Anonymous

"Leave all your love and your longing behind-
You can't carry it with you, if you want to survive."
- Florence & The Machine, "The Dog Days Are Over"

Few people know that Hawke is not his name.

Meredith didn't.

Neither did Orsino.

Not even Sebastian, and he knew Hawke well. Or, that is, well enough to swear to a holy crusade of vengeance, and that does suggest more than a passing intimacy with one's foe.

The truth is, "Hawke" is a name of Varric's creation.

"You can't be called just Garrett," he'd said the first day they'd met.

"Well" he'd said, cautiously eyeing the dwarf's gilded doublet, the well-worn gloves. "I am."

"We'll see about that." Varric had looked at him as if he were appraising a set of quills. "You look more like a Bryant to me. Or maybe a Hawke."

"Hawke? How very Fereldan." Carver's laugh had been more of a bark—of warning or delight or maybe just jealousy, Hawke hadn't been able to tell. "It's like he sees into your soul, dear brother."

Garrett had scowled. "What's wrong with Garrett?"

"It's too pedestrian, too honest," the dwarf had said. "Not something you'd call a hero."

"Now he thinks you're a hero," Carver had snickered, shaking his head slowly. "Go on, Gare-bear. Do something heroic."

Garrett had rolled his eyes. "Does not punching you in the face count?"

But Carver had become too preoccupied with his own laughter to care, and so Garrett hadn't allowed himself to care either, instead preferring to enviously watch his brother double over in a Hightown causeway, his laughter so loud and unrestrained, no thought or worry to the disdainful servants and noble's daughters that sauntered by.

"I've only just met you," he'd said, wheeling on the dwarf, "and already you're giving me nicknames?"

"Not a nickname," Varric had said with an enigmatic smirk. "A heroic name."

"Thanks," he'd said with as much finality as he could muster. "But I like the name my father gave me."

"Hey, you were the one who said you wanted to hide from the Templars."

"I fail to see how a ridiculous pseudonym will help."

Varric's smile had then widened into a genuine grin - an easy thing, full of charm and promise and sleight-of-hand.

"That's because you're not a storyteller," he'd said, patting Garrett's arm patiently. "Relax, kid. I'm a professional."

And so Hawke he became.

Hawke the smuggler. Hawke the refugee made good. Hawke the Qunari slayer, the Deep Roads pilgrim, the prodigal son of Kirkwall's elite.

Hawke the Champion.

And most days, he was fine with the name. Really. Because as usual, Varric had been right: Garrett had been too small and simple a man to face the burdens that befell a Champion.

Garrett had been a mage pretending to be a farmer; a man with a father and a sister and a crush on his girlfriend's older brother. Garrett had had a mother who laughed often, and a brother who drew him pictures of dragons and Chasind witches. Garrett had been the kind of man who, on hot summer nights, would walk his mabari down past the cinnamon groves to where the windmill stood, and he would lean peacefully against its cracked foundation, and count the stars that peeked past the whirring sails.

Garrett the lost, Garrett the frightened, Garrett the dispossessed – well, it just didn't have the same ring.

So over the years, he'd let Garrett fall away, inch by inch, until only Hawke was left.

Except in the dark spaces, in the shadows and behind doors that Hawke refused to open.

There Garrett remained.

And waited.

Eventually, everyone forgot about him. Even Hawke did, sometimes.

Everyone - except for Anders.

"Why do you call yourself Anders?" he'd asked him once long ago, shortly before the expedition had departed. He'd needed healing, and he vividly remembered how he'd been transfixed by those blue hands, those healing hands, and the way they'd slightly trembled as they magically stitched together the gash in Garrett—no, Hawke's leg.

His father's hands had never shaken.

"Anonymity in plain sight," Anders had replied. The mage had refused to meet Hawke's hopeful gaze, but all the same, that gentle almost-whisper had made Hawke swallow thickly and shiver. "Nobody notices another Anders. Especially here."

"Unless, of course, they start up a free clinic. In the sewers."

Anders had shrugged. "You'd be surprised."

"Tell me your real name," Hawke asked suddenly.

Anders had looked up at him then, his small, cinnamon eyes warm in the candlelight.

"Tell me yours first," he'd replied with a wink.

"It's Garrett."

Anders clearly had not expected so easy a reply. He'd leaned back from Garrett and crossed his arms, and, with a small, brief flick of his tongue, licked his lips. "Nice name."

"My father gave it to me."

"Not quite as Fereldan as I expected."

"Same thing Varric said," he'd muttered. "Said it wasn't heroic enough."

For some reason Anders had laughed then: not the dry, brittle snicker he sometimes adopted when talking to Fenris or Merrill, the sound of which reminded him of dead leaves and broken things; but a rich, burbling chuckle, just a little too loud and a little too honest for someone whose skin bore so many scars and cracks.

"Well," he'd said tenderly, the laughter still sparkling in his eyes. "It suits you nonetheless."

Hawke had clenched his fist against his thigh, the cot, anything to prevent him from reaching out and pulling the man into an embrace that might never end. "And yours?"

"It's not heroic either," Anders had replied.

"Does that matter?"

"I guess not," he'd said softly.

And it was that moment when Garrett first realized he was falling: plummeting into the abyss, as it were, just as the Witch had said.

It is only when you fall that you learn if you can fly.

With Anders, Hawke would learn to spread his wings.

With Anders, Hawke would learn to fly.

Behind closed doors, however, Anders never used the name Hawke. And likewise, he never used the name Anders.

Because neither were names ever meant to be kept, Garrett now realizes, as he looks over at his lover, the light from the Dalish shepherd's fire casting strange shadows on his cheeks and hair.

The names were only ever mantles: another piece of Armor for the Champion, another buckle on the Renegade's Coat. Gifts from Varric, from Justice, to be donned as needed - and one day, long from now, when all the battles are over, they will be destined to be put up on the mantelpiece and gather dust.

"Do you think," says Garrett as he looks into those cinnamon eyes he so loves, those eyes so haunted by abstract things and remembering the names of the dead. "I mean – maybe we should change our names."

"Is that so?" Anders manages a weak grin and throws a small stick on the ebbing fire. "I rather liked Rivaini."

"I'm not Hawke," he says. "I never will be."

"Yes you are," Anders replies gently. With a dirty, mud-stained hand, he brushes a lock of hair out of Garrett's eyes, his long fingers lingering along the overgrown beard Hawke once took so much pride in. "That man was always inside you. Varric just gave him a name."

"I'd much rather be Garrett again."

"You are Garrett." Anders takes his hands in his and kisses the knuckles gently. "And so is Hawke."

"Hawke is a hero's name."

"So is Garrett," Anders rubs his cheek against the backs of his thumbs. "I think maybe even moreso."

"Garrett's the name of a farmer. Of a dog lord."

"You know what they say." Anders leans into him. "Every dog will have his day."

Garrett rolls his eyes, but as he leans back onto the dirt under Anders, his hands tangling in that dirty hair, those familiar lips opening, that receptive mouth so warm and comforting, he thinks with some amount of comfort and peace, Hawke is not my name.

But maybe I can stand being anonymous for just a little while longer.