Happy Birthentines!! How about a big dumb sweater for either Fenders or I could see Loghain/Stroud being fun for that one? Whichever you prefer! 💖
Oh goodness...why not both?!
(Fenders is in the Dark Sprawl AU...this might actually make it into Linked somehow/someday, so spoilers, I guess?)
The Link’s clothes never seem to fit particularly well, but the sweater he’s taken to wearing under his threadbare parka since it got colder is especially offensive in its ill-fittedness.
“Where did you get that sweater?” Fenris asks him.
“Found it in the trash pile at Lirene’s!” he grins triumphantly. “Isn’t it great? Can’t believe she was gonna toss it!”
“It’s…actually terrible,” Fenris says. But the dejected look on Anders’ face makes him feel bad enough to say, “I’m sorry…?” at least.
“Well, that’s just your opinion,” Anders huffs. “We can’t all pull off head-to-toe black spandex!”
“Oh, well there goes my suggestion for a new team uniform…” Hawke snorts. “I think the sweater looks nice on you, Anders. Really adds another layer to your whole…look.”
Fenris rolls his eyes as Anders beams at her. Her backhanded flattery always seems to work on him.
Fenris finds himself in Anders’ apartment. Alone. The Link is still in quarantine at the hospital, and he’s forbidden Fenris from even trying to sneak in and visit him out of ‘concern for his safety’ until Justice can be rebooted somehow. It’s all bullshit. Fenris has fought Sprawlers and signal poachers all by himself, broken through Danarius’ encryptions, and he would much rather take his chances staying at the Link’s side, protecting him from whatever Meredith’s Counselors intend to do to him now that he seems to have lost the protection Justice provided.
But he’s here instead. The closest he can be to Anders because the idiot refuses to let him anywhere near him. The mansion is too empty. Too haunted. Too far away from everyone and everything Fenris has come to care about. Plus, he can still feel the remnants of Danarius’ broken code coursing through him, and the house, with all of its various security protocols, only seems to remind him of the fact that he will never be completely rid of his technology. But here…even without Anders or Justice…he has always felt…free.
He goes to Anders’ bedroom, searching for more of him to hold onto. In a rumpled pile of laundry next to his mattress, he sees that horrible sweater he had insisted on wearing all winter, initially, Fenris suspects, just to spite him. How many nights had he impatiently yanked it off of him or begrudgingly tossed it to him in the morning instead of hiding it or secretly burning it, which is what he would have liked to have done back then?
He’s so glad he didn’t now. He gathers it up and holds it to his face, breathing in whatever trace of Anders he can find here. Thankfully, he hasn’t washed it since the last time he wore it, and it still smells just like him. Like the generic shampoo he uses and soap from the clinic…like his connection…and Justice…and imitation maple syrup and…fuck. He misses him. Misses them both. And he’s scared. What if they transfer him to the Facility ‘for his protection’? What if he ends up like Karl? What if Justice is really gone forever?
Fenris pulls the big dumb itchy sweater on over his head and curls up on Anders’ bed for the night, hoping that in the morning, Merrill will come find him and tell him how they’re going to fix this.
And here's some straight-up Stroghainoff fluff <3
“It gets colder here than in the West,” Stroud says one night, draping an arm over him and snuggling in close behind him as he gently presses his lips to the back of his shoulder.
“I’ve spent the majority of my life in Ferelden,” Loghain grumbles.
Loghain rolls over to face him. “So what? You want me to knit you a sweater or something?”
“No…” Stroud laughs. “Though now that you mention it…”
“I haven’t tried to knit anything since I was a boy.”
“I’d settle for a scarf.” He grins. “Or how about just a cuddle?”
“You’d look absurd in a scarf…”
Stroud shrugs. “So a cuddle, then?”
“Guess so…” Loghain pulls him in against his chest and wraps his arms around him. How Stroud could ever claim to be cold is beyond him. The man is an absolute furnace.
Stroud doesn’t say anything when he’s asked to sign the requisition forms the next day and notices a few skeins of yarn have been added in Loghain’s hand at the bottom of the supply list. He resists the urge to follow him when the old man begins to excuse himself early each night from the dining hall. And he tries to announce his arrival through exaggerated grunts and heavy footsteps and give him enough time to scramble and put away whatever he’s been working on before entering their room.
But after a week of this, he finds it difficult not to pry.
“Mac Tir…” he says, setting aside the stack of reports he’s meant to be reading and responding to before bed.
“Hrm?” Loghain looks up from the book he’s been reading.
“I can’t help but notice you’ve been up to something…”
“Up to something?” Loghain looks decidedly guilty, but at least he’s smiling. “You think I’m planning another coup? Or fooling around with your Mistress Woolsey when she’s not in your office barking orders at you from Weisshaupt?”
“No.” Stroud chuckles. “I think you’re up to something far more devious…”
“Yes. Yes…that is me. The Traitor, as they say.”
“I think you’ve been trying to teach yourself to knit.”
“Trying?” Well, now he looks offended. “I told you I already know how to knit. Sister Ailis saw to it that we could knit and mend our own clothes just as well as we could fight.”
“Why are you being so secretive about it, then?”
“Because, you idiot, I’ve been trying to knit something for you…”
“Because…it’s all wrong.” Loghain sighs. “I’ve had to start over twice already. And will probably have to scrap this one, too!”
“What’s the problem? Maybe I could take a look…”
“The problem is you…you’re all…” He waves his hand up and down and across, motioning toward Stroud’s torso. “I think I have the measurements right, but then it just ends up looking like a big dumb sweater.”
“I wouldn’t mind a big dumb sweater.”
“Well, then…” Loghain huffs. He walks over to his chest of belongings and flings it open, then produces a wonderfully fuzzy-looking sweater in Warden blue, which he tosses across the room to Stroud. “Here.”
Stroud immediately pulls it on over his tunic, beaming at him. “It’s actually perfect.”
“Yes it is. Right…” Loghain crosses the room and tugs on the right arm of the sweater. “...here. This arm looks longer. But I counted the rows. It shouldn’t be.”
“Well, I think it’s lovely. And I’m going to wear it everyday now that Fereldan winter has arrived.”
“Maker spare me…” Loghain groans. “Just don’t…tell anyone I made it.”
“They all know that we’re together, Mac Tir.”
“I know that! But they don’t know that I’m a terrible knitter. It’s embarrassing!”
Thank you thank you thank you for these prompts! Can't think of a better way to spend my birthday morning than frantically writing angst and fluff and angsty fluff for some of my favorites.
