I know I missed @andersweek by a day, but I've been poking at my unpublished Andistair long fic all week, you guys, in between trying to remember how to write at all in my Fenders AU Linked, just trying to gussy up something enough to share with you all lovely wonderful Anders-loving people.
This would've probably best fit, like everything I write, for Sunday's prompt (Speculative Sunday: AUs/divergence/second chances/post-canon)...call it a crackship or non-canonical pairing if you want, but I happen to think it works really well in a certain broken world state where you get these two first meeting in Awakening, and then DA2, and then...behind the scenes at a few key moments in my head. But they're so...fun. Lovely? A little bit tragic? Complementary...?
Anyway, I humbly offer you the very beginning of a thing I hold near and dear to my broken little heart (some dialogue stolen directly from Awakening with tweaks bc I can)...
Working Title: Keeping Vigil
Summary: Anders meets the King of Ferelden on the day he joins the Grey Wardens. Then again a few years later. And again. And again. And again...
On AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81734421/chapters/214992976
Characters/Relationships: Anders/Alistair, Darrian Tabris (I never played through Origins as a Tabris but I created him for Morrigan and Alistair in this world state...they needed a fun and slightly unhinged city elf rogue to keep them from killing and/or fucking each other in this one...and then I also fell in love with him...oops), Oghren, other Awakening Wardens <3 and Kirkwallers eventually, of course...
Chapter 1: Conscripted (yeah, I'm posting the whole thing under the read more..!!!)
Anders isn’t sure how, but they manage to survive the onslaught of Darkspawn and before the dust has even settled, he hears trumpets blaring, announcing the oddly-timed arrival of the newly-crowned King of Ferelden. The Warden-Commander offers him a hand through the black smoke, checks only to make sure he’s standing on his own two feet, and then darts off to the gates with a disconcertingly child-like grin to presumably greet this most recent arrival to the cursed fortress. Anders and the others follow him…why? Maker-only-knows…
“Your majesty, beware!” A harsh-looking woman steps forward past the King’s battered entourage, eyeing Anders with so much malice that he takes a step back behind Oghren. “This man is a dangerous criminal…”
“Oh, the dwarf is a bit of an ass,” the King laughs, “but I wouldn’t go that —”
Anders sees the Templar insignia emblazoned on her chestplate, and the relief he’d been starting to let himself feel at having somehow survived the ambush is sucked right out of him by a second wave of adrenaline and a sudden all-too-familiar urge to flee.
“She means me,” he forces himself to mutter instead, realizing there’s no chance for him to slip away from this mess he’s gotten himself into unnoticed now.
“Allow me to explain,” she huffs, directing her explanation to the King, instead of the Warden-Commader who appears to be sneering at her. “I am Ser Rylock, and this is a nefarious apostate who we’ve been in the process of bringing back to the Circle to face justice before this new wave of —”
“Oh, please,” Anders scoffs. He figures he might as well make this count since he has a bit of an audience, judging by the Warden-Commander’s initial reaction to her and the familiarity he senses between him and the King. He isn’t exactly highborn nobility, being an elf, and he seems to have experienced his own fair share of injustice at the hands of a different, albeit intertwined, establishment. “The things you people know about justice would fit into a thimble! I’ll probably just escape again, anyhow.”
“Never!” The Templar turns back to Anders now, her face growing red with fury. “I will see you hanged for what you’ve done here, murderer!”
“Murderer?! But those Templars were — oh, what’s the use? It hardly matters, right? Not like it even counts seeing as we’re not even human to you…”
Anders glances back toward the Warden-Commander to see his reaction, but he seems to be busy having some kind of side conversation with the King using only his eyebrows. Anders sighs in resignation as Ser Rylock takes another step towards him bearing enchanted shackles that will disrupt his connection to the Fade and block any magic he would attempt to use to defend himself.
He takes a deep breath to prepare for the sickening emptiness he’s about to feel, but he knows from experience that submitting to this humiliation is better than resisting and earning himself a full on smite.
The King clears his throat. “Well, it seems there really isn’t much to say.” To Anders’ surprise, he steps between them, causing Ser Rylock to pause and take a step back just as she’s about to shackle him, looking absolutely shocked to be eclipsed by the hulking form of the King. “That is, unless…you have something to add, Warden-Commander?”
The Warden-Commander nods and there’s another sly grin shared quite obviously between the two of them, before he turns to Anders. “How would you feel about joining the Wardens?”
“What?!” Ser Rylock exclaims, her voice sounding weirdly distant and hollow now behind the King and all his armor. “Never!”
“I believe the Grey Wardens still bear the Right of Conscription, no?” King Alistair glances innocently enough between Ser Rylock and the Warden-Commander.
“I believe we do…” The Warden-Commander grins with no attempt to hide his smugness.
“I will allow it, then!” the King declares triumphantly, with a nod so enthusiastic that it nearly jostles the delicate crown off his head.
“If…if your Majesty feels it is best,” Ser Rylock mutters, looking utterly dejected as she turns away and skulks back toward the gates.
“Ha! Way to go, kid!” Oghren slaps Anders on the back and he lurches forward, gasping another hard-earned sigh of relief. “Welcome aboard!”
“Me?” Anders asks. He is still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he’s not currently being led away in magebane-coated shackles. “A Grey Warden? I mean…I guess that will work…”
He glances back up at the King, who is now attempting to straighten the crown on his head self-consciously while also trying to straighten his face and keep from bursting into laughter at the Warden-Commander, who is showing no such restraint himself, snickering at him as he finally lends the man a hand and shoves the ridiculously delicate thing back into his closely-cropped hair, tucking it back behind his barely-pointed ears and grasping his shoulders, before pulling him into an embrace.
“Congratulations, ser mage,” Mhairi says to Anders with so much reverence and conviction that he actually believes her when she adds, “I look forward to fighting at your side.”
Seneschal Varel pulls the Warden-Commander and the King aside and fills them in on the situation after this latest skirmish with the Darkspawn. It seems grim — missing Wardens, no trace of any of the Orlesians, and a whole bunch of repairs to make if the Keep is to withstand another attack. What has Anders just gotten himself into? He starts to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to go back to Kinloch with Ser Rylock and take his chances at another escape. It’s not as though he’s really any closer to Kirkwall serving as a Warden here. He might eventually be able to make his way further north…but when? How long can Karl really be expected to wait for him?
But then Oghren grips his arm and pulls him away. “Come on, kid. We got a Joining to prepare for!”
The King looks up at the two of them from his conversation with the Seneschal and what is soon to be Anders’ very own Warden-Commander, assuming he survives this mysterious ritual. There’s a mix of pity and admiration on his face as he looks him over, and when he realizes Anders is staring back at him, his expression quickly changes, and he offers him an encouraging nod instead. Anders doesn’t even know what he’s doing before he catches himself winking cheekily at the King of Ferelden. Thankfully, the Seneschal says something that brings the King’s attention back to the conversation as Anders’ cheeks redden at his own habitual shamelessness.
“An Arl, then…? Look at you!” Anders hears the King say as he slings an arm around the much smaller elf at his side. It’s not that the Warden-Commander is particularly small for an elf. It’s just that the King is…well, he’s just a very large man. The Warden-Commander shrugs into him and mutters something about “...bloody shem politics,” before the King finally bursts out into laughter. It’s a truly beautiful sound.
Anders asks Oghren, “What’s he like, the King? I mean…you fought with him during the worst of it, right?”
“You think you got a chance with him, kid?”
“Well, he did just help to save my life…”
“Saved mine plenty of times, too. Doesn’t mean he wanted to share a bedroll!” He cackles, wheezing, then coughs. “He’s a good man. Bit idealistic at times. Has a sadness to him, though. But good to have on your side because he can swing a sword, too, and will throw himself in front of pretty much anything for you. Consider yourself lucky he and the Commander seem to have a soft spot for you mages…that Templar sure seemed to have it out for you.”
“Yes, well…” Anders sighs. “That just seems to be a part of the job.”
“You know, the King was almost one.”
“One what?”
“A Templar. Got conscripted to the Wardens right before he took his oaths.”
“Interesting…”
“Don’t go gettin’ any weird ideas about it.”
“I’m…not…”
“Yeah you are…” Oghren snorts. “I can see the filthy gears turnin’ in your head already!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can we just…” Anders huffs. “What exactly are we meant to be doing right now?”
“Gotta collect some Darkspawn blood…think we’re gonna have to drink it!”
“Wait, seriously?”
…
Darrian had asked him to stay. To oversee the new Wardens’ Joinings and to help with repairs to the Keep. And Alistair was thrilled. It’s what he was hoping for, to be honest. That his quick “tour” would turn into more of a “stay.” Much to his guards’ and his uncle’s annoyance. Teagan would be waiting back at Denerim to scold him for leaving so recklessly at the first sign of trouble and abandoning his duties as King, most certainly. But that was a problem for later. He was a Warden, after all. Before he was ever a King. And with an active Darkspawn threat, his loyalty was to the Order.
Little did he know that Darrian had Rendon Howe’s only surviving son chained up in the dungeons, awaiting a decision about his fate after an attempt on his life.
“I think I’m going to give him the option to Join,” Darrian tells him as they tour the armory, taking stock of all the ways they’re ill-prepared for a full assault should the Darkspawn horde target the Keep again in earnest.
“What? This is the son of the Butcher of Denerim…remember him?!”
“Yeah. Of course, I remember him…” Darrian stops and glares at him.
Well, of course he does. Alistair shudders at the memories of what they discovered in the dungeons of the Howe estate and the reparations he continues to try to make for the man’s heinous crimes.
“And he’s sworn to get vengeance…for disgracing his family, yeah?”
“I think he’s begun to realize we’re not the ones responsible for his family’s fall from grace…”
Darrian pulls out his favorite dagger when they reach the sharpening station and wipes it clean on the leather strap hanging from his belt.
“It’s obviously your call,” Alistair sighs. “But honestly…?”
Darrian examines the edge of his favorite blade, squinting at the way it reflects the light, before lowering it onto the whet stone and sliding it carefully over the surface. “We gave that snarky apostate the option…”
“Well, yes, but that’s hardly…”
“And I was right about Zev, wasn’t I?”
“Jury’s still out. He still might show up and try to kill you. Not sure if Crow contracts have an expiration date.”
“You never seemed to mind sharing a tent with him.” Darrian points the knife at Alistair’s chest.
“We weren’t…it was never…ungh!” He shoves the blade away from him. “I don’t even know why you’re asking me my opinion. It’s clear you’ve made up your mind. And you know as well as I that he could just as easily die from it, anyway.”
“Exactly, so let’s give this noble brat a chance to prove himself. If he tries anything, I’ll just kill him.” Darrian stabs the air next to him with the knife as if he needs to illustrate to Alistair that he’s capable.
“Comforting.” Alistair watches for a few minutes while Darrian takes out and cleans and sharpens the rest of his knives. It’s something he always found sort of mesmerizing at camp, the way he always seemed to turn even the most mundane tasks into a form of play. “When, exactly, are you planning on putting them through it?”
“Tonight. I’ve got five, including Howe. There’s your mage…”
“Excuse me, my mage?”
“Yeah, I mean…isn’t that why you had me conscript him? Figured you thought he was cute or something.”
“Darrian, what in the the Maker’s ever-loving bosom could have given you —”
“What was with all the eyebrows and giggling, then? Haven’t seen you like that since we met that duelist at the Pearl in Denerim.”
“I thought I was doing you a favor!” Alistair throws his hands up and then motions around him at the half-empty armory. “You’re not exactly swimming in new recruits or overflowing with resources here!”
“Oh, and the fact that he’s exactly your type had nothing to do with stepping in and sending that Templar bitch home with her tail between her legs?”
“Okay…it was a bit satisfying.”
“Ah ha! See!”
“Fine. He’s cute. But I’m…not in any kind of position to be finding apostates who are about to undertake their Joining cute. And definitely not going to be doing anything about it while I’m here.” Though he will be sure to do something about the lack of resources, if he can.
“Uh-huh…anyway…so in addition to those two, I’ve got Oghren, of course. And a dwarf from the Legion and a Dalish mage who also wants to murder us all, I think, over something to do with her sister.”
“Sounds about right. What can I do to help?”
“Oghren’s taken them to get the blood…and I’m pretty sure he’s already told them all they’re going to have to drink it, which just seems to be his go-to for everything, so they may or may not believe him. Varel’s got the chalices ready with the other ingredients. If you don’t mind reading from the book…? That part creeps me out.”
“Yeah. I think I can handle that.”
“And then, there’s everything that comes after…”
Alistair nods. “Right.” It’s going to be a long night.
“I think Oghren will be alright.”
“Are you overly attached to any of the others?”
“Trying not to be…haven’t even really bothered to learn their names.”
“Smart.”
“Thank you.” Darrian places his hand on Alistair’s arm and squeezes. “For being here.”
Anders Week has come to a close! It's been wonderful to see all of your creations over the past week. Thank you all for taking part!
For anyone who is interested, we still have a discord server where you can join us to chat about Anders, share creative work and continue to cheer each other on.
Please note that you must be 18+ to join the server.
Check out the Every Week Is Anders Week community on Discord – hang out with 26 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
these were planned for Anders' Week 2025 but as in the end I wasn't able to post them then - I will share now
Things Worth Doing by AndrastesKnickerweasel
"...If Fenris could now call himself proficient at reading lines of written text, he was perhaps even more adapt at reading the things unsaid between them, at least where the mage was concerned. It was the topic always at the forefront of his mind and the tip of his tongue, swallowed down and pushed aside for Fenris’ sake time and again. The words between the lines were piling up between them, a thick briar of loops and curves, dotted ‘i’s and crossed ‘t’s. The elf had an inkling they might be strong enough together to rip those briars out, but it would be painful, difficult- Most things worth doing are." [Explicit, Anders/Fenris, words: 32.4k]
Five Arguments Dorian managed to get into with Anders before they reached Skyhold (and one they had at the gates). by andy_deer (shameless self rec)
Inquisitor Trevelyan insists on finding and helping the man who started the whole Mages/Templars war. Dorian is happy to accompany her for various reasons, not least one of them being an academic paper Anders wrote back in the Circle. Little does he know that subject is but a tip of an iceberg of things they can argue about. He hadn't even realized how much he missed debates like these. [PG13, Anders/Dorian, words: 3.8k]
A Man Who Has the Means by Yachtly
Fenris and Anders keep making out after missions out with Hawke but never anything more. Mutual misunderstanding leads to new explorations and feelings, as well as the best sex Fenris has ever had in his life. [Explicit, Anders/Fenris, words: 3.4k]
I did not have the energy to do much for this, but I decided to do some cute stuff for this - based in my verse and the future. The horrific beast? The former HoF, Ribbon Cousland, who approves of Anders and also misses him. (And is also a horrific beast now but can... control who she blights. At least.)
In my verses, Anders and Justice are fully fused and they have returned to living in the wild, before being scooped up because of Events that Hawke goes though. And, well. Ribbon finds him! Ribbon would devour him out of love if she hadn't been told no! But instead, things are just Comfy :3
The outfit Anders wears has feathers from Sacrifice, the Creature who was once Amice Hawke. He works in the small settlement she created to keep away from the world, as well as being one of the main people aiding the runaways who make up the majority of the people there. Things are... good enough.
For the last day of @andersweek, Speculative Sunday, I have a thoughtdump for Anders in my modern AU with a focus on BDSM/Kink, community and trauma, carve your niche.
I find Anders particularly tricky to translate to AUs in all his particularities, and in this case I made it so his trauma comes from constant psychiatric institutionalization and that he has DID, making Justice one of his alters.
TWs: ableism/sanism, psychiatric institutionalization, medical abuse, child abuse, death, homophobia
Is in his mid-late 30s by the time he meets Fenris, so he was born in the late 1970s.
He was born in rural Ferelden with the last name Anderson and named after his father.
His family was wildly dysfunctional and abusive—there were traditional patriarchal expectations that Anders failed to live up to as he was quite the gay little boy. Frequent physical abuse made him learn to dissociate as his main survival mechanism, and he had his first split at eight years old.
He was caught self harming by his father when he was twelve, and quickly sent off to a psychiatric facility as a way to “fix” him.
He was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder (as was the terminology at the time) and his home was deigned not safe for him to go back to after he spoke at length about what he went through there.
He was bounced around the foster system, often being returned to psychiatric facilities due to his instability and trauma. He spent most of his teenage years institutionalized, heavily medicated and abused. Food denied as a punishment, solitary confinement, etc.
He was nicknamed Anders by the children in the first ward he went to, as he refused to speak to anyone and the doctors and nurses referred to him by his last name. He decided to go by it later as he preferred it over his father’s name.
After aging out of the foster system, he spent a few years at a time in freedom, though oftentimes he had breakdowns and a trauma holder-protector alter, who believed the wards were safer than the “real world”, brought him back inside.
In his mid-late 20s, he started to get involved in antipsychiatry and mad pride. While dealing with his DID, CPTSD and other such things in therapy and support groups, he worked to advocate for himself and other people with mental health issues. This made him… quite unpopular with the doctors in the psychiatric institutions he ended up going back to quite often.
He met Karl Thekla during this time; he was also a chronic ward patient, though he had not left nearly as often as Anders and didn't share his penchant for freedom. He fell madly in love with him despite the rules being against it. After a while, Anders was discharged just so they would not be involved any longer. When he returned years later, Karl was so heavily medicated as to not be recognizable. It broke Anders’ heart and he blamed himself for him being “lobotomized”.
During one of his stints outside wards, he met Justice, an older man heavily involved in mad pride circles. They formed a strong friendship, with Anders seeing him as a father-like figure. Some time after meeting Justice, Anders was institutionalized again and went through systemic abuse at the hands of a doctor who considered him “beyond recovery”, unfit for the outside world and a danger to himself and others. In the stressful situation of solitary confinement, Anders dissociated and split off an introject of Justice as a new protector. When he got out of the ward (after a few years, lots of arguments and many different medication regiments), he went on the search for the ‘real’ Justice, only to find out he had died due to a drug overdose while fighting homelessness. His introject was now the only Justice that existed.
After this, he spent some time in a commune, where his resilience, unpredictability and creativity were considered a net positive rather than something bad for the first time in his life. There he met Sigrun, Velanna and Nathaniel, all people he tries to remain in contact with to this day.
When he turned 35, he had a bit of a midlife crisis as he realized he had spent his entire life chained to a system that hated him, either stuck inside it or trying to fight it. He moved from Ferelden to the Free Marches and started working whatever jobs he could to stay afloat along with his disability benefits. He also works as a street medic during protests.
Away from psychiatric institutions for the first time in his life, he started to explore himself and his interests. Thinking of the games he played with the commune, he started investigating BDSM and kink.
Which is how he ended up in the Kirkwall Kink Club, throwing himself at anyone and everyone dominant for a chance at turning his brain off.
I've been trying to do a redraw of this piece from last year's event that I never fully finished for a while. It feels quite fitting that I finally got around to finishing it for this year's Anders Week!
As Kirkwall fell, Anders and Vespera made a quick getaway and started their lives as fugitives on the run. They eventually get married in springtime- new beginnings and all that.
Really really loved making this piece, everything is soft and happy- the complete opposite of Kirkwall.
Anders has long been undead, unfeeling. Until one day, a village hunter approaches his castle on the hill.
Excerpt:
The exchanges started curt, entirely transactional. Five silver in exchange for ten broken birds. Benchmarked by a tight smile. A firm handshake. Then the Hunter began to reveal pieces of himself, fragments of his life that Anders clung to like the shadows, his curiosity piqued enough to weave the tapestry of Hawke's life: The sole provider for his family, a father lost to the pox, a brother to the war, a mother who dwelled in the past and a sister who dreamed of more.
It's Sunday, but....here's my very rough and rushed entry for AndersWeek2026!
Days 2 and 4: Justice/Loss/Sacrifice
It’s odd to say it, or even think it, so Anders never does admit it out loud, but when the clinic is especially full—like when there’s a chokedamp outbreak, or when a part of Darktown collapses, or when the Fereldens come in from a Bone Pit Incident—he finds himself slipping into something of a flow-state. Especially those days when all the patients are relatively simple to treat, he sinks into a liminal space of not-thinking. A concert of instinct-and-body, as he fluidly pivots from task to task to task—a direct connection to the Fade.
In those moments, he feels at peace. Like he and Justice are truly one, their souls and hearts intertwined, doing something worthwhile. Doing something good, and pure, and necessary—something so beautiful, that the miserable, wretched world which usually despised his every ken—falls into place around him. The patients’ stammering thanks or wretched moans, the crackling fire and the bubbling hot water, the creaking of Darktown’s mineshafts all play in perfect rhythm with the music inside his head—and were it not a waste of energy, he’d dance from sickbed to sickbed.
If it weren’t for his old, creaking, miserable body—if only it wasn’t so fragile and terribly human. Inevitably, his limbs can no longer dance to the tune. His joints start to weaken, his muscles flag, and he misses a step or two—and he is rudely forced back into reality where he is just Anders. And he cannot push himself to keep moving forever, even if he wants nothing more than to keep going.
The concerto fades away, and he is once again in the sewers, fighting the endless, tiring, unyielding three-headed foe that is poverty, bigotry and pestilence.
Hawke, Varric and Lirene fuss over him if they come across him after one of those exhausting days, urge him to take care of himself, tell him that he can help nobody if he can barely walk straight or hold a glass without shattering it. Isabela, in that blunt way she has, just tells Justice to leave him alone and let ‘the fun Anders’ out. And he’s certainly touched by their concern—it’s rare to have people fuss over him, after all. Those brief moments during his escapes, when he’d woo and flirt with pretty farm girls for the chance to hide in their barnyards (and that was only euphemism for about half of his escapes) were the closest he’d ever gotten to being fussed over, and none of that had been genuine. Real concern from his friends is nice.
But he doesn’t know how to explain his passion to them, not without them getting those furrowed, concerned looks in their brows—the look that tells him they worry about him having truly succumbed into being an abomination.
He’d never really liked healing until he’d joined with Justice. Sure, he’d always been good at it—joining with a spirit was something he’d always found astoundingly easy, and growing up as a farm boy, knowing the basic anatomy of humans and animals had helped him grasp the body in a way few of the other apprentices could. It had flattered his ego to master a discipline that so few could even wrap their heads around—but he’d never truly liked it. He wasn’t Petra or Finn, or even Senior Enchanter Wynne, who’d all seemed to derive genuine pleasure from helping people. For the Anders prior to meeting Justice, healing had been a status symbol. A vanity. A lifeline—the one thing that protected him from Tranquility, the thing that had led to his recruitment into the Grey Wardens. He’d valued his skills, sure, but never for what they brought to others. Healing had been a selfish thing that allowed him his petty acts of rebellion, his rude attitude and lackadaisical mannerisms—all things that were forgiven or looked over because Anders was a Healer.
Healing through Justice, however, is the one sure, true, beautiful thing in dingy, miserable Kirkwall (especially now that Karl is dead). Through healing, Anders finds purpose, a purpose he’d never felt before. Working with the Mages Collective is frustrating—one step forward, two steps back always. Working with Hawke certainly helps fund the clinic, but the moral valence of such mercenary actions doesn’t help Anders sleep at night. But healing? Healing is beautiful. Healing is uncomplicatedly a good thing. It is…peaceful. He feels more himself than ever when healing.
He’d never loved it before. He knows he loves it now because of Justice, because Justice loves all things good and true and beautiful in the world.
Those moments when Hawke’s business takes him up to docks, Anders will sometimes find himself blown away by the dappling colors of the setting sun, splayed across the wooden boats, gleaming with resin and protective oils—and he will find himself drawing to a halt, out of sheer awe. Such things hadn’t moved him before (or if they had, only for brief moments when he stopped to catch his breath during escapes, they’d rarely ever stopped him from his dogged goal of selfish freedom). Justice finds such beauty in everything, and Anders’ cold, shriveled, selfish heart finds new appreciation for it through the spirit’s almost childlike wonder for the world.
He’d been a sullen, arrogant, vain brat before Justice, who’d only appreciated sex, witticism and wine. Only Isabela had known him prior to Justice, and she was of course, a hedonistic coward who had only liked Anders when he’d reflected her worst traits back at her—of course she didn’t much like Anders now. He doesn’t quite know how (or want to) explain to Varric, Hawke, Merrill and Lirene, who have cautiously offered him their friendship, how much of a horrible person he’d been before Justice had changed him.
Karl had told him once, restlessly, as he’d grappled with the grim mundanity of attempting to cultivate rebellious thoughts in the minds of the apprentices in a subtle enough way so he wouldn’t get caught, how some days he’d desperately wanted to scream down the corridors to anybody that would hear. How he wanted to channel something larger than himself, to tear down the walls of their cells and set them all free. And Anders, who’d been a selfish coward, whose heart hadn’t yet understood the appeal of such gaping sentiments, had desperately begged Karl to keep pretending, to keep teaching in small, quiet ways. Karl had looked so disappointed, and he'd almost pushed Anders off their bed, but Anders had sucked him off and whined and begged, and so he'd relented and quieted his restless anger. And then they’d somehow caught wind of Karl’s seditious teachings anyway, and shipped him off to Kirkwall, so Anders urging him to follow the path of cowardice hadn’t even mattered anyway.
He wishes Justice had come to him earlier. That they had met when Anders was young, when Anders would have been of real use to the world. If only they had joined together then…
Karl would have loved Justice from the get-go. Anders hadn’t, not initially.
When they’d first met in the Blackmarsh, he’d thought Justice presumptuous and arrogant in his shallow understandings about the mortal world. Part of him is still a little sore about Justice accusing him of enslaving Ser-Pounce-A-Lot. Justice hadn’t understood much then, and hadn’t wanted to understand much—desperate to return to the Fade where his role was simpler. But Justice had fallen in love with the world, slowly but surely. Over time, that edge of self-righteous condescension had faded, and he had started to approach their motley band of Wardens with simple curiosity. He’d asked them genuinely to discuss their histories, their cultures, their pasts, so he might better understand the nature of the universe. He still relishes in smoke-tinged memories of the hours they’d all spent together, listening to Warden-Commander Vellia and Velanna tell stories about the Dalish and the history of the elves, Sigrun’s discussion of Dust Town’s many Carta leaders and Oghren’s only half-drunken story of the faded glory of Orzammar, Nathaniel’s retellings of Ferelden’s fights against the Orlesians and the Chasind invasions, he and Vellia tripping over each other to try and explain Circle politics and the history of the Chantry (he’d been reminded that she was one of the kids that Karl had tried to propagandize and wished Karl was still here to see how much he’d succeeded in shaping them).
Anders’ admiration for all of his friends had grown and expanded during those quiet storytelling sessions, but most of all, he’d come to admire Justice for his wide eyes, and his capacity to listen and take their coiled-up, resentful pain within him, to hold his anger for them, instead of against them, and affirm that they had in fact, been wronged.
Prior to meeting Justice, anger came to Anders quickly and left him quickly—usually at the hand of a Templar or Senior Enchanter smacking him for his wise remarks. It wasn’t wise to be an angry mage—rage demons always lurked abound, waiting for the rage to properly overwhelm you, and being able to let sleeping cats lie was one of the most important lessons one had to learn from living in such close quarters with people you would know for the rest of your life. Anders had found easy satisfaction in quick, petty retaliation, then had let the anger sift through his skin like water. What use had anger been? He’d let apathy and passiveness be his guide instead—the guide that allowed Anders to avoid death and lasting punishment.
But Justice had showed him that there was merit to slow, building anger. The anger that roiled and tossed and turned, an ocean building up within him, instead of small, piddly waves that surged and faded, with little to show for it. Anger was what moved a man to action. Anger was what motivated somebody to keep moving, when despair would attempt to drown you. Anger was a sailboat, a guiding tide. Rage was a sin, of course, and rage was a demon. But anger? Anger was what precipitated justice.
Justice had looked at the ugly, sneering, resentful, grieving parts of Anders, and held them up to his warm, blue light, and had said ‘you are still worthy of saving’ and ‘come, let us save everybody else’ and how could Anders not love him for it? How could he not believe that he had been improved for it? How could he not know that he was better with Justice than he had ever been before him?
For the thirty years of his life before joining with Justice, Anders had let so many people in pain walk away from him, hadn’t even attempted to soothe their pains and aches—too concerned with his own self-preservation to realize his pyrrhic isolation was weakening his own strengths. He’d been a so-called healer, content to let injured people pass by, unless their pain was too inconvenient to ignore.
Anders had been selfish for years, scared and weak and desperate to not show his weakness. Of course he has to make up for it now. Of course, he has to relieve the world’s pain, bring the world to justice. He is Anders and he is Justice, and they were meant to do this.
Everybody thinks Justice has corrupted him—that Justice is the one who cannot control himself, but he’s the one who’s made Justice worse. Anders is the one whose anger curdles into rage—and Justice merely rises to the forefront, trusting Anders’s raw nerves instinctively and reacts as a protector. Anders is the one who finds violence too easy on the battlefield—and Justice merely finishes the job that Anders starts and is too cowardly to end. Anders is the one who lets unkind words and judging sneers rise to his mouth without thinking, and Justice is the one who merely intones them, trusting Anders’ interpretation of the world, because of his love for him.
It’s easier, in many ways, to blame Justice for some changes in himself. Food tastes like cardboard, when he envisions the gaunt ribcages of the children of Darktown, their sunken-in eyes. Wine curdles in his mouth as he recalls the pickled livers and sallow, yellow skin of the exhausted workers of Darktown, and the bruises marring the skin of their poor, exhausted wives who deal with their addled tempers. Sex feels like a thousand buzzing mosquitos setting his teeth on edge, as he treats the various venereal diseases of the workers of brothels and handles the pregnancies and miscarriages of the unfortunate. How can he explain that unerring, deep guilt within him to his friends, without sounding like a maudlin, self-pitying asshole? Easier to blame it on Justice being a spirit. It wasn’t like Justice had engaged in gluttony of any sort when he’d been alive, wise enough to avoid the vices that Anders had been all too eager to lose himself to, when he’d been wilfully blind of the pain they caused.
…all those years ago, Justice had joined him out of love. He’d said to him, as he’d laid there dying, flesh rotting and stench nigh unbearable, lines he had heard from Nathaniel Howe, “For life. For love. Perhaps together, we can do what I cannot do alone,” and Anders had said yes, and they had glowed together, with the force of Justice’s pure love. He doesn't remember anything else past that—he'd woken up on a boat to Kirkwall, having used the tickets meant for him and Vellia on himself alone, the blood of the Templars-turned-Wardens still staining his robes. He has to take solace in that. In that moment of joining him, Justice had loved him. In these moments of despair, as he curls up on his threadbare mattress in the back of the clinic, having lost the soothing concerto of the Fade, left instead with the guilt-inducing sounds of his patients groaning in pain—he wonders if Justice still loves him.
It was easy to love Anders from afar. That was the one thing that had allowed him to survive for so long—that he was charming, roguishly loveable on the surface. But only one other person had loved Anders while knowing all of the contours of his ugly, bitter, cowardly heart. And Karl was dead for the crime of loving Anders. And if it wasn’t for these brief moments of connection, communion with the beyond, Justice was basically dead too. Anders had consumed him, taken him within him—eaten his power and gained only a fraction of his loving care as a result. Who could love a man who’d eaten you and chewed you up to shreds, taken all of your best traits and left only Vengeance? Who would still care for somebody so hungry, so greedy, so all-consuming? Of course Justice must hate him for what Anders has done to him.
And yet, part of Anders has to believe otherwise—because otherwise, wouldn’t those moments of pure concert be impossible? Maybe it was just that simple—Justice hated him when he was a flawed, weak human, but he loved Anders when Anders was healing. When the two of them could be in perfect accord. When he was more spirit than man.
How he wished he could heal forever. How he wishes he could open that window into the Fade for longer than eight hours.
More than anything, Anders wished he could speak with Justice, as they once had in those sun-dappled autumn afternoons, as they patrolled around Vigil’s Keep. He wishes he could hear Justice’s words, his judgment, his poetry, face-to-face. He’d welcome even an inner monologue, any acknowledgement that Justice was still there! For all that he’d told Isabela that he was always Justice and Justice was always him—sometimes, he starts to wonder. Anders hates this guessing game where he can only parse through his own, too-loud, too-abrasive, too-all-encompassing emotions to try and grasp at what Justice might be thinking or feeling. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything. He has Justice’s powers and stamina—that much is undeniable—but what of the personality?
He had—he had hoped joining would be different. That he would gain Justice’s self-assured, unassuming confidence. That Justice would be the dominant personality among the two of them, since Anders was so weak-willed. But it’s just Anders, and the faint light of benediction that shines down from above, ever so faintly, in his moments of selflessness.
…he’s crazy, yes. But not for the reason the others think. Anders wraps his weak, sore arms around himself, and feels the shivering breeze of the mineshaft gap behind him.
He shuts his eyes, and thinks of the singular time they had hugged, in Amaranthine, after Anders had nearly drunk himself sick after the debacle with the phylactery. Justice’s limbs had been cold and rigid with rigor mortis, and his flesh had stank, much like the sewers around them now, and yet, there had been a firm warmth there, and when he had said, “Anders, I’m sorry we did not succeed. They wronged you. You deserved your chance at freedom.”
At the time, Anders had been a reactive, selfish prick with a hangover, and he had shrugged off Justice’s embrace, and laughed, ragged and arrogant, and said, “Yes well, welcome to the world, spirit!” he’d said, with a laugh, “Glad you realized it’s all awful, though I could have done without the stink when you put two-and-two together.” He wriggled himself out of Justice’s embrace and wrinkled his nose, and made a show of brushing the flaking skin off him. And although he couldn’t move Kristoff’s face into very many expressions, the strength of Justice’s disappointment and rejection had forced those cankering sores into a grimace, and he’d never hugged anybody ever again, even when Sigrun had asked.
He’d never appreciated anything until it was gone. Anders had always been a fool in that way. He sends a bolt of healing into his own, aching back, selfish as it is, and feels a cool touch against his mind—before he succumbs to the aching maw of the Fade, and sleep.
