Karl/Anders with “Staring At The Other’s Lips, Trying Not To Kiss Them, Before Giving In”? 🥺

Aaaaaah this was such a good prompt anon, thank you! Sorry for taking so long to respond!!! 

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Kanders

Characters: Anders, Karl Thekla

Tags: the Circle is awful, reference to Qunari mages, reference to infanticide

Rating: Mature

There are one hundred and eighty two reasons as to why this is a bad idea. Karl has been keeping track. There’s a notebook stitched into the base of the mattress he got when he moved into his new Enchanter’s quarters that is almost entirely dedicated to the subject of exactly why he cannot become infatuated with Anders. The rest of the book’s pages are dedicated to extended laments about the fact that it seems to be happening anyway. 

Anders, for his part, is oblivious, speaking faster than Karl can easily follow, flushed with exhilaration after his latest prank. He keeps glancing at the door to Karl’s quarters, jumpy as a first year apprentice. It is doing nothing for Karl’s nerves, and both of them fall silent at even the faintest sound of metal on stone, expecting one of their many faceless keepers to burst in and drag Anders down to the Circle dungeon for his latest misdemeanour. This is reason three as to why this is a bad idea. 

Anders’ long, clever fingers flutter as he tries to illustrate his story, nails bitten to the quick, knuckles scraped berry red with his latest scrape. The thin slot of sunlight that squeezes through the envelope of glass permitted at the top of the Circle’s bricked up windows has been scraping ever farther down the length of Karl’s modest quarters. Anders has been here for three hours, easily two hours longer than it would have taken anyone to notice. But Karl has not yet been able to ask him to leave. This is reason forty-eight as to why this is a bad idea.

There’s a small scar just below Anders’ bottom lip: a sliver of silver skin that almost blends into the paleness of the rest of him. Karl remembers the day it happened: Anders had been shouting something about one of the apprentices, and the templars had assumed he meant violence. At the time, Karl himself hadn’t been sure: with his red-blonde hair loose and snarled with a long night of sleeplessness, Anders had looked like Andraste herself come back from the Void to pick a fight with the Maker. They’d Silenced him, and Rhian had punched him, and her gauntlet had split his lower lip and chin open. The children had screamed, and Anders had spat blood onto the floor. By the time he’d been subdued, the chance of magical healing stopping the scar had long since passed. Now it sits beneath his lip like a fang, forever bare and glittering. This is reason seventy-two as to why this is a bad idea.

“Karl?” Anders’ voice is softer than it ever is anywhere else in the Circle tower. Karl startles, and looks down to see Anders’ expression touched with humour. “Where did I lose you?”

Karl begins, “Ser Rylen -”

Anders laughs, rough and low and warm, and rubs a hand over his forehead. “So, all of it.” His thin lips twist into a rueful grin. “Sorry, it’s been a weird day.”

Karl has never heard Anders apologise to anyone else. (This was reason eighty-five.)

He shakes his head, leaning forward and moving to squeeze Anders’ knee before he catches himself, hand freezing in midair as his fingers curl, and he draws back. When he looks up, Anders is watching him, pointedly. Karl clears his throat and gets to his feet, fishing a water jug from the shelf and two rough wooden cups. “Do you want a drink?”

Anders snorts, and before Karl has a chance to prepare for it, he’s standing right behind him, smelling of sweat and books and elfroot. Anders’ body is warm, and slightly taller than Karl’s, and when he speaks he breathes into his ear, taking the cups out of Karl’s frozen hand, covering the back of Karl’s fingers with his own. “Allow me.” A shiver ripples down Karl’s spine. This is reason one hundred and six.

There’s the sound of a cork popping free from a flask, and suddenly the eye-watering stench of potato vodka. Karl blinks, rapidly, and raises both eyebrows at the oval shaped leather flask Anders has whisked from somewhere in his robes. (Reason one hundred and twelve). “Where did you get that?”

Anders rolls his eyes, and passes Karl a cup. “Don’t be such an Enchanter.”

Karl shrugs, and drinks the vodka in one bracing gulp. It burns his throat with bitter heat as he swallows. “I cannot be anything other than I am.”

Anders slouches back down onto the bed, long arm resting on Karl’s desk. He’s already pouring himself another cup, and gestures wordlessly for Karl’s. “What is that, the Qun?”

Karl accepts the cup, and feels a rush of heat when Anders’ fingers brush over his, again. He forces a shrug, and lifts the cup to his lips in a vague effort to hide his burning face. He tells himself it’s the alcohol. “Koslun had some interesting philosophies.”

Anders huffs.”Is it the sewing their mage’s mouths shut, or the blinders that got you? I think it’s the massive fucking collars for me.” Karl frowns, lowering his cup.

“We only know what we’re allowed to know about them. Those reports might be - “ Anders raises an eyebrow, eyes yellow and catlike in the evening light. Karl falters “- exaggerated.” (Reason one hundred and thirty.)

A muscle in the corner of Anders’ narrow jaw twitches, and the frown on his brow doesn’t quite ease as he drinks. His expression is dark when he speaks, gaze directed squarely at the stack of letters Karl has been drafting to the Brotherhood. “Yeah, and Tevinter doesn’t kill children. Don’t get your hopes up. It’s probably exactly as ugly as we don’t want it to be.”

Now Karl does rest a hand on Anders’ knee, and tells himself he doesn’t hear it when Anders catches his breath. The other man looks up at him with eyes a little wider than usual, lips faintly parted and pink as the roses in his mother’s garden. Karl squeezes, fingers scratching against the rough wool of Anders’ Circle robes. “What happened to all that youthful idealism?”

Anders shrugs, and his narrow shoulders are bony and angular, even smothered by the shapeless fabric of his robes. He doesn’t move away. “I grew up.”

Karl shifts a little closer, until his legs bump Anders’, and he catches the long, scarred hand resting on his desk in his own, winding their fingers together. Anders is always cold. Karl suspects it’s a circulation issue, as the Circle is only ever anything other than temperate when the charms malfunction, and that doesn’t happen often. He’s always colder than Karl. (Reason three.)

Karl glances at the door. There are no shadows creeping below the threshold, but he waits for six heartbeats all the same. When none come, he returns his gaze to Anders, and speaks in a murmur. “You know, I always thought idealism was a choice.”

Anders huffs, but his fingers squeeze Karl’s so tightly it almost hurts. The envelope of sunlight that makes its way into Karl’s quarters has begun to scrape its way over Anders’ head, glittering against the gold and ginger in his hair. “A stupid choice.” Anders’ tone is bitter, and he swallows after he speaks. Karl tries not to wonder what happened today that he doesn’t know about. 

Outside, there’s the sound of heavy metal boots on stone, regular and inevitable as a heartbeat. Anders moves to pull back, but Karl holds him, gently, firmly. Anders’ nostrils flare as he glances sidelong at the door. The shadow that stretches beneath it distorts like some half-remembered demon, blackening the dust below the wood. Karl can feel his heartbeat in the back of his throat, heavy and bruising. (Reason one hundred and seventy nine.)

The templar moves on, the crunch of metal on stone echoing against the Circle tower walls before it eventually fades into the ever-present murmur of every other person living here. Anders lets out his breath in one great shuddering gust, and Karl resists the urge to do the same. Both their palms are sweating. (Reason one hundred and eighty.)

The sunlight by now has scraped down past Anders’ shoulders and the back of his head, lighting his eyelashes gold and illuminating the pale ghosts of what might be freckles, if they were allowed to step outside into the sun. His brown eyes are yellow and gold and his nose is long and crooked with breaking. He is terribly beautiful. (Reason one hundred and eighty one.)

Karl swallows in an effort to dislodge the lump in his throat. “Idealism isn’t a stupid choice. It’s a brave one.”

Karl can feel Anders’ eyes on him, can feel every movement of his body, as close as they are: every shaking breath, and the way each one shivers down his long legs. He can’t stop looking at Anders’ lips. Anders’ holds his breath, and the sunlight slips down over his chin and into his lap.

Fuck it.

Karl leans in, and kisses him. He feels Anders’ exhalation tickling against his moustache and beard, feels, after a moment, the pulling curve of a smile against his lips. And then Anders’ free hand is plunging into his hair, scraping against his scalp as he presses him closer with a soft hiccoughing sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and over the astringent, bitter taste of the vodka in their mouths, salt makes its way onto Karl’s tongue as the skin against his cheek dampens with tears. Anders squeezes his hand so hard it hurts, and pulls back only for a heartbeat to breathe, forehead pressed against Karl’s as he laughs, breathless and low. “Finally.”

Reason one hundred and eighty two: I love him.