Chapter Text
His stomach was churning as he made his way in the night, clenching and unclenching in a nervous reflex that refused to abate. His hand shook as he swiped the hair from his eyes, his feet knowing the way even if his mind was too shaken up to pay attention.
The days after his night with the mage had been bittersweet, filled with memories and uncertainty. Then Hawke had taken them both to Sundermount and he’d gotten into a fight with the healer, something small, he couldn’t even remember what about. He hadn’t wanted to fight with the other man, but he hadn’t known how to stop. Suddenly Anders had snapped “Ah, go find some elfroot to play with,” and Fenris’ first reaction has been of hurt, to think he was being mocked, until he caught sight of the healer’s rueful smile, laughing with and not at him, a private joke no one else even knew was being shared between them. It had been the mage’s way of telling him they were alright, and it had made his heart lighter.
He’d done as Anders asked. He’d followed the healer’s instructions to the letter, putting himself in a position that invited ridicule when he went out of his way to show an interest in someone, but he did. One of the merchants, a human man with golden hair and an easy smile. He’d known no one could want him, that Anders had surely been the exception, but he didn’t want to disappoint the healer, the merchant was appealing, and so he’d tried. Apparently word of his undesirability hadn’t reached the merchant - Joshua - either, and he’d been baffled to find his interest corresponded. Sex had been… good. It had been very good, even if in the back of his mind he couldn’t help measuring it against an impossible night in his mansion, with a man who should have been his enemy, and when measured against that everything was found lacking. Joshua was witty, charming and handsome. He’d come to Kirkwall from the north, near the fortress of Weisshaupt, looking for sunnier sights to match his disposition. Kirkwall, with its dreary despair, was anything but, but then he’d met Fenris and he’d stayed. Anders hadn’t stayed.
One night turned into two, and then in the course of a month it extended to twelve. The sex was good, the conversation easy, divided between tales of Hawke’s latest antics and whatever bizarre demand or inquiry Joshua’s Hightown customers had thought to make of him. By the time half a year had passed they were practically living together, despite the fact that Fenris, although he had informed his companions that he was with someone, never brought Joshua along to one of their Wicked Grace nights, or to the monthly dinners at Hawke’s. He hadn’t decided to keep the two halves of his life separate, it had sort of happened. Just as it had sort of happened that he suggested Joshua let his hair grow a little longer, enough to pull back in a ponytail. Just as, on the inside of his right gauntlet, where no one could see it, Fenris always wore a too-tight bracelet, a simple bit of leather that had once been used to hold together a different ponytail. He had managed to ignore the truth of what he’d been doing for over half a year, until a particularly vivid dream had had him waking up in the night to find Joshua eyeing him with a curious expression, wanting to know who “Anders” was. He’d deflected the issue by pretending his wits to be too sleep-dulled to make any sort of sense, and by morning it was forgotten, or so he’d thought. A month later he’d come home to find a foreign expression on Joshua’s face, rage mixed with grief where there was usually nothing but cheerful contentment.
“Joshua? Is something wrong?”
His lover’s voice was clipped.
“The Carta decided I should start paying taxes. I refused. They ambushed me outside the Hanged Man and dragged me into Darktown to knife me in the gut.”
Fenris’ markings flared to life even as he moved closer, intent on wrapping his arms in a comforting embrace around the other man only to have him walk back to keep the distance between them.
“I am glad you managed to escape. I will kill the lot of them. And talk to my friend Varric, he’ll-”
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
“Manage to escape. I didn’t. They knifed me in the gut and left me to die.”
Fenris looked him over in fear, already searching for the wound, uncomprehending.
“I would have died behind a few crates of contraband, in the dirt like an animal, but I was lucky. Did you know there is a healer in Darktown?”
Fenris forgot how to breathe.
“And wouldn’t you know it, he’s from the Anderfells as well. After I’d stopped choking on my own blood we managed to have a few good laughs at how alike we look, right down to the ponytail. Then he told me people call him Anders. And he’s friends with the Champion, and with a dwarf called Varric who might be able to help me with my Carta problem.”
The merchant’s expression was contorted into something ugly. “Have you been sleeping with him? Cheating on me?”
At least here was a question Fenris could answer truthfully and without shame.
“No.”
“No? You expect me to believe that? Are you going to lie to me even now?”
“I swear to you I did not cheat on you.”
Joshua heard what he hadn’t said. “But you slept with him. Before me? Before us?”
“Just once.”
“So when you asked me to grow my hair… When you tied it back just so and said it made me look handsome, and then you couldn’t get enough of me, you were trying to pretend I was him?”
“Joshua, I would never-”
“You would never? Look at me. Look at me and tell me that isn’t exactly what you did!”
He hadn’t done it on purpose at least, but he wasn’t sure if that wasn’t more of an insult to the other man. Looking at him now it was hard to deny that what had attracted him had been the similarities; the warm brown eyes (not honey-brown, nowhere as beautiful), the golden hair (not long enough at the time, never reddish enough), the lean build (not as thin, Joshua had never known hunger), the alluring smile (not rueful enough), the easy humour (not charming enough)… He’d done nothing but compare them even while he had denied himself the truth.
“I am sorry.”
“You mentioned everyone else except for him. Hawke, Isabela, Varric, Bethany, Merrill, Sebastian, I know all of their names except for his. Have you ever cared for me at all?”
“I do care for you. I did not mean to hurt you. If there was something I could do to earn your forgiveness I would.”
“Prove it.” There was a dissonant note in Joshua’s tone, a dash of hope amidst the rage.
“How?”
“I can forgive you. Come away with me. We can go to Rivain, or Orlais, or Antiva, just away. I’ll cut my hair and dye it black, and we’ll pretend this never happened.”
“I… I cannot. I can’t leave Kirkwall.”
“Because of Danarius? Stop being a slave and start making your own choices. Come away with me.”
But it wasn’t because of Danarius. If Fenris left Kirkwall he’d never get the chance to try and win Anders back after two years - the shortest of the healer’s possible deadlines - and there was only a little over a year to go now. He hadn’t known he was holding out hope until that moment.
“It’s not Danarius.”
Joshua was shaking with rage. “I see. You used me. I loved you - I love you - and you used me like an empty sock puppet that you could dress up and make believe.”
Fenris had tears running down his cheeks now. He had always carefully avoided any discussion of feelings deeper than the general idea of caring, but perhaps deep down he’d known. He had known, and still he had done this. To someone who loved him when no one else in his life had. He wished he could force himself to return Joshua’s feelings, but it would have been easier to convert to the Qun overnight.
“I am sorry.”
“No. You don’t get to say you’re sorry. You don’t get to use my body and my love for months on end and then say you’re sorry. You want to stay in a stolen house pining for a man who apparently doesn’t want you? Well, congratulations, Fenris, you got it. May that be everything you think it will. I am leaving this miserable house and this miserable city tonight. I am done with it, and I am done with you. And when you wake up moaning his name and you have no one here, remember it was your choice.”
Even through the rage Joshua’s tearless grief was evident. Fenris had hurt him so deep… He didn’t know what to do or say to ease the other man’s suffering, but then the merchant was gathering his things and walking out the mansion, his voice faltering.
“If you change your mind meet me at the docks. The ship is called the Celestial Celène and it’s bound for Orlais. It leaves at sunrise. But you won’t come, and I refuse to let you use me again.”
Fenris had been depressed after that, ashamed at having used someone dear so callously, and he hadn’t left the house for weeks. Two months later he finally rejoined his companions for drinks and life took on a semblance of normalcy.
He’d had a string of meaningless lovers after that, men and women, human and elf, who never lasted more than the night and who he made sure did not resemble Anders. He still couldn’t believe he was anything but hideous - it was instilled in him too painfully, ingrained too deep - but, he realised with no small amount of astonishment, it was as if these people in Kirkwall were all blind. Then one night, walking the blood mage home at Varric’s request, he’d saved a woman, a pretty elf from the alienage, from a group of thugs. Gwen was an orphan, had short auburn hair and cerulean blue eyes, and she wanted to put together enough coin so she could travel the world and then join a Dalish clan once she’s seen it all. Their relationship had been easy and carefree, Fenris knowing she cared for him but never as much as for her dream, and he’d introduced her to his companions - all his companions. Hawke and Isabela had declared her a delight, saying it was a shame Fenris had gotten to her first, although it was clear to him the Champion and the pirate truly only needed each other.
Once again he hadn’t been aware of what he had been doing. He had managed to surprise himself when, on the second anniversary of his night with Anders, he’d presented Gwen with a very respectable jar filled with coin from nearly a year of adventuring with Hawke, and told her to go after her dream. He hadn’t consciously known he’d been saving all that coin in the first place. Gwen’s eyes had been tearful and awed, as wide as saucers, when she took it, thanking her lover even as her feet were already carrying her free spirit out the door. This was better, so much better, this parting without pain. He’d done good and, for once, his inability to move on had been moulded into a way of making someone truly happy.
His feet had known the way to Darktown that night as well, his heart about to burst from his chest, fear and hope and everything in between warring with one another inside him for control. He’d hung back in the shadows watching Anders leaning over a man, pouring magic and mana into a nasty-looking wound while what appeared to be the man’s family looked on in distress. Then it had been a pregnant woman giving birth, and then a sick elvhen child, no more than four. By the time Anders had put his lantern out Fenris could plainly see the other man’s exhaustion from his vantage point. It wasn’t the right moment. He’d come back tomorrow. “Tomorrow” had found Anders furiously scribbling away at his manifesto, and the day after that was again incredibly busy at the clinic. Then the lantern hadn’t been lit and Fenris had not wanted to interrupt the healer’s rest, despite the other man’s assurances that night, so long ago. Excuse after excuse he delayed the moment, always intending to talk “tomorrow”. What if Anders had never wanted more than to give him that night, what if he had told him to come after two years only as a kindness? Worse: what if Anders didn’t want him but accepted him anyway, out of guilt, out of pity? How could he risk putting the other man through that? Surely, if Anders had wanted him, he’d have stayed. Night after night he had brought himself to the clinic door, telling himself he’d go through with it, only to postpone it again. Night after night, for more than a year, he had watched over the man he undoubtedly loved, and he pretended he was only going to wait one more day.
Tonight was different. Tonight he had a reason for being here, something other than this desperate love that consumed him, this love that he wouldn’t trade in for anything in the world. Tonight he’d tell Anders about having been in touch with Varania, about her coming to Kirkwall and waiting at the Hanged Man. He’d tell him about her possible ties with Danarius, that this might be a trap just as the healer had requested to be informed so long ago. Tonight he’d get to talk to Anders alone for the first time since their night together. Would Anders be there? Healing? Writing his manifesto? Would tonight be the night he’d discover the healer had taken on a lover? Fenris had never seen him with anyone that entire year of spying - and that Fenris himself had been celibate since his two years had ended was really no surprise - but it was something he always feared.
Anders, as it turned out, was snuffing out his lantern earlier that most days, deep shadows under his eyes, exhaustion clearly present in his features. For the first time since his nightly visits had begun Fenris strolled right up to the clinic, a visitor rather than a stalker.
“Anders.”
The mage turned, his posture changing immediately as what could only be his professional instincts kicked in.
“Fenris! Are you hurt?”
“No. I came to talk.”
The healer relaxed, allowing his exhaustion to show through again.
“Good. I don’t think I have enough mana left in me to heal a stubbed toenail. Come in, let’s talk inside then.”