I know it’s Friday, but time isn’t real and I got a bit confused. ADHD + Lockdown is not great for tracking days of the week. SO. I got tagged by @dalish-rogue, thank you!!
Here’s a bit from that mega fic because I am, still working on it. But editing now!! I’m excited to post. This is from chapter 9!
“I thought your spirit didn’t like it when you drank.”
Anders tightens his arms around his folded knees. His staff rests against the earthen wall, next to his makeshift washing table (an upended barrel pressed to the wall.) “That’s rather the point. Since when do you call him a spirit?”
Fenris shrugs and steps closer, skirting the tiny wooden table that splits the middle of the room. “Spirit, demon, creature. The blood mage would have me believe they’re all one and the same.” Anders snorts, and the sound is damp and hoarse.
“Since when do you agree with Merrill?”
Fenris hums. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.” He stops within arm’s length of the mage and stares at the crooked, broken feathers on his back. He tries not to think of wings.
Anders presses his face into his knees. “If you’re here to have a go at me, Fenris, then I need to warn you that I’m,” he pauses, and drinks again from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “very drunk and I will probably cry. And that’ll just be embarrassing for both of us.” Fenris narrows his eyes at the bottle in Anders’ hands - he’s had his fair share of alcoholic beverages, but this one reeks.
“I am not here to chastise you mage.” He considers for a moment the growing list of things about which he wishes to chastise the mage. “Not now. What is that?”
Anders grunts, and drinks more. “Rubbing alcohol.”
Fenris frowns. “Is it safe to drink?”
“Who needs safe when you’ve got effective?”
Fenris takes the bottle out of Anders’ hands. There was a chance, when he was sober, that he might have been able to stop him, but as drunk as he is, he’s slow and clumsy. Easy prey, with all his doors unlocked. Fenris ignores the flash of irritation that rises in him at that and sets the bottle on the table. Anders turns at last to look at him, and his eyes and cheeks are red from weeping, his hair pulled loose of its usual tie and hanging messy about his face. “That’s cheating.”
Fenris raises his eyebrows. “Stopping you from poisoning yourself? I’m starting to think it’s a vocation.”
Anders stares at him for a moment longer, then leans forward in a transparent attempt to retrieve his alcohol. Gently, Fenris catches him, and Anders pulls against his grip without much effort, which Fenris takes as leave enough not to break away. “Why are you here? Really.”
Fenris moves, stepping closer, into the bracket of his arms, and Anders looks down at the floor between their feet. Fenris crouches, and looks up into Anders’ eyes, and they’re warm and gold and brown. “I wish to provide some comfort, if you would let me.”
Anders shuts his eyes for a moment, and something like pain pinches his brow. “You of all people should know I don’t deserve it.”
Fenris lifts his hand and, carefully, tentative, terrified that he’ll disappear like some awful illusion, lets it rest gently on Anders’ cheek. He doesn’t pull away. His skin is soft and warm and Fenris tries not to marvel at it: at the mage under his hand, unflinching, like some wild fragile creature held by its own foolish decision to trust in kindness. Fenris looks at the man under his hands, all freckles and fire and far too much love for any mortal heart. He’d thought him a fool once. He doesn’t now. “I do not think it is a question of what we deserve. Only whether we accept it, when it is freely given.”
Tagging @fustianriddles, @wanderingnork, @scythe-hag, @asexuelf and anyone else who wants to join in! No pressure to do if you don’t want to!
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