closed; if heaven calls

[dissent]

CHARACTERS ▶ Anders + Hawke
LOCATION ▶ Home, Zion living levels.
SUMMARY ▶ Post-Olympus Hawke falls unconscious as a result of his role in 3x3, Anders obsessively, angstily cares for him until he wakes up.
WARNINGS ▶ CW: medical stuff mentioned. Will edit if anything else.
NOTES ▶ Ambiguously dated.

They let him take Hawke home on the fifth day with no changes.

It's true, that their little cubicle of a living space does not have the machines to monitor Hawke's heart rate and respiration and brain activity, but Anders can manage at least two of those on his own, likes to imagine he can read the third if he pays close enough attention. It's enough to carry Hawke to their bed — he's bird bone light in a way that genuinely shakes something foundational in Anders beliefs about the world — and set him up with nothing more than a catheter and an IV drip Anders stole.

Anyway, he's had enough of machines for the next little while, thank you.

It's true, that being away from the crowded, understaffed hospital has its own perils — namely, Anders' coworkers are no longer there to tell him to eat, remind him to stretch and take walks. But Anders talks to Hawke, sometimes rambling confessionals of things they both already know, sometimes stories from his time in the Circle and earlier, the nameless childhood that is both nostalgic and bitter. He imagines Hawke talking back. Hawke would tell him to eat, so he eats. Hawke would tell him to get some rest, Anders, so he crawls in under the covers with him and tries to pretend he can pretend that they're just drifting off together like any other night, even if he doesn't usually leave damp tear blotches on Hawke's shirt.

It's true that he has nightmares where Hawke comes awake but he's blank as a Tranquil, a new twist on an old fear. Wakes up sweating and paralyzed in the night. He always wakes from nightmares unable to move for a few moments, and then he'll jerk himself convulsively around to cup Hawke's face in both hands and peer at it through the dark like he could somehow sense what's gestating inside this coma cocoon.

The worst part is the early mornings, when Anders comes awake and blinks sandy lashes, curls closer into Hawke, and for a moment he's nothing more terrifying than asleep, the day about to begin.

He decides he might hate the Oracle a little bit.

"Wake up," he whispers, meaning it with all his being. "I can't stay like this forever, love."

Both of them stranded somewhere in between. For the entire time that Hawke is unconscious, Anders communicates with barely anyone else, makes no attempt to be anywhere other than right there in that half-state with him, ready to slip away if it should come to that. He had two years without Hawke here, and to have him and then lose him again seems unfair. The idea that there could be more out there, waiting their turn to be unplugged, makes him feel nauseous. No. This skinny-wristed fire-starting gravitational force of a man may not have been exactly the Hawke Anders livved with and loved in the Matrix but that doesn't mean Anders could just be expected to just survive in his absence.

He only abandons him once, to go down below the city where he and Skye had found Proxy, and light a stick of incense and send up a prayer to the Maker, shorthand for whoever's listening. He plays out his return in his head, Hawke sitting up and greeting him longsufferingly, you certainly took your time getting back Anders, the first fractures in their expressions until Hawke's breaks into the broad smile that feels like home and Anders breaks down. It's a cruel daydream. When he gets back everything is as he left it.

It's barely been two weeks. It feels like a lifetime. Anders sets his shoulders against the way the future stretches before him like a featureless grey ribbon, and puts on the kettle to fill their little house with the spicy smell of chai, goes to check Hawke's drip, change his shirt, turn his bedding. "You're growing back your beard, I see," he remarks, dragging fingertips over it and wondering if he should shave it. He thumbs across Hawke's lips, and for a moment he could swear they purse, just slightly, the way Hawke responded to good morning kisses in the moments before they woke him. Anders has never read Sleeping Beauty, but he still pauses, tremblingly still and watching, aching, willing Hawke to wake up.

Nothing happens. Anders turns away and lets out a shaky, disappointed breath. The kettle whistles like the scream that's settled itself sharp behind Anders' breastbone, waiting to be dislodged. Behind him, Hawke's eyes open.

Comments

[forcemageure]

"Well," Hawke deadpans, answering Anders' unspoken addendum to the best of his inherent fatalism, "I suppose failure means they come and kill us all."

What a lovely thought. He lapses into silence a moment, enjoying the hair petting even in the midst of what he just shared. Maybe especially so. "Difficult to prove you deserve a chance to live if you're dead, isn't it? A bit of a circular argument, but she seemed to accept it. As much as she was going to accept anything I had to say."

Another pause, not as long as it ...maybe should be for what he comes out with next, abrupt subject change, impulse and an idea he's been considering at intervals for years all in the same breath. "We should get married. Not in case of imminent death, mind you, but--"

Well. A little in case of imminent death, but primarily because the option is there when it's never been before. Apparently there's nothing like a couple weeks of unconsciousness to make a person cut to the quick.

[dissent]

Anders chokes on his own indrawn breath and splutters in an undignified manner, cheeks choke-pink. His eyes are wide, but narrow as he hauls himself up onto an elbow to look down into Hawke's face. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to try that again? Maybe you could offer me a copper relief of flowers."

Despite his offended tone, and his best attempts to school his expression, Anders can tell his smile has gone all dopey. Probably there's something wrong with him for loving an idiot, but not as much as there is wrong with Hawke wanting to spend the rest of his life with an apostate slash former abomination slash all the other ways that Anders is integrally flawed. Actually, it's probably good that Hawke only asked casually, it means the panic is setting in slower.

[forcemageure]

"You say that like those didn't work out," Hawke offers in his own defense, as if one can possibly exist, sparkling back up at Anders despite the fact that this is an excellent vantage point to be pushed off the bed. "Eventually, anyway." He sighs, chest lifting with enough psuedo-drama to also like, lift Anders a little. "So you wouldn't settle for 'it'd be awfully convenient, and an excuse to buy you jewelry'?--I don't mean it, please don't smother me."

Since it's also an excellent vantage point for that. "Well. The convenience part, not the jewelry thing."

Look, he's still pissed about the evaporating chantry amulet. Months later. Stupid matrix. "I am serious, I'll have you know." As per usual he is incapable of not talking out of the side of his mouth, probably especially because he's asking for something he really wants. That's harder than taking a morality compliment. "Marry me. I know the timing's terrible, but when isn't it?"

Perhaps he can convey his myriad feelings by staring soppily, yes? Maybe some hair petting? Also yes. Also, also, Anders should definitely voice 'former apostate' as an intrinsic flaw, so Hawke can raise seventy miles of eyebrow at him. It's possible if he were going to care about that - or anything else - he would have started years before this.

[dissent]

"It just feels sudden," he protests, and almost immediately knows what a stupid thing that is to say. They've been together for so long that they're basically married anyway, which is part of why this feels so completely out of the blue. "I mean, it's surprising," he corrects himself a little lamely. "We haven't been here that long, and..."

He doesn't like to think about the other Hawkes and other Anders' but he can't help feeling like he's being offered something that should rightfully belong to another man. Who is him, because his life is just that strange now, but probably treated Hawke better and was more essentially deserving of a lifetime with the man. Anders hates him. Which is par for the course, really.

It's possible the creeping doubt is starting to show in his eyes if not his entire mobile face, and he wishes he maybe had pushed Hawke out of the bed (as though the doctoring instinct in him would ever allow it so soon after he's woken up.) "Look," he says suddenly, looking away, and then catches what he's about to say and stops abruptly. Can I think about will only give him more time to think about it. Probably this conversation is becoming somewhat enigmatic, as Anders beats himself up for being so hopelessly broken that he almost went and turned Hawke down.

"I do like jewellery," he says softly at last, playing with Hawke's returning curls where his hand is still resting. He also likes Hawke. A lot. Beyond reason, even, and that feeling isn't what he's afraid of, it's having it returned.

[forcemageure]

It's ...also probably way too late to worry about that, but. The conversation is less enigmatic than it might be if Hawke weren't aware Anders does immediately spring to any reason to crush the tiniest iota of happiness that comes his way. He bumps his head into Anders' hand, half because he likes the feeling on his scalp and half just to reassure his presence. Maybe that shouldn't be necessary, given how they're tangled up like vines, and yet.

"We could just go on as we are, you know." Straight-on eye contact; it's not invasive, just steady. They are basically already married, in all the ways it was possible in Thedas; he wouldn't be disappointed even if, yes, because they can have it he wants it. "If I have to strongarm you into the idea it's less palatable."

[dissent]

There's something about that movement that is incredibly catlike, and it fills Anders with a rush of adoring affection. He dips down and kisses Hawke, swift and gentle and almost chaste, before settling himself back down again.

"Marrying you sounds like the best thing that could possibly happen to me," he tells Hawke now that they're not looking right at each other. He needs Hawke to know that, to understand it whatever Anders' response is. His brows are still pinched. "You don't have to strong-arm me. I just don't want you to ... do something you'll regret."

[forcemageure]

"Seems a little late for that," Hawke finally, sardonically voices the underpinning of his cascading thoughts for this entire conversation. He doesn't mean the last ten years, when there were abundant opportunities to tell Anders sorry, but it was just too much work, or he couldn't be with a man who'd started a war, or any dozen other smaller or larger reasons Anders would have accepted as inevitable. What he means, whether or not it's clear in all six of those words, is here, the real world, comprised the cleanest break he could possibly have made and yet here he is anyway.

He draws a thumb over one of those pinched brows, light, but still an attempt to to smooth it out despite the lack of pressure. (Oh look it's a metaphor.) "The world won't stop spinning if you let yourself be happy for twenty seconds, you know. Even if you don't think you deserve it."

[dissent]

Anders manages a look that is at once wry and deeply self deprecating. He's aware he's being ridiculous, and he's aware that Hawke is being patient with it. That doesn't make him feel any less ridiculous or any less hesitant, but it carves out a space for him to slowly work through it, lashed fluttering closed as Hawke's thumb brushes near.

"You can't actually guarantee that, though," he jokes, a kind of deflection probably painfully familiar to a master of it. "I'd hate to be responsible for the end of the world."

That's all it seems he has to say on the matter at first, until he finally ventures: "What if we're not happy?" even though the question seems ridiculous once he says it out loud.

[forcemageure]

"Then we get a divorce and resume living in sin," Hawke intones, painfully serious, because that is, yes, painfully familiar, and so he responds in kind. Where to banter and where not is a balancing act he ...rarely bothers with, but he's bothering now. It still means saying shit like that, and yet.

He studies Anders' closed lashes, maybe counts them like a besotted idiot, because ...well, they are talking about this, at least, and Hawke loves him especially when he's difficult, even if he wishes it didn't come from a place of such bedrock self-worth. Maybe, despite the fact that his own emotional sophistication is occasionally also uh, bedrock level, he's amassed over the years the understanding that Anders needs to be loved especially at times like this. It's not hard to demonstrate.

"What do you think will change, exactly?"

Considering. And not a rhetorical question even if it could be.

[dissent]

"I don't know. I just imagine fighting a lot," Anders says dully. "And not in the fun way where we end up in bed." Because fighting is just what married people do. It's what his parents had done. It's, from what he can tell, what Hawke's parents had done, even if they'd tried to keep a lid on it in front of the children. And all right, he'd never seen Aveline and Donnic go at it, but it's not like he had a window into their private lives.

That said, he has no idea what they'd fight about. Usually when Anders gets angry he gets all sullen and tells Hawke exactly what he thinks of him and then forgives him because that's the kind of mercurial, heart on his sleeve idiot he is. It's never been a Cold War between them, not even when he lied to Hawke so vastly. So it's illogical. He knows it's illogical.

His eyes crack open, and he looks at Hawke properly. "I want rings. And I don't want a big party."

[forcemageure]

Despite the fact that it's comprised ninety percent of his life Hawke actually ...hates conflict, at least when it's interpersonal, so that would make a pretty compelling argument, or at least give him pause, except that as thin a tightrope as his parents might have stretched, a commitment had been made, and they saw it through. Because the previously unaccounted for ten percent is taken up by humorous irony, that's a significant part of why it's so hard to get Hawke to commit in the first place--when it happens, he means it.

In Thedas a big party would have been less a decision than an inevitability, but here the lack of one is such an easy concession to make Hawke doesn't even think about it, conceding with an easy shrug, smile taking over his entire face. "I suppose I can live with disappointing all five people I'd invite anyway."

Deadpan. He finds one of Anders' hands, skims his ring finger with a thumb. It's an easy guess what he's imagining. "Should I surprise you? Or do you want to see what we can scrounge up together." A quick, soft twist of his always mobile mouth. "Maybe you've had enough surprises for one day."

[dissent]

"Only good ones," Anders deflects, though that does remind him that he hasn't actually checked Hawke over properly yet, or proceeded with any of the other myriad things he should be doing now that Hawke's woken up.

"Do surprise me," he says, since he trusts Hawke's taste and knowledge of what Anders likes, and the entire concept is too overwhelming for him to be able to deal with ring shopping together, even if he's acquiesced to it. "Now, are you going to let me up so I can get you some water?"

[forcemageure]

"In a minute," Hawke demurs, absurdly, like cuddling is so much more important than sounding less like he's been using broken glass as lozenges. Which it totally is, thank you, at least to Hawke. To demonstrate he actually holds on more tightly, then retires dramatically backwards like a marionette whose operator has been suddenly called away by something important.

He's actually just scheming about rings with his eyes shut, but surely especially since he didn't mention them Anders expects that.

[dissent]

Anders kisses his cheek while his eyes are closed, and then rolls back out of the bed, real world coming back to him like a rake to the face. He has days worth of responsibilities, weeks, that he's been putting off, and they'll have to wait a while longer until he's certain Hawke is better.

The water is a dull colour, and bright with cold; Anders fills the biggest tin he has as a cup and brings it back. "Sit up," he coaxes. "Drink this. Small sips. Are you hungry?"

[forcemageure]

"You know, I'm not really sure?" For a sentence he has never before used regarding food and probably never will again, either. He's more than willing to go for the water, though, obediently sipping with both hands around the tin despite how his brain is of the mind (yes) he should just start guzzling as fast as possible, suddenly aware once it hits his tongue how thirsty he actually is. Since he's not actually dehydrated it's mostly superficial, but at least his mouth tastes a little less like two weeks of unconsciousness.

"Let's just assume I am, it's probably true."

He has met himself. "If I try to get up are you going to sit on me?"

...the eyebrow waggling is useless, but he affects it anyway.

[dissent]

"Yes," Anders says sternly, suddenly hovering as though in imminent readiness for sitting upon. "And you won't enjoy it. Stay there and let me look after you."

As though he hasn't been doing that for a while now. As though Hawke hasn't spent far too much time in bed. Honestly, Anders wants him up and about just as much as Hawke does, but since he can't just wash a couple of clean green spells over him and this is the real world the checking up process is a little longer, more complicated.

As soon as he thinks it's safe to move away from Hawke's bedside, he goes over to start making them food, sawing off thick slabs of black bread to be spread with creamy, salty protein and topped with slices of what might be an actual tomato, small and green. "You've been out for a while, anyway, your muscles might have forgotten how to get you about again."

[forcemageure]

"I don't see how I'm supposed to figure that out unless I use them," Hawke mock-grouses, because he remains a one man drama machine. Machine jokes aside.

This is all still being lobbed into the atmosphere while flat on his back with his eyes closed, by the way. He heaves approximately a dozen persons worth of sigh, and at least sits all the way up, legs out in front of him with arms sprawled loose on his thighs, crossed over each other. Possibly he has more to say on the topic of whether or not it's possible for Anders to sit on him without residual enjoyment - were there ever actually paralysis glyphs involved on previous occasions? signs point to yes - but he's interrupted by his stomach proclaiming a serious of rumbles on the subject of whether or not he's hungry.

Hawke eyes his own torso with exaggerated slowness. "Well! That answers that question, I suppose."

He's also eyeing the amount of food Anders is putting together, which seems to be either enough for both of them, or a bunch of hungry orphans are about to filter through the door. That staves off, for the moment, querying how much Anders has, say, eaten or slept or cared for himself in any way while Hawke has been unconscious, but not for long.

[dissent]

Anders comes back over with the food, forcing down another squall pot relieved emotion at the sight of Hawke sitting up and looking alive. He really actually only intended for Hawke to eat the food despite making as much as he did, but he can probably be coaxed into eating as he sits back down next to Hawke, shores up along his side out of spacial necessity and a need to just ... be touching him in some way.

"Eat," he encourages, still not particularly hungry himself, though he watches Hawke put food in his mouth like the sight is nourishment to a starving man. He has water of his own, though, sips at that to try and kickstart an appetite that's gone dormant over the last couple of weeks.