fade combined, it soothed Anders' mind, dulled the anger and the guilt. It never lasted, but it still made all the difference.
"Now here's a thought," Hawke mused with a grin.
Anders unfolded himself from the floor, moved in a dream, irresistably drawn forward, dragged towards Hawke by some forces stronger than anything he had ever known. Hawke melted back, still smirking, against the doorway, quick fire flaring in his eyes, hands uncurling and arms wide open. Anders had lost so much, more than he thought he had ever possessed, but he still remembered how to kiss someone breatheless. Here, in the open doorway between the warm light of the clinic and the impenetrable blackness of a Darktown night. This was the edge Anders was trying not to fall from and the only thing that kept him balanced was the shock of hot living skin under his hands and against his body.
Hawke growled against the kiss, one hand curling around Anders' neck and into his hair. Base instincts, a part of Anders' sneered, desire, hunger and greed, ugly sense of longing and possession and consuming heat that soiled him, seduced him with feeling alive. This was a craving that overruled everything else, every other lofty goal of freedom and justice.
A moment of oblivion, like the silence of Darktown, fleeting and hopelessly precious.
Panting, Hawke leaned his head back, gaze drifting past Anders' shoulder. "We are not putting on a show just to make your new admirer jealous, are we?"
Anders chuckled, letting his head sink against Hawke's shoulder. Ripping clothes sounded good around now, in the open doorway or not, for whatever audience happened to come by.
The cat had picked the precise centre of the room to sit in a round, pouting ball of fur to glare at them balefully.
"I promised him brandy," Anders said. "That's all."
"You never promise me any brandy," Hawke said with mock-reproach.
"No," Anders conceded, nipping at Hawke's lower lip, dropping his voice low. "You, I promise cream." That was definitly not Justice talking, Anders thought in a mind becoming slowly frayed, remembering the entirely different man he had once been, who was dying as the seams ripped with the two parts of him he could never concile.
Hawke purred, but the moment had already spun away from them.
And then the world changed again, broke apart and put itself back together from shattered parts of a mirror, its image the same and still forever distorted. Across the room, past the cat, the sight of his workbench came into sharp, cutting relief, surreally defined, leaving everything else to fall into washed out shadows. Even the lust, even the love.
Anders drew back from Hawke, too fast, too hard, it left him feel nauseous for a moment. He wanted to apologise for what he intended to do to Hawke's world, for how he would take it all apart like his own had shattered all those years ago. He had tried, desperately, to find some way to free Hawke from all of this, but every choice offered nothing but a new variety of pain. He could not shield Hawke from the coming storm. Worse still, he would pull him right into it.
Anders turned away, walked back into the light of the clinic, though it stung his eyes for a moment.
"There is one more thing I must ask of you, my love," Anders said and the words cut in his mouth and ripped down his throat as if they must leave him bleeding.
Author's Note: I've had a lot of trouble keeping Anders' voice consistent, until I realised that keeping his voice consistent didn't even make sense. Weird how that one worked out.
Now, I simply have to say this: I have been lusting after Anders since he said "I didn't do it" and in light of that, I could not possibly resist him as long as there was even a shred of his old self still around. That being the case, I'm not entirely sure I like how it all played out. Not the Chantry bombing, mind (I approve, and so does the Warden whose saved files this was based on). Still, it's not likely I'll be getting more of Anders in any DLCs and sequels, do I? Damn shame.
Lastly, everyone is writing fics like these right now and I'm not sure I'm adding anything new or useful, but I still hope you'll enjoy this.