Chapter Text
Every single beat of his heart spread poison in his veins and it wasn’t the poison of a plant or a snake. It was wet hot molten metal. The cuffs of his gauntlets were the metal manacles that were strapped to the stone slab. The sword on his back was that horrible solid plate. White fluid poured into his skin, into the paths that had been carved into him, mixing with his blood and stealing screams from his lungs.
In Darktown though, with the pain only in his arm but creeping up, further and further, his heart betraying him by pulling Lyrium closer and closer to it, he could only allow himself to whimper.
The cut was deep, through the back of his forearm, wrist to elbow, but, if it weren’t for how the cut sliced through multiple lines of Lyrium, he would have stayed at home, cleaned it and stitched it, wrapped it tightly. Because it had cut through the Lyrium, he knew that he needed more. Lyrium wasn’t meant to be a fluid, it was a powdered stone, suspended in liquid, that was how it was in the bottles, but when it came to him, it was thicker, a molten thing that never truly cooled. If it did, it would freeze him solid. He did not know what it would do in his bloodstream. Danarius had always told him it would kill him. It made him a far more skilled fighter.
He hadn’t wasted the time in speaking to Hawks, even though he knew that Hawke would have done everything that they could, as they very least, make sure that no one else attacked him on the way to Darktown. He knew that they would drive him to the mage and he was going there anyway, he didn’t need to play the part of mage hater and waste time arguing where he needed to go anyway. He wanted to see the mage, even if he pretended that he didn’t. He wanted to see him, wanted to be healed by him, as much as he bit and snapped like the animal such a man claimed him to be.
The thing was, he had seen how good and kind Anders could be. He had seen the mage in his element, holding a child’s rib cage together and using his foul magic to stitch it back together. He had heard how calm and kind he had spoken. He had felt that healing magic run over him, countless times, in battle, and it always did the opposite of what he thought it would. It was not the agonizing burn that so many others cast with, it wasn’t the deep feeling of rot that blood magic oozed through him. It was, alarmingly, calming, and it made him want to lean into it, wrap himself in it, some spare moment in which he wasn’t hurting. But it came from a mage and, worse, an abomination, and, worse than that, Anders. Anders and he had never seen eye to eye and they never would. Even though Fenris wanted the mage to speak to him like he did the ailing in his clinic, to touch him with those gentle, crooked fingers, and, in the middle of the night, when he was holed up in his mansion, away from the world and heavy with drink, he wanted the mage to kiss him, like he had Hawke, just once, pressing them against a wall and moaning into their mouth, like kissing Hawke was the most amazing thing in all of Thedas. Fenris hated that he wanted these things, so he bit and clawed and spat, denied his feelings as best he could whenever the mage was near, cornered him until he fought back, just as cruelly.
Part of the reason that he stumbled down the stairs and to the clinic was because of the fear that the pain, or the Lyrium was going to kill him, part of it was to see Anders fret over him, part of it was to show Anders the torture of what was in his skin so that the mage would understand, possibly, maybe, that being a mage would never be as bad as what Fenris suffered. For that was the worst of it, that Anders thought them equals in pain, that he thought that their suffering was the same, that mages could ever understand what it was like to be slaves, not become slave drivers themselves.
He stumbled around the corner and he could see the clinic. The lantern was not lit, but it was clear that the healer was in. There was light coming from inside, more than a few candles could give, and it was flickering, orange and yellow. Perhaps the mage had set up a fire ring in the middle of the room, once the clinic was closed, so that he could cook himself a much needed meal. But no, the smell was wrong and the gaze of those around the clinic was all wrong for it to be something so mundane.
Someone grabbed Fenris’ arm, at the shoulder, not at the cut, and Fenris roared, grabbing and lifting, Lyrium markings lighting. It was one of the miners, a shaved elf, with bright frightened eyes, that he lifted so easily and shook.
“Please! You’re a friend of the healer, aren’t you?” the man warbled, his fear palpable! “Someone poisoned him! And now! Maker! There’s Templars in there!”
Fenris dropped him, a bit more terribly than necessary, and snarled, leaving him and pulling the sword from his back with his right hand, the weaker of the two. He couldn’t rely on his dominant side, not with the pain blurring his vision every time he moved it.
He thought that the people of Darktown loved their healer. He had heard about how they had attacked Hawke and Varric the first time they tried to find him, just to keep him safe. Anders did so much for the people here. Fenris had recognized some of Lirene’s blankets and shawls, things that she had made and gifted to Anders through Hawke’s care packages, out on the homeless denizens of these slums. The man was too thin, no matter how much food was donated to him, all given away. He was always tired, slumping when Hawke dragged Fenris along to the clinic at closing, mana exhaustion clear in the mage’s trembling hands. Fenris couldn’t think of anyone who would poison their healer, who would hurt him. But then, he was an abomination and he himself would have turned Anders in to the Templars had it not been for Hawke, if only to get the man out of his head at night. And, no matter what Anders did for these people, they were still hungry, still desperate. If the Templars paid them enough, they would lead the way and, possibly, attack the healer themselves.
The light flooded the street from the clinic because the door was open, having been broken down in the Templars race to get inside. There were flames inside, the cots shoved together in a heap, all of the bandages, rags, spare cloth, curtains that gave patients a small modicum of privacy, all piled onto them. The smoke was thick around the ceiling, smelling of burning herbs. Fenris had been there, standing to the side and watching, while Anders and Merrill had gathered them for their different concoctions, Anders explaining what they were good for just to hear his own voice. Anders was like that, he needed to talk. Fenris was looking for bandits, coming for them from any angle, but he had not been able to ignore the words, to learn. He wanted to know so many things.
There was broken glass all over the floor and Fenris had to dance around it. In the mansion, he didn’t care about the glass that he had broken himself. He knew what was on that glass and his feet were calloused enough from his constant barefoot nature to worry about getting cut. These were in puddles of potions, salves, poultices, all mixing together in different ways. Such a mix could eat through the hard defenses of his skin, could poison, could kill. He was already being killed from one angle, he didn’t need to give himself worry from another.
Perhaps it was the fire, the smoke stinging his eyes, the roaring of it clogging his ears, but he could not hear the mage. He made his way through the ruined clinic, knowing that the stonework would hold with the fire but what was in it may collapse at any moment. He had never been in the back rooms of the place, he did not know where Anders would be.
The further back he got though, the more that he could hear. There were voices, not Anders’ voice with its fiery snark or its patient calm, but others, two gruff male voices, talking as if there wasn’t a chemical bomb of the medicines and fluids they had mixed together and made into a steam around them. They were talking like they were at a bar. They were laughing and cojoling.
The third voice was just grunting.
Fenris could hear metal clinking rhythmically, the way the metal struck flesh, a wet sound. There was a shaky pleased, “Fuck yeah, that’s good.” and a joking, “Hurry up, will you?” and laughter.
Fenris did not know what to picture, what to expect. The idea of it being what is, so obviously could be, didn’t come to his mind. These were Templars, they worked for The Chantry, their job was to keep mages safe, keep the world safe from them. They were the good guys, no matter what Anders claimed.
Wrapping his bloody hand around the hilt of his sword, he grit his teeth, pain making him weak and shaky. There were three of them, he could handle three, if he wasn’t injured, but they were distracted with the mage, but he didn’t know what state the mage was in, but he had surprise on his side. Too many variables. He hated this. But he couldn’t leave, and he couldn’t survive much longer without Anders’ help. He had to do his best.
So he did.
He went into the room, no door, just a doorway that had had a curtain, torn away like the rest, and cast aside. It was small and dark, only one candle fighting to stay lit on a desk, where there had been loose parchment but that had been torn, thrown to the ground, and trampled.
The three Templars were caught with their trousers down, literally. One of them had taken off most of his armor and was palming himself, tugging at his cock and playing with his own nipple. He must have been the one to tell the third to hurry up. The second was missing just his helmet and gauntlets. The third was fully armored, aside from the lower part, so that he could have access to his erection. The erection that he was driving into the bloody mage’s body, over and over, his metals scraping and ripping at the mage’s skin.
And Anders. There was very little to see of him, at least from this angle. He was hoisted up, his wrists manacled together, the small chain between them thrown over a bar that went from wall to wall, a support beam that had been used for drying Anders’ few clothes, which were now ripped down and sliced into rags. His back was a mess of blood, going from his shoulders down his thighs. His hair was a matted rats nest, hiding his face.
“What the fuck?” the armored Templar yelped, noticing that they were not alone, just before the tip of Fenris’ sword was through his throat, the blade so wide that, as he continued forward, it went through the rest of his neck and severed his head from his shoulders.
None of the men were armed, thankfully, their swords dropped in a disrespectful heap on the blanket that had been folded into the shape of a bed, Anders’ coat, laid out like a covering, and a pillow that was more threads than stuffing. That was a mess of blood as well.
Fenris caught the second man in the rib cage, growling out through the pain of his markings mixing into his blood, of the anger of what he was seeing, of the way that Anders had yet to react, that this was allowed to happen and none of the people outside were helping, not even to put out the fire. He shoved his weight down, flipping the sword up, making the blade crack through the Templar’s sternum and shatter through his heart.
He pulled out, the way it had gone in, spilling blood and gore.
And then the world went sideways, Fenris’ skin all going numb, but not with a lack of pain, with his markings tingling and buzzing and working against him. There was a whimper, Anders’, and the mage was limp, hanging for a moment before a loud pop echoed through the room, his weight, all of it dangling off his wrists, dislocating his elbow. The Templar had pulled out of him and cast a Smite. It made Fenris far too physical, made his markings feel strange, made the blood it had mixed with run cold.
Fenris bellowed, rushing the Templar, and the man was far more ready than the other two, stepping back and turning, letting Fenris run past him, slightly disoriented by the strangeness in his body.
“You react to the Smite more than the apostate does!” the Templar bit, grabbing a sword from the pile, “You wouldn’t be a mage as well?”
“Do not insult me!” Fenris hissed, “I am more than you could ever guess at!”
He threw himself at the Templar and the Templar did his best to throw his sword up, to keep Fenris off of him. Fenris was on top of him though, faster, and he had better vision, the Templar visor keeping him in blinders. He pushed with his less dominant hand as the buzzing went quiet, and he phased his left hand dropping it between their bodies. The Templar cried out in confusion as the hand went inside of his body, where there was no armor. Fenris gripped the Templar’s manhood, the interior as well as the external, and he pulled, ripping it all out in one simple motion.
The Templar didn’t have long to ponder what had happened as Fenris shoved his hand in again, higher up, grabbing his heart and yanking it free as well.
Suddenly, there was no motion, not in this room, the dead limp and crowding the floor of the small room. Fenris was frozen in agony, the pain from his heart moving Lyrium through his veins so much more vibrant from his activity. And in the center of the room, was a mage, unconscious, blood and semen and piss spilling out of his too thin, too broken body.
It was looking at Anders, the way his chest stuttered as he attempted to breathe, that got Fenris to move. The position tightened his ribs, making it so that his lungs could not inflate fully, and he was, slowly, choking on that as well as the blood coming from his broken face.
Fenris grabbed the crate that had been used as a chair under the desk and pulled it over, feeling dizzy and lost, like he would collapse at any moment as well. He dropped his sword and climbed onto the crate. He had never phased another person, but he had phased metal. With his good arm around Anders’ meager waist, he phased the manacles through his wrists, and Anders fell. Fenris couldn’t stop him, but he could slow his descent, his knees bending as he slid to the floor. Fenris followed him, turning to his front.
Anders’ face was so swollen that he could hardly open his eyes, if he was conscious at all. There was blood covering him, his nose broken, his lip split, his jaw cracked. There was blood around his teeth.
Fenris needed him awake, of course, but he knew not how to wake him and there was more damage to his body than Fenris could cure on his own. But he couldn’t cure his own ailments at all.
“Mage,” Fenris hissed, putting his hand on the less swollen side of his jaw. Gently, he shook Anders, trying to stir him.
“Hmm,” Anders whined, not opening his eyes.
Fenris looked down Anders’ front. There was more swelling, bruising deeply gauging into his ribs, and Fenris was sure at least one of them was broken. But that was underneath something that Fenris had not expected to see, a mass of flesh, of fat, that he had not expected to see on the mage. Fenris moved the breast out of the way in order to inspect the flesh around it, finding it gouged and scratched by the gauntlets as well. How long had Anders been hiding this from them, and why? Hawke’s crew had no issue with women joining their ranks. Though there were rumors, lies, that the Warden’s didn’t allow women in their ranks, he knew that to be false. They had taken Bethany in, after all.
“Please,” Anders whispered, voice so quiet that Fenris could hardly hear it, “I’ll be a good… a good girl for you, Messere... a good mage... Please?”
Anders did not recognize Fenris, not yet, eyes too swollen to see him. The touch of gauntlets against skin must have been another reason to believe that Fenris was another Templar. He grunted, continuing to hold up the weak and injured mage, using his wounded arm to clear the blanket that must have been Anders’ bed of blades, and moved the mage over to it. Anders allowed Fenris to position everything, and Fenris could see the soft golden hair, caked with blood and semen, that surrounded an open wound of a quim. Carefully he traced over the pubis, and a thick glob of white spilled out of Anders’ entrance.
“I’ll be a... good bitch. Warm your bed... your cock... as much as you like... Just no… more. Don’t put me back in... the dark.”
“No more harm will come to you, mage – Anders,” Fenris swore, trying to keep his voice calm and steady.
Anders tightened up for a moment but that aggravated pains. The mage hissed and attempted to relax.
“Fenris?” Anders’ voice wobbled all the more. “Are you… going to rape me… too?”
Fenris’ heart hurt with more than just the threat of Lyrium pumping through it. He tried to move Anders’ hair back, behind one ear, but it was too caught in drying blood and Anders jolted as if hit.
“You are safe now. I will get Lirene for you, and some of the others will put out the fires. For the moment, you must just rest.”
He grabbed Anders’ precious coat and as carefully as he could, he pulled it over Anders’ shoulders. There was no further argument. Anders had fallen back into unconsciousness.