Wintermarch, 9:33 Dragon

Kirkwall

There was no way in hell I was getting any sleep tonight. Not with Anders sprawled on that cot five feet away looking entirely too adorable for his own good.

I eyed his coat where it was thrown over a chair and debated grabbing it to sleep with, but figured being caught doing that would be a Bad Idea. I sighed and flopped onto my back to stare at the ceiling. It was a really depressing ceiling. There was this huge crack running from one corner to the other that sort of spiderwebbed across the whole roof and made me think it could come crashing down at any moment.

I needed to get a better place to stay.

I'd spent three years in this little room, give or take, and while it was inexpensive and close to most of my friends, it was high time I found someplace better. With my share of the gold from Garrett's expedition, I could easily buy a place in Hightown or at least somewhere nice in Lowtown and live comfortably for several more years. The only things I owned that I'd need to take with me were the knickknacks from the Deep Roads and my ever-growing pile of sketches and little stories I wrote when I was bored.

Which was often.

Inevitably my eyes found their way back to Anders, and I wondered how the man could possibly be sleeping so heavily on that little cot. It couldn't be any worse than what he usually sleeps on, but I felt horribly guilty for making him sleep on it when I had a perfectly good bed.

We could probably both fit on it without having to touch. I resolved to ask him about it tomorrow.

Or was it today? I honestly have no way of knowing what time it is thanks to my windowless room.

I heard a noise from his side of the room and propped myself up on my elbow to look at him. Was he whimpering? Oh God. Was he having a Warden nightmare? He had curled up into a ball and it hurt my heart to see it, and I was out of the bed before I realized I'd moved. I have never slept in the same room with a person like this, and so I have no idea how to wake someone up from a nightmare.

Especially not a nightmare filled with images of darkspawn and corruption. I didn't envy him that.

I figure touching him would be a bad thing to do, in case it coincided with whatever was going on in the dream… maybe I could throw something at him or yell in his ear?

"Anders?" I whispered. Weird. I had meant to yell that. Something subconscious about being loud around a sleeping person in the dark, I guess. "Anders?" I said a little louder. He just curled into a tighter ball and cemented my resolve.

I poked his shoulder. That would have worked for me in a heartbeat, but he just shied away from my finger and started whispering nonsense words that sounded suspiciously like "no ser, please ser," and suddenly my heart stopped.

This was not a Warden nightmare.

"Justice you ass, wake him up!" I shouted, not caring if I woke up the whole bloody tavern so long as Anders opened his eyes. That spirit was going to get a serious talking-to the next time he shows his glowy face around me. When that failed to rouse him, I paced.

I considered beating him with a pillow, but I didn't want to traumatize him by waking up from what could essentially be a beating to another, fluffier beating. My eyes landed on his coat and I smiled. I plucked a feather from his pauldrons and hovered over him, lowering it to his nose, and tickled him with it.

His brow furrowed in confusion and he swatted at it while I grinned like a Cheshire cat. Oh my God he was adorable. Like a huge tabby cat!

I was relentless, and eventually he started laughing and trying to push my hand away and then his eyes opened and he looked adorably confused as he stared at me and my feather.

"Liz?"

"Yes, Anders?"

"Were you… tickling me with a feather?" He looked positively dumbfounded, and I just smiled.

"Maybe. Did it work?"

"Did what wo—" his eyes blanked, and then refocused on me. He looked… guilty. Well that was unacceptable. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"

No. I was just watching you sleep like a creeper and fantasizing about cuddling with your robes.

What I actually said was "No, I was already up. I tried to shake you out of it but you couldn't hear me. So I improvised."

He looked confused and more than a little amused now. "With a feather?"

I wagged the feather at him like a finger, tsking. "I guess I could have started jumping up and down on your chest instead, but this seemed like a better idea."

Anders hesitated, and then smiled tentatively at me, as if he'd scare me off if he so much as spoke about what had just happened. "Thank you for waking me. I'm sorry you had to… see that."

"Don't be sorry," I insisted, poking him with the feather. "But I'm going to kick Justice's ass for not waking you up when I asked him to." His eyes widened at that, and I just smiled innocently. "Go back to sleep, Anders. I'll keep my feather handy."

He looked at the feather and then back at his coat with a growing smile. "Did you… take that from my robe?"

"Oh just go to sleep, Anders."