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faux-fires · 1 year

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(Not a) Drabble-a-day#7

DING DING i made it a whole week! I don’t want a medal but I would like a pony

because i have decided to just go all-in on being shameless and self-indulgent today’s drabble features my boy leo hawke. all you need to know is he’s a red!hawke and i love him, he’s terrible at using words and he calls his dog fang like a fucking edgelord.

anyway here’s wonderwall (not a drabble) day#7, prompt “fear”. it’s over 3k words long. this is just who i am now, mom!

The thing about Leo Hawke was, he was violent. He was surly. He was as blunt as a rock through a window. He punched a rock monster possessed by a demon in the - face? - in the Deep Roads and it certainly was the most Hawke thing Anders had ever seen.

Anders didn't mind. He'd never claimed to be perfect. But Anders wasn't sure he could agree with their other friends that he was particularly angry.

Oh, it looked like it, hanging out in the Hanged Man's common room, watching the bar fight go on around you because someone had tried to touch Isabela - Isabela! As though she couldn't handle herself! - and Hawke had bounced their face off the bar. It probably felt like it when you were pinned under those ferocious golden eyes, Hawke looming over you, all muscles and grim purpose. Or if you cracked a joke about the wrong topic (Fereldans, the war, darkspawn, sisters). And Maker knew Carver certainly was wrathful, even if, compared to his brother, it felt something like being menaced by a lapdog.

But Anders knew rage. Leaving aside his own... indiscretions, the faint echo of meat under his fingers and Rolan screaming in terror, he'd once watched Command Tabris scale an ogre using her two swords as climbing spikes and then sink her teeth into its throat, a vision both incredible and incredibly disturbing.

Hawke didn't have that. Anders would be the first to acknowledge - privately - that he spent too much of his time watching Hawke, but he just didn't see rage where Hawke's other friends apparently did. He was curt. He was honest. He wasn't very good at talking, and when he decided violence was the answer it was performed with breathtaking efficiency... but he wasn't angry like Kallian was angry.

Varric squinted at him every time he said this, usually after their weekly round of Wicked Grace. "Blondie," he'd say, eyes twinkling over the top of his huge cigar, "Hawke's fond of you. Have you considered you might be biased?" And every time Anders would flush, because Hawke was gorgeous, with broad shoulders and those incredible golden eyes, cool and bright like a wolf. And he was nice to Merrill, who was cute enough, he supposed, if you were into elves.

He hadn't come to Kirkwall looking for wolf's eyes and a furrowed brow. He told himself that sometimes of a night, when the tension in his belly got too much, became an ache, a burn, and he had to roll over in his lonely little cot and surreptitiously try to take himself in hand. He'd come to help at the Gallows - Karl at first and now that that was impossible their kin in all but blood. He'd taken a spirit into himself and it hadn't been enough but it couldn't be for nothing, either. And Hawke liked Merrill, probably. Hell, maybe Isabela, who was a catch and had actually made him smile at least once, something Anders hadn't yet managed. Or possibly even Fenris; Anders spitefully told himself he could think of no other reason to keep the elf around.

But he couldn't ignore the way Hawke came to the clinic when he had downtime. He'd slip in silently, usually in the late afternoon, his slobbering mabari at his heels; and he'd pass away the hours sitting quietly at the back, winding rolls of bandages or stirring the thin soup Anders always had bubbling away in the corner or scrubbing cots or even stitching sheets with absolutely no change of expression, and when Anders asked why would just shrug and say, "No jobs going on. Don't want to be stuck at home. Gamlen's a cunt," before clamming back up.

Anders didn't push him on it. Maybe he should, but why break his own heart? Leo never said anything, and Anders never caught him looking, so maybe he just liked being around other Fereldans. Maker knew his clinic was full of them. And it was nice to have company that didn't want him to examine its disfiguring genital herpes. Someone who was helpful, who could be counted on to hold down a patient for a complicated procedure, or bounce out one determined to cause mayhem, or even shadow Anders when he had to make deliveries despite Kirkwall seeming to consist of 10% genuine citizens and 90% armed thugs engaged in vicious turf wars.

Like now. He hated deliveries to Hightown; the thugs and the guards were all one and the same, both equally likely to eject him forcefully from the area, but Hawke was friendly with the guard-captain (somehow) and so he was allowed to pass with little more than a dirty look. The moonlight sent long fingers along the polished marble tiles of the market; the air was perfumed with jasmine and the smell of the flowers on the vines delicately scaling the sides of the manor houses.

The mabari - Fang, if he recalled correctly - was trotting at his left without a care in the world, its tongue lolling gormlessly from its huge jaws; Hawke was on his right, one thumb hooked in the leather strap holding his staff-spear to his back. Anders had asked him to accompany him with a long, rambling and awkward speech about feeling more secure with company, and his only comment had been, "Fine," and now Anders was trying not to wonder if maybe he talked more for Merrill, because if he started down that path he knew the bitterness would spiral, but maybe Hawke didn't know how bad an idea the blood magic was, and maybe Anders owed it to him to explain? They passed a pair of patrolling guardsmen, who nodded at them, but Anders barely noticed. Hawke had to know Merrill was bad news, but would interfering really pass the act of a good friend? What if -

Hawke's hand abruptly seized his elbow, and Anders glanced up at him sharply, startled out of his spiral. Leo's mouth was tight, his eyes glinting warily in the grey light. He was looking back the way they'd come, and now Anders could hear it, the footsteps of the guards - but Aveline knew Hawke, he came in and out of her office -

Belatedly he recalled the gang of pretenders in guard uniforms said to haunt Hightown at night and groaned inwardly. Of course. He turned his own head to the side, trying to gauge distance, but he could see only shadow. Fang had stopped his gormless gawping and was keeping closer to their side, his hackles up, his great head swiveling backward every few seconds. A quick glance around revealed they were coming up to the northern quarter, not too far from Fenris' squat, or the De Launcets; the street had widened to a thoroughfare surrounded by delicately piping columns and overhanging roofs, and just as Anders noticed this, more shapes stepped out ahead of them, slipping from behind the columns like shadows.

"Andraste's knickerweasels," he grumbled, drawing to a stop. Leo hesitated besides him, his face expressionless but his eyes darting from intruder to intruder, wary; Fang was snarling now, a low, rumbling noise, hackles firmly up. He had planted himself between Anders and the nearest shadow and was facing it head-on, a solid mass of muscle and fur. Anders sighed, shoved his package of cock ointment into Hawke's hands, and pushed past him; it was hard, Hawke's body rigid and unmoving. "We don't have anything worth stealing," he said. "I'm the Darktown healer, perhaps you've heard of me? All I've got is three copper. You can have them if you like."

The shapes came closer and became men and women, armoured head to toe in silver and orange. All of them were wearing helmets. None of them seemed to be in a hurry to step up and really take charge of this robbery, so Anders unhooked his coin purse, jangled it sarcastically so they could hear how pitifully quiet the noise was, and tossed it onto the fancy marble tiles ahead of them. The nearest figure bent, picked it up, and balanced it on his palm before pocketing it. After a moment of hesitation, Hawke unhooked his and threw it in the same direction. It sounded weightier, but not by much.

"Can we go?" Anders asked, as a different figure picked up Hawke's purse. "We've given you everything we have, unless you want my special salve for crotch-rot."

The figures glanced at each other, then the one that had grabbed Hawke's purse, evidently choosing to fill the slot of leader, said, "No."

Anders turned to face them fully. "Why not?"

"Liar." She drew her sword slowly from her scabbard and pointed it carefully at Hawke. "We know you, Dog Lord. We heard you struck it big in the Deep Roads."

Hawke narrowed his eyes, and Anders said, "And you think he's, what, carrying a wheelbarrow of loot in his pockets?" He laughed, although it sounded thin even to his own ears. "Even if he did, it takes time to convert ancient dwarf treasures to actual, real money. And he'd be a fool to carry it around with him. We've given you what we have; let us go."

"No," she said again, simply. "Captain Qerth says we don't get to eat unless we bring home something worth a damn." She nodded over their shoulder, at one of her fellows. "Separate them. Then we'll find out if they're being truthful."

Anders sighed irritably as someone grabbed his wrist from behind and yanked him back a few steps from Hawke. "Fuck you," Hawke snapped, and then reared back as someone tried to grab him from behind, "Get your fucking hands off me! Leave him alone! Don't fucking touch him!" Fang barked and darted forward, snapping futilely at the legs of his would-be muggers, and they moved in an awkward circle.

"I'd let us go," Anders said, and spun in his assailant's grip; he channeled a pulse of ice magic through that skin contact.

The man holding his wrist dropped it in a heartbeat, his eyes widening through his visor slit. "Robe!" The effect was instantaneous; the pair that had been trying to grapple Hawke immediately backed away, drawing their swords, as did the others hanging back. Fang slunk closer to his master, still snarling, and Anders shook his wrist disdainfully.

"I'm not powerless," he told the leader, and deliberately called the ice back to his hand, holding it up to his eye level so they could all see the blue glow. "You don't want this. We've given you what we've got. Let us go on our way."

She seemed frozen for a second, her eyes flicking between him and Hawke, her sword still outdrawn and Hawke's coin purse still clutched in her free hand. Anders lifted his hand higher, and watched the way her gaze followed it before flicking - up - and behind -

He turned, so the arrow took him in the belly, instead of the spine. The impact was honestly more startling than anything else; one moment he was standing there, holding aloft his icy hand, and the next - sitting on the floor, feeling like he'd been butted in the abdomen by a determined goat, except there was a feathered shaft in front of him, comically out of place, and when he touched it, there was something wet and red at the base. Hawke screamed wordlessly beside him, a rough, violent noise that seemed utterly out of place in the stillness. He glanced up at the roof that had been behind them, saw the figure crouching low there, the bow in its grasp. "Oh," he said, brow wrinkling as it calmly and unhurriedly drew another arrow from the quiver on its back, "But I'm a healer," and then the world bucked.

At first he thought he was passing out. But no, when the ground finished rippling he was still there, sitting in the middle of a swanky part of Hightown with an arrow sticking out of his gut like phallic symbolism, which was good, because he'd been shot by quite a lot of arrows in the Wardens and he'd hate to think he was starting to lose his tolerance. It was starting to hurt, though, so he leaned forward, placing his palms on the ground and pushing himself back up to his feet with only a little bit of wobbling, and turned around. Fang was barking and cavorting on the spot, spittle flying absolutely everywhere. The gang of thieves - all of them, archer included - were...

... lying in a heap against the far wall, groaning and twitching. Every now and then one of them would make a small, pitiful movement, like they were trying to escape, but it was like there was some invisible force pinning them there, preventing them from leaving, and Anders didn't think that was just a simile because he could see the Fade surging around Hawke, who was standing there, both feet firmly planted on the ground, hands outstretched, teeth gritted.

Anders had heard about force magic before. He'd known, abstractly, that it was a specialty in the Gallows, and that Hawke's father had been a Gallows mage. He'd never seen a mage use it before, not like this. One of the gang, flailing desperately to escape the confines of the force of the spell, managed to get her arm free, but Hawke's eyes narrowed and he pushed his hand out and Anders could tell by the way the Fade heaved around him what was going to happen even before her arm shattered, crushed by the sheer weight of the magic Hawke was using, and it was terrifying and terrible and an awful thing to do but it was also -

Magnificent.

Anders swallowed. The arrow in his gut was starting to hurt more and more; he looked down and realised his hands were shaking. He stepped closer, touched Hawke's shoulder, and he meant to say, let's get out of here, but when Hawke's gaze snapped to him he found he couldn't speak in the face of Hawke's expression, the bared teeth, the unholy light in those wonderful wolf's eyes, and it wouldn't have mattered even if he had because Hawke's eyes swept down his body to the arrow and his face hardened into something fierce and cold right before Anders, and the Fade was shivering around him again, responding to Hawke's wild and untrained talents, and then the air smelled like ozone and Anders realised Hawke was summoning lightning, and not a small amount of it either.

The wind picked up. The cloud appeared before them, waist high, and Anders could feel a buzzing in the back of his teeth. He'd never been a very good primal mage; fire and ice had generally worked better for him before Justice, before he could tear his way out of problems, and he'd seen Hawke cast the occasional bolt but it had nothing on this, this cloud that grew and grew under Hawke's direction while the would-be thieves groaned and shuddered on the floor, voices rising as they realised something was happening. He could smell the acrid scent of their animal fear, and part of him thought, they deserve this, they tried to hurt us, they shot me, show them why mages are feared -

But he wasn't that far gone. He put his right hand on Hawke's wrist and said, "Let's go, Hawke."

And Leo looked at him, and Anders could see it now, the expression that the others believed was rage. His teeth were bared; his nostrils flared. His eyes were so wide he could see their whites. He was breathing heavily, like a horse after a long gallop, and his muscles were shaking under Anders' hand, and Anders knew that face, because he'd seen it so many times himself. He'd pulled it so many times himself. Leo snarled, "Don't touch me," and there were sparks crackling between his teeth; the thunderstorm he was bringing into the world had grown large enough to spit tongues of lightning across the tiles. The muggers were wearing such wonderfully conductive full plate.

Anders swallowed, but he didn't look away. Instead he said, "I need help to get the arrow out," and tightened his grip on Hawke's arm, and dragged his hand down - with difficulty, Hawke's muscles were locked, his arm rigid with tension - to press Hawke's hand against the arrow-shaft thrusting through his stomach. Hawke blanched. His eyes flicked back to the muggers and then at Anders. His pupils were so small. Anders lifted his left hand from where it had been hovering over the arrow and slid it over Hawke's wrist to join his right, pushing his thumbs into Hawke's pulse point, and he had no idea what his face looked like but he stared Hawke deep in his beautiful, panicked eyes and said, "Please, Leo," and watched the way Hawke's face collapsed.

The thunderstorm winked out of existence. Whatever pressure had been holding those pretend guardsmen dissipated like it had never been there. Leo shakily looped his free arm around Anders' shoulders; Anders let himself lean forward, forehead pressing against his broad chest, hands still wrapped around his wrist, and murmured, "Make sure they go."

Hawke's eyes flicked back to their assailants as if he'd just remembered they existed. "Fuck off,", he snarled, and Anders kept his face pressed against Leo's chest until the last of the footsteps vanished. Hawke was shivering lightly, and Anders knew, now, that it wasn't anger. It had never been anger. "Anders," Leo said, "What do - what can I do? What do you need?" His voice was anguished, and Anders' heart ached for this man, this frightened, fierce man. All this time they'd thought of Hawke as iron, but he was a man, a mage man, in Kirkwall, and Anders knew better than anyone how lonely and terrifying that could be.

"I'm going to break the arrow and pull it out," he said, "... Just keep me upright while I heal myself."

Hawke's arms tightened around him, but it honestly wasn't that complicated. Anders had been a Grey Warden, and he was possessed; one arrow was nothing. He'd been stabbed through the chest with a whole sword and ripped Rolan into pieces right after. The bottom half of the shaft clattered to the ground a moment later, followed by the arrowhead once he'd gotten an arm around his back to pull it the rest of the way through. His fingers were slick with blood by the time he healed his kidney and what felt like his intestine, but he stuck a hand inside his coat and wiped it off against his chest rather than on Hawke. Hawke, who was shaking minutely, and Anders felt such a wave of sympathy and affection it left him quite breathless.

He hesitantly curled an arm around them and set his palm on the small of Leo's back, in something like an embrace, and Hawke made the smallest of noises and clung to him even tighter, and Anders didn't know what to do or say. In the clinic when he thought about Leo he'd thought about his huge biceps or his cool gold eyes; he'd pictured Hawke laying into his enemies, ripping apart silverite. He hadn't pictured that heartbreakingly familiar expression, or counted on that intense surge of compassion within himself. He pressed his face into Leo's chest, feeling the lightning-reverberations of his heart and against his cheekbone, and said, so softly he barely heard himself, "I'm alright, Leo. I'm fine. It's alright."

Leo drew in a shuddering breath. "I should have... I should have killed them all. Fuckers could be squealing to the guard about us."

"Maybe," said Anders. He reached up and placed his hands flat on Leo's stomach, felt the tension there. "I doubt it. They'd have to explain why they were wearing fake uniforms first. We'll move soon," he promised. "But until then... I'm fine. You're fine. Breathe with me," and he let his chest rise and fall a few times, exaggerated, the way he'd watched Oghren bring Kallian back to herself after she went too deep into her rages. He felt Hawke's chest hitch, but after a moment he began to move, copying Anders, and eventually his heartbeat began to gentle.

For a moment they stood there, together on that Hightown street under the soft light of an indifferent moon, curled into each other in something that was so close to an embrace it could have featured in one of Anders' nightly fantasies. Anders knew it never would. He felt like he understood Hawke more now than at any point since they'd met, like tonight he'd been handed a compass and a map and knew how to find his way around Hawke's inhospitable landscape, and it felt - special. Important. He felt another pulse of warmth for the man whom he'd once witnessed punch a rock monster possessed by a demon in the face, a kind of boundless affection for this wonderful, scarred human being, who stirred soup in his clinic and always kept Anders where he could see him.

Leo sniffed and let him go too soon, but he didn't shrug Anders' hands off his chest. He looked remorseful in the face of Anders' sympathy, and Anders couldn't keep from lightly rubbing his thumbs back and forth along the leather of his jerkin even as Hawke avoided eye contact, rubbing at the back of his neck with his free hand. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." Leo flushed - difficult to see in this grey light, but Anders knew him.

"We can go back to Lowtown, if you like. I'm sure your mother would be pleased to see you," he said, and when Leo glanced at him self-consciously said, "Or we can go to Darktown if you want. There's room in the clinic. Anything you want.

"Darktown," said Leo immediately, "I like your clinic. It's yours."

"Oh," said Anders, dumbly, and then smiled as the words sunk in. It occurred to him with a pang that now he'd had this taste of Hawke - this well-guarded sweetness, this uncertainty, this glimpse of the man he was past all the snapping and snarling and surliness - it was going to be harder to face his lonely little cot tonight, but it was only a little pang. He hadn't expected anything else, after all. That he had this much was a gift. Leo must have seen something on his face, because he hunched his shoulders, mumbled something else.

"What was that?"

"I, uh. I dropped your cock-rot cream," said Hawke, guiltily. "When the bastards jumped me." Defensive. "I think they took it with them when they ran off. Sorry." Sheepish.

"Huh," Anders said. His mouth twitched, despite himself; he covered his mouth with his hand. Leo's eyes flicked to his and hung there, as though surprised at what they found, and Anders grinned wider. "Sorry," he said, "Just picturing their faces when they limp back to base and - hah - show their boss their prize. I drew diagrams for the user. They were - detailed," and he was chuckling despite himself, and Leo's eyes widened with comprehension, and then - and then the corner of his mouth twisted slowly upward.

He was smiling.

It was hesitant and shy and it was the first time Anders had seen Hawke smile for him, and Anders realised, like a sledgehammer to the gut, that he wanted to see it again. He wanted to hear Hawke laugh. He wanted to see him happy, and it was like the world dropped out under his feet but also like everything made total sense. He stooped forward instead and buried his face in Hawke's chest, because Maker, they hadn't known each other for very long, and he didn't think he could control his face, because he loved Leo Hawke.

Fuck.

Leo didn't ask him any questions; he slipped his arms around Anders' shoulders and held on with arms that were no longer shaking, and Anders closed his eyes tight and thought, one day. But not this day.

Hawke didn't need a lover, not right now. He was a mage alone in Kirkwall, and Anders knew all about that fear and that sadness and that aching kind of loneliness only apostasy could bring. He needed a friend, and Anders didn't mind being his, and if nothing ever came from it he would be glad enough for that. After all, he was the only one of Hawke's friends who had recognized the rage for what it really was. Take that, Merrill, he thought.

He'd never claimed to be perfect.

if you want more leo you can find him starring in fluffy romcom Bound (feat: severed heads) and swinging post-series Through a Forest Wilderness (feat: romantic war crimes) on ao3.

#reikah writes recklessly #drabble a day #anders #handers #leo hawke #some writers: anders isn't actually jealous and is capable of having positive relationships with hawke's other LIs!#me: anders is a petty bitch at every conceivable moment im love him

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