The lift was possibly the slowest one on the planet, and the ride down to the apartment made it feel even slower.
Anora stood far away in the corner, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression cool and placid.
"So, I come all the way here, because I was worried that you were in danger because of her and I find out that you're hiding her?" When Anders looked at her she hardened her mouth into a line. "Are you two cuddle buddies now?"
"No," he answered simply, giving no indication of continuing on with any sort of explanation. He owed her none. Finn's decision to retrieve Kahrin from prison had saved them, and now they owed her safe harbor, and if Anora couldn't deal with that … well she'd just have to learn to deal with that. This was his city, and she wasn't supposed to be here. That had been the deal. He'd stay in his city, and she in hers. "Not that it's any of your business."
She looked at him as if he'd struck her.
"I came here because I was scared for you," she glared at him slightly.
Anders snorted a bit. "No, you came here because you wanted vengeance. It isn't the same thing." The lift hit the apartment floor and Anders slid the grate open.
"Yes. You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" She jutted her jaw and lower lip out in that way she had when she was pissed off.
"Did you come here to fight? Because this is getting a little old hat, Anora." Anders crossed his arms and gave her a look that read with almost no emotion.
"No, I came here because we-"
"There is no 'we', Anora," he interjected. "Not anymore."
"Clearly. I come here, Kahrin is here, not in prison. You're protecting her. What are we playing at here?" she gave him another tight lipped smile.
"We are not playing at anything. This was the arrangement. We don't see one another. Remember?"
She turned and rounded on him from her pacing. "That was your decision. One you made without me. You never even-" She was cut off again by the sewer access grate flying off the floor and the tall, purple shapely figure busting in. She rose up tall and threw magic at them that blew them both back against opposite walls. Anders didn't waste any time grabbing a longsword and charging back after the demon just as Anora lunged at it with her stake in hand. The demon kicked Anora away neatly as Anders slashed through her middle once with the sword, sending an arc of dark purple viscera through the air. A splatter of it flew into his mouth, the taste grotesque and repulsive causing him to want to retch it up.
The face with glowing eyes and pink hair that seemed to flutter around with no wind turned right to him, as if reading him. "Easily done, vampire," the demon hissed, clutching the wound in her stomach. She retreated back to the sewer grate and slipped away while Anora attempted to chase her.
"Anora, stop," he groaned slightly, his stomach clenching in a way he was unfamiliar with.
Face full of concern, she hesitated, then let the demon go, and rushed over to his side. "Are you all right? What happened?"
He straightened himself up, looking at her hand on his arm, then pulled away. "I'm fine, just a little blood. So," he winced, hiding it from her. "The deal is, you in your city, me in mine."
Anora glared down at where her hand had been. "Fine. And when she tries to kill you again, I don't want to hear about it." She stepped over to the lift. "Enjoy your new life, Anders."
As soon as she was gone, Anders doubled over, clutching his stomach, and then his chest, hitting the floor on his knees. His mouth opened and he let out no cry, only a strained sound like a death rattle from his throat, before he fell over onto the ground.
Carver came down the stairs, since the lift was busy, his hair and shoulders smoking slightly. "Shit, I always forget. I need a blanket or an umbrella or-" He took one look at Anders spread prostrate on the floor and swore loudly. "Hey, shit, man. Are you all right?"
He rolled him over, looking for a wound and saw none.
He did, however, feel a steady thrumming in the side of his neck, which made him jump back and crawl away backward. He had a pulse. Anders had a pulse.
Anders sat to sitting upright, gasping for breath. He felt himself drawing lungfuls of air and clapped his hands to his chest. "Carver, I'm …"
He narrowed his eyes at Anders. "Alive. Bloody hell, what happened?"
"I don't know, there was a demon, and we fought it, and some of the blood got in my mouth." It burned, and his whole body ached, and he groaned while standing.
"And you wound up with a pulse? That doesn't seem normal, if you ask me. Where's your," Carver waved a hand around, "friend?"
"Anora? Gone. Oh, wow. Everything hurts."
"Ha. I can imagine. Being alive is … well it's alive. With everything that goes with it. Guess you forgot, huh? Anyhow." Carver frowned at him. "Should I go get Saoirse? She might know what to do."
"About my being alive? No. Don't tell her yet. Where is she?" Anders looked at Saoirse's brother, and then his face turned awkward. "I … I should tell her."
"They went for Thai food just after you all came down here. It's daylight so I had to …" he hardened his eyes at him a moment. "Oh, my sister? Really?" Carver gave him a fairly horrified look.
Anders lifted an eyebrow and almost chuckled. "Says the guy who's sneaking a Slayer in here five nights a week."
"Oh, ha. You noticed that, did you?" Carver backed off, helping him up, feeling the blood pumping through his Sire's veins and hearing his heart. He promptly filed this under 'weird shit', more of the things he had to get used to since he'd been turned. Since coming to Kirkwall.
They took the lift back up to the office, and Anders stood, frozen for a few moments staring at the sunbeam pouring in through the window, the motes of dust floating lazily. He walked slowly, reaching a hand out in front of him as he cautiously stepped into the light. He took a sigh of relief and walked all the way to the window, laying a hand upon it, then his forehead. "It's so warm." He looked up and out the window, a pair of amber-brown eyes looking back at him with a face he barely recognized. The last time he'd seen it his hair had been longer, and darker and … "It's been over two-hundred years. I almost forgot what … I looked like."
The breath he drew, the way his heart beat, the slight growl in his stomach, they were all things that felt too real or too vivid.
Including the thoughts that came to his mind. For the last year they had existed in the same space, and he'd watched her and kept an appropriate distance. He knew what he was, and that meant that there was nothing he could offer a human woman. He wouldn't call it pining, per se, but he would be lying if he hadn't often thought about what it would be like. But he'd left Ferelden because he knew that he would prevent Anora from moving on to a normal life. He kept his distance from Saoirse since they'd come here because he didn't want to stop her life from continuing.
Things had suddenly changed, though. That had to mean something. He hadn't been good for her, but now, maybe …
"Hey, you alive over there?" Carver's words carried a certain irony, though it seemed to be lost on him.
Anders simply nodded once and walked out the door, with Carver still calling after him.
They were easy enough to find, the group of them. Kahrin, Finn and Saoirse, clearly waiting for Carver to come back before piling into the tiny restaurant which wasn't far from the office. It was fast for delivery when they all had to stay late for one case or another, and had the benefit of an awning that hung over the side.
"There's no way I am going back there until I'm sure that Hurricane Anora has blown out of town," Kahrin rolled her eyes, and for once, Saoirse agreed with her.
"If she stakes him, I am so not cleaning it up. It'll be better than his brooding about it for the next week." Saoirse adjusted her dark sunglasses back up her nose. "I say we eat without Carver, he doesn't eat anyhow." She waved the other two in ahead of her just as Anders cleared his throat.
"Saoirse, can I talk to you, it won't take long." He gestured to her from under the awning, startling her slightly, and she gave him an arched eyebrow, looking up and down the street.
"How did you get down here? That stupid brother of mine made it two steps and forgot it was daylight." She looked at his face, which had a half-drawn smirk on it as she sort of rambled on. "Anders, what's wrong? What did she do this time?"
"She didn't do anything," he said with a slight smile as he took her hand. It was warm, and he could feel that it was warm and moved to step out into the glaring sun.
Saoirse grabbed his arm and yanked him back into the shadow of the awning. "Have you lost your mind? Don't do this, it's not worth it! Don't let her get to you! You'll move on."
He gave her a puzzled expression, tilting his head slightly. "What? No, it's nothing like that," he shook his head and pulled his arm free from her grasp and stepped into the sun as she lunged for him in a panic, then stopped.
"Anders, why are you not on fire?" Her eyebrow shot up further and she pushed her glasses up on the top of her head as she stepped towards him cautiously, squinting her eyes slightly, less at the sun and more at the curious expression on his face.
Taking her hand he held it up to his chest where his heart was beating. "Something happened," he said it as if that explained it all.
She gaped at him for a few moments, at the way the sun glinted off of his hair, at the way it beat down on his rather too-pale face, how it almost embraced him warmly. "What do you mean, something hap-" The way she could feel his heart beating beneath her palm, steady and strong and very much there, and she nearly jerked it away, but instead pressed her hand flat and solidly into the tiny thumping. "Anders, you're," she shook her head, still disbelieving what she was seeing and feeling.
His fingers curled around the hand on his chest and he squeezed it slightly. "It seems that way." He wrapped an arm around to her back and pulled her closer and for the briefest of moments she seemed like she might resist or pull away.
But she didn't, and instead gripped the front of his shirt in her fists as he leaned over and met her mouth with his, and kissed her hungrily with enough intensity to blot out the sun that was warming both of their faces. As if he'd been waiting a lifetime to do just that thing.
In some ways, he had.