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By the time Hawke got out of the debriefing with Cousland, the party had already gotten started; he heard the echoes of the muffled bass rhythm from a floor away. All the post-Kaiju kill parties were held in the H-M block pilot's lounge, where they had a dimmer for the fluorescents and piped in staticky, low-grade music over the PA system.
Aside from that, there wasn't really much in the way of luxuries in Kirkwall Shatterdome to whip out for parties - the food was the same terrible food it always was, and the booze was the same terrible booze, although there was at least more of it. It was up to them to make the atmosphere a party one, and they did their best; every pilot on base was invited, as well as however much of the support staff was invited and could cram into the lounge.
Varric was already well established in his habitual seat; the seam-burst armchair under the tiny television screen, flanked by rows of vinyl couches. He spotted Hawke as soon as he walked in, and raised a pewter mug to him with a joyful call. "Hey, Hawke! Man of the hour!
"Look alive, people!" Hawke called out as he swaggered into the lounge. "This is a Hawke party now!"
"Can't be," somebody jeered from the back of the crowd. "The Shatterdome's not on fire and nobody's naked."
"Yet!" someone else yelled, and Varric laughed.
"I've been saving you a drink," Varric said. "Come on, kill it like Varterral!"
This prospect was met by cheers and raucous catcalling on the part of the party guests, so Hawke put a swing in his step as he walked across the lounge to claim the oversized mug Varric pushed down the table towards him. For the look of things he picked it up, struck a pose, and then downed the entire thing in one go.
It was half again the size of the normal tankards, and Hawke was already beginning to feel a bit full in the face by the time he reached the bottom of it; but he had an image to keep up, so he downed the last drop and threw his head back with a gasp, shaking the empty mug upside down in proof. The cheering from the rest of the lounge redoubled, and Hawke took a bow.
"Hawke?" Straightening up, he glanced around until he saw Anders waving him from the end of one of the couches; there was an empty space beside him, which Hawke cheerfully claimed after collecting two more drinks. Anders immediately cuddled up against his side, and Hawke enjoyed a thorough haven't-seen-you-in-two-hours-welcome-back snog before he settled back against the cushions.
Anders leaned away from him and craned his neck, looking Hawke up and down. Hawke grinned. "What are you doing?" he said.
"Checking for grill marks," Anders said.
Hawke laughed. "Ha, as if the Commander would have anything bad to say about me," he said. "I'm awesome."
Anders gave him a pinch to his ribs that made him jump, but then followed it up with an apology kiss. "Awesomely hubristic, you mean," he said.
"Yeah, that does sound like me," Hawke agreed, and then tilted his head back to look around the room. "Looks like the party's really getting started."
Though the night was yet young, the party had already shaken down into the usual little groups; the open space near the kitchenette had been converted into an impromptu dance floor. It had been claimed mostly by the younger base personnel with more energy to burn after a stressful day, but also by Aveline and Donnic, who were standing in a close embrace in the corner slow-dancing (in all defiance of the actual music.)
The kitchenette itself now sported a modest snack bar; Hawke was somewhat surprised to spy Sten lurking over by the edge of the kitchenette, since the stoic giant rarely left the Commander's side. But the lieutenant's presence became clear once he saw the package of highly rationed, highly coveted shortbread cookies being passed around - Sten's voracious sweet tooth was often joked to be the only way they could tell him apart from the Jaegers.
The seats nearest to the counter had also been colonized as a cocktail station; Isabela was mixing drinks, Hawke didn't even want to know with what. All the usual suspects were crowded into that area as well - Merrill, flushed and giggling after only one glass of something pink and bubbling, Oghren knocking back whiskey like water, and Fenris with his crutches leaning up on the barstool beside him.
"I have a feeling the party got started sooner for some of us than others," Anders commented, eyeing Fenris without favor. Although Fenris only had one empty cup on the bar beside him and another in his hands, he already looked well on his way to being thoroughly smashed. Sebastian was hovering nearby, as usual, and his faint expression of worry was always a reliable barometer as to Fenris' state of inebriation. "Maker, how many did he have before he even bothered to come down here?"
Hawke shook his head. "You know he can't tolerate opiates, love," he said. Due to its relatively easy and inexpensive production process, morphine was pretty much the only painkiller they had available to them on the base; after that, it was back to the old 'a shot of gin for the pain' methods. Or, in Fenris' case, a whole bottle of gin. Or two.
Anders pursed his lips disapprovingly. "I don't know why the Warden-Commander puts up with it," he said.
"As long as he keeps it out of the cockpit, Cousland won't interfere," Hawke replied. "Whatever gets him through the day, just like the rest of us."
Hawke didn't know Fenris' story - Fenris' transfer from the Minrathous Shatterdome well predated Hawke's arrival in Kirkwall, and they weren't exactly close enough friends for Fenris to share all his secrets. Most of the rest of his history was buried under a patient confidentiality seal in the infirmary records - but some signs lingered, like the tattoo scars that ran over Fenris' arms, and neck, and face. Rumor had it that the designs had been tattooed on his skin with kaiju blood, although how they'd managed to neutralize it thoroughly enough not to kill him on contact Hawke had no idea.
Whatever they had been, on arriving at Kirkwall Fenris had gone to considerable effort and discomfort to get the tattoos surgically removed - but even their erasure left a fine filigree of pale scars in the places they used to be, white lines highlighted against his dusky skin. That, combined with his habit of self-medication, were the only outward evidence of whatever had happened to him in Minrathous.
"All right, everyone!" Varric yelled out, climbing up on top of the table and holding up his hands to get the attention of the room. Obligingly, even the staticky music turned down to a low muffled thumping. "Now, I know that everyone in this room by now has gotten at least one drink - with the exception of our resident teetotallers, here," Varric bowed quickly towards Sebastian, and then Anders. "You do realize that by abstaining, you've basically designated yourselves emergency backup drivers? If a kaiju attacks while we're all in here drunk, the two of you are going to have to get in a Jaeger together and go fight it."
Laughter filled the room in response to this pronouncement. Sebastian chuckled wryly, though Anders only twisted uncomfortably in Hawke's arms. Varric went on. "So while we've still got the booze to do it with, I'd like to propose a toast!"
He held his own ceramic mug up towards the ceiling, and for a moment his wide smiling features grew serious. "It's easy to get used to this life, this constant struggle," he began, into a suddenly quiet room. "It's easy to fall into the rhythm of the job and think of it as just another day job, something to fill the hours and bring home a paycheck. It's easy to get to comparing one of those monsters against each other, and begin to think that they're not such a big deal at all. It's easy to get to thinking that a kaiju like Varterral is "only" a Category Three, and that means it's small or weak or not worth our time.
"But let's never forget that even a "minor" monster like Varterral, if it were allowed to have its way, will mean the death of thousands - even millions - of people. Let's not forget that they don't stop, they don't ever stop, until one of our Jaegers puts them down. Let us remember that every - single - one of these kaiju could mean the end of the world as we know it, the end of life for millions of people - if not for what we do here.
"And let's not forget that it takes every one of us here to make that possible. Not just the Jaeger pilots - handsome as we are - " this earned a laugh, and Varric bowed again as Hawke pumped enthusiastically in the air - "But the mechanics, and the scientists, and the booth bunnies, and the administrators, and the cooks, and yes, even the fucking janitors, every single one of us plays a part in keeping the Shatterdome running and these monsters off our shores. So let's all drink up, because today we saved the world. Again!"
Varric climbed down off the table to general claps, hoots, and plastic cups raised high and sloshing in salute. "Even if we could have all done without the unsolicited sneak peek into Hawke's sex life," Aveline called out dryly, even as she applauded Varric's speech. Anders buried his face against the side of Hawke's neck, skin heating with another luminescent blush.
"Speak for yourselves!" Isabela yelled out in response, nuzzling up against Merrill who had somehow migrated into her lap. "I for one thought it added color to an otherwise very dry broadcast."
Aveline snorted. "I just feel sorry for Varric, having to Drift with him," she said. "I'm sure he gets a head full more of Hawke's sex life than anyone else needs to see."
"Hey, I'll have you know that there's nothing about my sex life that's a trial to live through," Hawke objected, crumpling an empty plastic cup and tossing it in Aveline's direction. Throwing it with his left hand it went wide, since his right was still pinned between Anders and the back of the couch.
"I can't help but being concerned, however," Sebastian said to Varric. "I mean, it's easy to joke about, but it can't be easy for you, can it?"
"How do you mean?" Varric asked, taking a long pull on his drink.
"You know... being forced to witness Hawke's... sexual acts, with you being... as the Maker made you," Sebastian stammered slightly, gesturing to Varric.
Varric's eyebrows rose in disbelief, and Sebastian's complexion flushed a little darker. Varric took another drink, then chuckled. "Choir boy, I don't know where you've been getting your information," he said, "but the 'a' doesn't actually stand for 'allergic.' It's not like wolfsbane - I'm not going to shrivel up and die from being exposed to other people bumping uglies. Personally, I don't find the two-man tango to be worth my time and effort, but if Hawke and Blondie do? Hey, more power to them."
"I, ah... I apologize for assuming..." Sebastian started, but Varric waved him off with a 'don't worry about it' gesture.
"I just remind myself that it could have been worse," Varric said, raising his voice above the general laughter. "If I ever start feeling sorry for myself I just stop and think: I could have wound up partnered with Bartrand, listening in on HIS sex life!"
The lounge rang with laughter; Varric really knew how to work a crowd. He'd be auditioning for the role of Warden-Commander next, Hawke thought with fond amusement.
"Speaking of brothers," Donnic said when the hubbub began to die down. "Is Carver not joining us tonight?"
That put a damper on Hawke's good mood, and he scowled. "No. He's out with the salvaging crew," he said, trying not to sound too petulant. "Frying his nuts off with radioactive kaiju blood and destroying the possibility of at least one of us carrying on the family name someday."
"You don't approve?" Donnic sounded surprised. "It's important work."
"It's stupid work is what it is," Hawke argued back. As the family member of a Jaeger pilot, Carver could have lived in (definite) safety and (relative) comfort on the base as long as he wanted without ever having to wade hip-deep through kaiju entrails. "He doesn't have to go out there and get his face chewed off by kaiju lice, but he does it anyway. Risking his fool neck -"
Another pinch to his ribs interrupted him; Anders had apparently gotten over his terminal case of embarrassment. "I'm sorry to say it, love," Anders said, sounding not at all sorry to say it. "But you are a howling hypocrite."
"Look, anyone could do salvaging -" Hawke started.
"But not just anyone would," Merrill chimed in; she'd been puttering about the lounge, picking up discarded cups and stacking them neatly for re-use. "I think it's pretty brave of him, don't you?"
That gave Hawke pause. "That's not the point," he said at last, sulkily. "It would have been different if we'd been pilots together. Pilots can't be spared, there aren't enough of them -"
A harsh laugh interrupted him, and Hawke began to wonder if anyone was planning to let him finish a sentence tonight. "Oh, Maker spare us from the prospect of a Hawke and Hawke sibling pilot team," Fenris called out from his perch at the bar. "It's bad enough with Varric along to temper just one of your fool recklessness."
"Excuse me?" Anders demanded indignantly. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I said what I said," Fenris said with a sneer. "Hawke is a disaster in the cockpit, who half the time ends up destroying whatever town he's gone out to save."
"Ooh, are you boys going to fight?" Isabela purred from the sidelines. "Will there be nude wrestling involved? I brought oil. C'mon, fight!"
Hawke scoffed. While there was a grain of truth in Fenris' accusations, it wasn't like Andraste's Fist was any better - some amount of collateral damage was just par for the course in any Jaeger-Kaiju battle. They tried to keep the battle sites away from habitable areas when they could, but the fact was that a little localized damage and a dead kaiju was far preferable to the massive damage that could result from a kaiju running unchecked, and Fenris knew this perfectly well.
Fenris was just being Fenris; he took the business of fighting kaiju even more personally than Hawke did. The two of them had something of a friendly rivalry going on - at least, Hawke liked to think it was friendly - since Kirkwall Champion and Andraste's Fist were the two newest, largest and best-armed of the Jaegers present at the Shatterdome. If anything, Andraste's Fist had the edge in hardware, equipped with a new and experimental phase-punch engine that let them rip through Kaiju armor like tissue paper (if only for a few seconds at a time, with several weeks to recharge.)
"Just ignore him, love," Hawke said, giving Anders' arm a squeeze. "He's just jealous because he's got a fancier Jaeger than me but still can't match my kill-count."
Anders ignored him, shaking off Hawke's arm as he stood up, facing Fenris. "If you've got a problem with Hawke, you've got a problem with me," he said.
Fenris scowled at him. "I'm perfectly capable of having a problem with you all by yourself, without Hawke to hide behind."
"Me, hiding behind Hawke?" Anders laughed scornfully. "That's rich coming from you. Is it even you talking right now or the alcohol you've poured into your bloodstream that's making you brave? Too much of a coward to face the world sober?"
"Blondie..." Varric muttered, reaching out to take hold of Anders' elbow. Anders shook him off, still glaring daggers at Fenris.
Fenris sputtered. "I don't have to take this shit from a crazy, washed-up failure like you," he sneered.
Anders flushed red to his ears, and his fists clenched. "Oh, I'm a washed up failure, am I? At least I was a real pilot, when I had the chance. Not a lab experiment like you! You know you never would have been any use to anyone without Danarius' research!"
Danarius? Hawke didn't know who that was, but just the mention of his name spread a poisonous silence through the lounge like kaiju blood in a pool. Fenris blanched white, then his face began to slowly darken with a rush of blood as fury filled his visage, his tattoo scars standing out in livid white. It took him a few sputtering moments to find his tongue, and when he did it was in a stream of vicious Tevene. "Venhedis! Vishante kaffas! You dare?" he nearly screamed, reverting to Common. "You? You're no pilot! You failed your mission, you lost your Jaeger, you got your copilot killed! It's your fault he's dead and it's your fault we're under-strength! Worthless, defective piece of trash. You ought to be out rotting in the camps with the rest of the garbage! Instead, you're living in the lap of luxury as Hawke's little pet and pretending that you're still good for something more than fucking!"
For a moment, Hawke was sure that Anders was going to throw a punch at Fenris, and he winced in horrified anticipation. Even laid up off his feet as Fenris was, there was still a better than even chance that he'd win any fight Anders started, which left Hawke torn: he figured he had a duty to support his boyfriend, but attacking a guy on crutches was really bad form. "Ooh, are the boys gonna fight?" Merrill piped up excitedly. "C'mon fight! Fight!"
"Hush, kitten," Isabela muttered.
Their voices shattered the spell that had been cast over the room. Anders inhaled one deep breath; he was shaking all over, Hawke noticed with worry, from head to foot. Fists tight, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
"Andraste's fucking grace, Fenris," Isabela groaned, breaking the awkward silence that fell in his wake. "We've all got trauma, okay? That doesn't excuse being an absolute prick about it."
Fenris looked a little green around the ears, not a good contrast with his coloring; he huddled further down on his bar stool clutching his drink. "He started it," Fenris muttered.
"No, actually, you did kind of start it," Varric observed.
"I started it with Hawke - he knows better," Fenris protested. "If he hadn't decided to involve himself -"
"I don't fucking want to hear it," Hawke snapped. "You can sharpen your claws on me all night long if it makes you feel better about yourself, but leave Anders out of it!"
He stormed out. By the time Hawke got out into the corridor, Anders was gone from sight. Hawke sighed. It was going to be another long night of hide-and-Anders.
"Hawke, wait!" A familiar voice called out from the lounge doorway, and Hawke slowed and turned with a sigh. Aveline was a breath of home, the only survivor of Lothering apart from himself and Carver, and as little as he wanted to talk to anyone right now he couldn't turn his back on her.
Aveline caught up to him in the dimmed corridor, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Listen, Hawke," she began, "don't be too hard on Fenris. He -"
"I know. I get it, okay?" Hawke interrupted. "I know he's been through a lot, and he can't be entirely rational on some topics. But it's not fair to Anders to ask him to just eat shit and smile when Fenris calls him 'defective' and 'crazy'."
Aveline's hand tightened slightly on his shoulder, the tension in her hand mirrored in her frown. "...he's not entirely wrong, you know."
"What?" Hawke stared at her; ready to laugh, certain he must have misheard.
"About Anders," Aveline said reluctantly. "I mean, he doesn't need to be so cruel about it, but he's got a point. Anders isn't... stable."
"Sorry, what?" Hawke knocked her hand away from his arm. "How did we get from Fenris being a prick to you telling me my boyfriend is crazy?"
Aveline fell back a step and crossed her arms, staring at Hawke with her lips tight. Hawke stared back, meeting her gaze with a challenge, and Aveline sighed. "Look," she said. "How much do you know about what happened with Freedom's Call?"
Freedom's Call. It took a minute for him to place that call sign, and when he did he was ashamed to have forgotten it; that was Anders' old Jaeger, from when he'd been a pilot. "I know it was involved in the battle of Colean Sea," he said finally. "I know the Jaeger was totalled, and his copilot died. That's all."
"There was more to it than that," Aveline said, leaning up against the corridor wall. "The battle of Colean Sea was a united push on the Breach... to find a way to destroy it once and for all. They failed, and the Jaegers involved had to retreat or were destroyed - including that one, but during the battle, Freedom's Call passed into the Breach itself."
Hawke felt a cold shock race up his spine, and he stared in disbelief. "What? How?"
"We don't know how," Aveline said. "We don't know how they got back, either. We don't know much at all, because all the Jaeger's recording instruments shorted out the moment they went through the Breach. The only recordings we do have are the pilots' suits life support telemetry. Hawke, the pilots of Freedom's Call were without oxygen for seven minutes in the Breach. Human brain death normally occurs after two.
"By the time they got back..." she sighed heavily. "Karl was unconscious. Anders managed to pilot Freedom's Call back to shore by himself, but... the neural strain, combined with the oxygen loss... I'm sorry, but there's no way he could have come through that without major brain damage. He was delirious for a week, raving when he was conscious at all, with constant seizures - he had to be restrained, to keep him from attacking the orderlies. No one thought he would ever recover... and when he did, he was different."
The look of pity on her face was too much; Hawke wanted to crack some inappropriate joke to wash it away, but for once in his life he couldn't think of one. All he could think of was Anders, the man he loved, tossing and turning in a hospital bed with his brain scrambled. Hawke had been on the end of enough bad disconnects to know how crushingly painful it could be to be alone in a harness, and he'd only ever been there for a few seconds. "What do you mean, different?" he finally managed to say.
"I mean different as in complete personality shift, of the Phineas Gage-railroad-spike-through-brain variety," Aveline said sharply. "You didn't know him then, Hawke. You don't know how he used to be. He was so easygoing back then, so happy, so quick with a joke."
"He still is," Hawke pointed out quickly.
Aveline shook her head. "Not like he used to be. Now he's moody, irritable... loses his temper at the drop of a hat... constantly picking fights. The slip in the booth today -"
"Maker's Breath, Aveline! Are you still on about that?" Hawke raked his hands through his hair.
"- is just the last in a long series of outbursts," Aveline siad, ignoring his interruption. "Anders has no impulse control whatsoever."
"Neither do I," Hawke snapped. "I'm kind of famous for it, actually, or did you miss the whole running naked through the Shatterdome thing earlier?"
Aveline's lips pressed into a tight line of annoyance. "That's not what I'm talking about -"
"And have you considered that maybe the reason he's 'moody' and 'irritable' is that people who are supposed to be his friends like to talk about him like he's damaged goods behind his back?" Hawke continued.
Aveline glared, then let her gaze soften. Her voice when she spoke again was soft, pitying. "I know this is hard for you to hear, Hawke, but he's not alright," she said. "That he survived is amazing - that he's functioning at all is a miracle - but he's not ever going to be normal again."
Hawke could deal with Aveline's prickliness, but it was the pity in her eyes that stopped him cold. He had to swallow hard to get past all the words crammed in his throat, all the wrong shape and size that he couldn't make himself say. "...What happened to his copilot?" he asked after a long silence. He'd known that Thekla was dead, but he'd always assumed the other pilot had died in the harness. If he'd made it back to shore alive, why wasn't he here now? "To Karl Thekla, the other one who went through the Breach and came back."
Aveline's gaze slid off towards the floor. "...They put him on life support, but that was all they could do for him," she said. "He was a complete flatline - no brain activity at all. When Anders was coherent enough to understand, he asked for the plug to be pulled. He said that Karl wouldn't want to live on like that, like a vegetable."
"Anders asked?" Hawke repeated, startled.
"He was Karl's designated next of kin," Aveline said with a shrug. "They couldn't prove he was mentally incompetent, so it was his decision."
Hawke's breath caught. He'd known Karl's name - Anders didn't like to talk about him, but he'd at least known that the two of them were lovers. But designated next of kin... That went far beyond just 'lovers.' He'd had no idea, none at all.
"He had to watch his lover die," Hawke realized. "And you don't think that's reason enough for a bit of moodiness after? I know this might come as a shock to you, Aveline, but some people do actually grieve."
Aveline's gaze snapped back to him with a glare and a snarl, and Hawke realized that he'd gone too far. He actually felt a stab of shame over it, a rare event in the life of Garrett Hawke. He took a step back, bowing his head and holding up one hand. "I'm sorry," he said, before she could rip into him. "That was uncalled for. I know you loved Wesley, and I know you grieved for him."
She took a deep breath, visibly reigning back in her temper. "Accepted," she said tightly.
An awkward silence hovered in the corridor between them, before Aveline let out a sigh. "Hawke, I'm not trying to destroy your relationship with Anders or anything like that," she said. "He makes you happy, you make him happy, good for both of you. But you really need to stop trying to force him into the chain of operations like you do. Ever since Karl's death, he's refused to even hook up to a pilot simulator. Whatever he was capable of once, he's not now."
"He does a perfectly fine job in the booth -" Hawke started.
"Reading off printouts from the R&D department!" Aveline threw up her hands in exasperation. "That's not exactly brain surgery. We could train a mabari to do that if they could talk."
"Did you actually just compare my boyfriend to a dog?" Hawke asked.
"For Andraste's sake, Hawke, I'm not trying to tell you this because I enjoy tearing him down," Aveline snapped.
"Could have fooled me," Hawke growled.
"I'm just trying to get you to see reason - for all our sakes," Aveline pushed on. "Anders doesn't belong in the Shatterdome any more."
"So, what then?" Hawke couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You agree with Fenris? You think we should kick him out of the Shatterdome, send him back to the camps? You know what Meredith does to 'marginals' who 'can't pull their weight.' That's a pretty fine reward you have in mind for service and sacrifice. I'll be sure to remember it if Varric and I are ever injured in combat."
High spots of color flared in Aveline's cheeks. "I don't care where he goes or what he does, but I don't want him on control if Donnic and I are out in battle!" she shouted. "I won't risk either of our lives or our Jaeger to coddle your broken boyfriend with an artificial sense of self-worth!"
She shoved past him in the hallway, her back rigid as she marched back towards the lounge. "He's not broken, Aveline!" Hawke yelled after her. "And if you'd just give him a chance, instead of forging blindly forward on your assumptions, you'd see that. But I suppose that's always been what you do best!"