Dragon Age One Shots

Blood, Hawke/Anders

"Ouch!" Hawke flinched, trying to yank her hand away from Anders grip, but he held on.

"Stop fussing," he sighed, growing weary with the grown woman fighting him on every move. "I have to take this...what is this?"

"Bar towel," she shrugged, her striking eyes catching upon his weary ones and nearly lighting the flame inside. But then she caught sight of Anders unwinding a no doubt ex-Hanged Man's towel from her hand. A bloom of scarlet coated the stained rag, causing Hawke to shudder.

"What's wrong?" he asked, finally reaching the deep gouging Hawke gave to her poor finger. It was amazing it was still attached. "Shouldn't take more than a few minutes to heal up. Give me a minute to..."

Anders thought that'd soothe Hawke's concern over losing her finger, but the woman was stark white and trembling. Her eyes kept glancing anywhere but the wounded hand he held in his healing fingers. "I don't," she gulped, her entire face screwed up in terror. "I don't like blood."

An ungentlemanly snort erupted from his nose, "Since when?"

"Since always."

"Hawke, I myself have watched you rip through dozens of Kirkwall gangs while walking your dog," he was gobsmacked, forgetting he should be pulsing healing magic through her finger which had mostly stopped bleeding.

The woman who always carried a massive great sword on her back, even while attending weddings, shrugged. "So? They started it."

"You've stormed how many blood mage covens, often crammed with people who decorate their walls in viscera?"

"That's different," she gasped, her eyes risking a peek to her torn up finger before returning right back to the nothingness but filth that made up his clinic's wall.

Anders began to pulse magic up her hand, knitting the flesh back to where it belonged even as he spoke, "Fought a rock monster demon, a dragon, then two more dragons for sport. Head butted the Arishock, for the love of Andraste."

"But," she partially winced at him laying out her accomplishments, "it's not the same, okay. It's my blood! I don't like the sight of my blood oozing from my flesh. I get all woozy and maybe vomity. Okay?!" That same unstoppable will that sent the Arishock home in pieces glared down at Anders and he quickly dropped his line of thought.

"All right, all right," he finished wafting his healing magic over her finger and wound a fresh bandage over it. "Your skin will remain sensitive for a few hours, so I suggest keeping it covered, but should be good as new."

"No more blood?" Hawke asked while twisting around the wad of linen on her hand.

"No more blood," Anders sighed.

The larger-than-life woman wrapped both her hands around his waist, pulling him to her lips for a kiss. "I love you," she laughed, right back to her usual sorts with the wound tended.

He curled his palm to her cheek, forever surprised at how easily Hawke bandied about her affections. "I know," Anders said.

Letting him go, Hawke -- who no doubt had some other important mission involving splitting open bad guys from nape to navel -- dashed for the door a moment, but paused. "When you're done here are you gonna head back to the mansion?"

"I think so. Why?"

She grinned wider, "I'm making a fancy dinner tonight." Suddenly Anders understood how she managed to nearly flay her own finger skin off the bone.

"Maybe leave the rest of the chopping to Bodhan," he said. "I wouldn't want to have to patch you up twice in one day."

The warrior and champion snickered, "I've got it under control. Oh, and FYI, it's a pantsless dinner party. See you later, love!" Hawke bellowed to anyone sitting around in the sewers.

He was a rebel mage, an abomination with a spirit of justice in his head, but no matter how long Anders lived and, how much he saw, he would never understand that woman.