Chapter Text
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. As if grief and heartache and despair are a trial by ordeal, and you can come out through the flames with thicker skin and a heart hardened to stone.
Hawke knows it’s not true. Each new loss strips away another layer, leaves you raw and bloody. It sensitises you, until even the memory of it is too much to bear.
Once you’ve felt that pain, you live in fear of it for the rest of your life.
Anders knows it too; selfishly pulling Hawke to him when he knows he should be pushing him away. It’s a secret they share, unspoken, as they cling to each other through the dark Kirkwall nights.
The things that don’t kill you make you weaker, and more afraid.
By the time Anders is all he has left, Hawke knows he will do anything to keep him.
“Help me defend the mages," he says, and Anders looks up at him with something almost like hope in his eyes.