fadewalk | RP: Logan Hawke, Anders (serhealsalot)

The hallways were quiet. The kitchens were quiet. Everything had just been strangely quiet for a while now. Alistair was in socked feet, loose linen pants and a soft unlaced shirt, standing over a small pot of porridge he was cooking... for himself? It was more porridge than even he could eat comfortably, especially considering it was porridge he was making, which no one could eat comfortably.

He rubbed at his forhead. Why did he feel like he was missing something? Well a bigger more something than usual anyway.

He'd have to ask... someone. When he saw... them? Zevran, his brain whispered. How many days has he been gone? He frowned, and looked out the small window slits that ventilated the room, and the question was gone already as he wondered for the thousandth time whether it was morning or night.

It was whatever time it was, but he'd woken up alone in his bed, with a headache from too much wine and his shoes on, feeling despondent. Lonely. Which was fairly usual, all things considered. He stirred again, frowning into the whitish-brownish-greyish paste. "Probably more water," he muttered.

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Logan relaxed slightly under the touch of Anders' hands. He laughed, a startled, clear sound, when Anders called Alistair hot and hummed appreciatively, eyes flicking over this Alistair. Then he coughed. "Um. Well. Not just me, then. Good." He and his weakness for sexy voices. Yep. That was a thing.

His lips twisted downwards and he shot Alistair an apologetic look. It was one thing to make jokes about the sexy Warden when he was just a character and quite another to tease a living version of him to his face. "Ah, sorry. Yeah, we did come to find food. You sure there's enough to share? I'm sure we can find something else."

Anders snorted softly, amused at Logan's admission to also thinking Alistair was hot, and turned his face to press a kiss to Logan's cheek. "Adorable," he whispered, and then turned his attention back to Alistair.

"I can't tell if that was a generous offer a threat of poison." He shook his head and added, "But if it's warm and vaguely digestible, I don't think I'd complain."

All this ogling was making Alistair feel flushed and a little confused, wondering where Zevran had gone off to, but only in an idle, slippery way his brain couldn't hold onto. He shrugged his shoulders, only slightly mollified by Logan's chagrined glance. "Well, yes. I mean, I'm sure there's more than any of us will want. And! It is helpfully warm and possibly digestible."

He nodded toward a shelf across the room. "There's bowls there, and spoons in the basket just beneath."

Logan felt his cheeks go warm when Anders kissed his cheek and called him adorable. He shot him a sideways glance, trying to be subtle and failing for the giddy little smile on his face. Looking down at his hands, he gave a happy hum and then pressed a quick kiss to Anders' temple as stepped away, towards the utensils Alistair had pointed out.

"Only possibly digestible?" He teased over his shoulder, clicking his tongue. "However shall we cope?"

Anders pushed off the table when Logan walked away, intending on following him and helping. The fact he'd be within arms reach at all times, well it wasn't weird. This place was dangerous and there were too many things that could go wrong. However, his head spun a little when he tried to stand and he ended up just leaning back against the table, hands gripping the edge. "Bloody templars," he muttered very far under his breath.

Once his head had settled he watched Logan look for the bowls and spoons.

Alistair tried to ignore the mushy byplay between Hawke and Anders. It was making some spot in his chest ache oddly. He shook his head with a faint frown before lifting the pot off the trivet and carrying it to the table Anders was leaning on.

"So a Hawke and an Anders. I'm under the impression that goes around. Are you from the same world then?" Anders was looking a little green around the gills and after Alistair had set the still-bubbling pot of porridge to the table he stepped toward him. "Ma-aybe we should see about chairs."

Logan, without quite realizing he was doing it, was keeping an almost hyper-aware eye on Anders as he moved across the room. He turned when he caught a glimpse of Anders straightening and then sinking back against the table, frowning faintly. Gathering three bowls and spoons swiftly, he crossed back to Anders' side with a few strides of his long legs. He set the bowls on the table and squeezed Anders' arm, looking into his face, not realizing Alistair had asked a question for a moment.

"Uh, yeah," he said distractedly. "Same world. Really different than any of the worlds the other people here seem to be from, though." He ran his fingers through his curls and finally glanced at Alistair, admitting, "I don't have any idea where we would find chairs in this place."

Logan's concern made Anders blush a little, but he leaned into the touch. "I'm fine. Just a little dizzy," he reassured him quietly. Chairs seemed like a decent plan. "There were chairs in the great hall. Upstairs. We could take our possibly poisonous gruel that way."

He straightened up again, considering how steady he felt. "If you'll lend me an arm, love," he said softly and glanced at Logan with a raised eyebrow.

Alistair nodded, first at Logan's explanation of his and Anders' shared world, and then at Anders suggestion they go upstairs. "There aren't many who seem to have shown up totally alone. Everyone I can think of is from a world where someone else they knew showed up eventually." Wardens and Alistairs, Cullens and Inquisitors. Hawkes and Anders and Varrics and Fenrises. He shook his head a little.

He picked the pot back up and led the way toward the stairs that would lead to the great hall.

Logan nodded at the reassurance. "Of course," he said immediately to Anders' question, gathering up the bowls and spoons again with one hand before he offered his other arm to Anders.

When Anders was settled, Logan moved to follow Alistair. "That's...interesting," he said, brain tripping over what that might mean exactly. "That - mm - might lend credence to your theory about the universe being fed up with our idiocy, love," he murmured quietly to Anders. "Are these... mostly romantic pairs who show up?" That last was pitched higher for Alistair's benefit. Logan chewed on his bottom lip in thought.

Anders didn't need to lean too hard on Logan's arm, but it did help center his equilibrium as they climbed the stairs. He pressed a kiss to Logan's shoulder when they paused for a moment at the landing.

"It makes as much sense as anything else," he muttered and then perked up in interest at Logan's question. If there was a pattern, maybe it would be an explanation or a reason or something?

"Ah. Well. Hmm." Alistair held the door open for them and shrugged as they passed into the great hall. "Maybe? Well, I..." He frowned as he turned to trail after them, eyes slightly unfocused.

"Zevran and I weren't but then... we were and..." Where was Zevran? The way that question resounded in his head, he wasn't even aware he'd let slip the elf was here. "I might have lost track of him."

Logan was beginning to believe he might have to rethink his view of the universe as a primarily apathetic, unfeeling place, fucked up by religious people and bigots precisely because there was no higher power to stop them, and indeed made infinitely shittier by the people who claimed such a power existed. He'd always thought that the only way things got any better was if decent people made the effort to improve the world, but if he and Anders had not only been pulled here somehow, but also other pairs of a romantic nature? Maybe there was something in the universe, fate, whatever you wanted to call it, that actually did give a shit about his and other people's happiness. He wasn't sure if he liked the thought or hated it.

He was distracted from this philosophizing and cracking of his worldview, however. "Hang on, did you say Zevran? You... and Zevran?" He got a slow, broad grin on his face. "Oh, that is brilliant."

Alistair's last comment made him go cold - it was far too close to his own niggling fear of being separated from Anders, of one of them being pulled back without the other. "What do you mean, you might have lost track of him?" he demanded, voice harsher than he meant it to be and colored with fear.

When they reached the great hall, Anders steered Logan toward one of the long tables with chairs, close to the fireplace where they'd first warmed themselves, shared their first abbreviated make-out session. He stopped though, to blink at Alistair, grinning along with Logan. Zevran? Really? "But you always seemed so... straight." He winced. "I mean, obviously, you're a person and not just a character, and what do we know about it..."

He trailed off when Logan went cold and tight and for a moment Anders was confused. What had Alistair said to make him angry? But then he realized it was fear that Logan was feeling and he held tighter to his arm, hand soothing down the length to his wrist until he could lace their fingers together.

Alistair flushed deeply at their apparent knowledge of Zevran, and Anders assertion that Alistair didn't go for men, which wasn't really any of their business, and what kind of "game" was he supposed to be a part of in their world anyway? He shook his head, the confusion still muddying his thoughts when Logan asked him.

"People have been disappearing. Into the eluvian, I guess. I... I'm not sure when I saw him last. I should know that, shouldn't I? Why can't I remember how long ago that was?" He looked up at them, eyes wide. "He's been sneaky and hiding and I wasn't supposed to tell anyone he was here, but I'm honestly feeling a little bit crazy now. Cullen wound up starving in a cell in some other world. I heard Sera talking about 'spaceships', no one knows why you go where you go, and time is weird and different and... Maker's ass."

He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. "Damn it, Zevran." He sounded truly shaken, voice unsteady and fear thick in his voice.

Logan squeezed Anders' hand, reassured by the touch until Alistair started speaking again, and then he felt his stomach sink. His squeeze of Anders' hand became more of a grip, and he swallowed.

"Ah. Um." Several reassuring things he could say here sprang to mind, because he didn't like how shaken Alistair now looked, and all because of him. But it took Logan several seconds to gather himself. "I mean, there doesn't seem to be any difference between day and night here, so I can see how it would be easy to lose track of time?" That was horribly, pathetically insignificant. Logan wanted to say, 'hey, it's okay, we'll find him' but that would be even worse, because he had no fucking clue what was going on here either, or how to go about finding anybody.

"Shit," he muttered instead, focusing on the warm, real sensation of Anders' hand in his.

The idea that people were getting pulled out of this place, but not sent home, and being separated from the people they knew or cared about? Anders wasn't sure he was ever going to let go of Logan again. He winced a little at Logan's ungainly attempt to calm him down, and then added, "But they came back, right? He'll show back up eventually. If he's even missing. He might not be."

With as worried and confused as Alistair looked it didn't seem likely that nothing had happened, but one could hope.

"The man murdered the Queen of Ferelden because he fancied me and she had hurt me. He isn't going to wander off without telling me!" Especially not after they'd finally reached some kind of accord with who they were and what they were to each other. If nearly having sex in the bathing pool could be considered an accord.

He took a deep breath and dropped the kettle onto the table Anders had steered them towards and sat down heavily in the chair. "I didn't even notice he was gone-gone. I just started moping and drinking again, and wondering why I woke up cold." He banged his forehead into the heavy oak surface, hard enough to make the candlesticks rattle. "Idiot."

Logan let go of Anders' hand, brushing his fingers over Anders' cheek briefly, a grounding sort of touch, the only sign that Logan would really rather not stop touching Anders ever again after this new development. But he went and set out the three bowls and spoons anyways, one in front of Alistair and the others in front of two empty chairs. He leaned over Alistair's chair to dish him some of the lumpy porridge first, his lips twisting as he watched the man bang his head against the table. He was torn between amusement and sympathy.

"Wait, he did what now?" He asked incredulously, taking a seat and reaching for Anders' hand again before he'd bothered to dish himself.

Anders laced his fingers through Logan's and he arched an eyebrow at the assertion. "Is that a common sort of thing? He kills people who hurt your feelings?" Their game world included Alistair as the king, and there had been no queen. He glanced at Logan's empty bowl and gave a wry smile before reaching to pull the pot closer so that he could make sure Logan ate something too.

He released Logan's hand so that he could ladle porridge into Logan's bowl too, and then put a spoon in his hand instead of retaking it.

Alistair ignored Anders jibes, more than aware how absurd it sounded: a penniless exiled bastard so beloved by an ex-Crow that a queen had to die. He raised his head and grimaced sharply. "You'd actually best forget I said that. For all our sakes."

He frowned a the bowl of nearly-edible porridge and dragged it closer and picked up the spoon. It didn't look like he had much intention of eating it though, as he just poked at the surface listlessly. "So, enjoying your stay so far?" His voice was jagged with false cheer.

Logan arched a brow at Anders but closed his fingers obliging around the spoon, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Good grief, that was odd, that reversal.

He really, really liked it.

He gave a pointed look at Anders' still-empty bowl before he glanced back to Alistair. "Admittedly, that's going to be a hard thing to forget. Who was the queen in your world? Was it..." he squinted. "Anora? That was Cailan's wife, right?" Logan prodded at the porridge for a moment with obvious distaste before his hunger won out and he dug in.

"Oh, you know. Finding out magic is real and you suddenly have it was a bit of a trip, but..." he slanted his gaze towards Anders and grinned mischievously, somehow still managing to look adoring, "The view is nice, so I think it's mostly a win."

Anders filled his own bowl with the... gruel. Porridge. What have you. It really didn't look good, but it was food, and it was warm, and he could sit her with Logan and make... sort of friends with Alistair, and it was all so surreal, he could barely complain at the first bite of bland, tasteless paste. "Ah, beige, my favorite flavor."

He blushed at Logan's quip about the view, his ears turning red as he shot him a bashful glance. He was going to have a hard time getting used to hearing that sort of thing in Logan's voice. "Very much a win," he murmured before shoveling a second bite in.

Maybe if he ate it faster it wouldn't be as horrible? But no, now there was just more of it to choke his way through. He grimaced.

Alistair flinched when Logan said Anora and Cailan's names, shoulders hunching slightly. He really didn't want to talk about them. The bitterness that had burned in his craw for so many months, hate for Anora and her machinations, and her winning having poisoned a great many hours. And now she was dead. And he was having a hard time feeling sorry for that. "She was going to have me killed eventually," he grumbled, before having his own bite of paste.

Just as wretched as he remembered.

He rolled his eyes at how ridiculously soppy the two of them were and swallowed past the gag reflex. "So did you meet here or...?" They came from the same world, but the had that giddy ridiculous, nauseating glow about them that Alistair felt intensely robbed of with Zevran misplaced.

Logan swallowed his grin with a happy hum and went back to eating his porridge, swallowing methodically and doing his best to ignore the taste. He should have thought to bring milk, or water, or something to wash it down with. He wrinkled his nose at the bowl and then shrugged. He had had worse meals, though they were difficult to remember at the moment.

He was really, really curious about this business with Anora being queen, and Zevran murdering her, because it was so different from the game. Alistair not being straight was definitely a positive development. Still, it was obvious he didn't want to talk about it, so Logan let the matter drop.

"Um. Kind of?" He glanced between Alistair and Anders at the question. "Not...really. It's difficult to explain. We knew each other, but we hadn't met in person yet." Perhaps pen pals was the best medieval version of that? But that was horribly, wildly inaccurate to the experience of listening to someone over chat and falling in love with him just from the sound of his voice.