A/N: I was watching a YouTube video of the ending of DA2 where Hawke kills Anders, I realized, "That's a pretty wussy knife. And he's a pretty darned good healer." And then I was listening to the song "Time of Dying" by Three Days Grace and realized... hey, this fits pretty nicely, so... what if? Oh Anders, you and your plot kitties.
Time of Dying
The blade hurts when it slides between his ribs and punctures his lungs. And while he fully expected this, it still comes as a surprise that Hawke would side against him. "You used me," she accused him, and he sat there and took it because she spoke the truth. He told her he deserved to die, and he knows he does. And if anyone is going to play his judge, jury, and executioner, he wants it to be Hawke.
He pitches forward, the dry ground rushing up to meet him. He sees her boots out of the corner of his eye. She stands over him, thinking… thinking what? What could have been? If she betrayed him? But she says nothing and he lets his lids fall so he doesn't have to see those boots walk away into the burning night, leaving him to die alone on the ground.
Footsteps fade away. Sebastian's prayers dissipate into the faraway screams and crackle of flames. All of Kirkwall is on fire; only Anders knows it's been burning slowly, the embers of revolution smoldering beneath the city for years. All he did was blow on it, let the flame catch. Now it's a conflagration that will swallow Kirkwall until it's nothing but cinder floating on the breeze. And other parts of Thedas will see what has become of the City of Chains and her feared Gallows, and they too will rise up. It makes dying worth it. Almost.
It would be so easy to die right now. But the blade isn't long, and Hawke's thrust was rushed. Blood soaks through his overcoat and into the parched earth beneath him. It hurts, but if Anders wants to be completely honest with himself, he's had worse and been far closer to death. If only the templars would have simply stuck a knife in him after each escape attempt; he'd certainly have fewer scars.
Breathing is painful but he does it. He's never learned how to stop breathing; that's the key to running, after all. Just keep breathing. The panic and chaos of the city—pandemonium he caused, he reminds himself—is far away now. No footsteps have passed this way in at least a quarter of an hour. They're all off to the Gallows. To what end, he does not know; he only knows that the mages won't sit idly by while Meredith enacts the Right of Annulment. Hawke said she wanted to make it as quick as possible, with minimum casualties.
That she would say this is as much a blade in his back as the metal jammed between his ribs.
He inhales, the air shuddering through his torn lungs. When the first rays of explosive red light tore from the Chantry and illuminated the night; when the first horrified screams rent the air; when Meredith invoked the Right of Annulment: he did want to die. But now as he lies here alone on the hard, dusty ground with a knife in his back, he realizes he can't. Just keep breathing.
He pushes himself to his hands and knees and clutches at his stomach as waves of nausea churn inside. He vomits blood, but it's nothing new. If the templars didn't whip him, they liked to beat him senseless, kicking him long after he'd lost consciousness. He would wake with his innards on fire and throw up blood. This is nothing. He keeps telling himself that as he reaches around, biting back a scream, and wriggles Hawke's blade from his ribs. He sees stars.
Anders wipes his blood on the leg of his dusty breeches and drops the blade to the ground by his side. His chest is on fire. He closes his eyes; the bright, multicolored stars dance across the backs of his eyelids and his head spins. But he's been here before; he didn't die then, and he won't die now.
He reaches deep within himself and feels the tendrils of mana curling up to meet him like a cat. The feeling calms him immediately. He steadies his breathing the best he can and focuses next on the pain in his back. The stars wink out one by one as a blue glow envelops him. The healing mana flows from his mind into his body. He knits torn tissues and muscles. The bleeding stops. It's not a perfect job, but it's enough.
Anders props himself up against a crate while the waves of nausea and dizziness abate. The flames and screams, however, do not. He takes Hawke's blade and uses it to cut a swatch of fabric from his distinctive overcoat. He pins both knife and fabric into the pool of his blood on the ground before rising to his feet, stronger by the moment. He's not sure where he'll go, but that's nothing new, either. He manages to stand, feeling stronger by the moment. He gazes toward the empty, ruby red skyline where the Chantry once stood and hopes it was enough before he escapes again.