Thank you, wade bram wilson, for being my beta :)
The lantern is not lit.
Anders can't heal people today, not when there's a plan for a bomb on his desk. The way he looks at it has changed now. Until today, it had merely been a page of parchment, just like all the others scattered around the clinic.
Unimportant, inconsequential, something he usually forgets ten minutes after skimming.
But now, for the first time since he found it in one of his many books, he's actually considering it. That changes everything.
He has no options left. There are rumours seeping out of the Gallows, and none of them are reassuring. There's talk about Meredith, about the Divine, about the one thing he has been afraid would happen from the start. Annulment. Nothing he has tried has changed anything. No one is willing to listen to him. The Mage Underground is gone, some dead, the rest in hiding. He still finds pages of his manifesto around Garrett's mansion, either hidden in books or carelessly left in various drawers. Ideas that he had written and rewritten a hundred times over, in frustration and in patience, pages and pages of trying to find the right combination of words and phrases that would make somebody stop and listen. Words that no one but Garrett and Varric had ever cared about enough to read. The crumpled papers remain, evidence of his failure, silently mocking him until he can't take it anymore and throws them into the fire in a rush of fury.
He can't let it happen like this, he can't sit by as another Circle full of mages is wiped out for nothing, he can't watch as the Templars burn the bodies and start over, acting like it never happened. And he can't turn his back on all this and run away again…he is so tired of running.
And the painful truth is… he can't keep it from happening. Meredith will call for the Right, he's sure of that. It's only a matter of time.
There is only one option. Just thinking about it sends shivers down his spine, and he can feel Justice raging inside, assuring him that this is the right…the only thing to do. Anders folds the now sweat-stained parchment into a little square, following the creases from all the times he performed this same ritual. He knows the words off by heart now anyway.
It is so quiet that he can hear his own breathing, quick and laboured, and his heart frantically pumping blood through his veins, as if it knows that its beats are numbered. He's not expecting to get out of this alive. The thought of dying doesn't scare him. His life in exchange for all the others he is taking. He can accept that. If Anders is completely honest with himself, the thought of dying afterward feels right. Mages are not the only ones who deserve justice, after all.
Anders is a healer, ending the lives of innocent people goes against everything he believes in. But how many innocents will die if he doesn't act? He clenches his hand around the folded piece of parchment and closes his eyes. Please, let there be no children in the area.
He can do this. Everyone will have justice in the end. His goal is getting closer and closer to realisation. AndHawke is strong, stronger than any person he knows. Hawke will not hesitate, he will give the people of Kirkwall what they want, what they deserve.
But thinking about Garrett hurts. Just imagining the look on his face when he…. NO.
This is not about Hawke. It's not about either of them.
Anders tries to calm himself down. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, letting his body slump against the wall of the Clinic.
His muscles tense at the abrupt rapping on his door.
"Anders?" Hawke's voice is muffled, but his concern is clear in every syllable.
"Come in!" Anders pushes the parchment deep into an inside pocket of his coat.
He manages a small smile as Garrett closes the door behind him, although there's a lump forming in his throat at the sight of the man he loves, but when Garrett turns around his smile is warm and real. Anders wants to freeze them both in time, so he can look at that lopsided grin forever. No Templars, no Meredith, no broken system, and no bitter resentment in Hawke's eyes when he realises what the apostate he has welcomed into his life, his home and his heart has done.
But Anders has been telling him from the start that this would only end in ruin. It's not his fault that Hawke is the most wonderful man he has ever met, is it? No one can blame him for falling in love. No one can fault him for not doing as he was supposed to and pushing away this one thing that's always given him hope.
Maker, he has tried, but Hawke is too stubborn for his own good, and Anders doesn't have the strength to fight two battles at once.
"Is everything alright?" Hawke asks, and Anders has to suppress a hysterical laugh.
He is everything but alright, though that's not what Garrett wants to hear.
"Yes, it's just…" he begins, unsure how to finish. Anders doesn't want to lie, not again, not to Hawke, who deserves so much better. He takes a deep breath. "You love me, right?"
Hawke frowns, his eyes narrowing as he takes a few steps towards Anders, stopping right in front of him, concern etched on his face. "What's brought this on? Something wrong?"
The sincerity in Hawke's eyes nearly kills him. Love shouldn't feel like this, but nothing in Anders' life has ever been normal.
"Please, Garrett. Just answer my question." He needs to hear it, he needs this tiny piece of hope he can cling to amidst all the darkness that has become his life.
"I love you, you fucking idiot. 'Until the day we die', remember? Or do you want me to write it down for you?"
There's no humour in his voice, just apprehension and frustration, but Garrett's words still feel like warm rain on his skin, like soft grass between his toes. Like freedom. But it stopped being about just his own freedom a long time ago. The lump in his throat tightens until he is nearly choking on it.
There are no words for what he feels, so Anders wraps his hand around the back of Garrett's neck, letting his thumb brush lightly through his dark hair, before pulling them together. Garrett's lips part to meet his and Anders feels warm hands encircle his waist, tracing up his back and to his shoulders, gripping, and pulling their bodies closer still, until it feels like there is no distance between them anymore. This is what love should feel like.
But he knows what he has to do, and Hawke is the only one who can help, the only one he trusts enough to ask. He pulls away, looking for a way to put his thoughts into words.
"If… if I had a plan that could lead to freedom for all mages in Thedas, you'd support me, wouldn't you? Even if I couldn't tell you what this plan would entail?" he begins, voice shaking slightly. Anders knows his words sound evasive and hollow. He shouldn't do this. The guilt is eating away at him, tying his stomach into a tight knot. Anders averts his gaze,letting it flicker between his desk and the door, unable to look at his Love. In those few long, drawn-out seconds, their future together feels like it is crumbling to dust before their eyes. There is no compromise, a voice whispers in the back of his mind.
Garrett watches him for a few moments, brow furrowed. "I…" Anders can see the thoughts racing through Hawke's head, confusion passes behind his eyes, followed by understanding, and then immense sadness. Somehow, that hurts even more than anger or rejection ever could. Garrett lets out a ragged breath. "Yes."
Maker, forgive me.