I finally finished it! RL decided I would make a good punching bag for awhile so I have had no time for anything. (Also the reason I’m not on Tumblr much anymore, sadly)
FFN: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7381608/16/Eyes_in_the_Dark
Kink: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/6614.html?thread=34749398#t34749398
Ao3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/287538/chapters/662217
I MISSED THIS LAST WEEK, I AM SORRY TO SAY. Lovely manip as always.
Bliss
Fenris would never admit it to anyone, but he liked the fact that the mage was so touchy feely when they were alone. He took a long time to admit that he liked the fact that Anders always wanted to touch him, to caress and cuddle him. He acted like the touch of any other burned him, made him remember past pains but not Anders.In private he was free to touch as he pleased. To caress his ears, to cajole that damn noise out of him that the mage swore sounded like a purr of that damned cat he missed so much. Fenris stood there as Anders came up behind him, leaning in for a kiss and a caress before they left for card night at the Hanged Man.
One of these days Anders would forget that they were trying to keep whatever they called it between them, he knew he would lean in for a kiss or call him love accidentally and let the cat out of the bag.
Fenris was waiting for one of them to slip up. He knew he was getting used to the mages presence in his life and there would be a time when he needed reassurance of touch to make sure the mage was safe, unharmed… present.
That moment came after running across a group of rogue Templars while on the run from Kirkwall’s ruination. Anders was not the man he was any longer, he was running on automatic it seemed like. But when the Templars decided that the mage, his mage was fair game… he had to reassure himself that Anders was still present once the fighting ended.
The careful caress, the brief kiss was enough to make Anders seem like himself for a moment, until the catcalls from Hawke and Isabela started. The made Anders shutter his expression, the brightness in his amber eyes gone as quickly as it had come. He stepped back and turned toward the road again… muttering a curse for Hawke before they set out toward Honnleath, a small town they had picked as the furthest away from Kirkwall without leaving Thedas entirely.
the endIt wasn’t that Varric had no more stories left, no more inspiration. He had plenty. Like that time Hawke went through his Black Fox phase, or Merrill finally got her griffon. Like the months they spent in Tevinter, the summer they weathered on Isabela’s ship—‘Isabela’s ship now,’ she said, ‘and that’s what makes it Isabela’s ship’—and all the costume changes along the way. The scarf in Hawke’s hair, the piercing in Hawke’s ear, the one Anders got to match and the one Fenris refused to get. The stray kittens. The letters from Aveline. The slavers they took care of. The problems they solved, the trouble they caused, the bad ale that made them sick as wardens after the taint, the whole Exalted March thing Varric said was too dramatic to be believed, and the wyvern Hawke rode that one time, claiming afterward it made his thighs all sore on the insides.
‘Although if I’m not used to it by now…’ he added, eyes still sparkling, a streak of silver hiding in his beard.
Varric didn’t mention it, so long as Hawke didn’t mention the streak of silver hiding on his chest.
Finally, there were the hills they ended up in, right back at the beginning, making the usual jokes about the Free Marches, doing their best not to mention the City of Chains. It was there on the horizon, behind them now instead of anywhere else, when Varric said he wasn’t writing it all down, that he hadn’t been for a long time.
‘All stories have to end somewhere, Hawke,’ he said, while Hawke pretended the disappointment wasn’t personal and Varric pretended he wouldn’t miss it, too—or that he wouldn’t keep coming up with damn good lines, putting them down on scraps of vellum, promises not quite made and never kept, all those tales he wasn’t meant to tell.
After my posts last night sort of being offhandedly amused at how perfectly devious I think Varric can be sometimes, I was actually thinking seriously and deeply about the very beginning of the game, and some possible ideas about just how Varric zeroed in specifically on Hawke as The Perfect Candidate for the Deep Roads Expedition.
Everything below is headcanon / speculation / thinky thoughts / etc, just as a disclaimer. This is also not my ONLY headcanon for Varric, because of the nature of DA2, there’s basically an infinite number of potential headcanons regarding Varric and his truthfulness, so this is just one of those many, many potential ideas.
At first, I was just half-joking when I posted, ‘Varric, you scamp’, and said:
“When you recruited Hawke, you were just silver-tonguing the candidate most likely desperate and gullible enough to be persuaded into confronting and winning over Anders, weren’t you?”
Except, then I actually thought about it.
Varric really doesn’t seem to be lying when he talks about having fingers on the pulse of basically everything in Kirkwall. Unless he’s blatantly lying about everything he tells Cassandra, but I’m really not prepared to get into that crazy infinite loop of recursive self-perpetuating unreliable narrator logic, so I’m going to operate, for this particular theory, that Varric is actually representing himself at least marginally truthfully in some aspects — some of the ones that really matter, anyway.
I think he pretends that his meeting with Hawke is a bit more random and a bit less planned than it actually was, though.
Interesting idea, and backed up very well! :) Sneaky sneaky Varric…
Commission done for autumnyte , Anders and Warden!Carver.
Eeeee! I love this so much. The tenderness between them, the detail on their faces. Thank you for gorgeous piece. And even though I’m still in this intense writer’s block, my brain somehow decided to write a ficlet to go with this.
Several hours after Anders had snuffed out the clinic’s lantern for the night, he heard the front door creak open. For an instant, cold panic prickled his spine and his gaze snapped to the doorway. But when the figure he saw bathed in candlelight turned out not to be a templar, he let out a long, slow breath.
“Carver?” he said softly, rising from the chair at his desk and taking a few steps closer. “This is a surprise. It’s been months since you last wrote.”
“Yeah, well, you know how it is… Deep Roads.” Carver shrugged and toed the dirt floor. Even in the dim light, Anders could clearly discern heavy lines of exhaustion on his face. “Anyway, I had no notice we’d be coming to Kirkwall this time. My unit’s only passing through. In fact, we have to regroup in—ugh—just two hours.”
“That’s… barely any time at all.” Anders moved forward with more urgency, swiftly closing the distance between them.
Wordlessly and frantically, they began to undress one another. After a handful of similar encounters, this had become a key part of their routine: divesting each other of every last piece of armor and stitch of clothing, until there was no tangible barrier between them. Of course, the intangible barriers still existed, mage and non-mage, Warden and escaped Warden. But when they were stripped down to nothing but bare skin, it was easier to imagine that they were simply Carver and Anders—two lonely souls who’d discovered more in common than they once cared to admit.
Standing behind Carver, Anders pulled him into an embrace. “I’m glad you could come. I’ve… missed you,” he whispered.
Carver was silent for a long moment. When he finally responded, his voice came out shaky. “I almost didn’t come. I’ve been thinking about things,” he confessed. “It’s just… I’ll always be a Warden, Anders. Which means you and I can never have anything more than this. A few stolen hours, separated by months. Maybe this isn’t fair to you, but… I don’t want to stop, either.”
With a faint smile, Anders laced their fingers together, resting his head on Carver’s shoulder. “Life hasn’t exactly been fair to either one of us, has it? But I’d rather hold you twice a year than never at all.” He placed a gentle kiss against the side of Carver’s neck. ”Why don’t we make the most of the time we have now?”
Carver nodded and brushed a kiss against Anders’s fingers. “Maker, three whole months of thinking about you and two measly hours to catch up. I don’t even know where to start.”
Anders chuckled and let his hand drift lower. “Trust me, I have plenty of ideas.”
The art! The ficlet! The pairing! This is amazing :D
A boy left his bike chained to a tree when he went away to war in 1914. He never returned, leaving the tree no choice but to grow around the bike.
Photographer UnknownFalse - real object, but left in the 50s, not the 1914s, and not by someone going off to war.
I actually saw this bike when I was really little on Vashon Island with my grandpa. He made up a whole story about how a little boy lost his red bike in the dark woods, and searched everyday for it but could never find it again. Then one day when he was grown-up he came back to the forest and found this tree, and he wept for his little red bike for days, because he could never get it back.
Totally not true (my grandpa make it all up) but I can’t believe this just happened to pop up on Tumblr of all places and remind me of his story. I’m kind of amazed actually :’)
I just… couldn’t not draw this.
Sorry Aveline for making you lose your cool.can’t compete with isabela, hawke tells himself. (whenever he tries the ‘do you think i need a bath?’ line people always pinch their noses with an unequivocal ‘yes!’) tough luck, donnic. tough luck, me.
Love this :D
2 by *GIVEthemHORNS
*sobs* Anders…
Anders stared up at the red hot brand inching towards him. He contemplated his life while the Templar wielding the brand sneered at him. He should have fought more, should have called upon the spirit he harbored when they came for him…instead he gave up. An army of Templar at his door, Hawke leading them was the final straw, the last thing that broke his resolve to bring the establishment crumbling around him.
He pondered his life as a Warden…what being Tranquil would mean when his Calling came. Would he even care? Would he fight the pull of the Taint in his blood or would the docility of the brand nullify his will to obey even that primal urge? Would Hawke kill him then? Once the Taint started to claim his body? When he was no more of a man than Larius, the old Warden they’d encountered in the depths so long ago?
What would the Warden Commander say when…hell if she heard of them making him Tranquil? Would she even care? Would Solona scoff and say that’s what he deserved for deserting them all? For letting them think he was dead until he ran into Nathaniel Howe again?
He blinked and swallowed, the noise audible in the room… as he wondered why the hesitation on the Templar’s part to brand him, sever him from his mind, his power, the Fade itself. He watched, as Carver pulled off his helm a savage look on his face as he crouched low and leaned into Anders face, all angles, anger, and avarice as he watched the mage finally cower.
“Hawke made sure I would be the one to brand you apostate.”
Anders said nothing, he knew there were no words to save him, no words would undo the stain of blood on his hands, his soul. He closed his eyes and waited for the searing pain, the drain on his soul.
“Open your eyes, face your fate coward.”
Anders opened his eyes once more, but did not give the younger Hawke the satisfaction of giving him a final plea for leniency. Instead he held Carver’s gaze as the brand came closer, the unnatural heat crackling in the cell.
“Nothing to say, no witty final remarks?”
“No”
“Pity, I’d hoped to have one last verbal match with you before you became my own pet Tranquil.”
Carver gave no warning before he laid the Tranquil brand to Anders forehead, the scent of seared flesh making him gag slightly… but the scream that Anders let loose made it worth it. The way he saw the light leave the honey brown eyes was worth it, worth the blood, the sacrifice, the pain of it all.
“Open your eyes.”
Anders obeyed and looked up at Carver, blank, unfeeling and unable to do anything further than what Templar Hawke allowed, after all he was one of the Tranquil now, and his will, his only known desire was to serve.
Did I get your attention?
Good!
Now Cypheroftyr and I are both a little unmotivated lately to write. We’ve been on and off sick, and busy, and lazy and just in general not very focused.
So in order to remedy this, we plan on having a write-a-thon for an hour this weekend.
We plan on being in…
-timidly raises hand- I may be able to join you guys. I haven’t been able to write anything for a solid month so I need to get motivated again too. But I have almost no idea what IRC is or how to work it. XD
YES. Because there needs to be more writing from you definitely. IRC is a chat program that allows a lot of people to be in a room together (sort of like livestreaming without the video). You can go to http://www.mibbet.com and connect to IRC through them, you just need to know the room name which is #datumblr (with the # in front of it). This room is used a lot by a handful of us to just hang out and talk (Tempus_Teapot, a1879, Serindrana, Reanimatrix, me, Cypheroftyr, Rhiannon42, combination_nc, and many more that I don’t have the memory to list here while I’m at work XD), so there’s always people in there to talk to, but this is going to be a special writing hour.
And don’t feel bad. I haven’t written anything longer than a few hundred words (the ABC meme) since … um… October? D:
haha yes there does. Sounds awesome, I just hope I don’t stay quiet like I usually do with those things, I need to be more social! Anyways no promises, but I will more then likely be there for the writing hour! :D
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