happy DADWC! for some horror, how about “There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.” for Hawke/Anders/Justice?
So this turned out to be way more than a snippet, which always happens when I start to write these three! I hope you're alright with a longer fic than usual, because editing it down is not in the spirit of the evening… I also thought this would end up slightly more horror than hurt/comfort, but… Anyway, please enjoy Justice experiencing the Horrors of his first ever crush (with a lot of angst for Anders on the side.)
Rhiannon Hawke/Anders/Justice, pining, angst, hurt/comfort, the mortifying ordeal of being known, pre-relationship, Justice character study
@saladruiner | @dadrunkwriting
a hole in my soul
Mortals do not love as spirits love. Justice has always known this, at least in theory. To love, for a spirit, is to be drawn to another's nature like a moth to a flame, whether out of similarity or compatibility or fascination. To love, between spirits, is to entwine, to commingle, to merge and perhaps become something greater than your individual parts, until your mutual purpose is fulfilled and your natures pull you apart. Mortal dreamers use the same language for their desires, but the deeds and emotions they associate with them are so different as to be unrecognisable - to be drawn to a fellow spirit or mortal soul has never driven Justice to consume or possess them, to take from them until there is nothing of what he loved that remains. It has never left him raw and agonised in its removal, its absence. He is- he was complete in himself. There was no space for yearning for anything beyond his purpose within his nature.
Since he was cast from the Fade, he has learned much of mortal love in absentia. He feels it in the ache in Kristoff's breast when Aura looks at him with revulsion, the ghosts of a thousand smiles and tender moments that exist now only in stolen memories. He feels in the frantic beat of Anders' heart when he wakes from a nightmare or a different sort of dream weeping Karl, Karl, Karl. He feels it when they let their magic burn through the man he loved, and through the Templars who killed him. It is an open, unhealing wound, and no matter how much magic or lyrium or vengeance he pours into the space it left, he cannot heal it. Love, to mortals, then, is an injury that never heals, and he will protect Anders from suffering it again at all costs.
He cannot, therefore, tell him I love you in good conscience, for all that what they have become- what they are, monstrous though it may seem to his mortals, is love incarnate to spirits and demons alike. They are united in form, in purpose, in goal, and there is no being in the Fade or the mortal world he would prefer to be entangled with than Anders, now that they are one.
It pains him, that the name mortal tongues give to what they share is abomination, that Anders can only call what they share as corruption rather than love. Not the lack of reciprocation, exactly - mortals do not love as spirits do, and the emotions Anders feels towards Justice (guilt, warmth, shame, affection) are a pale shadow to the searing grief of Karl's absence - but the fact that Anders cannot see the beauty in what they share through the horror, and that is in part Justice's fault. His rage, his vengeance, after all, destroyed the Templars who sought to tear them apart, for all that Anders blames himself.
All this, though, he can accept. Love, even unrequited, is as ancient as mortal hearts and dreaming. It will not destroy him, and he will not permit it to destroy Anders. Desire is an entirely different matter.
He feels it spark beneath Anders' skin the first time Rhiannon Hawke brushes her fingers against his arm, the warmth of her fingers tangible even through the thick fabric of their sleeve, and he flinches back from it. Anders' surprise mingles with disapproval, mingles with irritation.
"Am I not even allowed to enjoy looking at beautiful people any more?" he complains to their reflection, and Justice feels himself twist in confusion, in shame.
I did not- she was a distraction, he defends himself. The contact was unexpected. I did not know you would welcome it.
"From Hawke?" He can feel Anders' disbelief radiate through both of them. "Have you seen her? She could touch far more than my arm if she wanted- if things were different," he amends, his gaze sliding away from his own reflection, and he feels it pulse again - the agony of love's absence, where Karl Thekla used to sit between his ribs.
I do not wish you to be hurt, he offers, and Anders makes a scoffing sound low in his throat.
"You don't want me distracted," he retorts.
The two motivations are not in conflict, Justice says, tries to flood their bond with the affection he feels, the worry, but Anders cannot accept them. Our purpose cannot be fulfilled if you suffer.
"I've been suffering all my life," he grumbles, "Why should this be any different?"
It is not a question that Justice can answer, and so they fall to silence, the bond between them an uncomfortable, fractious thing that he cannot soothe, however hard he tries.
Hawke could soothe it, he thinks, bitterly, with her glib tongue and bright smile and warm hands that make Anders' nerves sing like lyrium beneath his skin, but Justice, at least in this world, this place, cannot be soothing, cannot be ameliorative. Justice in Kirkwall is a broken bone never set, a gnawing hunger never sated, and this does not make for a comfortable life to share, however much he wishes Anders to be comfortable, however much his beloved deserves comfort in a world that has too often been cruel to him.
He feels the ache for it secondhand, through their shared skin, whenever Rhiannon Hawke laughs or smiles or reaches out a tentative hand, awaiting permission to touch them again, and, if not for the pain that lay in wait after such tenderness, he would almost be tempted to surrender, to say: go to her, let her give you what comfort she can.
But he knows the agony of love when it is taken away, and it will be taken from them, as it was from Kristoff, from Aura, from Anders when he lost Karl. It is a beautiful, impermanent thing, but its beauty is not worth the havoc it wreaks in its wake, and Anders has faced far too much of that havoc in his short mortal life to suffer further from it.
So yes, he knows that desire is a danger, both for his host and for himself - he has seen how it has warped others of his kind, twisting them away from their purpose, and he does not intend to be so transformed. He is guarded, he is wary - and still he is unprepared for it when it comes upon him, when Rhiannon Hawke reaches out to seize his hand mid-battle and press it to the side of a frightened apprentice mage who'd just attempted to set fire to her hair.
"Heal him!" she orders, and he does, but first, he feels himself burn beneath his skin with sudden, fearful want. She is not Anders - she does not have his intimate knowledge of the world's injustice, or the rage and loathing they both feel when it is enacted, but in this moment, he sees every bit of the warmth, the beauty that has drawn Anders in like a moth to a flame. He sees Mercy incarnate, and the urge to keep hold of her hand, to entangle himself with her as he would if they were both spirits, rises up to choke him.
His love for Anders is as much a part of his nature as his purpose, now, but this- this is something alien, some flaw in his nature, or that of the body he inhabits. It is well to be drawn to Rhiannon for her mercy, for her fairness, but he should not long for the touch of her hand on his, should not meet her eyes and feel the song of lyrium burn through him, should not see her dark hair cling to her sweat-streaked skin and itch to smooth it to order again. These are not desires a spirit of justice should possess.
I think, he murmurs to Anders, one morning as he shaves, when he can see his lovely, beloved face well enough to read the emotions that flicker across it, you were right, when you said I was becoming corrupted.
Anders' hand jolts as he speaks - the razor draws a line of bright blood against the red-gold of his stubble, the pale foam of the soap. Justice forces his fingers to open. The razor clatters into the basin with a splash. Anders stares at its palm as though it is no longer his own.
"Right." His voice is shaking, and Justice can feel his lips peel back into a smile that feels hideously, monstrously false. "I suppose now I get to say 'I told you so', right?"
I did not say you corrupted me, Justice corrects him, hastily. This is not a burden Anders must bear - he cannot help Justice's weakness, or the flaws of his own flesh. I meant- there is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.
Anders flexes his fingers again, then, cautiously, covers its wrist with his other hand. "My anger-" he begins, and Justice interrupts, before he can spiral into self-loathing once more.
Not your anger, he corrects. Wrath and Justice are far closer than you like to acknowledge. This is… something else.
"Tell me," Anders demands, and, when he does not respond immediately: "Justice, please. You can't tell me you're becoming a demon and just- leave it at that!"
The words start off as falsely light and playful, as Anders always begins when he is covering up some darker emotion, but something harsh and unhappy breaks through towards the end - fear, he realises. Anders is afraid for him.
I do not have words for this, he says, and it is true. There is no language he knows for this- wanting that is far more of the body than of the mind. Mortals speak of it, he knows, but till now, he's had little cause to listen.
"Then show me," Anders demands, and - blessed, cruel, overwhelming - opens his mind fully to Justice, and for a moment the bliss of connection, of love fulfilled if only for a moment, and he feels Anders gasp, the weight of Justice knocking the breath from his lungs.
This, Justice says, when he can surface long enough to pull together the images, the sensations - Hawke's face glowing with fierce determination, her voice taut but determined: Heal him!, her lyrium-bright eyes, the brief heat of her hand on his-
And Anders, bewildering as always, begins to laugh. To laugh so hard, in fact, that he shakes, that his knees buckle, that he has to sit down right there on the floor of the clinic, holding his knees as if otherwise the laughter will shake him to pieces.
This is not amusing, Justice informs him. I am- becoming warped by carnal desire! I am no better than the demons who misled the unfortunate souls of Kinloch Hold! Anders, I- I want. Beyond the bounds of my purpose, I want her.
"Justice," Anders informs him, when he catches his breath, "As a healer, I am afraid the diagnosis is far more dire than that."
What, pray tell, could be worse than corrupting my own nature and yours into a warped perversion of our true selves?
Anders lays a hand to his cheek, and Justice feels the warmth of connection surge through him, of comfort, something he has never wanted- never needed before, and something like an echo of the lyrium-song flashes through his skin. He flinches back from it, and Anders, gently, tenderly, returns the hand to his cheek anyway.
"Justice, my friend, my better half," he says, though he is still trying to swallow his laughter, "I suspect you are suffering from lovesickness."
This is not a joke!
"I am not joking," Anders soothes. "I've taken a look at your symptoms, and- Justice, you have a crush."
That seems to be the right word for it. Justice feels truly crushed by the mortification of the revelation.
Spirits are not meant to have- crushes, he says, resentfully.
"Yes, I know, you're above all that, with your glorious ethereal commingling of natures-"
I did not say they were base or foul, merely- antithetical to our nature.
"Not so very antithetical, apparently-" Anders pauses, takes a breath, seems to calm: "This is really what you fear corrupting you? Not my anger? Not- what we did, when we left the Wardens?"
Anger is a part of my nature, as it is yours. This… this is something alien to me.
Anders joins their hands, then, and Justice squeezes them together, making him laugh. "Not so alien," he says, soft and wondering. "You- you love me. Even now, knowing what you know."
I always have. He lets it flow through him, now that the walls between them are eroding, lets it spill over the aching wound where love has always sat within him, hopes it will dilute some of the pain. This would not be possible, if I did not.
He does not expect it to be reciprocated, but he feels it nonetheless - the secondhand lyrium-song that rushes through him, its sweetness, its familiarity.
"This is how love begins, for some of us mortals," Anders tells him.
It is not so, for spirits. He shows him flickering images of Anders as he has always seen him, his stubborness, his resilience, the wrongness he sees within the world and longs to put right, all the things that drew Justice to him like a moth to a flame, less desire than magnetism, the inevitable pull of their natures to each other.
"But your body is mortal now," Anders reminds him. "Is it corruption, to take on some of its traits?"
Is it corruption, Justice echoes, for your soul to carry the weight of my anger? For mine to hold some of your bitterness?
They do not know the answers any more - the truths their worlds tell them are too different, too disparate. But for once, the bond between them is a flood of joy and affection rather than a tightrope to walk, and surely there can be no evil in that, for all that they do not understand it yet.
Hear me out: a fix-it fic where Emmrich is installing ghosties further south and stumbles onto Anders/Justice, he helps them heal and seperate, then they find new purpose in the Necropolis for a while.
