The Smallest of Deeds
BioWare owns all, I just play in their pond. Reviews are always welcome!
A/N: The passage of time isn't something that a game can mark very well, so of course I start wondering what everyone does in the time between. Also, we know the big stuff, the quests, the adventures, the high drama, all the stuff that makes our characters protagonists, but it's the little things that make them who they are rather than what they are.
I think fate also realizes that, even though I'm far too old for it, I'm a total M!Hawke/Anders fangirl. My first play through ended up running that pairing, even though I had no idea going in it was possible. So, even though I'll be writing interactions with all the characters, for events throughout the game, this is where most of my attention will be going.
Reviews are always welcome!
1. Requiem - Anders
He had run away after all. Anders had known better than to try to seek comfort from someone he'd only just met, but who else was there? Hawke had been there, hadn't he? How could he not have been just as terrified at the thought of being made tranquil, or seen what it had done to… no, he wouldn't have seen Anders's fear, not when Justice had used it as a foothold to take over. Small blessings, the healer supposed.
Maybe that was it; maybe Hawke's first up-close experience with tranquility had unnerved him enough to… no, again. Couldn't be. He hadn't looked that affected by it, and even seemed sincere in his offer to help after hearing about Justice, whatever his ox of a brother had to say about it. It had only been when that detail about Karl had spilled out among the babble masking his terror and grief that Hawke had stumbled over his words and started to look uncomfortable.
Bah. Justice would tell him that dwelling on something so wholly unrelated to his purpose was pointless. Hadn't stopped him playing the whole thing over and over in his mind as he saw to his patients all day, but that preoccupation had mostly been with Karl and what had happened in the Chantry. As he closed up the clinic, he wished for nothing more than the ability to silence his thoughts in his cups, lamenting not for the first time how permanently he'd ended up trading one sort of spirit for another.
He wondered if he would sleep, knowing what waited for him if he did.
Anders jerked awake at the sound of his clinic door opening. Years in the Circle and on the run had made him a light sleeper out of necessity, and in that first instant he stilled his body – all right, all right, clutched in fear – waiting to hear who had intruded. A faint bit of daylight still pressed in from the canyon outside, drawing a pitiful sound from his throat at the thought of another true night in Darktown.
Got that name right, that's for sure.
"Anders? Master Anders, ser, it's Evelina. It's Evelina and Walter, please, if you're here you've got to come! They got him bad!"
That quickly his fears of Templars and Wardens come to claim him receded. The healer hefted himself off of his makeshift cot, absently noting that he'd forgotten to remove his robes before lying down – yes, fine, collapsing – as he hadn't the heart to turn people away for a bit so he could rest after the nightmare in the Chantry. Anyone's guess whether I was doing a kindness to them or to me.
Making quick strides toward the surgery table Walter had been placed on, he asked Evelina to tell him what she knew. A crowd had gathered just inside the door, but they didn't concern him at present. Walter was well-known and well-liked among the refugees, and it was only natural that he'd have an audience of hopeful friends. Whatever had happened, the boy certainly wasn't in any condition to say anything about it just then.
"Cricket says the Coterie boys found 'em in one of the byways. Walter ended up taking a knife; he hasn't stopped bleeding since."
No trouble believing that; they're both swimming in it.
The boy was barely conscious. There wouldn't be any finesse here, not right away. Hands steady, he cut away the boy's shirt with one of the knives from the surgery tray. Seconds would matter here – he found himself drawing on his energy for the healing even as he discarded the scraps of fabric he'd just gotten out of his way. And still, everything froze for him as he turned back to the table, that energy draining as fast as it had come.
His hand, fingers closed around a knife, covered in blood. A single wound, just under the ribs.
"Not now," he breathed, like a prayer, grasping now to regain the power he would need to keep the boy among the living. Forcing the brutal symmetry to the back of his mind, he all but threw the knife back onto the surgery tray and set to work.
In moments like this, Anders understood perfectly Justice's puzzlement over the concept of time. Never mind the logistics of healing, that forcing a wound to mend too quickly or stopping the healing too soon could have consequences as dire as the injury itself. No, watching the seconds, the minutes involved in restoring someone to health, to life, was to Anders the very definition of sacrilege. Life itself was sacred, wasn't it, and marking time spent to preserve it was as profane as counting coin to buy it.
Only as the wound fully closed and the healing magic trickled away was there any sound in the clinic. A deep and healthy breath from the boy on the table, a collective sigh from those gathered by the doors, an exhausted gasp from the healer himself as he turned and leaned against the wall to steady himself.
Evelina, smiling even as tears tracked through the Darktown dust on her cheeks, ushered the crowd out. "All right, you've seen for yourselves he's past the worst of it. I'm sure our lad doesn't need us gawking while Master Anders prods at his bruising."
The unlikely matron turned and pressed a kiss to Walter's forehead, and repeated the benediction on the healer. "I'll be just outside the door, loves, when Walter's patched up and ready to come on home."
It took quite some time, and only added to Anders's worry. Before the knife had come out, the Coterie had evidently had a grand time with fists and feet and Maker knew what else. Anders considered it a minor miracle that there weren't any broken bones to set, as he felt sure the energy needed for a bone to knit was beyond him by now. The worry, though, came from hearing that the Coterie had chosen Walter to start paying for the space the refugees were taking up. Now that the lad had survived the introduction, he'd be expected to start carrying his weight.
Anders could only imagine what would happen if he tried to get involved there. If he went in fighting, he could well get himself killed, the price of his interference taken out on Walter. He had no illusions as to whether they'd keep their word if he went in bargaining, and would like as not end up playing pox doctor to the worst Darktown had to offer when the refugees had the real need.
Well, at least Walter's feeling better now, even if I've got a new nightmare or three.
The boy was easing himself into one of the spare shirts kept around the clinic for just this kind of situation when the clinic door opened again.
"H-Hawke," Anders simply stared for a moment. And here I'd thought I'd had it for surprises for the day. Before he could speak again, Walter cut him off with a similar greeting. If he was amused by the echo, stammer and all, the dark-haired mage didn't show it, instead offering a hesitant smile and greeting them both in turn.
"Didn't see me standing in the crowd when you brought the boy back around? I've had... words… with the first Coterie lieutenant I could dig up. Some of them weren't very nice words, mark you, but I'm happy to report the man saw reason in the end."
Some of the caution in Walter's hope evaporated as he asked, "You mean… will they…"
"They'll leave you alone, and the rest of the lads – and lasses, come to that – in Evelina's care as well. I let her know on my way in, and as soon as you're up and about in the daylight I believe she plans to show several of you how to find me in case the Coterie forget the word they gave me today."
"They… she... you… thank you, Master Hawke, ser!"
Now Hawke showed a real smile in place of the half-hidden one he'd given earlier, though Anders hadn't missed what looked like sadness for a second before the grin took hold. "Rather a lot of names for me, isn't it? Just Hawke will be fine, really."
"Of course ser, it's just I can't thank you enough, Master Hawke."
"Ah, well, I heard 'Hawke' in there somewhere, anyway. If Anders is finished and you're able, I know Evelina is very anxious to see you on your feet."
In a way that managed to be at once both disheartening and adorable, the lad called out his gratitude to both men all the way out the door and, if Anders was any judge, for a moment or two after the door had shut behind him. The healer half-sat, half-leaned on the table where he'd treated the boy and started massaging his temples, wondering what in the world he could possibly say to fill the silence in the empty clinic. He had so many questions about Hawke's involvement in scaring off the Coterie, not to mention his own involvement earlier in the day in scaring off Hawke; he had no idea where to begin.
And so he was surprised once more when Hawke began for him. The new guardian of the refugees half-sat, half-leaned next to Anders on the bloody surgery table, draped an arm across his shoulders, and whispered, "Now?"
The healer's carefully constructed façade undone, he pressed his face to Hawke's shoulder and wept.
After the tempest subsided, Anders stayed quiet for a time. When Hawke started to suspect he wasn't ready to go back to any of the events from the last day, he started himself.
"I think I owe you an apology. Several, actually, much of an ass as I managed to act today."
That got the healer's attention, and he stood to make eye contact. All right, pace, but I can look at him while I do it. "You're… apologizing to me? You… you, you let me drag you to the Chant…" Damn it, hold it together! "…to the Chantry with me without hesitation, you stood for me against Templars, you stood by me when I did the hardest thing I've ever had to do, you went out into Darktown at night to hunt up someone you had to know people avoid even during the day, and you're apologizing to me?"
"I… yes. I am. I'm not so daft I couldn't see all of that, Anders, but at the end of it all, after you trusted me with everything you said, I let my own thoughts get in the way of being there for you. Maybe we're not friends yet, maybe we've only known each other barely more than a day, but you still didn't deserve that. You needed to know someone understood, and I was there, so that person was me, and I managed to cock it up entirely. So. I'm sorry."
He said "yet." Didn't he? Did I hear that? "So you were, what, coming back to say all that and got caught in the crowd waiting while I healed Walter?"
"Not quite. I mean yes, I came back to Darktown to apologize and try to fix it, but I rounded the corner and ended up involved in the Coterie's business with Walter. Three of them, older boys – men, if it comes to that – and Walter already helpless on the ground. I had them drained and hexed before they realized I was there, so it was relatively easy to scare them off with a fireball or three by the time they realized what was happening."
"You… oh, you've studied Entropy. Probably a blessing you sapped them when you did, then, and that would be why I didn't have to mend any bone."
"Still didn't stop them nearly gutting the poor boy. Anyway," Hawke waved off whatever response might have come, "by that time Evelina was coming up the byway on a tear, and once she figured out I'd put the scare into the Coterie, she hefted Walter up without a word and carried him all the way here. Never mind her magic, with her fortitude I'll thank you to remind me never to cross her."
"Ha!" Maker, I'd forgotten what a genuine smile feels like. How pathetic can a man get? "She reminds me of what I've seen of you so far, actually. Ready to help, there when you need her, and fierce as an army when she has someone to stand for."
"Is that what I did earlier, then, stammering like some stunned virgin and fleeing first chance I got?" Hawke asked the question easily, even with a touch of the humor that seemed to hover around the man like flies around rubble, but Anders wasn't about to let the man continue thinking he was an ass.
"I would think, though, that you've more than made up for that with everything since. Even if what I ended up blurting out isn't something you'd thought about before, you still came back."
"Hmm. About that. Even if I hadn't thought about it before, I did plenty of thinking about it after. I'm still trying to decide whether to be surprised at realizing I've always agreed with your sentiment there. Erm. You know, what you said about a whole person and not a body. I imagine I just didn't have much call to think about it before I heard you say it."
The pair lapsed into silence at that, though Anders was amazed the other mage couldn't hear the thoughts racing through his head. He just said… What did he mean by that? Say something, you bloody idiot!
In the end, Anders grasped at a question that had been floating around in his mind since he'd met Hawke. "You don't answer to a given name? I mean, I suppose Carver never addressed you while he was here with you, but everyone else just calls you Hawke. Running through the sewers in the dark, saving boys and their families from gangs…" Standing up with the healer so he can stand again for himself. "There's more to you than a family name."
"Hmm? Oh. Habit, I suppose. After… after Father died, I was considered to be the one in charge of the household, so that's how most of Lothering greeted me on the rare occasions when they saw me. Wouldn't do for the hidden apostate to run around the village all the time, you know. Man of the house carries the house name and all that, for all that it's really only true in the more rural areas." After a slight pause, he continued, "I'm Davin. If… if you were wondering."
Anders smiled again. Suppose it's a better expression than the one I've been wearing for a while now… "And if you're wondering, Anders isn't my name. Well, it is, it's just that's what they gave me at the Circle. Blond hair, fair skin, it's a reasonable guess." Maker, where did that come from? He hadn't told anybody about that since he'd finally shaken free of the Circle.
"I-I-I didn't know, when they took me, what I was called, so they picked it for me. I mean." Shut up, you bloody idiot!
Sensing rough ground best avoided for now, Hawke chose to return the compliment he'd been paid. "I suppose it works, if all they had to go on was appearances. Same goes for you, though. Hanging about in the sewers in the dark, healing boys and their families and tending their ills. Definitely more to you than a borrowed name. If you'll forgive me for this morning, I'd like to find out what."
He's not running away. After I… he's not running away. Maker, man, don't bollocks this up. "There's nothing to forgive."
