The rest of the ferry ride back to Kirkwall passed in uncomfortable silence. Anders was caught between flaming embarrassment and anger. Anger was certainly the easier of the two emotions to live with. He could be angry at the templars, at the Gallows, at the system, even at Cullen who claimed to care, but still wouldn't allow Hawke the simple relief of contact with his own sister.
Because being embarrassed meant he had to consider other things, like the possibility that the reaction from his "warden stamina" back during the Summer had been as much Justice's doing as his own neglected libido's.
Maker, but the flare of Fenris' lyrium conducted through the manacle had made both Anders and Justice react in ways that were still drying in his smallclothes.
Not a pleasant sensation.
Neither was having Justice speak with his lips. He had expected it when he had opened himself to Justice, offered himself as his host, but that did not make it any less unsettling when the spirit took the reins.
He kept his eyes on Kirkwall Harbor's gray water, losing himself in occasional whitecaps and the whorls raised in the ferry's wake. He has never been a normal man, but he was thrice over not normal – a mage, a Gray Warden, an abomination.
And apparently a man who would cream his drawers like a teenager at a touch of lyrium under the right circumstances.
When the ferry reached the dock, he and Fenris followed Hawke and Aveline off the ferry. At first the dock swayed under his feet the way the ferry had, but he knew that would pass in a few minutes.
"I have to return to the Viscount's Keep," Aveline said when they came together as a group again. "You know that I'll be there for you if you need me, Hawke."
She unslung the sheathed longsword from her back and held it out to Fenris. "I know it isn't your favored weapon, but you don't have two hands free. Take mine. I have another in my office."
Reluctantly Fenris took her longsword and let her help unbuckle his greatsword to put the smaller weapon in its place.
"I'll take care of it, you have my word," she promised before nodding to Hawke and striding away with Fenris' sword tipped against her shoulder, heading for Hightown and Viscount's Keep.
"You could come home with me," Hawke offered.
"No," Anders said before Fenris could agree or decline. "There are still people who need me. We'll go back to the clinic."
"And if I do not wish to?" Fenris asked.
"Then I'll ask what you have to do that is more useful than healing the sick," Anders snapped. "Go back to your mansion to plunder the wine cellar? Read Isabela's 'romantic novels' at Hawke's house? Perhaps you and I can go skipping hand in hand up Sundermount?"
To Hawke he said, "We'll be at my clinic."
• • •
Mother Hawley was waiting for him when he arrived, sitting patiently on the stairs under the unlit lantern with one of her horde of grandchildren restlessly drawing crude anti-guard slogans in the dirt behind her.
"I knew you would come today," she said, easing herself up off the step with a groan as old bones protested the movement. "Our Lydia's baby is doing poorly. I told her that I would send you to see her, but—" she tapped the cuff on Anders' wrist with her cane, her eyes following the links of chain that dropped into the bag he and Fenris still carried between them, "—looks like you found yourself a spot of trouble."
Anders suppressed a groan, but at the same time he couldn't help laughing. The old woman had spotted something that all the Gallows' templars had been oblivious to. Small wonder Hawke could have all his shenanigans right under their noses.
From there the day was as busy as it always was when he had been away for even half a day. Fenris was a constant, grim presence at his side that made at least one coterie thug walk in, see the healer's companion, and turn to leave without having his problem seen to.
However, when Anders made him remove his gauntlets and hold Mother Hawley's grandson while Anders examined him, Fenris showed an unexpectedly gentle side. He held the child as though afraid it would break, or perhaps, Anders thought, as though he was afraid that he would be the one to break it.
He was also helpful when three fishermen carried in a fourth man slung between them on a makeshift stretcher, explaining that he had slipped when a hard wake from another ship had rocked their fishing boat, sending him tumbling to have his leg crushed between the hull and dock.
Fenris had helped to restrain the man while Anders did the excruciating work of pulling the man's crushed leg straight and moving shattered bone back into place before sending waves of healing magic into his leg, mending the breaks, healing the internal damage to muscles, veins, and arteries alike, and finally, with the last of his energy, repairing the fractured mess that had once been his knee.
He swayed on his feet but caught himself on the edge of the cot before pronouncing the fisherman well enough to get back to his boat.
They left with their thanks and promises that Anders would have a share of their next catch. Anders saw Fenris try to conceal his distaste for fish when they said that, but Anders thanked them before settling onto the cot to catch his breath and rest his face in his hands.
"Do you always push yourself like this?" Fenris asked, taking a seat next to him. "Or only when there are witnesses?"
"There are always witnesses," Anders said wearily. "There's never an end to the people in Kirkwall who need help."
He drew a deep breath and pushed himself up off the cot before he got comfortable and gave in to the urge to sleep off the fatigue that came with extensive healing.
"I need to get cleaned up, and I can use your help, too," he said reluctantly, in part because he hated asking for Fenris for any help and in part because he was certain Fenris wasn't going to like the favor he asked.
"What kind of help?" Fenris asked suspiciously.
Anders rolled his eyes. "Obviously I need your assistance in killing a score of innocents then stripping me naked to do an unholy dance in the moonlight."
He sighed in irritation. "I just want to get cleaned up, and if I'm going to be chained to you for any length of time, I need your help getting out of this coat so I can change to something easier to work with. I'll even help you if you need it."
There was the small matter of what Anders intended to change into, but that didn't need to be addressed quite yet.
• • •
"No!"
Fenris glared at him as though he had asked him to strip naked and do a spicy shimmy in front of every slaver in Kirkwall.
"I just need your help cutting along the seam here," Anders said with as much patience as he could summon. He held a thin-bladed knife that would cut the seam along the sleeve of his coat without damaging it irreparably. Dammit, he liked that coat.
"Not if you are going to put that on." Fenris pointed an accusatory finger at the bed where Anders' Tevinter mage robe was laid out for him to change into.
"For the last time," Anders said. "it's something I can take on and off whether there's a chain there or not. I'm being practical, you should try it. It isn't like I'll suddenly turn into a magister just because of my clothes. If clothes really made the man, I'd have turned into a bunny about fifteen years ago."
That was enough of a non sequiter to derail Fenris from the rant he was preparing about the robes, and Anders took the opportunity to press on. "Unless you're just afraid to see me take my clothes off. I'd understand of course. I am rather irresistible."
He forced enough of a smirk that he could see Fenris' fingers flex as though considering simply tearing his throat out.
On the bright side, if Fenris went glowy, he would probably die with a smile on his face and a stain in his trousers.
"Give me the knife."
Anders handed over the knife and said a silent prayer that Fenris wouldn't put it to bloodier use.
He winced at the sound of cloth and leather parting under the sharp blade, but Fenris cut the coat's seam cleanly from wrist to shoulder and from shoulder to collar. It was hardly an ideal solution, but it let Anders strip out of his coat and set it aside while Fenris repeated the process with his shirt.
He couldn't sew worth a damn, but there were patients who came to the clinic who would be happy to trade healing for some sewing work.
"You're still wearing that,"Fenris said with unconcealed hostility when Anders finished wriggling out of his coat and shirt, leaving the Tevinter Chantry amulet hanging in the open on his chest.
"And it's still a gift from Hawke," Anders retorted while he turned his back on Fenris for some modicum of privacy while he slid off his trousers, leaving him in the fresh smalls he'd changed into as soon as they had gotten into the clinic.
The chain jingled and tugged while he stripped down and stepped into the robe. Mostly Fenris seemed to tolerate the tugging, but occasionally he jerked back on the chain when Anders pulled too hard.
"Imagine if we went up to the Bone Pit with Hawke like this," Anders muttered when Fenris pulled too hard one time too many. "Excuse me Ser Spider, could you please not eat my face while the pissy elf and I negotiate who gets to use the arm this time?"
"Hawke will not let that happen."
"Probably not," Anders conceded. "He has other mad souls who will follow him into that pit of disaster and despair."
He got the robe settled, fastening the collar and settling the pauldrons on his shoulders. "One more thing."
'What?"
"Do up my laces?"
• • •
Fenris was even surlier for the rest of the day. Apparently the sight of the Tevinter-style robe was enough to make him seethe. Anders made a half-hearted attempt to see things Fenris' way – what if Fenris put on templar armor?
It didn't work. Apparently he couldn't get his head far enough up his own arse to see things Fenris' way.
He pushed himself on with his work, seeing everyone who came to the clinic until late into the evening when Fenris declared the clinic closed.
"Even slaves must sleep, and you are no slave," Fenris insisted as he dragged him by the chain to extinguish the lantern outside the clinic. "And I am no slave. You will eat and we will rest. With luck, tomorrow Hawke will bring us news."