RP: Logan Hawke (NSFW down below)

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

"Not real. Having a nervous breakdown. And that's fine. It'll be completely fine." Anders felt like he weighed an extra thirty pounds, which wasn't far wrong with how much pond water his clothes had absorbed. He shivered as he approached the looming archway slowly, eyes wide.

The stone felt so real, the grit of mortar flaking under his fingernail, and he trailed his hand along it as he climbed a set of stairs up onto what were... walls. Battlements? The crenelations were the... castle-shaped things at the top?

He'd been playing fantasy games for years and he had no bloody idea.

It was colder as the wind whistled over him, and he huddled, arms going around himself. "Maker save me, I'm going to freeze to death in a hallucination." He kept walking, trying to chafe warmth back into his skin.

The tingling was uncomfortable, like pins and needles, but hot, and trying to get out, which wasn't exactly how he'd ever heard hypothermia described before, so that was a relief. He had to stop and lean against the wall as a violent shudder overtook him.

All of a sudden he was hot, far too hot and he held his hands away from his face, watching his clothes send curls of steam into the air. "Well, fantastic. My fucking fingers are on fire." He just stared in fascination at the licks of yellow-orange flames that limned his hands.

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[modernhawke]

In the handful of seconds Logan had before he was plummeting towards stone steps, he was pretty damn sure he was going to die. Or at least break something, an arm, a rib, if not his spine. He tried to curl in on himself and shelter his head with his arms, and that was about all the time he had to think before he hit the ground. And...bounced? Not exactly, but his skin definitely didn't connect with stone.

Which was because his skin was stone, he realized when he looked down.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" he yelled, throwing himself backwards until his back hit the step behind him. He touched one stone-covered hand to one stone-covered arm and shuddered violently. Yes. His skin was stone. Stone...armor to be specific? He jerked his own hand back. "Ohmigodohmigodohmigod what the hell..."

It was a spell, a spell he knew in the game, where he was a mage, for chrissakes. "That's it. Thank you, Mother, all your warnings about too much time on the internet were correct, I've finally lost it. I'm delusional. I'm imagining I can do magic now."

As Logan watched, the stone armor withdrew into itself and faded like it had never been, as if it sensed he didn't need it anymore. His skin tingled weirdly all over and he felt some strength go out of him, somewhere deep in his core, like he could sense...his own loss of mana? now that he'd ceased the spell. He gave a hysterical half-laugh, half-sob. And he still felt bruised, all down his right side especially, which was the side he'd landed on, although at least he wasn't dead, so that was a plus.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

The flames had gone on until they had hurt and Anders had shaken them out with a yelp. At least his clothes were drier now? He was still shivering, though not just with cold.

He had no idea. He kept walking until he heard a shout, someone screaming profanity at the top of his lungs and he broke into a run. There were other people? Who was he hallucinating being here?

With his luck this would turn out to be some horrible stress dream about his father.

[modernhawke]

Logan poked his own arm experimentally and was relieved to find it still felt fleshy under his fingers. He wanted desperately to believe this meant everything was all right, but there was still the chill, slightly damp stone under his ass and a weirdly cloudy sky above him, and more importantly he could still feel that extra core of power inside him, like some weird battery just out of reach that he could probably tap into with some practice.

It was eerily quiet, and Logan realized with a start that with the stone armor receded he could feel his ears again, or rather feel his headphones still clamped over them. He reached up to pull them off, inspecting the cord where it was sheared off right in the middle.

"Great," he muttered. He put them around his neck for lack of a better thing to do with them.

"Shit - Anders!" he remembered, jumping to his feet.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

It was a lot like being in a dream. Anders could feel things, hear them, even taste the manky residue of the pond and some strangely compelling metallic tang in the air, but nothing seemed to be actually happening.

He blinked in mild curiosity as he crossed the courtyard to where someone was standing on the steps with a pair of headphones in his hand. That... was weird. Weirder than dreaming about being suddenly transported to a castle in a no-place with a sickening vortex of green in the sky and where he could do magic? Actually yes.

He flexed his hand, wincing at the pulling pain of the rising blisters, but without concern. It wasn't real. He started climbing the steps, still only feeling a growing cold in his core and the vaguest of interest.

[modernhawke]

Logan, always a problem solver, quickly starting sorting through what he knew.

Okay, so Anders was in trouble, probably pain. He himself was having a mental breakdown and imagining that not only could he do magic, he was in some kind of gigantic castle - thing? Logically he'd brought only his headphones. Oh, and his glasses. Because of course. What else do you need in crazy hallucination dreams? He pulled his glasses off and hooked them in the front of his hoodie - definitely didn't need those at the moment. He was only the slightest bit farsighted. He was also cold, and bruised.

Oh, and look at that, the most beautiful man he'd ever seen in his life was walking up the steps - battlements, whatever - towards him.

That was weird. Less nightmare and more freakishly odd fantasy.

"If Carver put some weird shit in my soda while I was in the bathroom, I'm gonna seriously have to have a talk with that kid."

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

The first thing to cut through the cold of shock and disassociation, (because that was definitely what Anders was feeling, and he knew it, had been here before in his life) was the voice of the man standing above him.

That voice was something he thought about at night when he was trying to get his overclocked brain to stop worrying about his next exam. That voice was the reason he rushed home to his empty apartment in the evenings he didn't have class to sit at his computer.

That voice made him trip on the next step and nearly eat shit. He caught himself awkwardly, tripping up a few steps until he was standing just a couple below the fucking gorgeous stranger. Only he wasn't a stranger? Or was this just Anders further circling the sanity drain?

That seemed most likely, actually.

But he still wet his lips and said quietly, one eyebrow lifting slowly, "Hawke? Logan Hawke?"

[modernhawke]

So the logical course of action was to talk to the guy, right, that was how he got out of this weird dream-hallucination-fantasy-whatever.

Logan didn't stop to think too hard about that reasoning, or he would have definitely decided that was his id speaking, not his rational brain. He descended slowly towards the stranger and found himself reaching for the man when he stumbled.

"Hey, you o-" he started to ask, and then the guy opened his mouth and holy shit Logan had died and gone to heaven, that was it, that was definitely it, because that was Anders' absolutely sinful voice attached to that absurdly attractive face (and...body...) and he was saying Logan's name.

"Anders?" Logan breathed.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

Anders started to laugh. He put his hand over his eyes and bent forward, other hand on his knee to keep from falling forward and braining himself on the steps, which given how off-balance he felt could entirely still happen, and just cackled with laughter.

"Oh, no, this is too-- I mean, yes, I have a nervous breakdown after the worst o-chem exam in the history of anything, sure, yes after an all nighter, definitely. But seriously, what the bloody hell is wrong with me?" His shoulders were shaking as he laughed, gasping words out between near convulsions of it. "Hallucinating Hawke with a face that's out of any reasonable man's wet dream? For fuck's sake, get it together."

[modernhawke]

Any thoughts about grabbing Anders (holy shit) by the front of his shirt and just kissing the shit out of him (not the first time the thought had occurred, and undoubtedly not the last) were derailed by the man's abrupt cackling.

"Um," Logan said, feeling the urge to grip his shoulder in solidarity, or...something?

Up until the wet dream comment, at which point Logan huffed. And felt his cheeks darken.

"Look, Blondie," he said, using Varric's nickname for maximum interrupting effect, and attempting to scowl at him (it didn't work, not even remotely, how could anyone ever glare at that face, dear god). "Weird - sex dream - fantasy - version that you are, you're not really one to talk, you know?"

At which point he noticed the blisters on Anders' hands and conveniently forgot to remember that this version of Anders was definitely the product of his overeager imagination.

"What the fuck happened to your hands, Anders?" he demanded, grabbing the one on his knee.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

Anders wasn't even that blond, though his character definitely was. He snorted, rolling his eyes, and then gaped at Hawke when he called him a sex dream fantasy. What? "What?" No, honestly, what?

He got as far as nearly saying 'what' again when Hawke grabbed his hand, hissing at the pain of contact. "Ah. Shit. Fire?" He almost ran his other hand through the long mop of his hair but with blisters on that one as well he thought better of it, holding it out in front of him and peering at it when he turned it over and then back. "I was on fire. Briefly. There was a pond too."

He shifted his gaze to Hawke, realizing how close he was, and once again taken by how fucking beautiful his brain had made him. "I think..." His low level shivering had turned into a more aggressive shuddering. "I think I can fix it."

The wondering realization that bloomed in Anders eyes made them gleam gold even in the sickly green light of the sky. The hand that Hawke was holding washed with a cool blue-green light, healing the burns with almost no effort and the magic washed along the skin contact, easing away the bruises that Anders didn't even know about along Hawke's ribs.

[modernhawke]

"You were on what?" Logan fumed, his grip on Anders' hand loosening immediately when Anders hissed in pain. He narrowed his eyes at the other man and then whapped him on the back of the skull on reflex.

And promptly regretted that action, staring in some shock at his own hand. He played it off as cool as he could. "How many times am I gonna have to threaten to lock you up somewhere so you take better care of yourself, huh?" he muttered, making a show of studying Anders' hand intently. He cleared his throat.

Logan's blue eyes went right back to Anders' face at the mention of fixing, and then stayed there, because Logan wasn't even sure eyes were really that color in real life. They weren't just light brown, they were actually gold. Which was fitting, he supposed - in his dreams, the man he'd been uselessly pining over would have unobtainable eyes the color of a precious metal. Fucking figured.

He touched his side tentatively when the light and healing magic washed over him too, and realized he could stand a little straighter than he had been without pain. He whistled, still staring sappily into Anders' eyes.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

The tap on the back of Anders head had hardly registered when it happened, his own fascination with the fact that he knew he could heal himself, and Hawke, but after a moment he realized what had happened with a small grunt.

He rubbed the back of his head, small frown disgruntled until he saw the look Hawke was giving him, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. "You know, I don't think I'd fantasize about you slapping me on the back of the head."

[modernhawke]

Logan gave him a suspicious look, because if he was questioning whether or not this really was a fantasy, that meant Anders really was right in front of him and absolutely gorgeous, and that would be just setting himself up for disappointment really, so Logan couldn't bring himself to accept it.

He cleared his throat again and looked away, one part of his brain registering that he sure was acting like this was real even if he was pretending he didn't believe it.

"Force of habit," he said. "My brother being a tit, and all."

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

The next wave of shivers swept over Anders, stronger than before. He shook his head, and sighed. "Okay, so here's the thing, Hawke. Logan. Either this is an elaborate exam-induced hallucination because, as you say, I don't take care of myself... or something has happened that neither of us can explain."

He reached out, gripping Hawke's shoulder, long, graceful fingers curling dangerously close to the skin at the back of Hawke's neck. "I'm in shock, and if this is a hallucination, I might be dying in my apartment, alone. If it isn't, well, I'd rather not die here either. So, if you're real, but just like a voice on my headset listening to me rave, please call emergency services for me? Varric has my contacts. But if you're real and actually here, can we go sit down out of the wind, because..." He trailed off, looking into those magnetic blue eyes. "Because I'd like to not die before I got to kiss you."

[modernhawke]

Logan was appalled. "You're not allowed to die on me, Anders," he insisted, his hand coming up to grasp at Anders' delicate wrist. "You're not." There was a freshly panicky note in his voice at the very thought of it, and Logan shuddered, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the strange new power still contained inside his body. He felt it roil under his skin in response to his emotions, and there was an electric charge between Logan's hand and Anders' skin, much stronger than a normal shock of static electricity. Logan jerked back, away from Anders, his heel catching on the step behind him.

He managed not to fall, but barely, and then he screwed up his face in a look of concentration, a muscle twitching in his jaw, and somehow managed to feel out the edges of the magic flickering around him and over him and shove it back inside, because Anders needed him, and now was not the time to be accidentally shooting people full of lightning. He had little doubt in his mind that that was what it was that he had felt, his penchant for lightning, because if Anders could heal and Logan could summon stone armor and lightning, they were definitely channeling the same magic their characters did in the game. So that was one puzzle solved. Ish.

"No dying," he very nearly growled, reaching for Anders again. "That castle thing looks warm, okay? We're gonna walk over there." He touched Anders' arm tentatively, asking permission to take it.

They were starting on their way to somewhere less windy when Logan finally registered the fact that Anders had said he wanted to kiss him, and he stumbled and nearly fell. Again.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

Anders definitely felt better with Logan touching him he realized. When his wrist had been in his grasp: good. When he'd recoiled due to magic (and didn't that seem like the most ridiculous thing he could think of) arcing between them: bad.

But when he gripped Anders' arm through the wool cardigan that was still damp, though not soaked, that was okay. They walked toward the keep in silence for a few dozen yards when Hawke got tangled up in his own feet and nearly fell.

"Shit. Are you okay?" Anders slid an arm around Logan's waist to steady him, suddenly feeling lanky and weirdly gangly in order to do that.

[modernhawke]

Logan focused on the slick damp of the dewy grass beneath their feet in an effort to not trip over his own feet again and worried at his bottom lip. Anders' arm around his waist felt impossibly wonderful and Logan had to remember to keep breathing normally. He leaned into Anders' side because he couldn't not, though he tried to make the action not too noticeable.

"You said..." he kept his eyes on his feet. "You said you wanted to kiss me."

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

"Did I?" Anders looked sidelong at Logan. He couldn't help but tighten his grip on the other man as they approached the threshold. He could excuse it. That was easy.

He was shocky and needed warmth, and Logan - Hawke, dammit - was obviously unsteady if he kept looking at his feet.

"Well, you know me. I talk. A lot. About all sorts of things." He licked his lips. Shit. If this was real and this was really Logan Hawke then... maybe he had ruined one of the best friendships he'd ever had?

[modernhawke]

Logan looked up at him sharply and then stopped leaning so close.

"Yeah," he said quietly, so soft that Anders probably had to struggle to hear him, "I know. I'm sure that was it."

He was really, really terrible at hiding the disappointment in his voice. Really. He sounded crushed, and promptly went back to staring fixedly at the ground again.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

The sudden change in Logan's manner made Anders stop once they were inside the warmth. He was still shuddering but just the contact had cleared some of the wooliness of his head.

And now that he could think he knew he'd done something. Saying he wanted to kiss him? Yeah, that... that was terrible.

He let Hawke go as they eased into the warmer air, sliding his arm out from around his waist.

"So, castles, right?" There were fitful spots of color in his cheeks, and he wandered down the great hall, past long tables and empty chairs toward the fireplace at one end. Could he? Well why the fuck not. He focused, flicked his wrist, and sent a small pile of flames sailing into the empty hearth with a soft whoomp.

[modernhawke]

The loss of Anders' arm around him cut more than Logan expected, and he mentally berated himself for a fool. Clearly they had been friends for a long time and clearly if Anders and his stupid-fantastic voice had ever been interested in Logan, it would have come up a long time ago. It was an old argument, one he told himself over and over again whenever his brain started going too wild and fantasizing about stupid things like actually being with someone again or having a boyfriend instead of his mother to come home to or Anders' lips right next to his ear and that voice whispering dirty things to him as Anders stroked him off or...

Logan let out a rather undignified choked off noise and forced himself to think about something else for possibly the millionth time. Except now he was trailing down a giant great hall after Anders, which afforded him a really nice view of Anders' ass, and then Anders did this wiggly finger thing and actually cast real, fucking actual flames into a fireplace, and Logan was pretty sure he was screwed.

This was becoming more and more clearly neither a hallucination nor a dream because if he would have hallucinated Anders mentioning kissing him, he would have definitely taken him up on that and probably used the excuse of shock and cold to cozy up to the man in a very Varric esque 'so we should probably be naked, spreads body heat faster' sort of line, and that clearly wasn't happening. Instead Anders was brushing the comment off like he'd said nothing at all and so this was very clearly real because that is exactly what would have happened.

In the event they got dragged to some mysterious castle and given magical powers. Because that was totally likely.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

Anders turned away from the fire to find Logan - Hawke - looking at him with a... well what was that face? Mournful puppy? Baleful duckling? But it seemed kind of sorrowful, whatever it was.

Which made sense. Anders would be disappointed in himself too.

He ran his hand through his hair, causing the too-long strands to stand up in crazy disarray, and then shucked his damps cardigan off his shoulders and spread it out on hooks that were on the sides of the huge hearth, away from the primary blaze of heat.

He wished he could take the shirt, vest, or trousers off. "You know what I wish?" He quirked an eyebrow at Hawke. "That I had changed into soething reasonably comfortable when I got home." He plucked at the drying linen of the vest with a wrinkled nose.

[modernhawke]

Logan bit his lip hard enough to draw blood at the sight of all that ruffled ridiculous hair and the pseudo professor look underneath Anders' cardigan and the way his damp clothes clung a bit to Anders' lithe frame...

He took it back, he was definitely in hell.

"Yeah, well," he said, in a voice mostly steady from a long time of making it be so when it came to this man, "why am I not surprised you didn't?"

He raised both eyebrows challengingly and couldn't quite supress the small grin playing at his mouth.

He himself was in an old, somewhat ratty pair of gray jeans, worn enough to be comfortable, and a plain black hoodie, one he'd gotten cheap recently enough for the insides to still be mostly soft.

[serhealsalot_fadewalk]

Anders looked down his nose at Hawke in that way that only tall people with long noses can manage to do with people who aren't shorter than them. "You are such a mother hen."

He shook his head slowly, trying not to flush, because he didn't need to look like even more of an idiot in front of this man (if it was in fact Hawke) as he dragged a chair closer to the fire. He hesitated over a second one, low and solid and with expensive cushions.

It was too short to be comfortable, as if it were scaled for a... dwarf. He huffed out a short laugh. "Of course." But he scooped the cushions out of it and threw them down in front of the blazing hearth. That was about as close as he could get without actually being inside it, and well... he'd had plenty of actually setting himself on fire for one day.

He folded himself down onto one of the cushions, legs bent and arms around them, trying to stop the shivering, and looked back up at Logan. He was... big. Broader than Anders had ever considered, incredibly fit. Beautiful. He looked back at the fire, flushing, whatever he'd intended to say (an invitation to join him seemed likely, but he'd probably never know now) completely gone.

[modernhawke]

"So you've said," Logan agreed, looking immensely amused by Anders' efforts to look down his nose at him.

He stuck his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie and tried not to look as awkward as he felt as he watched Anders tugging chairs around and throwing cushions on the ground. He frowned. Anders was still shivering, and his cheeks were really red and blotchy, like he was feverish or something. If he was in shock - which seemed likely, Anders was the almost-doc here after all, so if he said he was in shock, he definitely was - all that wet clothing was not helping. At all.

Logan knelt on the extra cushion next to Anders, and put a hand on his shoulder. He squeezed briefly and then reached for the hem of his hoodie.

"Take off your shirt," he said, in a tone that brooked no argument, though it was really too gentle to be called a command. He tugged his hoodie off over his head, the white t-shirt underneath riding up to expose brown skin and strong hipbones and toned abs. The shirt itself, when revealed, read 'I'M HAWKE' in blocky letters - part of a set that Varric had shipped out to everybody in the guild a while back, mostly as a joke. Everyone else's read the usual 'IF FOUND RETURN TO HAWKE'.