Chapter Text
Behind them the battle raged on. Hawke leapt into the air, somehow lending the leap enough spin that his entire body twirled in mid-air, adding momentum to the deadly slash of his blades as he came down on the kossith that was his target. He heard Aveline’s mocking call, drawing the attention of the group of Tal’Vashoth as she dared them to see what a real woman could do.
That brilliant woman was drawing attention away from Anders where he knelt over Fenris. Fenris, who was bleeding dangerously from a slash across his torso. Anders felt his throat clench as he parted Fenris’ armor enough to direct magic into the wound. He could see… parts that were never meant to see daylight, not even the watery light that filtered through on a foggy Wounded Coast afternoon.
“Oh no, couldn’t take Wade up on his offer of better armor,” Anders complained under his breath while he pressed the edges of the wound together and flooded it with magic. “Must have my ‘I hate you all’ armor, no matter how useless it really is for stopping blades,” he went on, the stream of complaints not pausing for a moment despite his desperate focus in repairing the damage. “Stupid, stubborn, nug-headed…”
The wound closed, but Anders was still inveighing against men who couldn’t be arsed to protect themselves when they knew they were going to be faced with creatures intent on dealing out stabbity death.
The cuff on Fenris’ left wrist glinted in the pale sunlight when his hand came up, swift as a striking snake and grabbed Anders by the scarf around his neck. He was lightly-built, but when Fenris pulled, Anders came down, his wash of complaints suddenly cut off by the hard press of Fenris’ lips against his.
When he opened his mouth to gasp or to protest, Fenris’ tongue darted past his lips and brushed over his tongue with the faintest touch before Fenris pushed him back and rolled over to snatch up his sword again.
Aveline and Hawke fought on, oblivious to anything but keeping the Tal’Vashoth from living another day to prey on travelers.
Fenris leapt back into the fray while Anders picked up his staff and whirled to throw a ball of fire at a saarebas at the back of the group.
There would be other times to talk.