An ocean of sorrow does nobody drown

[apurrstate]

The crackle of the fire was the only sound in the camp and the silence surrounding it was deafening.

Their group was so small now, much smaller than it had been only a week ago. A week and everything had changed. That had been his plan, after all...but it had gotten out of hand in Kirkwall, the devastation of the fighting had been so much worse than he'd imagined. Still, he wouldn't change it. Looking around the fire, Hawke and Varric to one side, Merrill asleep at another and Aveline and Carver left in the city now days at their backs, he still wouldn't change it. Isabella long gone, Fenris dead...all he had to do was think back to the years when they were a larger group to know what was missing...and he still wouldn't change it.

It had to happen and while maybe part of him wished it didn't have to be him who carried out the act, he knew too, that he couldn't simply ask someone else to do what he wasn't willing to.

It should have ended for him that night, it was what he'd planned. Instead it didn't, his love had spared him and somehow made him see the next day...and the day after. Each new day Anders saw drew new surprise and a mixture of hope and defeat. Hope that maybe there'd be another day after this one as well, but defeat in knowing it couldn't possibly last.

He'd put his life in Adalwolfe's hands and it hadn't been ended, he'd said they'd need to run away from the city to remain together and, at the gates of Kirkwall, Hawke had said his goodbyes to long-time friend and brother and led the way out into the Free Marches. It would have to end at some point, this kind of luck didn't last.

Anders stood and quietly stepped away from the fire and the group's small camp. He wouldn't be able to find sleep anytime soon anyway. Hawke had slept apart from him (understandably so) and Anders found it hard to bare after years of feeling that warmth pressed in his arms. Yet he didn't ask and Hawke didn't offer and Anders continued not to sleep but for minutes at a time. He should be used to it, perhaps life in Hightown had softened him up too much. His few steps took him to the edge of the land, the drop off below leading straight into the ocean they were following for now. He leaned against a large rock set in the ground and gave a sigh.

What if he simply stepped off the ledge and fell to the waters below? That would be easier for his companions, wouldn't it? They could go back to their lives while the fires of his rebellion continued to burn across Thedas and the people he'd murdered could have their justice at last. What was he living for, anyway? The love of his life spared him for...some reason and didn't even banish him from his side and yet he barely looked at him. His friends wouldn't look at him. Even Justice seemed so muted as to almost be gone, like fulfilling Their goal had snuffed the spirit out. Only that faint hum in the back of his mind told him it wasn't true.

It would be easier...

His feet stayed planted where they were. He wouldn't take those extra steps. Perhaps there was still a part of him that was a coward afterall. His eyes left the surf and lifted to the starry sky instead

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[wolfehawke]

Anders walks off and Adalwolfe doesn't follow, huddled as he is near the campfire. He's barely spoken to his lover since they'd said what might have been their final exchange before fighting Meredith in the Gallows courtyard. Cullen had let them leave, and that was a kindness Hawke wasn't about to squander at the time.

He'd left everything but his companions, and even then some remained in the city. Carver and Aveline would keep each other safe, and Kirkwall needed them both more than they needed anyone else. Even so, Hawke had left Ser Drools with his brother, along with the estate. The Mabari for protection and the house so it wouldn't fall away again in his absence to Gamlen's penchant for getting himself into monetary trouble. He hadn't had the chance to give the instruction in the chaos, but he hopes Carver at least lets Gamlen live there, if his Templar brother doesn't want to leave the order barracks. Gamlen and Charade are all the Hawke brothers have left, as frustrating as their uncle is. He's still family.

Hawke would have liked to get to know Charade better, honestly. He'll never have the chance now, not with the mess made of Kirkwall. If it had just been Meredith, it could have been explained. Varric's silver tongue would make short work of the entire issue. But no, Anders had gone behind all of their backs and given her a reason.

She probably would have come after them anyway, all of them. The apostates, those in the Gallows, even himself. Maybe even the Dalish at Sundermount in her zeal, but at least then it would be justified to fight her to anyone with eyes, even if mages would have died. Or worse...

Anders had probably saved many from the Rite with his actions.

But he'd also killed so many too, people who didn't deserve it. There were good mothers and sisters in the Chantry, those who honestly sought to do good in the name of the Maker and Andraste. Did they deserve that sort of cataclysmic death?

It was coming anyway. They'd all seen it, all of the plotting and scheming on both sides from Templars and blood mages alike, with the Circle mages and apostates barely scraping by caught in the middle.

But why did it have to be Anders?

Why did it have to be me?

He misses his house, his dog, his frustratingly dull brother, one of his best friends, and Fenris' loss feels like a hole in him. He has barely been able to look at Anders for the last several days because it twinges when he does. He feels angry and sick but sympathetic and... and too much, all wrapped up in confusion enough that he feels about to choke and can't manage a word. Can't sit close, but can't be too far either.

Adalwolfe glances over his shoulder, less of a movement and more just a flick of his gaze. Anders stands there, a silhouetted silver outline of moonlight against a black sea and he doesn't even question why he couldn't kill Anders then and certainly can't do it now.

Because, even if what he did was fundamentally wrong, he's entirely right that there could be no compromise.

Anders looks up and Hawke rises, the metal of his boots scraping sand as he moves from the small circle of warmth and joins his lover in the dark.

"I'm still angry," he says, after coming to stand beside him, still not looking at him but instead at the far shore, as if he could see all the way to Highever in the dim light. "But I do understand."

[apurrstate]

His thoughts are too many and too far from the cliff edge to notice another person nearby. Were it a templar, Anders would have been dead in no time, instead it's Adalwolfe and his voice still makes Anders flinch as though it were a lighting spell and not his lover's words that had touched him. His flinch is followed by a step back and his head bowing in shame as though his thoughts from only moments ago would surely be heard if he didn't hide his eyes.

It is a blessing to even hear Hawke's voice again, much less to hear it with kinder words than he could have hoped for. Thank you. The thought rang in his head even as another came forward and miraculously made it to his lips. He hadn't spoken since before the fight with Meredith. He should have died then, if not by Hawke's hand.

"I am sorry for lying to you. I shouldn't have, even with the intention I held. You're still blamed for my crimes and still suffer for my actions. I wasn't able to protect you from that and only hurt you worse for it."

He'd had miles to think over the words he might say, if he finally said them, and while they were what he'd turned over in his mind over and over, they still weren't enough.

[wolfehawke]

"No. You shouldn't have. You should have thought about what you were doing, who you were doing it to. It's not just the Chantry that suffered." Harsh words, harsher than he'd meant them to be and that frustrates him into shifting his feet and sending a hand back through his hair. His bangs fall back into place regardless, highlighting the lines around his eyes.

"How many apostates did we try to help, only to watch them make choices that proved the Commander right? How often did we see destruction wrought for the very same reasons you had - good reasons - but have to tell a grieving parent, sibling, or child that their loved one was not returning?" He lets out a breath, letting that thought settle and feeling the weight of it just as much as he imagines Anders does. When Adalwolfe speaks again, his voice is softer. "If you'd just told me, we could have done something big without hurting our cause in the process. Did you think I wouldn't help you? That even as a fellow apostate I wouldn't understand?"

[apurrstate]

Perhaps that would have been kinder. Perhaps he should have found a way to do what he did and then die in the process without Hawke ever being involved. Then it could have been someone else to tell the Champion his apostate companion had died.

No, it wouldn't have been kinder. Kinder to Anders himself, perhaps, all it would have accomplished was Hawke's heartbreak all over again but now with the added layer of not knowing why and not getting a good-bye.

"And what could we have done, Hawke? I didn't simply wake up and decide this course of action, I spent years hoping to find some other way. I wrote and wrote and my words went unheard, we tried to show with gentler actions, but nothing we did mattered, even your voice wasn't loud enough. What else was there to do but something that couldn't go unnoticed?" His eyes were back to the waves, the pain in his eyes drowning there rather than potentially being caught in Adalwolfe's silver gaze.

"As an apostate, you were hunted all your life, the threat of the Circle and Chantry over your head, you heard the horrors from your father, it's true and I know you understand, it's one of the reasons I felt so safe with you. Safe enough to share everything with you. Everything but the part I can't share, the horrors I saw in the Circle. You didn't live them and I was prepared to condemn myself for paying back those horrors. I wasn't going to drag you with me, if I could."

You should have killed me.

It was a sharp thought, a knife through his thoughts at the thought of the one that should have been in his back. He'd been certain his lover would be able to do it, would recognize it as the right thing to do and follow through as he did. Sometimes the good guys had to make the rough choices.

[wolfehawke]

"We could have gotten the Sisters out. Something to keep the loss of innocent life to a minimum. Not every Revered Mother is Patrice, nor is every Templar Meredith, just as not every mage is above all reproach. We've fought our share of blood mages and abominations and I-"

He lets out a breath, stopping himself. He's just talking in anger now, not telling Anders anything he doesn't already know. It's not that every Templar is a zealot. Things would have come to a head long ago if they were. No, it's that there are Grand Clerics like Elthina who mean well but do nothing, Templars like Thrask who sympathize but have little power to overturn anything on their own. Those who do not act are part of the problem, complacency is part of the problem.

Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him.
Foul and corrupt are they
Who have taken His gift
And turned it against His children.

He remembers Anders' interpretation in his manifesto, a crumpled page Hawke had found wedged between candlesticks at the dinner table and read simply because no one else had been home at the time to join him but Ser Drools and the hound is hardly a conversationalist.

The modern Chantry has turned these words into a treatise against us, that mages themselves should be made to serve against their will, but are we not all children of the Maker? That is also what the Chantry teaches, and in doing so they betray their hypocrisy. I say nay! Magic itself is to serve man, to heal and not be raised against fellow children of the Maker, but Mages are these children too and shall not be made slaves simply for being unwittingly given His gift!

The passage had started Hawke thinking, at least a bit before he was again called from a meal to deal with some trouble or another - the job of a Champion is never finished, after all. Hawke had never been a particularly religious man but he knew the Chant as well as anyone else and it troubled him that he'd never heard this way of thinking. Never thought this way himself until reading Anders' words, as annoying as it was to find pages hidden in every crevice of his estate.

Now all for Carver to find, he supposes.

He let's out another breath.

"I'm not angry for what you did, Anders. You're right, something had to give. I'm just... disappointed in how you went about it. I would have liked to have chosen when I'd have to fight the late Knight-Commander and then flee as an enemy of the Chantry. At least then I could have gotten some things in order." He gives a wan smile, a poor joke offered with a bit more bite than he'd intended, but Anders was usually quite good at picking up his meaning.

[apurrstate]

His lips twitch up into an almost-smile, certainly the closest he's been in a while, despite the seriousness still in the conversation. Hawke had that affect, and not only on Anders.

He had to ask. Days of not knowing why and putting it off had led to this and if he didn't ask now, he never would and it would eat at him.

"Why did you spare me? Even beyond that, why did you then come with me you could have kept your life, your status. I tried to spare you this outcome and you followed it through all the same."

Now he looked up at Hawke. "Years ago, I told you I'd break your heart. I didn't know how, but I knew it would happen. Why did you not simply banish me from you when it finally did?"

It was all he could ask now. At the time, he hadn't wanted to second-guess a chance to continue fighting for the mages, but now he needed to know. They could discuss what he'd done till dawn and it wouldn't change the fact he'd done it and the ramifications were already playing out, this...what now was what he needed to look to.

[wolfehawke]

At Anders' question, Hawke looks at him dumbly, trying to parse if the mage honestly has no idea or if he's goading Adalwolfe into saying the words he's been reluctant to say since they'd left the city walls. A heavy blink and Anders is still looking at him expectantly, almost nervously. He really doesn't know the answer, then.

"You're an idiot. A grand one," Hawke pronounces, mouth set in an unimpressed line. "After six years and having you move in with me, giving you the key to a secret tunnel from my cellar to Darktown so you could get to your clinic without being seen? Training my dog not to chase stray cats that boldly decide to just waltz onto our balconies for you? After you've seen me at my weakest and you still stayed? Do you really not know the answer to that?"

Hawke regards his companion incredulously and something of that feeling welled up inside him. It was weak, fainter than it had been when he'd just started to weasel into Anders' life and Anders into his, but no less strong of vibrant. Perhaps he'd just needed the reminder of their history, of why he'd spared Anders. Because of course he would spare Anders. He may be a mess of sleeplessness, stress, and bad decisions, but he's Hawke's mess. No way around it.

[apurrstate]

He winces, guilt flaring up for having insinuated he didn't know Hawke loved him. Of course he knew, he knew just as he knew with every breath he loved Hawke more deeply than he'd ever loved another person. But just because his feelings hadn't changed didn't mean Adalwolfe's hadn't.

"People fall out of love, Hawke, it happens. Especially because they feel betrayed." His eyes flicked away, but then came back to rest on Hawke. He'd already stepped in it this far, he might as well keep going. "I owe you my life, even before this whole thing, but now more than ever. Every breath I take is because of you and I still love you with all my heart. I always will." He shook his head. "None of that means you must stay with me or keep me at your side."

He belonged to Hawke, and as he'd hurt the man he loved, it was no longer his choice as to what his role in Hawke's life would be. That was his true question, the one he needed answered now, would he continue in the Champion's shadow or disappear at his once-partner's bidding and never return?

Truth be told, if Hawke gave him no answer and instead left Anders to silently follow for lack of another direction or drive, he would have to accept that as well. He'd followed Hawke for seven years, that wasn't about to change now without being told.

[wolfehawke]

"People fall out of love because something changes, or because the one they'd given their heart to turned out not to be who they thought they were. But you haven't changed, Anders. As long as I've known you, you've always been a driven man. Wanting equality, wanting freedom, and while I never thought you would go quite this far, it hasn't changed, and it's why I fell in love with you."

A beat.

"You're not bad to look at, either."

Another joke that really doesn't have much of a place in this conversation, but they've been under oppressive tension long enough. He had to break it somehow, even if all it did was make Anders roll his eyes and not smile in spite of himself like Hawke was after.

He lets out the last breath he'd been holding, letting his anger go with it, a kind of magic his father had taught him before Malcom passed away. Not all magic is flashy lights or wielding the elements. Some is private, quiet, helps you think or get through a day. Magic like this, anyone can do with practice, and while Adalwolfe is older now and knows it's not magic, not in the sense that marks them as apostates, he still practices it to keep himself centered. It's not magic, but it does help.

Quietly, Hawke looks at Anders, the infuriating man he'd tied himself to and would do again even knowing what his fellow mage would do. Perhaps that makes him a maleficar too despite his never using blood magic.

'Foul and corrupt are they
Who have taken His gift
And turned it against His children.'

But he thinks of how Anders reads it, thinks of all the times the Chantry has turned their 'gift' against them, to imprison them, make them Tranquil, murder them. If this brings about the change that all mages have been screaming for together, then so be it. And if he doesn't lose Anders, he can stand anything the world, the Chantry, or the Maker himself throws at him.

"If you actually want to go I won't stop you, but you'd take my heart with you if you went."

[apurrstate]

It doesn't get the smile Hawke hoped for, but his ill-timed flirtation does earn an amused scoff. Only Hawke.

But he takes some comfort in what he's hearing, even as part of his mind reminds himself of exactly how much he had changed, even if that fell outside of the whole 'as long as I've known you' part.

He pauses, quiet once more. He'd take Hawke's heart? He never should have given in to his desires, if he hadn't, perhaps Hawke would be happy and safe with someone else. But that wasn't what had happened and, now that he had it, he never wanted to give up Hawke's love.

And he had almost thrown himself and that precious golden heart into the ocean.

He stepped closer, into Adalwolfe's space, his hand raising to play lightly with the loose white strands of the other mage's hair. His eyes never left Hawke's, he needed to know Anders meant every word.

"I have followed you for years without regret. If that is truly how you feel, then I have no intention of stopping now. I am yours, Hawke. Forevermore."

[wolfehawke]

How does he do that? Know exactly the thing to say to make Hawke's face color and have him shove away every last bit of doubt he's still experiencing in knowing his heart is a terrorist. But it's Anders, but he did it for the right reasons, and he's started something that may finally turn out to better their people in the end and have you considered that intense way he looks at you and the little turn of his eyebrows because he's unsure how you feel too, even still, and that curl to his mouth when he sets it oh so seriously and...

With a sigh of defeat, Hawke leans in and kisses Anders, both as a way to break eye contact and a surrender to the inevitable.

He's gone too far. He can't back out now.

Nor does he want to.

[apurrstate]

Every word came from his heart and laying his heart bare for Hawke was all he had left to give. He was rewarded with the press of his lover's lips against his and feels both right and like a wash of relief. An hour ago, he hadn't been certain he'd ever get to kiss these lips again.

The relief, the happiness, it caught in his throat and choked him, stinging his eyes and catching his breath. He didn't deserve this, this joy or this man, he deserved what lay at the bottom of this cliff. He deserved a knife in his back. The people he'd killed deserved justice, not for him to find happiness after he'd ended theirs.

He would need to spend the rest of his life atoning. He would need to work to deserve this contentment that threatened to take him.

He opened his eyes and bid for his face to stay dry even if his eyes themselves didn't, and pressed deeply into the sweet kiss. When he broke it, it was only to whisper against Hawke's lips.

"I love you."

[wolfehawke]

"And I love you." Anders is about to cry and Hawke can feel the lump in his throat at realizing it. He'd wished fervently before that he couldn't see himself in the spirit healer's shoes. That he couldn't imagine what could drive someone to such lengths, such depths that they'd murder innocents. He'd wanted to shut it out at the start, just keep his head down and make some money and take care of his mother. It wasn't his fight.

Only it was. And he could see it. He wouldn't have done it, but perhaps thought something must be done. Confronted Meredith, still killed her because of the lyrium poisoning and brought the Chantry down on Kirkwall in the process. He may not have ever think of planting a bomb, but the yearning for change was there, the want for choice, and the knowledge that it would not come without bloodshed.

Everything he'd worked for was gone, and it would have been gone either way because he's Adalwolfe Hawke, and he can never really back down when he sees suffering. Sees anyone suffering.

And Anders had suffered enough.

"Always."