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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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.

Anders smiled at Logan encouragingly, and nodded as he tried to explain. "Speaking crystals," he said quietly, and then looked up. "Do you have those? They were in the game, a quest item for one of the mage collective quests you had to be exalted with to unlock." He tilted his head, watching Alistair. "We knew each other through something like that. Or the journals only with your voices?"

He looked at Logan, eyes tripping over him with plain appreciation. "I like this better."

Alistair cocked his head at their explanations and then pursed his lips a little. 'Ah. Well, we don't have them at large, though I've heard of them? Tevinter spies carry them, they say. Or something." He took another bite, watching the pair make dopey eyes at each other, trying to imagine what it would have been like getting to know Zevran by his voice alone.

He blushed faintly at the thought, because his voice was plenty distracting, even without the rest of his... him.

"So, you had magic that could let you talk to each other, and you had some sort of game that told you the story of my world, well not exactly, since I'm not king, obviously. But you didn't think magic was real? And you weren't mages back there." Alistair shook his head in confusion.

Logan felt his face go warm and he looked down, smiling to himself. He poked at the meal some more and made it through a few more bites.

"That's about the long and short of it," he agreed with Alistair. "No magic at all in our world. Lots of technology you guys don't have, but." He lowered and raised one shoulder. "And yeah, the game and the talking magic, all one thing."

Anders was reminded viscerally of all the institutional oatmeal he'd eaten over his younger years and had stalled about halfway through his bull. He was currently in the process of pushing it against the edges of the bowl, as if spreading it out from the middle would hide how little he'd eaten. He was only half-aware he was doing it as he listened to the conversation.

Finally he pointed his spoon at Alistair and said, "But honestly, this Zevran thing... was it you? Or him? Or....?" He grinned and leaned forward, mischief in his voice.

Alistair still looked confused at the description of their crystal-not-magic-game method of courtship. But he was willing to let it go. He ate the oatmeal with the single-minded grimness of someone used to eating just to fuel his body. He choked hard on the mouthful he was trying to work down at Anders question.

It took him a moment to cough the oats free of his windpipe and then he said, "Really? Reeeeally? Did you have some weird hot thing for him as well?" He snorted and glowered at Anders before shaking his head and looking down into his bowl, still blushing.

Logan looked between the two of them with a small frown, his own bowl fairly well decimated. It was food, and he had gone without it for long enough a few times that he knew to take it where he could find it.

"Not me," he said cheerfully, "I see the appeal though." He gave Alistair a thoughtful look and screwed up his face apologetically. "Sorry. It's just..." he glanced at Anders. "We feel like we know you, sort of? We...spend a lot of time in the game. It's like having some of your favorite characters from a book come to life. And the story sounds like a good one." He shrugged. That wasn't really a good excuse for their prying into Alistair's personal affairs, now that he was a person and not just a character.

Anders shrugged with sidelong smile, not particularly apologetic as he said, "Sorry for prying. Well, not really. I mean, sort of. Zevran was always a bit of a crush, but the two of you?" He waggled his eyebrows with a sparkle in his eyes.

He flicked a glance at Logan, smile turning soft and warm. He was so kind, and compassionate, and good. He reached over and squeezed Logan's hand across the table.

Alistair frowned into his bowl, though he shot Anders a smirk and rolled his eyes. That one was trouble, with his sarcasm and his flirty eyebrow thing. "During the Blight I was... with Elissa, the only other Warden to survive Ostagar with me. It wasn't... good. She wasn't good."

He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. "She recruited Loghain into the Wardens at the Landsmeet, and I... I couldn't stay. I couldn't stand next to that man, that murderer." He fell silent and looked down at the table for a moment, face drawn and pained. "It was not a good time for me after that. I left Denerim in disgrace, exiled from Ferelden and the Wardens. I had nothing left." He had only just started to believe he had something to hold onto after all, and he'd apparently lost it in the confusion of the Fade and the eluvian and everything.

Logan shook his head at Anders slightly, but he couldn't help smiling at him either, and smiling more when Anders squeezed his hand. He caught the smirk Alistair shot his boyfriend with a slight lift of his brows and look of amusement, which he hid behind another spoonful of the porridge stuff. The smirk made him relax in his chair again, especially when Alistair started talking.

"She recruited Loghain?" He asked, when Alistair was done. "Seriously? That's - that's..." he shuddered. The man had...elements of his motivations Logan could sympathize with, his love for his country, his feelings for his daughter, mostly, but honestly he'd always disliked that arrogant bastard of an npc.

...which probably stemmed back to that weird near-crush thing he had for Cailan, now he thought about it, who was undoubtedly something of an ass, but a pretty, misguided, idealistic ass who deserved far, far better than the fate Loghain had abandoned him to. Logan cleared his throat quietly and tried to resist the blush he could feel creeping up his neck.

Hearing Alistair explain it made it more real to Anders, and the pain in his voice wasn't something he could make light of. He fell silent, feeling like a bit of an ass for needling. He glanced sidelong at Logan when he cleared his throat and blinked at the blush. Why was he blushing about Loghain? No one could like Loghain.

He tilted his head, peering at him curiously, before his attention was drawn back to Alistair as he spoke again.