He was tired. Stupidly tired. So tired his entire head felt like it was buzzing, so tired he couldn't stop the frantic working of his brain, couldn't relax, couldn't sleep, as he moved from cot to cot, tending his patients. They needed him awake anyway; even if he could have slept, he didn't think he would have.
Most would live. He was thankful for that. A handful had died, too far gone with the flu that had hit the city this winter for him to do more than ease their passing. Sometimes not even that, as low on everything as the clinic had become over the last week and a half – low on potions, on herbs, on food and his magic and on fuel for the braziers that kept the clinic a vital few degrees about freezing.
He was thankful, at first, when he saw that someone had arrived and begun to help; a man in a plain robe of heavy undyed cloth, tight across broad shoulders, with rope sandals on his otherwise bare feet. He watched for a moment as the man began working his way around the room, handing out blankets from a tall stack of such held clasped in his arms, and then turned back to his own work, coaxing medicinal tea between the blued lips of a sick woman. Her colour had improved slightly by the time he was done, and he moved on to the next cot, staggering slightly as he walked, carrying the pan of tea carefully so as not to spill its precious contents.
Anders smelled food cooking after a while, and looked around to see the man tending a pot hung over one of the braziers, his pale hands capably cutting up vegetables at a table nearby and dumping them into it. There was a stack of wood on the floor nearby; he had no idea where the food or fuel had come from, but supposed the man must have brought it.
He was leaning against the cold stone wall, having trouble tracking things properly now, when the man walked over to him, carrying a bowl and spoon in one hand, a blanket draped over the other. "You need to rest, Anders," a familiar voice said, well-known and much-disliked bright blue eyes meeting his. "You'll do your patients no good if you're too tired to move, or sicken yourself."
He could only stare at Sebastian, dumbfounded by his presence. Where was the shiny white armour, the proud stance he was so used to seeing? He tried to muster words, to ask what Sebastian was even doing here, but was so tired that all he could do was gape, and slip a few inches down the wall as his knees unaccountably gave out on him.
Somehow Sebastian caught him without slopping stew everywhere, one strong arm wrapping around his waist as the man leaned hastily against him, pinning him momentarily to the wall to stop his fall.
That made Anders laugh, weakly. The last person he could have ever imagined being pinned by was Sebastian, chantry prude that he was.
"Come on, straighten up," Sebastian said softly. "I'll help you to your bed."
He couldn't stop grinning and snorting, but somehow he got his feet back under him, and with Sebastian's help made it into the tiny side room that served as his bedroom. He must have faded out for a bit; it seemed to him that one moment they were staggering in through the door together, and the next he was in bed, propped up against the wall with a thick woolen blanket – not one of his own faded, patched and worn-thin ones – draped over him up to the waist. His robe and leggings were gone, leaving him in shirt and smalls, Sebastian frowning as he tried to get Anders to eat from a spoon held to his lips.
He'd have pushed the man's hand away if he could, but as he opened his mouth to protest, the smell of the stew reached his nose, and his mouth flooded with saliva as his stomach woke. Then the spoon was tipping food in his mouth, and he closed his eyes and moaned approval as he chewed the well-stewed vegetables. And meat, there was real meat in it, not mystery meat (usually rat, or sometimes dog) but pork if he was any judge, making the stew rich and flavourful with fat. Hunger took over, and any protest he might have made about Sebastian's presence died as he all but inhaled the stew, eating it as quickly as the other man could spoon it into his mouth.
Sebastian had an amused smile on his face by the time Anders had finished. "Perhaps I should get you a second bowl of stew," he said. "When did you last eat?"
"I don't remember," Anders admitted after frowning in thought for a moment.
"Second bowl it is," Sebastian said, and left the room. Anders remained where he was, feeling a pleasant lassitude weighing him down now that he'd stopped moving. He wondered how long it was since he'd last slept. Oh, there'd been the odd nap here and there, in between dealing with new patients and emergencies, but those didn't count... and as to the last time he'd really slept... he couldn't remember. Days, certainly.
He was feeling rather drifty again by the time Sebastian came back "Why are you here?" he asked tiredly, as Sebastian sat down again on the edge of the cot, already spooning up more of the stew to feed him.
"Because help was needed here," Sebastian said quietly. "And I could give it."
Anders just stared at him, allowing the other man to feed him a few more bites of food. Sebastian frowned slightly, and concentrated on the bowl in his hand. "I knew you'd be overworked, with this flu hitting Kirkwall. The chantry is doing what it can in Lowtown, and the nobles of Hightown are nothing if not good at looking after themselves. But I knew you were unlikely to have any real help here. So I came to do what little I could," he said, then glanced at Anders, momentarily meeting his eyes as he fed him another spoonful of stew. "I cannot heal, not like you. But I can see that there are blankets for the sick, and food, and fuel for the fire, and I can be here to feed and care for the sick while you sleep, so that you can sleep. And by helping you to stay well and rested and fed, I help all of them, too," he said, his head nodding just slightly toward the doorway leading to the other room. "It is a thing worth doing."
Anders nodded. "Thank you," he said, voice muzzy, sleep rapidly overtaking him now that he was fed and warm and comfortable.
He was aware of strong arms closing around him, easing him down to the bed, and of being tucked in. He thought he even felt the back of a hand pressed briefly to his forehead; checking for any sign of fever, he supposed. He slept then, for surely the kiss that ghosted over his cheek was a dream, nothing else.
