Chapter 2: A Whittled Kitten

There's no way to get clean in the thrice-blasted Deep Roads. Can't trust the standing water, even if he was inclined to fight through iridescent scum thicker even than the sludge that comes out of the pumps in Darktown half the time, and no one's carrying enough water to waste on a proper scrub, not when he and Hawke together can barely conjure enough to meet drinking needs. He's reduced to halfheartedly wetting his hair when the itch is too much to be borne.

He passes Carver, ludicrously oversized sword thumping away like the air has personally wronged him. He thinks Anders has, if that sour look is anything to go by. Ugh. Joy of joys - the man will be even more rank, although at this point it's academic. No matter how pointed the distance Carver places between his bedroll and Hawke's, the odor carries, somehow distinct even over and above the general funk of unwashed dwarf. Just another gift from this forsaken place to round out the set. The constant awareness of closed space, thick looming slabs rock and nowhere worth running to, the constant skitter-screech of Darkspawn in his head, loud enough at night and Justice can't or won't block it when they're down here. Lovely.

And there's the man himself, sitting splayed down in the dirt with a boulder at his back, face scrunched up the way it does when he really concentrates on something and thinks no one's watching, fingers glowing faintly around some small object. "Trying to put Bodahn's boy out of business?" he says and Hawke yelps and drops the thing. Anders can't help but snicker at him, just a little, and earns himself a wry little grin.

Hawke scoops whatever it is up and gives it a critical look. "We'll call that added character," he says, and flips the thing over to Anders. "Unless, of course, Pouncey Cat had a scar all down his face, in which case we'll call it artistic accuracy."

"Pouncey Cat?" and sure enough, now that he looks at the thing, it's a rough-hewn little cat figurine with lumpy little legs and jaunty ears.

"This expedition is feline-friendly, unlike your last trip down here, I gather," and Hawke wears that carefully open look he gets when he's trying to draw someone out. Much better to look at the little wooden thing, take one breath, two. His fingers itch, the urge to bury them in his pauldrons sudden and sharp and no substitute for Ser Pounce-a-lot's warm fur and little heaving breaths. His living warmth and contrary quirks had been the only thing kept Anders sane down here, once upon a time, and the lack is damn near unbearable for a moment. The warmth washing over him - Hawke, Hawke remembering the story of his little demonspawn cat, maybe he pays as much mind to Anders as Anders does to him as though that is remotely possible - is no better, torture in its own way.

Deflect, deflect, deflect. "How did you do it?" he tries, waving the wooden cat, and his tone is light enough, thank the Maker for small mercies.

Hawke shrugs. "Just a bit of whittling," and he passes his hand over another bit of wood close to hand, peeling away a little curl of it. He still his fidgeting, just for a moment. "Father always had us at it. Taught precision, he said, but I think he was just trying to keep us out of mischief."

The urge to clasp one of Hawke's slightly slumped shoulders is as strong as it is unwise. "Well, that was a lost cause."

Hawke's chuckle is just a little flat. "Thought he picked it up in the Circle, actually," and there's that I'm-listening face again.

"Idle use of magic was not encouraged," and that was harsher than he'd meant to be.

"I would've thought that's exactly why you'd do it," and he swallows down a lecture on the stress and the fear, the constant threats of punishment and ever-present calculation, battles he could afford to pick and ones that weren't worth the stripes and the time in isolation, wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong because Hawke knows, he knows, and the half-haunted look he gets when he talks about his life before, running and hiding and the profound, stupid, waste and loss of it… Unjust, all of it.

The hand wrapped around his own is a shock. "Careful," Hawke murmurs, and squeezes Anders' hand, crushed tight around the wooden cat. "You'll break my masterpiece and then where will we be?"

Exactly where they are now, days from the surface in the bloody Deep Roads, and this closeness, these feelings, they're as bad for him as everything else down here. He'd like to make a quip, something, diffuse that terrible warm understanding written all over Hawke's face in some way but he doesn't trust his tongue just now. "Thank you for this," he manages, and drops his eyes. "Think I'll call it an early night."

"Sleep well," Hawke says, and drops his hand. Anders misses it immediately, because he's a fool. Nothing good happens in the bloody Deep Roads. Nothing.