Fenris withdrew until he sat back on his calves, resting his weight onto feet pointed behind him. He shut his eyes tight as he psyched himself into speaking his mind. The next sentence finally came via a determined rumble deep in his chest. "Do you want to know my secret?" Fenris pointedly looked down at Anders, his eyes gazing down without mercy, framed by a fringe of white hair.
Anders looked light headed at his success. He gathered himself up, sitting with his legs crossed. "Yes?"
"Each spot you pointed out to me today, I also imagined taking you. Roughly. Thoroughly. To the point of agony." Fenris clenched his fists in front of his knees, the weight of his arms pressing an indentation into the bedroll. "But I also imagined..." Fenris paused to crack his neck to one side. "…something else… He cracked his neck the opposite direction. "….every time."
Anders drew his eyebrows together, angling his head, voice breathy. "Something… else? What else?"
"You think you are the only one who has been conditioned?" Fenris' best teasing voice was overlaid with fire and ice. "The only who wants, who needs?" He rolled his shoulders forward, flexing his biceps.
Anders swallowed. He was not sure what the right response was supposed to be. "I just assumed…"
Fenris drawled, his voice dripping with cynicism. "Yes, assuming has gone so well for you." He stood up, looming overhead Anders. Forest green eyes bored into the wide amber ones below him. "You assumed Justice would remain your body's subordinate. Assumed Hawke would tolerate mass murder. Assumed mages are universally oppressed. Should I be surprised that you assume me responsible for your reactions? Assume you did nothing to provoke me? Why take responsibility now? Mage." The last word was spat out, the cursed insult coming as a blow after it had grown so slowly into a term of endearment.
Anders shook his head, too busy recoiling to keep up with the litany of accusations. "Fenris, I…"
"You tease me relentlessly," Fenris groused. Anders showed honest surprise, having been too wrapped up in his own desire to imagine that his open expressions of lust might be contagious. "You make me addicted to you. With your filthy mouth and wandering hands and your sun drenched hair. The way you whimper and moan and shiver. It is you who conditions me, Anders." Anders retreated to a crouch, arms coiling around his legs. "Just because I do not see the magic does not mean it isn't there. Demon." Again, Fenris lobbed an insult that he had not used for many weeks, one that hit where it hurt most.
Anders recoiled further, his head dropping between his knees, eyes abjectly turned to the ground. "No, this isn't like that. I swear… If I've changed, it's because you wanted me to." Anders crawled into Fenris shadow, seeking absolution, one hand snaking forward but afraid to touch.
"Lies! You use me to protect your worthless hide," Fenris' voice dripped with indignance. "I feed you, shower you in coin, cater to your every whim. And still it is not enough, not until I burn with desire for you. You think I have not detected your manipulations? That I would not smell your foul stench?" Fenris leaned over, inhaling, his shadow throwing itself over Anders' face like a blanket.
Anders had been content to listen, switching his gaze from one green eye to another, assuring himself that both eyes showed equal outrage. But the last sentence roused a reaction. "What foul stench?"
Fenris responded with a curdled expression, swiping a hand down Anders' bowed back and showing him as his fingers dripped cloudy drops of sweat onto the bed roll. "You drip with magic, your mana pool a bottomless cesspit of depravity." Fenris spit a frothy addition into the small puddle of sweat next to Anders' face. "You walk as if you expect death itself to bow before you. But I will not submit!" Fenris wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "My will is strong, grown through pain and suffering. I will make You obey!" Raising a hand up to watch it himself, he activated his lyrium brands with a flash.
"I…" Anders felt some small part of his sanity slip as he realized this went far beyond any simple game between rivals or lovers. Fenris forced him onto his back, and he turned over in a pitiful fetal position. Fenris forced his legs down, making a disgusted sound at the sight of Anders' erection. Anders mounted a pitiful defense, hands up. "That's not who I am. I swear it. That's not what this is."
"Isn't it?" Fenris was beyond reason. He grabbed the Tevinter chantry amulet and yanked it from Anders' neck, the leather tie breaking with a snap. Anders' his eyes focused on the amulet in a sudden, sickening recognition that the amulet looked to Fenris less like a token of memory than a wish for personal glory. "No," Anders shrieked. He turned back over hastily, crawling forward to kiss Fenris' feet in apology.
His submission proved no balm for the boiling cauldron pouring from Fenris' mouth and eyes. "You're no better than the rest. Magister in all but name." The elf pushed the mage away with a determined foot.
Anders looked up. "Fenris?" He had a bad feeling that nothing he said would make any difference.
"I'm sick of being tortured by ambitious would-be magisters," Fenris spitted. "You wish to turn north and walk as a hero to Tevinter? To be crowned a prophet? First fight me as an equal, while you still have no estate, no social perch to hide upon, no guards to aid you, no slaves to bleed for your power..."
"Fenris." Anders was quite certain now that Fenris had worked himself into an addled rage, that of all the fears flitting in Fenris' eyes, relatively few had anything to do with his own actions while in Kirkwall.
"You have cast your last spell on me. I name you nemesis." Fenris' eyes were triumphant. He raised his hand, the lyrium brands glowing brighter until his fist was half translucent. "Today I reclaim the life that is mine by rights. I will lay you so low that you will suffocate trying to dig yourself from your grave."
"Fenris!" Anders was in a genuine panic now. He genuinely feared that the phased warrior would kill him if something didn't break him from his personal nightmare. In Fenris' heightened state, basic spells to paralyze him or put him to sleep might not work. His shield would not keep out a phased arm. Anders could either die or defend himself with force. Neither prospect held any appeal. There was too little time to think up a clever workaround.
Eyes wide with mixed fear and guilt, Anders drew back his hand. He intended the open handed blow to the face to be only enough to provoke a shock. At the last moment, he remembered Fenris' inhuman physical strength and added force to his swing to compensate. The ensuing blow ended as more than a slap, hard enough for Fenris' face to snap to the side. It was enough to leave a bruise, but nowhere near enough to break bones.
Fenris shook his head, a singular reaction to both the blow to his face and the clearing of his mind.
"Anders?" Fenris narrowed his eyes. His wary gaze took in the bedroll, the line of trees, the horses nearby, and the still lake before returning to the mage before him. Recognition dawned slowly, both of who he was looking at and what he had been about to do. He looked down at his hand, the flesh solidifying as the lyrium brands deactivated. He looked back to Anders, apology writ large in his eyes.
Anders felt a need to break the silence. "What… Who am I to you?" Anders could see Fenris' growing shock and was determined to keep him from ruminating. This was exactly the sort of thing that he would expect Fenris to run from. Anders would not allow the former slave to run as he had done to Hawke.
Meaning it to be a soothing gesture, Anders reached a hand forward to cup the side of Fenris' face. He released a gentle pulse of healing to prevent the warrior's cheek from bruising. The lyrium brands flickered, starting at the elf's chin and flowing down his torso and out to his limbs. The elf shuddered, responding with pleasure that turned to apoplexy as he mistook the sensation to be a form of personal invasion. Fenris locked his jaw, eyes glazing. "You think your magic will bypass my defenses? You fool!"
The longer the scene went on, the more the whole thing seemed surreal to Anders. He turned to deflection, trying to charm his way out. Anders chided, smiling. "What, now I can't even heal you?"
Fenris' answer was a wild growl as he lunged forward. "Grrrah!" He pulled Anders up by yanking on a clump of his hair. After forcing him onto his feet, he charged forward until Anders was frantically peddling backwards. Fenris kept barreling until they broached past the edge of the bedroll. Their momentum only met its end when Anders crashed into a tree on the edge of the clearing, his shoulders pulled back to wrap around the trunk, his neck at the mercy of eager lips. Fenris ravaged the pale flesh, making grunts in his fight against his own desire. Anders shuddered, his head lolling to the side.
Having pinned his victim, Fenris wasted no time grabbing pale thighs to pull them up, exposing Anders for conquest. Anders luckily retained enough presence of mind to cast a hasty grease spell. Caught in an awkward position, he settled for running his greased palm liberally over Fenris' straining cock in the brief second before it began stretching his entrance. The flash of magic caused the elf's brands to crackle on briefly. Furious at yet another use of magic, Fenris snarled like a feral dog, burying his cock.
Then Anders was holding on for dear life as he was thrust repeatedly into the tree, his back scraping painfully along the dented bark. Despite the pain and the shock, he was unable to suppress a groan at the sudden breach of his defenses. Fenris made a revolted gagging sound at this reaction. He lowered Anders from the tree, tossing him onto the hard earth once half the distance to the ground was breached. He began putting Anders through his paces, throwing him like a rag doll from one lurid position to another. Anders felt his body responding with heat, even as his muscles went compliantly limp.
In every position, Fenris was too rough. He pushed Anders' legs so far towards his head the blonde began to whimper and shake. He turned him by pushing him so roughly to the side that the mage landed face first in the dirt, then pulled him back onto all fours him even though this dragged the blonde's face across the ground. He drove from behind so hard that it took only a few strokes before Anders was forced to drop from his arms to rest on his chest and shoulders, hands spread uselessly beside his head. Even this proved futile, as his legs gave away to the relentless onslaught within minutes.
Angry at the angle of thrusting growing ever more untenable, Fenris forced Anders up and back by yanking the hair at the nape of his neck. Anders ended up seated on Fenris' lap, the elf using powerful legs to thrust into him with vigorous bounces that less athletic men would find untenable. Finally, the position took its toll. The elf grew a bit winded, and the thrusting slowed. The grunting stuttered and stopped. Fenris looked around, disoriented, seeming surprised that they were not still on the bedroll.
Anders quickly took stock of the situation. His arms, legs, and hips were bruised from Fenris' hands. There were red scrapes on his hands, knees, and elbows where he tried to brace his fall. One ankle had twisted, throbbing with residual pain. Anders felt only phantom twinges, adrenaline taking over. Instead, he was keenly aware of the dried blood on his split lip, the dirt clinging in dragged lines on one side of his face, his hair tangled and pulled from twigs and pine needles picked up during their tussle. Anders laughed with euphoric madness that it was his vanity that concerned him, not his health and well-being.
It could stop now, if Anders wanted. If he spoke honest words, Fenris' mind would float back to reality before a second wind arrived. Instead, acting on instinct, Anders conjured a trio of mage lights. He bid them hover around the elf's head. The use of magic and sense of being taunted pushed Fenris back into whatever headspace he'd occupied. Fenris pushed Anders off and up, spinning him around as he stood himself with an angry snarl. Some sick part of Anders marveled that such a gorgeous face could harbor such ugly fears and potent rage.
The second tree Anders was tackled into was less sturdy than the first. The trunk, only half his width around, buckled under the sudden pressure. It creaked as the upper branches moved a foot, rustling the leaves. A shiny black bird flew from the tree, cawing. Anders felt the muscles in his left shoulder pull. The mage lights followed Fenris halfway to the tree before winking out of existence.
"Fenris?" Anders tried. "I don't think this is a good idea." Anders placed his hands solidly on Fenris' chest and pushed back to relieve the tree from their weight. The warrior grew excited by the mage's attempt to resist. Fenris pushed himself inside again with an eager thrust and began rutting with all his strength. Each lunge shook the leaves and sent the branches another few inches from their rightful position.
"Wait, this isn't going to hold," Anders begged. The tree continued to lurch sideways, becoming a diagonal knife in the earth. "For Maker's sake!" Anders yelled, feeling his back slipping to one side, "stop it before someone gets killed!" Fenris had no intention of stopping. He grabbed the mages arms and righted his position on the trunk, effectively pinning him with his weight on the diagonal beam. Anders gave up and lifted his legs around Fenris' waist, putting his full weight on the listing tree.
After giving in, Anders found himself overcome with heightened sensation. He legs instinctively curled close around Fenris, cradling their bodies close together. Finally, their combined weight overcame the tree's resistance. A crack near the base of the tree grew into a fissure before splitting open. The tree gave a final lurch. Then the branches came crashing down beyond the rutting pair. Anders found himself looking at the world upside down, blood rushing to his head. Fenris had been forced to lean forward to accomodate the new angle but remained determined as ever to continue rutting. The angle of impalement was bizarre but delightful. If Anders hadn't been trained to wait, he would have come like a geyser from the shock and the friction on his sensitive spot.
Instead, Anders closed his eyes and focused on keeping himself in check. It was almost a meditation, recalling the moments he was praised for keeping calm and collected or punished for losing his patience. Fenris took Anders' expression as a display of resigned submission and groaned triumphantly. He placed a hand on Anders' neck and squeezed, coming in fierce pulses as if to lay claim to his victim. Anders keened jealously, his cock twitching, as Fenris closed his eyes, licked his lips, and sighed his completion. When Fenris released his hold on Anders' neck, his body still shuddering in occasional aftershocks, it was like an ominous, threatening storm had been soothed into a gentle rain.
When both pairs of eyes reopened, they seemed to recognize each other in a new way. Fenris looked a little embarrassed, yet, upon reflection, eminently pleased with himself. Anders grinned, reassuring them both that his consent had never been withdrawn. He made a point of looking up towards his own aching member, the tiny gold ring twitching as Fenris' gaze fell upon it.
Fenris chuckled warmly. "You think I'm done with you?" He whispered, as pleased with Anders as he was with himself. When he pulled out gently, Anders mewled like a hungry kitten staring helplessly at an unopened bottle of milk. Fenris bent forward and wrapped his strong arms around Anders, pulling the mage up to sit on what had become an impromptu tree stump. He took Anders' chin between lyrium lined fingers, scratching the bristles of Anders' stubble as if he stroked a cat's fur backwards.
Anders' sexual frustration was communicated through his eyes like a caress, one Fenris welcomed with a possessive grip and knowing sympathy. Fenris was winded, words coming in gaps. "I haven't told you… what else I was… thinking of… all day." Fenris sat himself gingerly on the edge of Anders' knees to rest while he spoke. If he judged his timing correctly, Anders would never know what hit him. At the very least, it should make up for having run Anders through the gauntlet.