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It was a cool night, one when the moons shone bright and the mists of cold clung close to the stones beneath each step.
Anders remained at home, in no mood to deal with the high spirits of those who were lured in by the Hanged Man’s sirens song.
He sat, a book in his lap and a mug of tea to his left and read in silence with no company but for the quiet Hawke curled up at the opposite end of the lounge.
They had been that way for hours, lost in their own worlds and the worlds within the pages they turned. His thoughts raced, his mind never at rest.
He broke the silence, lip chewed raw, and asked the question that ran circles in his head; “why do you keep looking out for me? The food, the parchment and ink, the templars giving me more space than they should. I know it’s you, but I can’t figure out why.”
She didn’t shift to look at him, simply turned the page and continued on with her reading.
He wondered if she’d ignore him, as she often did to avoid an argument with him, or if she was simply so lost in her story that nothing else mattered, but then she paused, spoke, and her words were soft, quiet, so very Morrigan Hawke, as she asked him if she needed a reason.
It confused him, so much so that he closed his book with a snap and faced her, “but you don’t even like me!”
She did shift then, unfolded her legs with a grace he himself would never possess.
She settled the book in her lap, elegant archer’s fingers grasping the worn hardcover, and pondered how best to word her thoughts.
He gave her time, waited, and was left dumbfounded when she finally spoke.
“We very often don’t like our family, Anders, but no matter what, they remain family, and family is everything.”
She left him then, alone with the revelation and the echo of her quiet goodnight.
And with the crackle of flames in the hearth and the rhythmic snoring of Zeke one room over, Anders smiled softly to himself for he finally had what he’d always longed for; family.
+
It was late, or early depending on perspective, when they stumbled out of the Hanged Man and into the streets of Lowtown.
The bawdy music followed them, caressed them and beckoned them back into the embrace of smoky warmth with the promise of many more mugs of stale ale and cheap spirits. They ignored the call, took a few steps into the cold of night and broke the taverns spell.
Lessa inhaled sharply, wavered a moment and laughed heartily as she settled more of her weight against the man at her side.
She lifted her face to his, grinned broadly and stared dazedly into the vibrant blue of his eyes, “you had me, Choir-Boy. I honestly didn’t see that one coming. You did good kid.”
He kept her on her feet when they moved, smiled to himself as she set to singing some vulgar tavern song about busty maidens and strapping sailors, hiccupping over the notes she couldn’t hit and laughing childishly through the lewd verses – which turned out to be most of the song.
A moment, here and there, he was tempted to pick her up, to throw her over his shoulder and carry her on home that way, but she’d right herself, turn to look so she could accuse the ground of machinations and then cling to him all the tighter.
Alessandra Hawke was a lush, and Sebastian found himself rather fond of her brand of insanity.
They scaled the steps into Hightown, brought with them the song and smell of a tavern in need of a good and thorough scrubbing. A guard making his rounds noticed them, tracked their slow progress with a steady and highly amused eye, and dipped his helmeted head to Sebastian when he passed.
“You know,” Lessa started with a hiccup and a hum. She turned into him, rubbed her messy hair against his shoulder the way a kitten nuzzles its mother, and snorted out a laugh, “you’re alright, for a chantry boy.”
He grinned at that, kept her on her feet when she tripped over her shoes, and stopped her just before the steps leading up and out of the market area. She swayed, lulled into a drunken micro-nap, and awoke a moment later with another not-so-lady-like snort and a giggle.
He decided against trying to wrangle the drunken mess that was Lessa Hawke up the stairs, and instead dipped and swept his arm behind her knees.
She went with a squawk, limbs flailing every which way, before she settled for clinging to him like a barnacle, her fingers buried deep in the auburn of his hair and her chin digging harshly into his collarbone.
He waited, gave her a moment, and then shook his head when he felt the warm-wet of drool steadily seeping through his shirt – asleep, because of course she was.
He took the steps slowly, more to keep her in dreams and quiet than due to any strain of hold her aloft, and made for her estate.
A strange night indeed, when he spent his time surrounded by drunks and gamblers and with the twin he found amusing at best and mildly horrifying at worst, and not the twin he was entirely gone on.
Strange, that they shared a face and yet he found no attraction to the lush in his arms.
He looked to her as she shifted, as she wavered in his arms and her head fell backwards, gave greater volume to her drunken snoring.
No, he thought with a fond smile, she was not the Hawke he wanted for his own, but she was a character all the same, and one he considered a friend.
He stepped through the arch leading into the courtyard just before her door and lifted a brow when she startled herself awake and used his head to steady herself.
She eyed him suspiciously, tugged his hair here, there, pushed his face about before deciding on some thought in her head. “I suppose you’re handsome enough.”
“Handsome enough for what?”
Her lips pursed a moment, the pale scar cutting through the top lip puckering slightly before she smiled tiredly and patted his cheek none too gently, “not my type to be sure but right up Morrigan’s alley. You’ll do.”
She climbed down from his arms when he paused at her door, fumbled through her pockets for several moments and cursed herself for forgetting her key – and then narrowed her eyes at him when he leaned around her and tested the handle, found it open.
He bid her goodnight, admitted he enjoyed their rounds of Wicked Grace, and shared a secret smile when she touched a finger to her nose and promised not to tell anyone about the pouch of gold he’d fleeced from the louts too stupid or proud to know when they were beat.
A part of him thought of the good it could do for the chantry, for the people of Kirkwall, but another part, a stronger part, a part deeper and darker and just the right side of animal, thought of the woman he was subconsciously courting, of the secret smile she gave only to him, a warmth in the blue of her eyes when the others were looking, of the quiet appreciation for a quiver of new arrows, a set of new bow strings.
The thought curled his lips, but the smile faltered when she spoke again, when her drunken ramblings reached his ears, broke through his thoughts.
He looked at her, stared as she swung the door open and went with it, almost toppled over and would have if not for the death grip she had on the handle.
She waved him away with a grin, slammed the door with a high-pitched catcall that echoed through the night and was sure to have woken several of her neighbours.
He turned for home, for his small and bare room in the chantry, for his cold and empty bed. He thought of the warmth he found only in dreams, thought of the phantom touches that lingered when he woke and haunted his days, of the things he shouldn’t want, of the things he couldn’t have.
He settled in to that cold bed in that empty room, stared at the ceiling and let her drunken words consume him.
“She’d be worth it, you know, leaving that dusty old hell house on the hill for. She’d be worth it. You’d make her happy. She’d make you happy. Everyone’s happy. And between you, me, and the fiery old bird in the sky, a good fuck might do you both some good. Just a thought, just a thought. Good game tonight, brother, fleeced those fools like a professional. Ah, but you’re a good rogue - for a chantry boy.”
And as sleep curled in and dragged him from the cold, pulled him into the warmth of an embrace and filled his mind with the sound of a laugh like music, he smiled and knew her words to be true; Morrigan Hawke would be worth it.