fadewalk | RP: Fenris (broodyfadewalk)

Anders was...having a conversation with himself, and wandering through Skyhold aimlessly in the meantime. Which was not as crazy as it sounded because he did share his body with a Fade spirit, after all.

He was certainly not brooding.

...maybe a little.

He could have sworn Varric had shown up to take over watching over Hawke for a spell, but time was weird in this place, and to hear Varric tell it, he had been gone - to another realm entirely? For perhaps more days than Anders thought had actually passed. Not that there were days and nights in this place to tell time by, but still. It meant that he had in fact left Hawke alone for who knows how long, and thankfully apparently nothing had happened - she seemed well on the mend, actually, but Anders still felt oddly guilty about the whole thing.

He huffed and focused instead on this new Varric - Hawke reveal. Now, at the time, he'd expected Varric's overly stubborn grief over his Hawke to be just typical Varric - no matter what way you looked at it, Hawke and Varric had always been close. That much was unlikely to change even between different versions of history, right? In retrospect, however, Varric had seemed pretty...distraught.

Anders waited for the inevitable huff of disapproval from Justice's corner of his brain, but the spirit hummed in interest instead. SHE DESERVES HAPPINESS. IT IS ONLY JUST, Justice offered, and when Anders countered that Hawke had claimed to be happy already, Justice just sort of...snorted. NOT EVEN YOU BELIEVE THAT, ANDERS.

Anders conceded the point, and realized he wasn't entirely sure where in Skyhold they had wandered to. He still hadn't slept, and sudden exhaustion weighed down his limbs. Then there was a bluish glow from down some corridor ahead of him, and Anders found his feet moving towards it without really stopping to judge the wisdom of that action.

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Fenris crouched in front of him, reaching to rest his hands on Anders' knees after only a brief hesitation. Even as upset--hurt, even, and angry--as he was by Anders' refusal to tell him more, he was not mistrustful. This confusing, magnetic man who he had hated once upon a time would not act to hurt him, no matter what else he might do. Fenris could trust that.

So his hands rested on Anders' knees, thumbs lightly brushing back and forth.

"I see," he said.

Anders tilted his head, his eyes drawn to Fenris's hands on his knees and then back to Fenris's face. His brow furrowed.

"You're being very accommodating," he said with wonder. "We haven't even fucked yet from where you are and I've called you a name I don't call you for years and you're still touching me." He let out a soft laugh, leaning his head back against the wall behind him.

"I'd forgotten. How sweet you were, before, when it was just the two of us. Not that you're not now, but this was different. More unsure, but always you, taking steps you couldn't have even explained to yourself at the time." He hummed. "You have always been the bravest of us, Fenris."

He blinked. "I'm...babbling, aren't I? Hawke said I should have been sleeping. Just..." he gestured at his head. "Justice doesn't like it here, and he can't be quiet about it, ever, and you're not here, and Jicosa's not here, and it's all just...too much for sleep."

At the word Hawke, Fenris stood. He always felt a crashing wave of jealousy, though he could never say who--or what--he was jealous of.

"You are talking nonsense," he said. "If this place is safe enough, then you will sleep. Come." Then, leaning down, he grasped Anders' hands, pulling him to his feet with surprising gentleness.

(OOC: Bedtime for me!)

Aand now he had done it. If Fenris was from that part of their past, bringing up Hawke was...unwise at best, quite possibly cruel at worst. He gave Fenris a worried look and bit down on the apologies that threatened to bubble out of his mouth. Maker, someone shut him up, please.

"Yes. Sleep. I need that," he agreed, letting Fenris pull him to his feet and then attempting unsuccessfully to convince himself to let Fenris's hands go.

"Um. Safe enough? I mean," he coughed a laugh. "Meredith is...wandering around nearly murdering people, and I'm keeping my distance because they think my murdering her back would be bad, not to say I'm not tempted, because I am, but." He shook his head to clear his thoughts. "Sleep. The guest wing where a lot of us have been sleeping has been safe so far? That's this way." He gestured. "I have a room. Not that you have to stay there. With me. There are more empty ones, of course. Um."

Anders looked down at their hands awkwardly.

(OOC: Yepp, me too, I totally crashed.)

He bared his teeth in a snarl at Meredith's name, protective instincts riling. "Find me a sword," Fenris said, "and I will share your room for the night. That madwoman will have a difficult time cutting her way through me."

Anders looked up, suprise widening his eyes for a fraction of a second, and then something else entered his gaze entirely. He was hard-pressed to name the emotion himself, especially with his brain feeling fogged and dull from lack of sleep, but there was an old, dull ache behind his breastbone even as he felt some of the tension in his body from the stress of constant wakefulness and wariness eke away. He swallowed.

"Right. Sword first, then," he said, squeezing Fenris's fingers briefly and reluctantly pulling away. He headed in the opposite direction from the one he'd gestured at. "Cullen's got a stash of all the weapons in this place; we can find you something there," he called back over his shoulder, pausing after only a few steps to be sure Fenris was following.

"Cullen?" He couldn't hide the surprise in his voice even as he followed--gaze swinging around the unfamiliar halls warily. A place this nice usually translated into the home of a magister for him.

Anders led the way towards the war room. He nodded.

"Yeah, Cullen. Or Commander Cullen, I guess, technically." He wrinkles his nose and then admits begrudgingly, "Not as much of an ass as he used to be. He comes from several years after I do, where he's left the templars and is now leading the forces of an organization called the Inquisition." He waved a hand at the walls around them. "This is their keep."

"Explain."

The word was hard, a demand, but Fenris brushed his fingertips along the small of Anders' back at the same time, softening that harshness.

"What?" Anders turned to look over his shoulder at Fenris, a little startled by the touch but more than anything craving more of it. He arched a brow. "Which part? The Cullen finally growing a pair and standing up to Meredith even in my time, or the fact that there's apparently some immensely powerful military group rising up in the near future and making lots of decisions about things?"

He ran his fingers through the strands of his hair in a distracted motion, setting it awry.

"I don't know much about this Inquisition, lo-...Fenris. Their leader, the Inquisitor, she said a few promising things about reforming the Circles and the Hawke I talked to, Marian, she said the Inquisitor's a good sort. There was some kind of crazy Fade-splitting-open stuff that happened, involving someone named Corypheus, who I think was a talking darkspawn like the Architect. Did I tell you about the Architect yet? Anyways. I don't know. I think the Inquisition formed to fight him off, or...something. It all sounds very complicated and I'm not sure how to feel about it, actually."

Reforming the Circles?

A powerful military group? An Inquisitor?

The Fade splitting open?

It was a lot to take in--almost too much--but living with Hawke's crazy band of misfits had made Fenris remarkably adaptable. He simply gripped a handful of Anders' robe and gave a short jerk of his chin, trying to sort through the waterfall of information and grasp to the points that were the most important.

(And why, why was he determined to think of that easy endearment as the most important part?)

"I...see," he said.

Anders squinted at him.

"No, you don't," he said, with an amused huff. "But I don't really either, so we're even."

He looked down at Fenris's hand gripping the black fabric of the robe he'd chosen specifically to suit the mystique of a man who would do what it took to bring justice to the mages, to change a world, and felt vaguely ill. He really needed to stop wearing this coat.

Fenris caught the look Anders shot that connection as well as his expression...and, naturally, misread Anders' thoughts.

He immediately let go and moved away, putting distance between them.

"Sword," he said, more to himself than Anders. He needed to focus.

Anders frowned as Fenris moved away so quickly, his head bobbing slightly as he followed Fenris's movement with his eyes. He was fairly certain he'd done something stupid just then, but couldn't for the life of him figure out what.

Bah. His brain was mush.

"Sleep?" he mumbled hopefully, feet moving after Fenris and then on again automatically.

"Yes." He selected an appropriate sword, testing its weight and balance before sheathing it. He was already in full armor, so the greatsword was all he needed. "I will follow you."

I enjoy following you.

"Hang on, let me just..." Anders scribbled a quick note in the ledger for Cullen about the removal of the greatsword. "Cullen's particular about inventory, and things," he said vaguely, blotting the quill and setting it aside.

He straightened, glancing over to be certain Fenris had what he needed. His eyes swept down Fenris's frame and he very nearly sighed. Maker, even just the sight of him was so welcome it was absurd. He had thought he'd mostly gotten over this debilitating loneliness in the past few years. Obviously not. He was taken from Hawke and Fenris for a handful of days, or so, and immediately he started feeling like he would crawl out of his skin, and stopped sleeping, and generally became not much better off than he had been before either of them.

He turned. "All right, this way."

Fenris followed close at Anders' heels, gaze sweeping the halls as they walked. He kept expecting something to happen--some attack, some threat. This was too much like the time he followed Hawke into the Fade after that dreamer.

When they had wound their way through several hallways and at least one flight of stairs, Anders led the way down a modestly extravagant hall clearly designed for housing guests of varying levels of import. He went straight for the door at the opposite end, the one conveniently located right next to a servant's stair of some kind. He had chosen it because he thought it would help if he didn't have people on both sides of him, and it provided a quick escape if he needed it. Not that any of that had done any good; he still hadn't managed to sleep at all the few times he had tried.

Fishing a key he'd found on a hook inside the door out of his pocket, he unlocked the door and pushed it open.

Inside, the room was dark, curtains drawn, fire dead, and it smelled musty, like it had been closed up for some time. The only sign Anders had used it at all was the ash in the grate and the fact that the blankets on the bed, while not awry, were slightly mussed.

Fenris caught Anders' arm, casting him a look. Stay there. He stepped past him and moved into the room, prowling about and checking to make sure it was safe. Then he gave Anders a nod before turning to push open the window.

The mage didn't get enough fresh air. He'd heard Hawke say that once.

Anders obeyed automatically, watching Fenris stalk around the room with a lump in his throat. He was seriously way too damn emotional when he was tired. He needed to stop.

At the nod, he stepped inside and latched the door behind him, hanging the key on the hook and shucking off his coat to toss it over the back of a chair. He went to the pitcher of water on the sideboard and poured some in the basin before splashing it on his face. The cold would help to clear his head. He hoped.

Fenris watched Anders for a moment, then set aside his new sword--propping it gently against the wall--before padding over to investigate the fire.

He began preparing it methodically, letting the silence stretch. It wasn't uncomfortable or hostile, the way it would have been even a few months ago. In fact, for a moment, it almost felt as if they were home again.

Anders toed off his boots and debated the merits of taking his shirt off before he settled on leaving it on. He perched on the edge of the bed, rubbing at the back of his neck and casting nervous glances at Fenris from time to time.

"Um," he finally said. "Are you going to - would you - lie down with me? I don't know if I'm going to be able to fall asleep if, if you're not..." Touching me. He was afraid to say it aloud, not sure where exactly they stood at Fenris's point with that level of touching. Cuddling, really. He frowned down at his hands in his lap.

Edited Date: 2015-09-06 08:33 pm (UTC)

Fenris stood, fire beginning to catch, and wordlessly turned away from Anders. That may have been taken as a rejection...until his first gauntlet hit the mantle, followed by the next.

He began stripping methodically out of his spiky armor piece by piece, eyes carefully averted from the mage. He barely hesitated before grabbing a fistful of his loose underarmor and shucking it, leaving him only in the black leggings.

Fenris tossed the shirt aside--it needed cleaning anyway--and turned back toward the bed, firelight catching glinting whorls of lyrium. Then he paused, looking up. His dark brows drew together slightly. "Which side?"

Anders licked his lips, his mouth going dry, and tried not to gape at the half-clothed elf in front of him like a starving man presented with a feast. He jerked his head at the opposite side of the bed from the one he was dangling off of, one brow lifting in a wordless question if that was all right.

Fenris crawled onto the bed wordlessly, eyes canting toward Anders as he settled amongst the pillows, hair half-falling across his face.

Then he reached across the mattress and grabbed Anders' arm, tugging him down. "Sleep."