#long haired post-da2 handers just does it for me!

[kittyoperas]

My gift for @acesdesire for the 2024 Handers Exchange!

She wanted some Inquistion-era boys and I was more than happy to deliver. I had such a wonderful time drawing this <3 They deserve their happy ending!

@handers-time

[lesetoilesfous]

Sending you a prompt from the Bad Things Happen Bingo! I'd be interested to see what you do with "Defeated and Trophified", for either a negative Handers OR an Evil M!Hawke. Thank you! <3

Oooh thank you so much, I hope you enjoy!

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

@dadrunkwriting @badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Pairing: dark, abusive Handers

Characters: Garrett Hawke, Anders, Alistair Theirin

Tags: post da2, evil Hawke, implied abusive relationship

Rating: Mature

The new viscount of Kirkwall has made changes at the Keep, and indeed in the city in general. No longer are there any mages to be found anywhere, not even in the city-state’s infamous Gallows. Alistair had been struck by how few staves he’d seen anywhere as a result. He realises that he’d just sort of got used to apostates and presumably-legal Circle mages wandering throughout Fereldan. The absence of them here in Kirkwall is, well, stark. But Alistair is a king, and visiting his new trading partner is not the most burdensome of his many, many responsibilities, so he takes a deep breath and tries not to think about Kelton Amell, and climbs the stairs towards the viscount’s personal offices.

A servant who looks pale and frightened and flinches far too easily for Alistair’s comfort dips him a low, low bow and swings the door open on perfectly oiled hinges. Everywhere, the Amell family crest bleeds in red lines beside the emblem of the city of chains. Everything is spotless and silent, and even the air tastes clean, somehow - perfumed with what tastes to Alistair like elfroot and spindleweed. He’s led, with his retainers, into a large room with a long, beautiful dark wooden table. Behind it the Viscount of Kirkwall: muscular, broad, handsome Garrett Hawke, sits in state wearing an iron crown. Behind him, standing demurely with his hands folded and his head lowered, is the apostate who blew up the Chantry.

The first thing Alistair can find to think is that he recognises this man. He remembers gently encouraging Kelton to recruit him, almost a decade ago in Amaranthine. A young, frightened man whose brave face warred with his real horror at what the Templar order wished to do with him.

The second thing Alistair notices is the collar. It’s not ostentatious - of course not, if there’s one thing Alistair has learned from the immaculate Keep and the deathly silent streets, it’s that the man sitting in front of him does not go in for the obvious. But it’s a collar all the same: a thin, beautiful bar of rolled gold which hangs like a necklace around the apostate’s neck, darkened with dozens and dozens of finely engraved runes that makes it look stained black like an antique. Thin gold chains dip below the apostate’s neckline, under the loose, beautiful deep green silk tunic he’s wearing. There are matching, thick gold cuffs wrapped around each of his wrists. Alistair can’t see his feet from where he’s standing, but he doesn’t doubt there are cuffs there too. He swallows his bile, and refocuses his attention.

Hawke doesn’t bother to stand, which is technically a formal insult, but Alistair suspects it won’t be the last thing he tolerates today in the name of preventing open war. Instead he inclines his head, and waves at the frightened servant to pull out a chair. The servant does so, and Alistair thanks them softly, not missing the way Hawke’s mouth turns down in a sneer. The apostate behind the viscount, (the grey warden), says nothing. Alistair can barely believe he’s breathing, for how silent he’s being.

Hawke leans forward. “King Theirin. Such a pleasure to have your company so soon after our...troubles.” Behind Hawke, the apostate flinches, so subtly Alistair can hardly believe he noticed it. But Hawke’s jaw clenches, and the apostate’s already pale skin pales further.

Alistair thinks about facing down a broodmother and sits a little straighter in his chair. “Of course, Viscount. I was sorry to hear the news of your predecessor, and,” Alistair pauses, picking his words as carefully as stepping between landmines, “...confused by Knight-Commander Meredith’s interim occupation.”

Hawke laughs, and again, the apostate flinches. “Yes, well, Stannard always did have delusions of grandeur. But she wasn’t wrong about the mage problem. Worse than a nest of plague-ridden rats in this city and just as rotten. It was poisoning us from the inside out.”

Alistair lets the comment past him, and keeps his features neutral. He’d gotten good at this, as a child, under Isolde’s harassment. He asks, neutrally, as politely as he can, “Is it true, then? That you took part in the annulment personally?”

Again, Hawke laughs. Alistair feels a thorny kind of heat coiling in his chest. Hawke says, “Damned right I did. I was the only one left in the Blighted city with the fucking guts. Got every apostate too - all the criminals and infected children. I lanced the boil that this city had become and I burned out every bit of rot. Except this one,” Hawke gestures to the apostate behind him, then looks back at Alistair with a wide smile of perfect teeth, “But he’s pretty.”

Alistair fantasises about breaking his nose. Instead, he follows Hawke’s gesture to look up at the tall, broad man beside him. He’s older than he was, when Alistair had met him, lines printed across his face in deep crevasses. But he’s clean shaven, and his hair is brushed and soft around his head. Alistair listens to his own racing heartbeat for a moment before he speaks. “I heard he was a Grey Warden.”

Hawke’s eyes narrow, and there’s a flash of something there in the brown and gold of his irises that reminds Alistair terribly of the bird after which his family took its name. Something bloodthirsty, and cruel. “Like you? I told Vael, and the blighted Divine, Anders stays here. He’s mine.”

Alistair raises his hands in surrender and wonders whether Hawke can see that his palms are sweating. “Of course! Wouldn’t dream of separating you. It was only innocent curiosity. Now, I believe you have a Fereldan apostate to deliver to me?”

The blatant threat on Hawke’s face melts into a smirk, and he leans back in his chair. Behind him, Anders, the apostate’s shoulders lower, fractionally. Hawke clicks his fingers at the servant, and a few minutes later there’s the clatter of armour as a pair of templars bring in a wounded, starved looking elvhen girl.

Alistair thinks hard about exactly how much worse war would be for all his people and truly, deeply hates being king. Hawke gets up, circling the table to lift the girl’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. She glares at him, and Alistair hates that he’s heartened by this remaining spirit.

But then Hawke looks at the apostate in the corner and lifts his hand. The gold ring on his wedding finger, similarly blackened with runes, burns red, and Anders flinches as the jewellery on his wrists and neck glow, too. All Hawke says is, “Anders.”

The apostate moves faster than Alistair thinks he could have followed even if he were prepared for it. His hand flicks, and a silent bolt of lightning crosses the space of Hawke’s private quarters and connects with the girl’s skull. Her body slumps almost immediately, shuddering in a death rattle that is all too familiar to Alistair. He makes an effort to close his open mouth, and for the first time gives up the poker face.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Hawke smiles at him, close lipped and shrewd. “A lesson, your majesty. We won’t tolerate apostates in Kirkwall. Try to keep them on your side of the ocean.”

Alistair looks up at the apostate, Anders, but his hands are already folded in front of him again, his head bowed. Alistair swallows past the dryness of his mouth and the thick lump in his throat, and gets to his feet with an agonisingly loud screech of the wooden chair legs on stone.”Well, Viscount. It’s certainly been...educational.”

Alistair turns and tries not to imagine the entire darkspawn horde at his heels. Hawke doesn’t stand, and his pet apostate doesn’t move. But when Alistair gets to the door, Hawke speaks again. “Come back any time, your majesty. Anders can do wonderful things with his hands.”

Alistair doesn’t turn around. The doors swing shut behind them, and both the Keep’s guards and two servants usher them forward. But Alistair hesitates, listening for a moment.

Through the wooden doors, there’s a crack of skin on skin, and a soft cry of pain. Softly, deadly, Alistair hears the Viscount whisper, “Killed her quickly, didn’t you? Any suffering you spared her I’ll deal you, later.”

Alistair doesn’t realised he’s curled his fingers into a fist until one of his guard’s touches his forearm, her eyes wide with either fear or concern. Slowly, Alistair uncurls his hand, listening to the crunch of metal, and follows the soldiers and servants out of the Keep. He makes a mental note to write Zevran, later.

There’s a warden in need, and a state leader in desperate want of assassination.

[lesetoilesfous]

“You said you’d let them go” for Fenders with past Handers or FenHawke?

Aaaaaah I had too much fun with this one, I hope you like it!!!

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Prompt: You said you would let them go

Pairing: Fenders

Characters: Fenris, Anders, Evil/Red Garrett Hawke

Warnings: Implied Abuse, Physical Abuse, Graphic Depiction of Injury

Additional Tags: Angst with a Bittersweet Ending, post DA2

Fenris is trekking through the Vimmark Mountains when he’s ambushed by Hawke, his pet mage and a group of nearly fifty mercenaries. Rain is falling, heavy and grey around them, and the trees on the slopes are tugged so violently by the wind that they move fluidly, like kelp in the sea. Fenris draws his sword, stepping back in the muddy path as he tries to spot a weak point in the mercenary’s formation. Nothing is immediately apparent but then, he supposes it wouldn’t be. Garrett Hawke didn’t go in for second rate hirelings.

Hawke steps forward, and Fenris hates the part of himself that quails when he does so - the part that knows with a terrible, dreadful finality that he is unlikely to win a swordfight with Garrett Hawke. Behind Hawke, Anders looks thin and exhausted as he ever has, his coat hanging even looser than usual over his shoulders. But his expression of resigned boredom transmutes into sudden, painful shock when he makes eye contact with Fenris.

Fenris can’t help it, he stares.

Above them, thunder booms in the sky as clouds embrace the mountain. Anders grabs at Hawke’s arm, ignoring the shorter, stronger man when he shakes him off. “You said you’d let him go.” Fenris stares, ears twitching as cold rain drops fall from the tips to his neck, unable to believe he’d heard correctly. But Anders grabs at Hawke again, pulling him off balance, and Fenris knows he should be making his move, now, whilst he still can, but he feels as if his feet are rooted in place. Anders speaks again, face pale and taut with lines of stress. “Garrett, you promised me you’d let him go.”

Hawke’s lips pull back from his teeth in a snarl a split second before he wheels and punches Anders in the face. Anders stumbles backwards, spitting blood into the long, thick, dark green grass. But he doesn’t straighten and tumble into the punch in return in the way that Fenris expects him to - the way he’d seen him do more than a dozen times in The Hanged Man after starting a barfight by shouting too loudly about the plight of the mages.

Instead, Anders hunches as Hawke turns to him - and again, Fenris should leave, he could easily fell any of the remaining mercenaries, he should go now whilst he still can. But he stares, instead, as Garrett grabs a fistful of Anders’ wet hair, the colour of old gold in the rain, and shakes him, hard. “You don’t get to talk to me like that, mage. Understand?”

Anders says nothing, and the rain falls around them, and Fenris stares, transfixed by this strange tableau. But then, eventually, the apostate’s body eases in a submission that Fenris can feel with aching familiarity in his own shoulders. “Yes, ser.”

Garrett grins, and uses his fist in Anders’ hair to press a punch of a kiss to his lips. Anders’ body is stiff and limp in his arms - not pulling away, but not responding, either. Rain drips cold down Fenris’ nose, and plasters his hair to his forehead. Then Garrett lets go of Anders, and turns and claps his hands, and the sound is loud even in the rain and growing thunder, and Anders flinches, hard.

Fenris adjusts his grip on the cloth wrapped around the hilt of his sword, and stares warily up at the human man in front of him. Garrett smiles, wolfish and bright and terribly handsome. “Now, where were we?”

Fenris braces himself, thinking - at least if I die now, I go down fighting. He thinks at least if I die now, I die free.

But then there’s a sudden flash of blue light, and Hawke collapses into the grass. Everything after this happens very fast. Anders draws a paralysis glyph with his finger in the air above Hawke’s body, and the glyph erupts with golden light. The mercenaries charge forward - half of them going for Fenris, the rest heading for Anders. Anders flings himself down to the thick grass, slamming his hands into the earth, and a crescent of ice erupts from the ground, skewering half a dozen of them. Then he turns, hair flinging rain drops around his head like crystals hanging on golden chains. “Fenris, GO!”

Fenris stares and wonders whether he’s dreaming. But then one of the mercenaries gets close enough to hit him with their warhammer, and Fenris is parrying without thinking, slicing straight through the wooden shaft of their weapon and taking their head off with it. Blood sprays, hot and salty across his face, and Fenris falls into the familiar rhythm of battle, heels slipping through the mud and wet grass. Below them, way below, Nevarra is a cradle of distant cities and wide, dark plains.

At some point in the fight, Fenris’ back slams up against someone else’s, and he whirls and barely stops himself from splitting Anders in two - Anders, who now that he’s this close he can see has a new scar on his cheek. Anders, who grins at him despite the pink blood on his teeth and the way his body’s shaking. “Just like old times!”

Fenris wants to ask whether he’s lost his mind, but then a mercenary comes at him with two swords drawn, and he has to focus.

When they’re done, panting and exhausted, both of them are covered in blood and viscera. Anders’ staff is splintered and one of his fingers is hanging crooked. Fenris is blessedly, miraculously unscathed, saved for a few scrapes and bruises which he doubts he’ll notice in the time they take to heal. Hawke is still unconscious, and Anders has renewed his paralysis glyph twice. Fenris doesn’t hesitate, marching across the slope of corpses towards the man he’d once considered a friend. Anders yelps, and runs across the grass towards him, feet slipping in the mud.

“Fenris, wait!”

Despite his better judgement, Fenris stops, lyrium bleeding white at the edges of his vision like a lightning spell. “You cannot tell me that you wish him to live.”

Anders stops and stares, jaw tightening, eyes clouded as he looks down at Hawke. When he looks up at Fenris, there’s a terribly familiar grief in his face. “I love him.”

Fenris ignores the way his stomach lurches. “No. You don’t.”

Then he bends, and plunges his hand into Hawke’s chest, and crushes his heart. By the time his fingers have found the warm meat of it, Anders is shouting, but the action is done when Anders tackles him, throwing him into the grass and swinging a fist at his face. Fenris grits his teeth and takes the blow, expecting more. But Anders stops, frozen and sobbing over him as the storm continues to grow, lightning striking the mountains above them and Nevarra below them. “You. You killed him.” Anders manages to say through quick, choked breaths.

Fenris meets his eyes. “I did.” He says, firmly. Anders chokes and reels back and away from him, scrambling backwards in the grass, eyes wide and half-crazed. With a grunt, Fenris sits up, rubbing his jaw. The mage did, at least, still know how to throw a punch. There’s something reassuring about that.

“Are you going to kill me too?”

Fenris shakes his head, and reaches into his belt for a flask of wine. He ought to have water on his belt and wine in his pack, he supposes. But he finds himself often in need of a stiffer drink. “No.” Fenris drinks, gulping down the sweet drink without giving himself a chance to taste it, only wanting to brutalise enough of his brain cells that the thorny mess of grief and anger and hurt and betrayal in his chest will fade into something he can live through. He tosses the flask to Anders, who stares at it as if it’s a brick from the golden city itself. “Why did you say, before, that he had promised you he would let me go? Why would he promise that to you?”

Instead of looking at Fenris’ face, Anders unscrews the flask and sniffs it suspiciously before drinking, deeply. His entire body is facing away from Garrett Hawke’s corpse, still frozen in the golden light of his paralysis spell. Eventually, Anders stops drinking, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and tossing the flask back to Fenris. Fenris catches it, though the leather slips in the rain, and scowls when he notices that it’s empty. Sighing, he reaches into his pack for a bottle, mentally calculating where he can next resupply. Eventually, Anders speaks, so quietly it’s snatched away on the wind. “It’s not important.”

Fenris pauses in his attempts to pour wine into his flask. The wind is so strong that it keeps snatching it away, and he thinks both of them should probably find shelter, but he also just killed his best friend and right now he doesn’t want to do anything except sit down and get drunk. He gives up on the flask, and presses the bottle to his lips, drinking until his throat hurts. Lightning cracks down the mountain above them so brightly that for a moment Fenris thinks it’s going to split in two. Anders gets to his feet.

“I should go.”

Fenris gets up, and blood rushes to his head in a dizzying flood. He picks himself up, slinging his greatsword over his back, and moves to grab Anders’ arm before the mental image of Garrett manhandling him flashes, unwelcome into his mind. He stops, dropping his hand between them over the sea of rippling grass, glossy with rain. “We should go. You will not get far alone.” Anders scoffs, and Fenris sighs, cutting him off before he can protest. “That is not a criticism. It’s pragmatism.” Then he begins the arduous process of hiking further up the slope.

Anders waits a while, with Garrett’s body. But Fenris doesn’t hear what he says. The wind snatches the words away in the opposite direction. He does look back at a flood of sudden heat, and sees Garrett and the other corpses burning against the storm in a sea of impossible fire.

*

It doesn’t take Fenris too long to find a usable cave, or set up a fire after that, though he refuses the wiggle of fingers in the direction of the firewood that constitutes Anders’ offer of help. Once they’re both drying off, and warmer - though hardly warm, with the wind ripping in against the stone and a gale blowing outside - Fenris asks the question again. “Why would he promise you that he’d let me go?”

Anders stares at the flames, his face haggard and far older, now, with the shadows exaggerating his wrinkles. “Because I asked him to.”

Fenris had eaten a rudimentary meal of jerky and nuts earlier, but Anders had refused anything. The flames dance reflected in his eyes and make him look ethereal. Ghostly. Fenris inclines his head, and bites down on his own frustration. “I gathered that. Why would you ask?”

Anders shrugs, and winces at the way it jostles his injured and now bandaged hand. “He wanted to hand you back to Danarius.” He looks at Fenris with a shadow of old humour when he adds, “Despite what some people might think, I’m against slavery.”

Fenris digests this, watching the flickering shadows dance across the floor like a Rivaini puppet show. Eventually he asks, quietly. “What did he ask in return?”

Anders says nothing, but something in his expression shutters and he moves to lie down, turning so that he’s facing the wall, away from the fire. Away from Fenris. Between them, echoing in the dark, the fire pops and spits. “Good night, Fenris.”

Fenris stares at the mage’s back, listening to his regular, uneven breaths, well aware that he’s awake. He considers prodding him further, answering the curiosity nagging at him like a loose tooth. But outside thunder cracks the sky open, and Anders jumps, and Fenris feels abruptly very old and very tired. So instead he sits back, resting his head against the cave wall, and stretching his legs beside the warmth of the fire. “Good night, Anders.”