Fenris was waiting for him when he came back from washing his hands of his last patient, drawing himself up to his full, if diminutive height at Anders’s approach. “I have a problem,” he said without preamble and with more than a little reluctance, crossing and recrossing his arms across his chest.
Anders waited, but no further explanation was forthcoming, so he prompted, “What sort of problem?”
The question seemed to unsettle him. Fenris started to pace, clutching at the empty air at his sides with stiffened fingers curled into claws. “I,” he said slowly, the words seemingly having to be pulled out of him, “have. Difficulty.”
Anders sat, sensing this would take some time, and raised his brows. Fenris snarled wordlessly and resumed his pacing. “When Isabela comes to me, there is. Nothing.”
Anders sat, and Fenris paced. That, it seemed, was that. It would clearly be up to him to do the heavy lifting in this conversation. “Have you considered,” Anders said, as delicately as he could manage, “that it's the woman? It wouldn’t be, ah, unusual for there to be some disconnect in the bedroom, considering her-”
“No.” Fenris cut the air with his hand. “That is not an issue. I have no problem with Isabela’s… activities. My problems are. Of a more personal nature.”
Anders’s brows climbed still higher, earning him another snarl, but where else was his mind to lead itself on this merry chase they were having? “There are salves for that,” he tried, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice despite himself. If it had to happen to anyone…
He supposed he should not have been surprised with the force of Fenris’s glare. “That is not what I came to you for, either.”
“Well, if not that, then what?”
Fenris ducked his head and twisted it from side to side across his chest. “I feel nothing. I never have, not to my recollection.”
Anders shook his head with a low laugh, raking his fingers through flyaway hair. It was too late --or too early-- for this. Fenris stiffened, reading his action as refusal, or worse. “I did not come here for you to mock me, mage, but to fix me.”
Anders stared for a moment, looking nothing so much as baffled. “You think you’re-” His expression fell, and he reached out, thinking only to offer… what? Comfort? Fenris drew back at once, leaving Anders reaching for empty air. He stared for a moment before letting his hand fall, sighing. “You aren’t broken,” he said briskly, dropping his gaze away from Fenris to busy himself with bandages he had made earlier in the evening, purely to give himself something to look at other than the elf’s lost expression, figuring that it’d be the more comfortable for them both.
“I would not have phrased it in such a way,” Fenris said after a moment, but the stiff tone he’d wanted sounded more tired than anything else. Resigned.
“But you do think it.”
“What else am I to think?” There was a hint of a snarl in his voice, a baring of the slight point to elvish incisors, though, again, Anders thought it might more frustration than true defensiveness. He’d been on the other side enough to recognize it when he saw it, but he didn’t think that information would be helpful just now, so he let his hands and his voice fall. “Danarius did this to me, he must have. Fix it, or release me.”
“What you are feeling is completely normal,” Anders said slowly, carefully, lifting his hands to pat the air, “if uncommon. I myself-” He hesitated a moment, wrestling with himself, then added, “have met people like you. It is called asexuality. It happens, Fenris,” he added more gently. “The important thing is that there is nothing to fix, and,” after another, briefer, hesitation, “you aren’t alone.”
“What does that matter?” Fenris said, frustrated. He was turned away, at the end of his circuit of the room, and did not appear to notice how Anders drew away. “If it cannot be fixed, then tell me how best to- She already thinks that I-”
“I am sure she does not,” Anders told him, far more gently than he would have expected, considering who it was he was speaking to, but the subject was close enough to his heart that he found that he could not help himself.
“No?” Fenris gave a snort. “You thought so, and you do not even know us. Do you.”
“No. Precisely because she does. She knows you, and she knows herself. But perhaps,” he added, “I am not the one to be having this conversation with. Just. Talk to her. Tell her that you have no desire for… that.” Fenris sank back, his mouth twisting into a crumpled shape than Anders found he could not look directly at. “If she is worth spending your time with, she will understand.”
“I don’t even understand,” Fenris said, but without heat. It was almost plaintive. He sat back on his heels, ears flicking his indecision, and for once Anders was not inclined to mock his silence. The two sat for a moment, then two, before Anders stirred. Fenris stiffened at once, but did not move away when Anders clapped a hand to his shoulder.
“She is more worldly than you seem to be giving her credit for. I am sure,” he said, thinking back to previous firelit conversations, “that she is familiar with the concept. Talk to her. If she is not, come back and see me in the morning,” he added with some bit of his previous humor.
“If she is not,” Fenris said heavily, “I am sure you shall see more of me in the coming days.”
“Believe me, that is something I think we would all rather avoid,” Anders said, but he was smiling, and so, he saw to his surprise, was Fenris. Maybe this would turn out all right.