open! / got a blank space baby.

[dissent]

CHARACTERS ▶ Anders + Fenris, Kitty, open.
LOCATION ▶ Around Zion.
SUMMARY ▶ Anders runs into Fenris and talks with Kitty while she works.
WARNINGS ▶ None. Will edit if any.
NOTES ▶ Feel free to toss a starter top level down if you're struck by inspiration. Action or prose of any length is welcome!

Comments

[halatinous]

[Fenris's eyes widen, just slightly. His muscles, such as they are, tense. Anders doesn't deserve happiness. He doesn't deserve to flee from what he did, to forget it ever happened. To build a new life. Anders hasn't earned that, in Fenris's eyes. He hasn't answered for anything.

It's infuriating.

He stops himself from looking away, keeps his eyes--still as piercing green as ever--fixed on Anders's smug face.]

Mmm. Hawke and I are working on it.

[He should turn on his heel now and just walk away, but he can't help himself. Never could, with Anders. So he goes on, his deep voice soft and cold.]

I'm glad, though. You wanted to run away with him, and you have. You wanted a new life, and you've got it. No harm will come to you here.

[He inclines his head to one side.]

No justice.

[dissent]

[ That one word, and Anders' smirk drops away. His eyes narrow, shifting the box to the side. ]

You say that like you know anything about Justice.

[ It's audibly a proper noun. Anders' teeth grit, and he feels the familiar flare of anger deep within, that cold rush in his veins he always thought of as inhuman, the rage that wants to imbue his limbs with violence. It's a part of himself he's always thought of as the spirit's presence in his body, but perhaps his emotions are not so easily delineated, because there are no spirits in the real world.

Still, when he clenches a fist, he doesnt entirely feel in control of it. ]

He thought we should pay for what we did, too. Maybe just as much as you do. But he's not here now.

[ Even though he thinks there's more justice, true justice, in the workings of Zion than there ever was in Kirkwall. ]

It's just me.

[halatinous]

[True, Fenris doesn't know much about the actual spirit. He knew only the facts he found relevant: the thing had fused with Anders, it had made an abomination of him, and its influence had directly lead to widespread chaos and death. What else was there? What else that mattered?]

And what do you think, Anders? Or are you simply relieved, to be so abruptly and fully absolved?

[dissent]

I think that you should keep moving.

[ Because it's none of Fenris' business how much he hates himself on any given day. The relief is there, yes, and the guilt, and the lessons that Zion therapists taught him to let go of the Matrix as well as the absolute bulldog refusal to let go of his past, to allow himself any sort of meaningful new beginning. ]

And stop spreading my past all over the network. You already lost me one friend.

[halatinous]

Tch.

[A number of cruel, gloating thoughts run through his mind, thoughts about how it's what Anders deserves, how he isn't sorry. Petty, squabbling thoughts about how Fenris had just answered a question, honestly, and Anders just had to get involved.

The two of them had always been at odds, if not each other's throats. Fenris can't deny the surge of rage and contempt he had felt in the wake of the Chantry's destruction. But he knew Hawke would never kill Anders, no matter how much the man asked--begged--for death. Hawke had reacted exactly as expected, as always: with tempered compassion. Everyone, Anders included, had fought together one last time.

Fenris had gone along with it, just as he had so many times before. He had seven years of something with Anders, and he can't easily forget it, whether he wants to or not.

He turns away, speaks to the ground.]

She seems like a soft touch. I'm sure the two of you will be perfectly fine.

[And then he takes Anders's advice, and he goes.]