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Anders stops outside their room. Nathaniel has been inside for the majority of the night, sound asleep, lightly snoring with the blankets shoved down around his waist and one arm thrown over his head. Anders can picture him very clearly, just as he left him. Sleep is so easy for his roommate - always out shortly after he lays his head down on the pillow, always sleeping through the night. Even when they are roused by some noise or scuffle, Nathaniel is able to quell the energy in his limbs and fall back asleep in the middle of the night.
It has been a long night away from the room for Anders. He slipped out shortly after Nathaniel fell asleep and spent an hour or so walking around outside in the grounds before the Warden Commander finally caught up with him and brought him inside to drink tea and gossip by the fire in the kitchens. That usually helps when the nightmares won’t let him sleep. Though tonight he couldn’t open up about what’s been fluttering around in his mind, this burning urge at the back of his neck that says to run.
He knows what he must do, but when he thought through leaving, this had always just been a mark on his checklist of things to settle, things to plan. You can’t actually plan for a conversation like this. The other person is always an unknown and Anders has never broken up with someone before. He doesn’t know how it should go besides what happens in the novels, and those people usually get back together, or it was explosively bad and they will find someone new to save them from the horrors of being single. Anders isn’t sure he’ll ever date again.
When he had considered this moment, even talked it over with Justice, he had been full of resolve. Nathaniel had a right to know, he couldn’t leave him without a word. Standing in the cold light of dawn, pacing outside the door, he feels as though he should be more prepared. He packed his bag with magical supplies, food for the road, the few clothes he owned. It already waits at the foot of his bed. He would meet Justice at the spot they picked out. The only thing left to do is have this conversation.
There will never be a good time for this.
He pushes open the door and steps through, a rote motion, jiggling the handle to a certain angle so it doesn’t catch, stopping the swing before it reaches the squeak in the hinge and slipping through sideways so it doesn’t wake his roommate. They have done this dance many times when they were on opposite shifts or if Anders is up late distracted by a problem. They’ve been easy roommates even before they started falling into each other’s beds.
Anders has never had a room before, even one to share with someone else. He expected the rich boy who grew up in a castle would insist on his own bedroom, but Nathaniel was happy to stay in the regular quarters, doubled up with the rest of the wardens to make room in the Vigil — his childhood home, and he was still willing to settle into his new life, his new position with little resistance. Anders envies that kind of ease and adaptability, not coming from a place of necessity, the fight to survive, but rather coming from the deep desire for change. Nathaniel brushed this off with a word about being a warden like everyone else and not wanting to step on the Commander’s toes since the Seneschal kept looking at him when questions of the Vigil’s maintenance came up. Nathaniel hasn’t been in the house in years and still the weight of his youth and his family name commands a certain air, even in the wake of the blight and his father’s heinous deeds. Nathaniel is making a new life for himself as a warden. This is a good change for him.
Anders wishes for a moment he could feel that purpose in the wardens that Nathaniel does, that he could leave the trauma of his old life behind and start fresh on the blank slate the Commander has given him. Justice understands his dilemma. Anders left a horrible situation behind and it is still festering there, consuming his brothers and sisters, his people, everyone like him who wasn’t able to escape into the arms of the wardens. Justice understands that Anders can’t walk away from it. He understood that before Anders did himself.
Holding that resolve firm, he carefully sits down on the edge of Nathaniel’s bed. He’s pulled the covers over one broad shoulder and left a hairy knee poking out. His hair is longer than when they met; it spills over the pillow in a dark wave of shadow. His eyes flutter open as Anders places a hand on his shoulder to wake him and oh, how Anders’ heart beats faster at the little smile that catches onto a yawn as he stretches. The movement pulls on the long lines of his muscles like his bow string and Anders yearns to open the buttons of his shirt to reveal the dark hair that trails down between the swell of his chest and the tight cord of muscle that snakes down his stomach. How easy it would be to fall into bed again and never speak of this.
“It’s not morning yet,” Nathaniel says, sitting up to glance out the window. The first glimmer of light casts deep blue shadows in the empty yard.
“I -” Anders pauses, trying out the words on the back of his tongue. He thought this would be easier, but only the Maker knows why, because with Nathaniel all disheveled and warm from the blankets, grey eyes calm as the moon, nothing has ever been quite so excruciating.
Nathaniel waits patiently. He doesn’t prompt Anders or fill the space. He leans back on a hand and watches Anders with a curious expression, his body language open and accepting. This is what Anders loves about Nathaniel — the logic of his mind, awaiting the facts before he decides how he feels about a topic. If Anders won’t voice it, Nathaniel can’t respond. So he waits.
The air feels thick in the small stone room, like a tomb, Anders thinks, but that isn’t correct. The room is more like a cooled hearth, still warm with the embers from the last fire and awaiting more wood to build the heat again. It has been a safe space for Anders to come back to, regardless of, or rather including Nathaniel’s presence there.
Anders goes over it again and again in his head. By now he’s nearly scripted what he needs to say. I have to go. I’m sorry to leave you like this, but you can’t come with me. The wardens need you. And I need to leave. He doesn’t think Nathaniel is the crying type. Maybe he will throw something. Maybe he will yell or beg Anders to stay or tell the Commander… maybe Anders shouldn’t tell him at all. It would have been smarter to just leave in the middle of the night while everyone is sleeping except for the guards along the walls, but he cares too much to run away from all of this without a word, without looking into Nathaniel’s bright eyes again. Those eyes that watch him with such patience and calm.
“I love you,” comes tumbling out of his mouth into the silence of the room. The words register and he realizes a breath later what he’s said. He simply has to continue. The rest comes spilling out, some of the words running together. “I didn’t plan on saying that, but here we are. I planned to tell you I’m leaving. I am leaving. But I had to say goodbye to you. You always put up with me and more than that, you made me feel like I had a home. I appreciate you, Nate. I’m — I’m sorry I have to leave you.”
Nathaniel blinks up at him as the sleep slides from the muscles of his face and recognition settles in. The ghost of a frown pulls his dark eyebrows together and he reaches out to Anders, hands catching in his robes, the back of his neck, pulling him down into Nathaniel’s arms and the warm embrace of the blankets. Anders goes stiff for a moment and then just lets his body relax into this. He won't have this kind of comfort for a while. An inhale brings the smell of sweat and wardens and Nathaniel’s soap - lavender and musk - that makes Anders’ heart twinge.
He doesn’t pull back from the embrace. After all, it may be the last time someone holds him like this.
Nathaniel’s fingers wind their way into his loose blonde hair, soothing out tangles and brushing it away from his face. When he is satisfied he turns to press a long kiss to Anders’ forehead and pull him tighter against his chest. “I love you too, Anders.”
Anders feels his breath catch at those words. Of all the stupid times for a confession, it had to be at goodbye. The two of them really have no grace when it comes to romantic timing. It doesn’t change what he needs to do, but it changes how he feels about it. He could have a life here and that thought scares him in a way that would make him worry he was leaving for the wrong reasons if he hadn’t already decided weeks ago. Now it just pangs empty and bittersweet - the temptation of what could have been. The regret for a happy life tugs at his gut, not to stay, but to make distance, to push Nathaniel away and tell him it was a mistake, but Anders can’t do that to him. He owes Nathaniel at least an attempt at honesty.
“It’s —” Anders starts, but Nathaniel shushes him like a child. Shh, shh, shh… It rankles Anders but he didn’t have anything planned to say anyway. He would have only rambled to fill the silence. His skin feels hot with a frustrated blush, trying to quell his emotions. Nathaniel takes a long deep breath that makes his chest rise beneath Anders’ cheek and when it falls again it feels like Anders is sinking deeper into the mattress, into the sounds and smells and feeling of Nathaniel all around him and he soaks it up like a plant opening all its leaves to the sun before the night falls.
In that stillness, Nathaniel’s voice rumbles against his skull and through his ribcage. “I won’t ask you to stay.”
Anders doesn’t sigh with relief as he might have expected. His body registers what he can only describe as disappointment. Maybe it would be easier to leave if Nathaniel had been upset. They could have fucked or fought this out, but somehow this is even messier.
He kisses Anders’ head again and breathes in through his nose buried in Anders’ hair. “I will miss you terribly. I hope you know you can always come home.”
A lump of something hot and heavy like a stone from the hearth is lodged in Anders’ throat. He has never had a home to leave before. Every time he’s escaped it has been running for his life, running away from someone or something. This time is different. This time it’s for someone else’s life.
Nathaniel shifts his hold, rubbing between Anders’ shoulder blades beneath the hem of his half-cloak. It’s soothing and doesn’t ask for anything. He has never asked Anders for anything. When they came together it was Anders flirting, pushing, asking for more from Nathaniel. Anders wanted that companionship, that bed-rattling sex, those long nights lain awake in the half light of the moon asking each other silly questions into the dark between their beds long after the candle had burnt out. Anders even wanted the terrifying offer that Nathaniel promised in this embrace — the forbidden fruit he held in an outstretched hand so easily as if it were not the very thing withheld from all mages, as if it were not the temptation that Anders most yearned for — a quiet life in the arms of someone who loves you.
Anders sits up suddenly, making some space between them. He can’t quite bring himself to rise from the bed yet and accepts Nathaniel’s outstretched hand, letting him twine their fingers together in the absence of a full embrace. Anders asks the last question. “Will you take care of Pounce?”
Nathaniel sits up and kisses the back of Anders’ hand like sealing a promise. “Of course. He likes me nearly as much as you. I’ll take care of him until you return.”
Anders frowns, the tension tightening the lines of his face. “You know I won’t be coming back.”
The smile that tugs at the corners of Nathaniel’s mouth betrays the mood. “I know that’s what you think. It doesn’t mean you’re right.”
These are close to the words of the fight he imagined, though Nathaniel’s easy posture and the teasing smile are not poised for a disagreement. He looks as cocky as ever and the corners of his eyes crinkle with a laugh held back.
“You can’t —” Anders starts to argue, but Nathaniel cuts him off again with a gesture of his hand and a quick word.
“I know! It doesn’t mean I’m right either, but I’ll pit my confidence against yours on the matter. Of course I don’t know what will happen, but I don’t need to know for sure. I know I will always care about you and there will always be space for you in my life.” A softness cushions his voice, a warmth and confidence that Anders doesn’t fully understand. “That I know for sure, and that will be enough.”
He can’t blink back the tears that suddenly prick his eyelids and he closes them quickly, turning his face away from Nathaniel’s open gaze. A terrible laugh bubbles up out of his chest, wet and thick with phlegm. He coughs to clear some of it from his throat and Nathaniel only rubs the back of his hand with his thumb.
“How can you be so sure?” Anders asks, half wanting him to take it back.
“If you never want to see me again, that is one thing. If you want me gone for good, just say the word and I won’t trouble you. But you said goodbye, not fuck you, so I thought perhaps — is there a chance you might let me write to you? Wherever you are, I’d like to know you are well. Perhaps someday you’ll permit me to darken your doorstep.” A wry smile crosses his face and Anders doesn’t know how to hold all the possibilities in his heart at the same time. He can’t say what if I’m dead? what if you’re dead? because neither of them wants to think about those possibilities right now.
Instead, Anders replies in a watery voice, “of course you can write. Doubt I could stop you once the Commander finds out where I’ve gone.”
Nathaniel doesn’t ask where he’s going. Anders hasn’t said. He just reaches out and brushes his thumb over Anders’ cheekbone, wiping away tears that Anders hadn’t realized are falling. Odd, he had thought maybe Nathaniel would cry, but he hadn’t considered how he might react to this conversation. He is the one leaving, why should he be crying?
But the loneliness is like an arrow through the ribs, already splitting him open when faced with the man he would miss. He’s never said goodbye to anyone before. Who knew it would feel like leaving part of himself behind?
“Sorry,” he chokes out. He’s not sure of what he’s apologizing for anymore.
“Don’t be,” Nathaniel comforts him, squeezing his hand gently. Maybe this should be the other way around, but Maker, does Anders need it.
What he wouldn’t give to sink into that bed and kiss Nathaniel until he can’t think about anything else, but he knows if he lets himself stay he will never leave. Instead, he leans into Nathaniel’s arms and they immediately wrap around him, holding him safe and secure. Anders memorizes this feeling, leaning into this safe warmth for the last time. He wants to believe the optimism, but his life has been a thesis on why you shouldn’t hope. This new chapter in his life is all about hope though, so he holds a tiny glimmer of it like a candle in a vast dark night. He might see Nathaniel again.
—————
Nathaniel checks his pocket again in a compulsive motion he has been repeating for miles, days, or a fortnight and three days of travel if someone was obsessively counting down the hours. The fertile mud of the river valleys, the fine dust of the mountain scree, the salt of the ocean spray all cling to his clothes in a thin coating that makes him feel filthy with grime all the way down to his fingerprints. He needs a bath at an inn before he can make his delivery. There is no sense in traveling all this way and showing up road-weary, bruised and filthy.
With the chains of Kirkwall in sight, he prepares his pack to disembark. The time he spent in the Free Marches as a young man hadn’t involved much time in Kirkwall, but he was surprised to hear that it was Anders’ destination of choice. The city is run by the chantry with the Templars holding a chokehold over the Gallows and the streets of Hightown near the Chantry, while overstepping the City Guard in all outlying areas of the city.
He wonders how much of the choice to come here was Justice’s, or were those two working more synchronously than he imagined. When he heard of the merge he could have kicked himself. It had practically been his idea — an idle thought thrown out to assuage his friend’s fears of banishment — a living person could serve as the host for Justice. If they both agreed, it wouldn’t be so much possession as… sharing. Why couldn’t Anders have told him? Justice had been his friend. He would have helped them.
The questions he has been mulling over since he got the news rise to the forefront of his mind again. Who is Anders now? Would Anders even want to see him after all this time?
Anders hadn’t been interested in including him in this journey or even telling him what he and Justice had planned on the night he had left. Nathaniel would be a liar if he said his first reaction wasn’t sorrow when he found out. These were his friends. Some of the only friends he had in the world and he cared about them — he loved them and they chose to embark on this dangerous plan alone. Perhaps anger even rose to the surface in those first days, but it didn’t take long for Nathaniel to settle into the new ache. Now that he had the full picture he could wrestle with the surprise at his own jealousy.
The relief he felt when he found out Justice was alive and well rivaled his joy at hearing word of Anders. He had been a friend to Justice, maybe the first. Justice and Anders always argued, but Nathaniel found the spirit inhabiting the corpse’s body to be an interesting companion and had grown to care for him. Justice had been concerned with the ethics of possessing a dead body, much less a living body, yet Nathaniel thought the idea was compelling. If a friend asked to share his body in order to stay in the mortal world… well he can’t know what he would have said, but he would have seriously considered it.
It’s an odd thing to consider. Do they still speak to each other or are they of one mind? He isn’t sure which option is more comforting. Both options feel wildly complicated. To always have someone listening and commenting in your mind would be a huge shift in personal privacy. He can’t imagine the adjustment period. Would Justice know all the details of Anders’ past? Does he know the sordid nights they spent sating their appetites for each other’s bodies? It is a thought that makes Nathaniel uncomfortable. To have his most intimate moments shared with someone else, even a friend, raises his hackles. It does surprise him. For jealousy it is.
Hadn’t Anders left him for someone, to share his body even — almost, but not quite like that — with another man. Nathaniel couldn’t deny the confusing feelings that gave him, but the concept has had time to settle in his mind in the years since he found out. The initial hurt has settled into a concern that he has to admit is laced with curiosity.
The ship finally docks after the long, slow trip in from the massive statues that guard the tall dark columnar stone of the harbor entrance, though perhaps the towering twin statues of slaves weeping into their shackled hands serve less as sentinels and more as a warning. Nathaniel watches the deckhands and dockworkers secure the ship to the dock and resists the urge to jump the railing in his impatience. He funnels that urge into scanning the docks for familiar shapes. A fishing boat is being unloaded in another berth, people seem to be congregating around a few of the warehouses down at the end in the shade of the high walls of the inner city, the orange and gold tabards of occasional City Guardsmen mill through the streets on their patrols, and the stairs to Hightown are well guarded by working women showing their best wares.
The sights are much like any other city, but amongst the crowds there are also a few flashes of red accompanied by bright silver armor emblazoned with the flaming sword of the chantry. If the rumors floating out of the city are to be believed, these are the muscle of the true leader of the city — not the Viscount, nor the Grand Cleric, but rather the Knight Commander. A compelling enough reason for most apostates to steer clear of the city.
Anders isn’t any apostate though. He is a warden — not always welcome but always let in. Hopefully that has given him a few friends in the city. If not that, then at least the fact that he is a very gifted spirit healer. Healing always garners community support whether it’s magical or otherwise. People need midwives and salves and potions everywhere you go and an apostate will be looked over if they are keeping the poor away from the chantry’s doors. However, the newest addition to Anders’ resume is not as favorable. Certainly not in the Knight Commander’s city. Anders is now an abomination — a man possessed by a spirit from the fade. Nathaniel doubts that the templars see the difference between a willing possession and one where the mage has been taken over by a demon. A willing possession might even be more threatening in their eyes. He couldn’t guess what templars see when they look at a mage. Maybe the lyrium addiction made them all look demonic anyway.
Nathaniel has always considered templars dubious, but the incidents surrounding Anders joining the wardens convinced him beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were not to be trusted. He could say it was personal bias in his attachment to the man, but when he imagines his other mage companions… he is grateful for the open arms of the wardens. It makes Anders’ choice to leave even more surprising.
As Nathaniel steps onto the dock and turns toward Lowtown sweat pricks the back of his neck and it isn’t from the heat. He’s certain there are eyes watching him and he refuses to turn and look. People always turn their heads when they see the warden blue. It’s the only thing that gets him passage or rooms on goodwill, so he wears them proud as he can and tries to ignore the stares. As the blight passes into memory fewer and fewer people look at him and see his father, they usually just see the warden now unless he’s particularly unfortunate enough to spend prolonged time among the nobles. The nobility will never forget the black mark upon his family name and how they lost everything. It’s a cautionary tale to some and a source of pity to others. He expected more vitriol for his father’s actions, but really the loss of status matters more to the elite. Dark deeds of rich men are easily forgotten. The people who would be most offended by his father’s life work would likely not recognize the family resemblance and for that he is always grateful.
He makes his way up the steps to the Lowtown market where people are peddling wares of unknown provenance and quality, as is the norm in any port town. This part of the city is built into the original quarry and the towers of Hightown loom above. The market spills over the open walkways and courtyards between the multi-story buildings of dark stone. Clotheslines spiderweb between the buildings where people have hung everything from rugs to underthings to air in the dry heat. People’s voices fill the warm, dusty air as they shout and haggle and talk to neighbors. Someone’s dog runs through the crowd and barrels past him followed by whistles, shouts, and a child running in its wake. A smile pulls at Nathaniel’s weary face and he slips through the press of bodies with the ease of a rogue, rounding the circuit of central Lowtown to the Hanged Man with its charming noose decor at the front door.
Inside, the air is noxious with alcohol fumes and the stench of bodies and sweat and piss, but he is able to easily procure a room with a low barrel-banded tub for a paltry few coins and that is worth the steady banging and shouting in the room next door and the din from the bar below. He sinks into the hot water, grateful for the plumbing that stretches even to Lowtown in the great city of stone. Scrubbing the miles off his skin he tries not to think too much about how close he is to Anders, but it has become all-consuming the closer he got to Kirkwall.
Now the package on the end of the bed beckons him. He’s brought some letters from friends, books Anders might like, and pictures of Pounce in a bundle, but the real present resides in his jacket pocket. It’s a bronze locket with the warden symbol on the front. Set inside one half is a piece of lyrium carved in facets that glitter with promise and the other half holds a tiny illustration of Vigil’s Keep. It was agonizing to figure out what to ask of the artist. Perhaps he should have chosen his own face and committed to the romance of it, but he couldn’t make himself presume. He has no claim over Anders, nor Justice for that matter.
But he couldn’t shake the urge to make some kind of gesture, so it is a picture of home which holds a promise if Anders remembers their last conversation. The lyrium is for Justice, who always treasured the little lyrium ring the Commander gave him. He said that he could hear the song of the fade through it and it made him less homesick for his existence beyond the veil. Hopefully such a gift would at least make Justice happy, even if the sentiment isn’t returned by Anders.
Nathaniel makes himself take his time, washing his hair and combing out all the tangles from the wind on deck. His hair is below his shoulders now and he wonders if that will impact Anders’ impression of him. He has to rise from the tub to see in the mirror to shave his face. Wiping the steam from the mirror also wipes off a layer of grime and he grimaces as he deposits that towel directly on the floor. Not his best face forward. He tries for a smile and feels silly, so he just sets to work shaving the three days' beard since the last time he bothered. Being around sailors does very little for one's own personal hygiene. He no longer sports a goatee, having left that image behind with his respect for his father. Another change Anders is bound to notice.
He dresses in clean base layers and hesitates before putting his armor back on. It would be nice to dress in something more formal, or at least something slightly nicer than his standard armor, but he didn’t pack for that, nor did he bring the coin to fund a shopping trip. The thought is banished as he double checks his buckles and straightens his tabard in the mirror before braiding his hair back from his face. The rote motions calm his nerves and he pats his pocket an extra time before making the trek down to Darktown.
The light begins to wane between the tall buildings as he descends. Sundown comes early the lower you travel into the ancient quarry and then a turn takes him to an elevator that goes beneath the heart of the city itself, down into the sewers and tunnels of Darktown. He knows to look for a lantern there to find Anders’ clinic. A light in the darkness. Nathaniel smiles to himself and keeps an eye on the shadows of the alleys in this cavernous place. Rickety structures are built into the walls, platforms that hold fluttering fabric of ramshackle tents and the cobbled together shacks and shanties that house the poorest of Kirkwall. It makes sense that Justice would be drawn here.
Nathaniel catches movement in the shadows out of the corner of his eye and turns in time to catch a young child, maybe 10 years old, trying to reach for his pouch. A look from the warden sends the child scrambling away. It’s hard to sneak up on a rogue and they chose a terrible mark in warden’s armor. Wardens aren’t known for their riches.
As he rounds a corner thinking about the weight of the crisis in the city, for children turned thieves were not the worst sights of this pit, a soft glow makes him turn his head. Not the warm, flickering light of a fire, but the steady, cool glow of a mage light shining in the gloom. His heart races as he approaches the source of the light — a lantern lit next to a door. Perhaps an old storeroom at one time, this is clearly the clinic.
Pressing ahead, following the lift in his heart, he approaches the clinic door. A brief pause to wonder if one knocks on a clinic door or simply enters, then he decides to knock. A formal rap rap rap and he waits, willing his fingers not to fidget their way to his pocket once more.
Two breaths later the door opens and light spills from the room to illuminate a tall man with blonde hair who looks very tired.
“Anders,” Nathaniel breathes with relief. Anders is wearing a robe with feathered pauldrons and leans on his staff like a walking stick, though it is worn smooth in two places along the length from how often it is held in both hands. His hair is tied back in a half ponytail and it looks shorter than he remembers. The dark circles beneath don’t detract from the warmth of his amber eyes. Anders is alive and just an arm’s reach away.
Anders’ face lights up in recognition and surprise, smoothing some of the wrinkles of concern between his eyebrows and lighting up new ones at the corners of his eyes. “Nate! What are you doing here?”
Anders does what Nathaniel could never do and closes the gap between them, pulling him tight to his chest in an embrace that tears Nathaniel from this place in reality and catapults him back to the last night in their room. Nathaniel hugs him back with a ferocity that brings tears to the corners of his eyes.
Anders starts to back off, chuckling, “you’re not here to drag me back, are you?”
Nathaniel doesn’t let go in response. “I couldn’t if I tried.” It comes out thick and muffled in the feathers. He leans into Anders and feels him relax back into his arms. “Is Justice well?”
Anders gives him a slight squeeze and something shifts in the air around them. Blue light crackles beneath the surface of his skin of his neck and as Nate pulls back slightly he can see it spiderweb across his face. His eyes flash lyrium bright. “YES.” The clear voice of Justice comes from Anders’ lips.
Nathaniel raises a tentative hand to Anders’ face and feels the tingle of magic there for a moment. It’s bizarre, but it is beautiful the way Justice seems to shine through him. He manages to find his voice. “I’m so glad.”
As the crackling energy fades back into his body and the blue drains from his eyes, Anders speaks again. “Perhaps we should step in from the doorway.”
Nathaniel clears his throat and a giddiness works its way from his stomach to his face in an uncontrollable smile. “Yes, that would be best.”