"Fenris, Hawke, I'm sorry I'm late but.. where's Hawke?"
Fenris was meditatively waving a piece of bread on a fork in front of the fire when Anders walked in. He did not look up. "Sulking."
"Sulking?"
"She said she wasn't feeling well, but she was feeling well enough to kick me in the face." he removed the toasted bread and scraped butter across it. Fenris, thought Anders, if I were on my deathbed and you came to see me, I think I would recover from whatever was killing me for long enough to kick you in the face too, so that's not saying much. But then, that's just me. Hawke usually gets along with Fenris slightly better than that.
"Did she say anything else? Are we still doing this? I mean, last I heard we were meeting for breakfast at the mansion before leaving at…"
"What?"
Anders trailed off into stunned silence as he watched Fenris scoop half of a jar of preserves onto the piece of toast and bite off a third of it.
"How have your teeth not fallen out?" he said faintly.
"I don't often get preserves." Fenris engulfed another third portion of the thing.
"Don't tell me. You were too lazy to go out and buy groceries this week and you've been starving?"
"Starving. Now, that's a word that people here don't understand."
Anders laughed. "You're not answering the question, Fenris."
"Oh, you think it's funny, do you? You think it's funny, starving. Let me tell you—"
"Please no, please, not again. I've heard the sad, sad story of your unfortunate life already, and in all honesty you have my sympathy but not my ears. Not for a tenth telling."
Fenris stuffed the rest of the preserves-with-toast into his mouth and grabbed Anders's collar with sticky fingers. "Listen, mage scum. You think, because you've got it good, you can go around belittling people who haven't had such an easy time."
"I'm not belittling you, but I find it insulting that you don't seem to acknowledge any pain in the world except your own. It makes me question your mental health." He'd meant to stop there but the evil look Fenris gave him goaded him to continue. "Perhaps a good beating would help." Anders watched Fenris's look darken to one of pure, murderous hatred. Well, that was more confrontational than he usually got. He could ignore Fenris's antics better when Hawke was there as a buffer between them. And the fact that he'd been up most of the night tending to a man with near-mortal knife wounds didn't help. His tolerance for Fenris at the moment was in the negative numbers. Fenris leaned closer, reeking of preserves, and opened his mouth to say something. Anders poked one of his chin markings with one finger. Just to piss him off.
It worked.
"Right," said Anders, wiping blood from his upper lip with one hand and healing his nose with the other, "now that we've gotten that out of our systems—where is Hawke?"
"Told you," said Fenris from his spread-eagled position on the floor, "sulking."
"Get up."
"No. I've been sorely wounded."
"I barely touched you."
"Don't you dare patronize me. I can tell when I've been hurt."
"Alright, I'm sorry. Let me heal you."
"Get away, you menace." Fenris slapped his hands away and rolled over on the floor, melodramatically cradling his shoulder. Anders couldn't remember anything happening to that shoulder. He guessed it was just a convenient body part to cradle when feigning injury. Alright, fine, he wasn't going to say anything. One undignified fist fight in Hawke's kitchen was more than enough.
"Where is she sulking, though?"
"In her room. I tried to get her to come downstairs but she just kept screaming at me."
"Naturally, if you walked in without knocking."
"Since when do I do that?"
"Always?" It wasn't the first time he'd been kicked in the face for it either.
"She also kicked me in the face. She's usually nicer than that. You know what, she doesn't need my help. I'm leaving." he stood up and sliced another piece of bread—vigorously moving the supposedly hurt shoulder, Anders noticed.
"You don't look like you're leaving."
"No point in passing up free food in the meantime." His upper body disappeared into a cupboard. "Ick. She's almost out of preserves. I'm down to blackberry. I hate blackberry."
"Well, I'm going to go check on her. After all, if she is sick, I'm a healer."
"Be ready to duck quick."
Anders walked up the stairs slowly. It wasn't like Hawke to kick Fenris for anything other than blatant creeping. She got along with him surprisingly well most of the time. Maybe she really was sick. Or maybe she just needed some time to relax—she'd been under a lot of pressure and had borne it well so far. He wouldn't be surprised if she chose this time to snap. In all likelihood, she wouldn't want to see him and he'd go home and get some sleep. He could do that now, and save some time, but he wasn't going to. He wanted to make sure she was alright, or help her if not. Barring that, he just wanted to see her. He could no longer dismiss what he felt for this beautiful fighter, who had risen from a refugee struggling to hold her family together to one of the foremost heroes of Kirkwall. He hadn't said anything to her, of course. He was her healer and her comrade in arms. He felt it would be unprofessional to bring up the subject of romance in either of those capacities. Although lately he'd been having second thoughts.
"Hawke?" He knocked on her door.
"Shut up."
"I'm coming in, is that alright?" He walked into her room. Hawke was curled up in a ball on her bed, face buried in a pillow.
"I told you to go away."
"It's me."
"Oh. Anders?"
"Hello."
"Go away."
"…Right." He picked up a book and settled into a chair. After a few moments Hawke lifted her head just enough to glare at him over a corner of the pillow. Her face was wet.
"I told you to go away."
"You didn't specify when. I'm sure I'll leave eventually."
She sighed and sank back into the pillow. "I'm sorry. I'm…"
"Sick?"
"Yeah. Not really. I don't know. My head hurts and I hate everything."
"And you're having cramps?"
"How did you know that?"
"The obviously pained fetal position was a good indication. I am a healer."
She wiped her face. "I'm not actually crying. Something got in my eye and it watered and then my body decided 'oh this is great! We're going to cry now and be sad for no reason!' Agh."
"I wouldn't say no reason. Nobody ever said you weren't allowed to cry." She picked at the pillowcase. "Are you thinking about Carver?"
"Carver. Beth. Everyone I promised to protect and then didn't—that's a lot of people. And I want to stop this ridiculous crying and I don't know what's wrong with me and I was mean to Fenris." The last of those is a nonissue, thought Anders. But Hawke wouldn't be Hawke if she could mistreat her companions without feeling guilt.
"Well, I can help with the cramps." Hawke's head shot up.
"Can you? I was afraid to leave like this. If we had to fight, I'd be handicapped."
"That's good thinking. And I probably can, yes." Anders put the book down and walked over to her. "Where does it hurt?"
"Everywhere that's not arms and legs or ribcage. It's even giving me a backache, which makes no sense and isn't even remotely fair." she sat up and fumbled with her shirt.
"Um, you don't need—" it came off over her head. "Well, alright, that's good too." Anders had to remind himself not to stare. He had tended to injured shirtless Hawke before, this was no different. He knelt behind her, ostensibly because it was easier to reach her stomach from that position (and it was) but also so that he wouldn't have to look at her. After a moment it was easier because he was focused on the magic. He placed his hands on her stomach and she covered them with hers, grimacing as heat sank through her tissues. "There?"
"Yes. Thank you." She sank back into Anders's arms with a sigh of relief. It was incredibly intimate magic, he realized. He didn't usually think about that, but it was. And Hawke didn't mind at all, showing how much she trusted him—or how much pain she was in, which was usually the case. Or some of both. After a while he let the magic fade away and it was just him, cradling Hawke in his arms and looking down at her, remembering which scars he'd helped to heal and wondering where others had come from. She was still holding his hands against her stomach, where her skin was soft. She seemed to be in a trance. It seemed right to wake her with a kiss on the cheek, and then to help her on with her shirt when she sat up. Her hair got messed up. He leaned in to fix it, and then somehow, her arms were around his neck and their lips were pressed together.
It was Hawke that broke it off after several perfect seconds. "Sorry."
"No, I should've warned you. There can be side effects." such as feeling a deep bond between healer and healed. Which is usually short-lived and easy to ignore, as long as you're not healing someone you already love. But he was surprised at Hawke's reaction, had he communicated some of his love to her without realizing it? Or had she discovered some of her own? He was interrupted by a crash from across the room. Fenris had head-butted the door open.
"What are you doing in there?"
"Fenris, you're supposed to knock," said Hawke, picking up her staff. She was flushed. "I'm sorry I kicked you, by the way. That was terrible of me."
"It was. You're a jerk. I can't believe I stick around."
"Right, well, I'm a jerk who has bacon. We've wasted some time but there's always time for breakfast."
"And by we, you mean you."
"Yes. I'm sorry about that, I wasn't feeling well. Anders helped me. Come on!" Anders walked past Fenris to the stairs, ignoring the suspicious look he was getting. "Where's all the bread gone?" Said Hawke in the kitchen. "I had a whole loaf right…" She turned at a crunching noise and found Fenris wolfing down his twelfth piece of toast, staring her unrepentantly in the face. "…Oh." Fenris licked his fingers. "Well I guess we don't need toast. Bacon or eggs? Or both?"
"Both," said Fenris.
"I wasn't talking to you, you bottomless pit." Anders looked up and their eyes met for the first time since the kiss. They'd been avoiding each other's gaze. Her eyes were bright and a faint rose-petal flush lingered in her cheeks. "Both," said Anders, looking away. Now wasn't the time.
"What?" said Fenris, narrowing his eyes. Hawke looked blankly at him. "Hey, do I not get bacon?"
"You've already eaten."
"Just toast."
"Let's see if there's any left when we're done. Why are you so hungry, anyway? Did you forget to buy groceries again?"
Fenris grumbled unintelligibly. "I think I heard a yes," Said Anders. Fenris spat at him and he and Hawke shared a smile over his head, which lingered as he realized again how beautiful she was. He jumped at a sudden sharp sound. Fenris was clapping. They stared at him.
"Finally," said Fenris.
"Wh…" Hawke and Anders looked at each other, then back at him. He stood up and backed out of the room, pulling the door closed after him.
"I'll just go outside now and leave you two blushing lovebirds."
"Fenris!" Hawke shouted. She was answered by the sound of the front door slamming. She and Anders looked at each other and simultaneously went into laughing hysterics. Anders took her hand, still laughing.
"Might I suggest we talk about this later, when Fenris isn't lurking in the street?" And when I'm sure that any unintentional side effects of healing you have worn off. Hawke squeezed his hand, crying with laughter.
"Yes." she ran down the hallway and threw open the front door. "Fenris, we've got things to do today! Get back here!"
A/N: I don't play Dragon Age. (I don't need extra depression in my life.) I stumbled across the fandom online and developed a minor obsession with Anders, because he has a ponytail and loves cats. I will forgive many sins in a man who loves cats. Anyway, I noticed that A) there is a lot of fanon about the female Hawke and Anders romance, and B) nobody seemed to have used this premise. Seriously. All these stories floating around about young, female protagonists and none of them ever have cramps or randomly feel emotional? So, since I apparently specialize in crack, and since I couldn't get the idea out of my head (and since this will count towards the fanfiction war I'm fighting with Convenient Alias over the summer—loser buys food for the winner!) I decided to write it up. May it amuse and not offend you if I got everything horribly wrong. Please review if you liked it. Still review or PM if you didn't so I can know what I'm doing wrong.