осторожно!"For Cypheroftyr, Fenris/Anders, We all have scars
(slave!anders rescued)
*
Anders’ back was flawless when they were in Kirkwall.
Comrades; that was all they were, and Anders knew where Fenris’ tattoos ended, where it curled over the bones of his hip. Elegant white lines carved inch by inch, bled and covered in searing poison.
Anders thought they were beautiful, then.
Fenris saw only the lack of lines on the outside, whatever punishment Anders purported to have received leaving no marks, no evidence.
Anders used to heal his papercuts. Just a light wave of the hand and a muttered spell, no more than a breath, a gesture, effortless.
They stopped when Anders fell, and Fenris snapped off the quivers, pushed the heads of the arrows through, Anders making barely a grunt though he grimaced through the pain.
He refused to heal them.
Magic came and sputtered at his fingertips, and Fenris could not command him.
Poutices were slow working and the cloths soaked in blood, so Fenris changed them, added mashed elfroot without a healer’s mind to guide him, praying that infection would not set in. The fevers came, the fevers went; Anders called him master, clung to him, and Fenris thought of leaving him behind.
It would have been so much easier to let the mage rot, but when he was alone and wounded someone cared for him, so Fenris remained.
There was a map of stars on Anders’ back, a mirrored constellation on his chest. Raised, angry red stars on a white sky, terrifying to behold.
“Why did you not heal them, mage?” Fenris asked, not expecting a reply. Tears in the night and silence, wistful glances towards the eastern sky when Fenris took him outside.
A crimson red line showed on the edge of his tunic, and Fenris shifted the garment to cover it. Anders held himself perfectly still; Fenris stared. Anders used to flinch away when he came close.
It felt like a long time ago that they fought - some drunken argument in the Hanged Man. Fenris had only trapped him, caging him against a wall with his clawed gauntlets. Anders had cowered. Fenris could hear the pulse over his fingertips, see the sweat running down the side of Anders’ cheek and smell his fear.
He shoved Anders against the wall of their hut now - theirs, how they slipped into this strange arragement he could not fathom - and he looked past Fenris, unfocused. His heart was not beating any faster from the inside, though his breathing quickened. Some instincts could not be overridden.
“Fight me, mage.”
He did not know which was worse, the bleeding wounds on the inside or the mottled scars, the fear of metal gauntlets tearing at his hair or the dead eyes that refused to meet Fenris’ own.
When the first words came back he tried again.
“Anders,” he touched a red star on his back, too close to his heart. “Why didn’t you heal them?”
A pale hand covered his own, soft, tentative touch, fingers on the white lines. The phrase built slowly, prompted each step of the way.
“You can’t heal yours.”"
"For stormdragon, Fenris/Anders - it's just a dream
Broken!Anders / Fenris. (pretext: Slave!Anders rescued.)
*
Healing was easy.
Flesh and bone wounds, dead blood and ichor, things to mend and things to purge. The tower without demons and templars was a home; a rustic clinic in the darkest end of town, steel kept far enough away to breathe, a sanctuary.
Maybe it wasn’t easy.
But at least it was simple.
Simple was a distant thing, a long lost memory. Simple was gone.
Anders remembered warmth, soft touches, chest against his back, the scenes tangled with - he could not recall could not recall at all - another back turned, his beloved master’s eyes looking through him and past him, uncaring.
He woke screaming into the dark, and so mindful of the sounds he made it was wholly silent, his back curving unnaturally so the air in his lungs were crushed and the scream was a soft wheeze.
Warmth, soft touches, chest against his back.
If he kept his eyes closed it would not fade, the dream would linger, he hoped. Back to the simple things, a leash tugging him forward, pain when he would not move. But a rumbling voice by his ear would not let him dream.
“Anders, wake up.”
Fingers, lyrium tingling and too hot, brushed at his cheek to come away glistening. Anders flinched away, turning his head from side to side.
He did not cry.
He felt no pain.
He did not miss his old master for the new one would strike him, push him far away where pain was worse, the slave alone, the slave unprotected.
“Anders,” Fenris pulled him closer, close enough to see lyrium glow reflected in Anders’ eyes. “You’re not in Minrathous anymore.”
Saul was no longer here - pain giver, lover, master - and he shook in Fenris’ arms.
Fear woven with love, impossible to disentangle, and Anders could not let it go. He could not heal this; it was not a cut or a bruise, but a poison so much a part of him that he could not bear to part with it.
“I want,” he could speak, and Fenris’ eyes flashed wide for a second before he could hide the surprise.
“You want.”
There was nothing else, but Fenris understood. He wanted a guiding light for his darkness, a voice to command him.
But he learned to take a derelict mansion and called it home, broken windows and mushrooms on the carpet, holes in the ceiling and paintings crashing to the floor on stormy nights. Nothing left to fix, nothing felt as though it was his to fix.
No more words were forthcoming.
Fenris pulled Anders back into his arms, letting his lyrium fade.
“It’s so dark,” Anders said, shaking, fingers digging into Fenris’ back.
“You’ll learn to live with it.”"
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