Watson, Part 2.
Anders slams their door shut behind him, and Hawke at least appreciates the drama of having one of the only analog doors he's seen since basic back on Earth, much more effective than pissily tapping in a close command.
"I can't believe he's acting this way," Anders says, not a petulant pout, but real fire and anger. "I can't believe he's got so much support!" He rips the tie out of his hair and flings it across the room. "Niall's always been soft," he growls.
Hawke collapses onto the bed they shared, sneezing when dust kicks up from months of disuse. He rolls his shoulders, muscles still sore from the blast he took on Caleston, and lets himself fall back onto the musty pillow.
"Of course I support reformation - hmph, revolution!" Anders continues, lost in his own fugue as he rips off his armor piece by detached piece. "That was the point of all of this, to make a world for everyone, and not just the strays we round up. That was the point- " he says again, and when he looks at Hawke, the desperation sucks the air out of him. "...right?"
Hawke tries his best to smile, but it probably doesn't come out right. "Something like that."
Anders deflates, sinking down into the desk chair.
"The draw-down on Alliance recruits is what concerns me," Hawke says after a moment. "That's economics 101, population's got to increase. Niall's scared, but Orson's not stupid, he knows better than that." He frowns. "They can't just live in a bubble - that'll depress the whole settlement.
"Why didn't you say that before?"
"Oh yes, being a dissenting normie in a room full of angry biotics is definitely on my 'good idea' list."
Anders rolls his eyes, not in the mood, and Hawke sighs. "Fine," he relents, "I'll bring it up tonight." And then he grins because he just can't well help it. "As long as you promise to protect me."
Anders looks over at him, finally, where Hawke's laid back on dirty sheets, and when he speaks his voice is soft but with a hint of that old humor. "You know that's disgusting," he repeats. "Were you raised by wolves?"
Hawke's laugh is half a gasp, because Maker that feels like so long ago, a different lifetime, or maybe the start of a new one.
He shifts his legs invitingly, but the effect's probably dampened by the clacking armor so he throws his arms out as well, just to be perfectly clear. "Come ravish me."
"That's not going to be very comfortable for me," Anders says, skeptically eyeing the striping and hard ceramic.
"But I'll be plenty comfortable," Hawke says. "There's lots of padding in these things. You should have kept yours on, love, then we could bump ugly suits instead of just- "
Anders finally cracks a smile. "Stop, please" he laughs, and when he crosses to the bed Hawke pulls off the chestplate and gauntlets and dumps them on the floor, then takes Anders into his arms. He can feel the heat radiating off his skin beneath the thin underarmor, beneath his hands.
The buzz of insects and trickle of water and occasional weird animal noise drift through the window, where everything feels alive instead of the hum of a ship or dead of space, and Hawke's honestly not sure which he prefers. Whichever isn't trying to kill him at the moment, he supposes.
Anders slips his arm over Hawke's ribs, massaging idly at a spot on his back that's been sore as long as he can remember.
"I was right to worry," Anders says, soft enough only for them, fingers still dancing over Hawke's back. "It's never going to change, is it?" Hawke wants to shut his eyes and just kiss the top of Anders' head, but he fights through it. "Nothing has changed, and we're all too cowardly to face our injustice." Anders' fingers still, and his brood is deepening. "I'm sorry, love," he says, "for everything I've brought into your life."
Hawke smirks, enough that Anders can't see the grinding teeth behind it, teeth practically wearing down to little nubs, and he says the most honest thing he can think of:
"Don't worry about it; the tortured look is sexy."
Anders wears a look on his face that Hawke hopes more than anything he'll get the chance to understand one day, and he's silent for a long moment before he rolls over and straddles Hawke and kisses him hard, tongue in his mouth, breath on his face, hands in his hair.
"Anders," Hawke groans between kisses, "I didn't know you had it in you today."
"You did tell me to ravish you," Anders says, not going for the obvious set-up, because it was just too easy.
Hawke nips at Anders' lip. "Get to it, then."
Anders does, dragging his tongue along the roof of Hawke's mouth, stretching deeper, and Hawke moans and clutches the meat of Anders' ass where he's spread out on top of him, then rolls their hips together.
"How quick do you think you can get out of that underarmor?" Hawke says when he can feel them both getting hard. "I think the record's seven seconds."
Anders' lips are kiss-bruised and wet, wild hair falling over his face, and he opens that fantastic mouth to speak -
- and someone knocks on the bloody door.
Anders swears and quickly disentangles himself, wiping his mouth and trying to smooth away the beard-burn, and Hawke is just glad for once that he's not a young man anymore, and also that he's wearing thick trousers.
Hawke clears his throat. "Who is it?"
The door opens timidly, with a shock of fair hair and an even fairer face behind it.
Hawke blinks as the recognition hits. "Feyne?"
Feyne's either nervous enough that he doesn't catch the rumpled bed and rumpled Anders, or good enough that he doesn't call it. "I'm sorry I didn't buzz or anything," he says, fidgeting.
"It's fine," Anders says, and he's already slipping into the doctor look. "We didn't get to see you when we landed. How've you been settling in?"
"We're alright," Feyne shrugs. Hawke can't help but think he's too young for all of this. "I never got to thank you. Both of you," he says, nodding at Hawke. "For what you did for me and my mother."
Hawke leans back. "It wouldn't be a very good rescue mission if we'd left you there, would it?"
Feyne laughs a little, then tugs errantly at his braid. "That's why they got tense, you know," he says. "Because when we got here, everyone thought they'd left you behind."
"No," Anders says darkly, "we were just relaxing on the beach."
Hawke elbows him, because Anders had been making fine progress on that funk, and damned if Hawke would give up the good fight. "Not every day. Some days we took down slave rings."
"We didn't get back soon enough."
He's probably fighting a losing battle.
Feyne shakes his head. "I don't know if it would have mattered. Mum tells me it was a power vacuum, and they're all scrabbling like varren to meat scraps."
Anders scoffs. "I expected that out of Bancroft, even Orson, but not Niall."
"Niall's just keeping peace - he's scared. It's Orson pulling the strings," Hawke says.
"I don't care what it is," Anders says. "We won't compromise."
As the silence falls from the weight of Anders' words, Hawke hears something in the distance - sirens. Sirens from the main EU colony. Anders and Feyne notice it, too, Feyne opening the door to hear them better.
Anders activates his omni-tool, and while he scans, Hawke hears someone outside shout.
"Missiles," Anders says, almost too quiet to hear, and he looks up at Hawke with disbelief and fear in his eyes. "Missiles," he says again, louder, "from the base on Franklin. They're headed here."
"What?" Feyne gasps, at the same time Hawke asks, "How long?"
Anders takes a breath, and then he takes Hawke's hand.
"An hour."