Stars- A Handers One-Shot

Chapter One: Get Ready

Glittering. There was always something glittering like sovereigns in the sky. Some stars shone like fresh blood. Some glistened like sweat on Anders' forehead.
    They all glowed brightly to him.
    Hawke knew night wouldn't last forever. Isabela would take watch on the Wounded Coast soon. (She claimed she liked sand, but any fool could see she was caught up imagining compromising scenarios involving Hawke, Anders, and oil.) (Not that Hawke minded.)
    He shook hair from his eyes, and turned to meet the rustling of Anders' tent behind him. The other mage had raggedy blonde hair hanging by his ears and shoulders, and his amber eyes stared upward at the sovereigns up above.
    "Thinking of something?" Anders raised an eyebrow, his gaze unmoved.
    Hawke scoffed. "More like someone."
    "Whoever it is, he's a lucky man."
    Hawke grabbed Anders by the cloak, the latter flushing red. "He's very lucky, indeed."
    Hot breath stained each other's lips as they slowly looked up, eyes drowning in deep blue. Coarse sand shifted under Hawke's hands as he sat himself on a cliff overlooking the sea, the jagged rocks below, and most of all, bodies of slavers strewn across them like dead leaves.
    And dead they would remain.
    They sat in silence for a few moments, basking in their solace, fingers intertwined in the sand. Hands calloused and scarred, hearts thumping as one. Beating hard and red.
    Hawke closed in, his lips mere inches from Anders'. Their eyes met, unblinking, brown light and dark. Hands rested on high cheekbones, as if thrones to be claimed. As if they were the stars themselves.
    Isabela never left her tent. So they waited- stared- and watched the stars fade into neverending blue.
~
    Hawke's mind slipped back to that night as all of what he had built crumbled down beside him. The ashes of the Chantry fluttered like stars at his feet. The sovereigns of a dead man clattered at his heels. Everyone had left him, somehow- his parents and siblings by death. Magic hadn't spoiled everything it touched, as Gamlen promised-
    Just Anders.
    Men had taken Leandra and Malcolm Hawke. Bravery took the twins. Isabela led astray by greed. But Anders-
    He had gone by magic.
    He wasn't truly Anders. Not the man Hawke had shared a bed and a home with, not the man who had promised to break his heart.
    Not the man who had broken it.
    This was the man who littered Hawke's face with tears, the man who made him feel pain and anguish as no love had ever done. This was the man who wrecked it all-
    And his Vengeance deserved no mercy.
    Hawke plunged the knife into Anders' heart, knuckles white as roses, a soundless scream escaping Anders' lips.
    "I loved you," he whispered, hand grasping Hawke's wrist.
    "You loved no man." Hawke twisted the blade once more, leaving one more body in his wake.
    One of the last.
    Hawke stared up at the stars one last time, glowing as bright as the night on the Wounded Coast. Glowing brighter than the man he thought he knew, the man he thought he loved.
    Just another light snuffed out.
    Hawke raised a flame across his feet, watched the fire burn. His robes lit brighter than the stars above, blaze dancing across his dark eyes. His arms caught flame, a burning sea of blood and rage.
    One last life to take.
    As his life burned out, Hawke looked up to the stars.
                           La Fin.