Fenris had thought he wanted peace and silence from Anders. He had thought that right up until he got it, and then he wished for the mage's incessant yammering to keep his thoughts from wandering.

The inn room was lit with a faint warm light from the embers still burning in the fireplace. He lay on his side facing the fireplace and the couch on which Brutal dozed, occasionally snoring or whining in his sleep with dreams of darkspawn or perhaps running from orange tabby cats.

Anders was a warm line against his back, lying facing the opposite direction with that cat curled against his chest. When there were lulls in the ambient sounds from the tavern, Fenris could hear it purring.

Of the room's four occupants, Fenris was the only one awake, and all he wanted was to escape to sleep to leave his thoughts behind.

Justice had done something to him. Since the abomination had clasped his wrist back on the ship and pushed a burst of pleasure through his body, Fenris had been too aware of Anders as something other than a flagrant pain in his backside.

He had… looked when Anders had undressed to bathe. He had caught his imagination wandering to thoughts of what it would be like to be pressed against his naked body when those cracks opened in his skin, to feel the power sweep over him, riding every line of lyrium that had been carved straight into his soul….

Sitting on the other side of the hanging from Anders while he bathed, he had struggled with the unwelcome thoughts and feelings that came when there was down time, time to think, time to dwell, time to desire.

Time to grow hard in his leathers.

When Anders had emerged from the bath, water running off of him in gleaming rivulets that had traced the lines of muscle in his lean frame. Fenris had been forced to go on the offensive just to keep himself from gawking. There was no chance that he could undress in front of Anders when his cock would spring out, hard, erect, needy as soon as he peeled down his leggings.

"I will not bathe in your filth."

By the time the servants had replaced the bath water, he had regained control of himself, but there was too much awkwardness in the room. Too many things unsaid. Too much lust, and Fenris did not believe he was deluding himself when he thought the lust was not one-sided.

He wanted to believe it was some twisted magic in Xenon's fetters.

He feared to believe that it was not.

He lay next to Anders in the dim firelight and he wanted to touch him.

He wanted to pin Anders down and punish him for these thoughts. He wanted to let his rage and lust course through the lyrium in his skin and through the chain between them until Anders writhed, begged, screamed. He wanted the pleasure to overwhelm the man until it crossed the threshold into too much, no more, please Fenris, please, mercy!

He wanted Justice to punish him in turn. He wanted that iron grip and the molten pleasure. He wanted every nerve to throb, he wanted to feel it burn his way through him, the antithesis of the pain that had burned away his memory, he wanted…

…he wanted…

He just wanted. The specifics were almost incidental to the craving.

Anders stirred behind him, bare skin to bare skin, both of them wearing light pants to sleep in because they both refused to sleep nude in their situation, half of Fenris' leather shirt laid on top of the blankets still strung on the chain.

He could roll over, twist the chain, trap Anders between it and…

…and be something he was not with someone he only wanted because of some trick of magic. Again and again magic perverted everything in his life.

He clenched his jaw tight and shifted away from Anders to roll onto his back, his eyes on the lazily shifting shadows in the canopy above the bed they shared.

"Mage," he said in a barely audible whisper.

No response, no change in Anders' breathing.

"Anders," he said, a little more loudly. Surely Anders would hear him if he were awake.

Nothing.

Only then did he let his unchained hand slide down the flat planes of his abdomen, dipping in under the waistband of his pants, pushing them low on his hips, tracing the length of his cock with his fingertips, slipping lower to cup his balls, squeezing just enough to make his breath catch in his throat.

—Anders' hands would be softer—

He brushed his thumb over the base of his shaft, feeling the slight texture difference where the finest line of lyrium on his body defined the center line of his shaft.

—his tongue would trace the lyrium, licking away the substance of magic—

He kept his eyes open, fearing that if he closed them, he would see Anders behind his closed eyelids, his skin crackling with a blue fire to match the lyrium glow on Fenris' skin.

He gripped himself, fingers sliding along the length of his erection, thumb teasing along the top of his foreskin, easing it back, pushing it forward in a slow glide of flesh on flesh.

—he would be tight, clenched around his cock, writhing when Fenris pulsed his hips and the lyrium power in time—

He felt the pleasure build, draw tight in his balls, in his abdomen, wrapping his spine tight, tighter, t— his breath caught, his body trembling with the effort or not thrusting up off the bed into his hand as he spilled hot over his fingers and onto his abdomen.

He already knew it wasn't enough.

Anders stayed silent, still sleeping, but the bed moved. When Fenris let his gaze shift to his left, he saw Ser Pounce-a-lot, fur burnished in the warm firelight, staring at him over Anders' shoulder.