Author's Note: This will probably be a two-shot fic with the next chapter potentially being a smutty chapter. Although you can read this as a one-shot too if you like. I hope you enjoy this drabble. Pretend, for the sake of this fic, that both Hawke and Anders can practice any type of magic (such as fire, healing, ice, etc) as opposed to their specific abilities granted in the game. Thank you for reading!

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Even if he hadn't been a light sleeper, it would have been impossible for Fenris to ignore the pounding at the door of his mansion in the middle of the night. Leaping from his bed and grabbing his sword, Fenris hurried to the door. He expected it to be Hawke rousing him for another mission. Yet when Fenris unlocked and pulled open the door, he wasn't quite prepared for the heap of mage that heavily fell to the floor at his feet.

"Fasta vass! What happened?" He didn't wait for an answer as he reached down and all but dragged the mage's nearly unconscious body into the foyer. Kicking the door closed with a bare foot, Fenris rested his sword against the wall and squatted down to look at Anders.

The mage had raised himself onto his forearms and was breathing heavily. The skin around his left eye was blackened into a beautiful bruise, his bottom lip was split, and his nose was bleeding. His hair had come loose of its bind and looked quite messy. His robes had been ripped and there was a gash around his right bicep.

Anders coughed violently and Fenris was concerned he might start spewing blood onto the carpet.

"Come on – it would do no good to have you die in my foyer. Hawke would assume I killed you on purpose."

Fenris waited for the mage to give him some sarcastic quip back but the banter never came.

"If you complain, I will drop you. And I will feel no remorse, mage."

Still no response. Fenris frowned as he scooped Anders up in his arms bridal-style. The mage gave a slight groan at the pain his wounds experienced as he was lifted, but he said nothing of protest. Fenris carried Anders into one of the spare bedrooms he had created next to his own. Bookshelves lined the walls and a simple bed, Fereldan-made, rested in the middle of the room. There was a small window that let in the moonlight. The floors were slightly dusty and it had been a few weeks since anyone slept in the bed, but the room was comfortable in its simplicity.

Fenris hardly ever had company but sometimes Hawke and co. would take a brief break at Fenris's mansion before continuing a complicated mission. Hawke had explained that Fenris's mansion was better suited for a temporary rest than his own because his mansion was usually full of people Leandra would be entertaining. Not to mention the space two dwarves, a serving girl, and a hound took up. While Fenris never particularly liked having to play host, he did have enough space in his mansion to shelter the party for a while. Plus Hawke would usually save the best loot or gifts found on missions for Fenris as payment.

The mage's body was especially cold and Fenris wondered if the mage had gotten into conflict with some apostates who knew ice magic. Fenris knew that after you were subjected to a cold spell, the results would linger for hours after the battle had ended.

Fenris lowered Anders's body to the bed with more gentleness than he would have cared to admit. The mage's eyes had closed and his breathing was still labored. Fenris wondered if perhaps he had been poisoned. When he voiced the question aloud, Anders gave a huff and shook his head.

"If I had been, I would have been dead by now."

The mage looked up at him with a smirk and Fenris internally breathed a small sigh of relief at the twinkle in the mage's eyes.

"Your injuries don't look that serious but I am no expert healer. Should I fetch Hawke for you?"

Hawke was a mage too, after all, and would no doubt be able to use some kind of healing magic to help Anders far more than Fenris with his limited supply of bandages and healing herbs on reserve could. Plus Fenris wasn't too inclined to spend this kind of one-on-one time with the mage. Hawke was much more sympathetic and would be a greater source of emotional support.

"No, I don't..." The mage's voice came out slightly choked and Anders coughed a little to clear away the tightness. Taking a breath, he tried again, "He's not home. He's on a mission with Aveline."

Fenris sighed as he remembered. He had offered to go along with Hawke, but their leader had taken the dwarf, Aveline, and the Dalish blood mage with him instead.

"Why are you here?"

"Your mansion was closest," Anders said before coughing again. "Had I been able to make it back to my clinic, I would have. Maker knows I would hate to impose."

Fenris crossed his arms over his chest and frowned down at the mage. "Are you experiencing any internal bleeding?"

"Just the cuts and scrapes you see on the surface. With some elfroot and lyrium I'll be on my way in no time."

Fenris took in the way the mage's nose still hadn't stopped bleeding and considered how the sheets on the bed would probably have to be washed tomorrow. Giving a short sigh, Fenris relented and walked to a nearby cabinet. He pulled out a small bowl from inside, a roll of bandage cloth, some small towels, and three vials of elfroot. He walked back to the bed and placed the items on the bedside table. A well behind the mansion pumped clean water through the pipes for bathing and drinking. Uncorking one of the pipes in the room, Fenris filled the bowl with fresh water and rested it on the table. He unwrapped several of the bandages and held out a wad of cloth for Anders to hold against his nose to stop the bleeding. The mage seemed surprised at how thorough Fenris was being but held back any comments.

"What happened?"

"Earlier in the day I treated a woman with a disease that was passed on sexually," Anders began. His voice was slightly muffled by the cloth covering his mouth to block the blood trickling out of his nose. "Apparently she didn't contract it from her husband. When he found out, he was very angry that I had cured her. He thought she should have suffered for her actions. Of course, I didn't know his strong opinion on the matter. There's a black market seller here in Hightown who sells cheap lyrium and elfroot potions during odd hours. I was on my way to buy more supplies from him for my clinic when the angry husband and his friends attacked me. They were rogues who knew exactly how to get in close. I was…heavily outnumbered. I did manage to cure up the majority of my wounds with magic, but without Hawke's endless supply of elfroot and lyrium potions, I couldn't finish the job. I was left too weakened to make it back to my clinic and your mansion was only a few blocks away…" Anders trailed off and Fenris couldn't help but sigh.

"So of course you figured why not disturb the sleeping elf who hates you for some spare elfroot?"

Anders winced at that and the motion made Fenris's eyes narrow slightly. Anders turned his gaze away and almost looked guilty for invading Fenris's space.

"Like I said, I would have gone to Hawke's but he is not home right now and Leandra does not exactly…approve of my company."

Fenris actually smirked at that and couldn't help but nod in agreement. It seemed that the only one Leandra actually approved of in the group was Aveline.

"If you just give me some elfroot, these wounds will be healed up and I can return to my clinic."

"As much as the thought of you leaving my home fills me with joy, I am afraid I cannot let you leave," Fenris grumbled as he reached out to uncork an elfroot vial. "Those thugs who beat you up are probably still lingering around town. If you leave now, then there isn't much stopping them from finishing you off. I don't particularly care to have Hawke blame me for your death." He handed the first vial to Anders and watched him drink the potion down quickly. "Besides your face and arm, is anything else injured?"

Anders turned his gaze away but Fenris kneeled down to be at his level.

"Mage, answer me," Fenris ordered but it wasn't as harshly delivered as he would have liked.

"My ankle…I sprained it."

Fenris sighed. "You are lucky. Most would not have gotten away with so few injuries."

"Most aren't like me."

Fenris silently agreed and rose back up to his full height. "You need time to heal. You will stay here for the night. Hawke should return from his mission in the morning. When he comes back, you will tell him what happened and I'll accompany Hawke to hunt down these men."

Anders raised an eyebrow as he regarded Fenris. "You would seek revenge upon them for hurting me?"

Fenris scoffed and looked away. "Hardly. I simply have been itching for a good fight. Don't mistake it for kindness."

But there was a light dusting of coloring to the warrior's face and Anders couldn't help but hide a smile behind the cloth.

Fenris gestured for Anders to remove the cloth and inspected the mage's nose. It wasn't broken but there would be some bad discoloration tomorrow. The bleeding had subsided. Fenris reached for a towel and the bowl and looked at Anders warily.

"Can you use ice magic on this?"

Anders nodded and Fenris watched as Anders chilled the water in the bowl into small chunks of ice. The action seemed to drain Anders and his arm unceremoniously dropped back to the bed. Fenris dumped some ice out onto a towel and bunched up the fabric. He leaned over slowly and gently rested the towel against the mage's bruised eye. Anders flinched at the contact on the bruise but did not protest. He replaced Fenris's hand on the towel with his own and held the towel to his eye. Looking up at Fenris with his unmarked right eye, Anders tilted his head.

"You are rather good at fixing simple wounds. Are you sure you aren't a healer?"

Fenris grunted some unintelligible noise and moved back to the pipe to let fresh water run over the already-melting ice. Once he was satisfied with the amount of water in the bowl, Fenris moved back to the bed and sat down.

"I've had to patch myself and Hawke up enough times whenever you weren't around to know the basics. Some wounds don't require extensive healing magic."

Fenris bunched up a wad of cloth and blotted it into the bowl of water, using his free hand to gently lift the mage's chin up. The warrior's bare hands were gauntlet-free. His touch was softer than Anders would have guessed and the gentleness with which Fenris handled him caused a slight blush to cover his features. Fenris studied Anders's bottom lip with an intense scrutiny that caused the mage's blush to deepen. Anders wasn't used to being cared for by others and the clear attention Fenris was paying to him was unnerving. The warrior tenderly ran his thumb over the skin of the mage's bottom lip. The incredibly intimate motion caused Anders's breath to catch in his throat. For a heavy moment he simply stared at Fenris in wait but the warrior paid him no mind. Fenris pulled his hand back to inspect his thumb and saw the tiny trail of blood. Nodding to himself, Fenris dabbed the mage's lip with the wet cloth, clearing it of blood. Anders could barely breathe as Fenris narrowed his eyes and gazed intensely at his task. The warrior was so close that Anders could smell the scent of fresh apples coming from him. He knew Hawke had given Fenris special bathing oil that smelled richly of apples and that the warrior treasured it. Fenris must have bathed right before going to bed because of how strong the scent was. Anders shakily inhaled the smell and it calmed his nerves a bit.

Fenris didn't say anything.

When he seemed satisfied with his job, Fenris tossed the bloodied cloth on the floor to clean up later. He looked down and studied the gash on Anders's bicep. It wasn't that deep but had traveled across his bicep, causing enough blood to escape and become troublesome. The mage's robes were torn anyway and Fenris knew the loose fabric would only interfere with the wound. Some strips of the fabric had already started sticking to the wound. Giving a huff, Fenris rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"I need to wrap the wound on your arm."

Anders lifted an eyebrow in question and Fenris swore in Tevene at the mage's daftness.

"Which I cannot do because your damn robes are in the way."

Anders looked confused for a moment longer before recognition lit up his eyes and his grin grew feral.

"I knew all of our banter was simply pent-up tension. If you wanted me to undress, you only needed to ask."

"I shouldn't have answered the door," Fenris muttered. A blush spread from his cheeks to the tips of his ears and down his neck. Anders found it incredibly appealing and couldn't help but chuckle at Fenris's discomfort. The warrior was glaring a hole at the opposite wall.

"Ah, but then you would have had to deal with a very pissed off Hawke tomorrow and we simply couldn't have that," Anders quipped. He sat up with a slight grimace and reached with his left hand to undo his robes. However, the clasps were tricky and after a few moments of struggling, Anders let out a curse.

"It seems I need someone to undress me after all."

Fenris ignored the lewd comment and paid extra attention to keeping his hands as steady as possible as he undid the clasps on the mage's robes. Fenris made quick work of the task and Anders resisted making anymore insinuating comments. Anders was able to navigate out of his robes with Fenris's help and was left in nothing but a pair of tight leggings and a white shirt. The sleeves had been cut off and the neckline hung low on the mage's collar bones, exposing them to Fenris's wandering eyes. Fenris swallowed thickly and didn't meet Anders's watchful gaze. Instead he turned his attention back to the table and reached out for a vial of ground-up elfroot. After dabbing it onto the gash for cleansing, Fenris took a roll of bandage cloth and maneuvered the mage's arm a bit away from his body. Fenris held the tip of the cloth down with one hand and began wrapping the roll around Anders's arm with his other. Fenris's movements were once again precise and steady as he worked. His touch was warm and comforting. Anders watched in silent awe for a few minutes as Fenris bandaged him perfectly.

"I really could use someone like you in the clinic some time for the more minor of injuries. You really know what you're doing."

Fenris jumped slightly at the unexpected vocalization, but he covered it with a half-shrug of a shoulder. "Like I told you, I have had plenty of practice. It's not like this is particularly difficult to do, either."

"Still, I am grateful. Really."

Fenris's eyes rose from his work to meet the mage's and Fenris felt something clench in his chest at the pure gratitude he saw in those amber eyes.

"Thank you, Fenris. You didn't have to do all of this."

The warrior's immediate response was to give some sarcastic reminder about how Hawke would have been mad at him for not helping Anders but Fenris couldn't seem to say it. Maybe it was the way the moonlight caught the mage's eyes and made the amber shine in a lovely way. Or perhaps it was the fact that the mage's body had warmed up considerably since being under Fenris's care. The room felt too warm all of a sudden and Fenris quickly looked away from Anders, cursing the way the blush on his face betrayed him.

"Just…don't get too comfortable."

Anders smiled kindly as Fenris finished tying off the bandage and stood up from the bed.

"Tomorrow I will bring you more elfroot and some lyrium to regain your strength. But for now you must rest."

Fenris moved away from the bed to leave but Anders quickly called out, "Fenris!"

The warrior paused in the doorway and tilted his head slightly toward Anders.

"Remind me to treat you at the next Wicked Grace night."

Fenris chuckled lowly and the sound broadened the mage's grin.

When Anders slept that night, he dreamed of a pair of emerald eyes and a gentle touch.