This is the hammiest fucking story ogod. If you like cheesey tragic modern AU Hawke/Anders, though…
Just sobbing forever.
Quick practice sketch of my favorite ladies. For science. :)
I just so love iheartapostates style. It’s such a treat whenever she posts art.
My goofy Valentine in which Hawke must resort to the nearest master-level chest/sparkly barrell to find a suitable last-minute gift for his favorite apostate. For all my beautiful friends, followers, and really, anyone whose ears perk up at the mention of “I want to be a dragon” because you are all the absolute sexiest.
And in keeping with her beautiful, giving nature and fantastically AMAZING imagination, Shimmy has written a story about my favorite apostates that is making me weak in the knees and just a complete giggly mess. <3
Hawke and Anders DayThey chose the date together one night at the giddy beginning while cozied up in each other’s arms, Anders’s full body pillowed on Hawke’s chest, Hawke’s thumb tucked against the thumping of his heart.
It had to be somewhere in between all the predetermined holidays—of which there were too many in Kirkwall, Stuff Your Unwanted Garbage Into Barrels and Crates Day and Thank The Maker Some Buildings Were Left Standing Day, Good Templar Appreciation Day and Spare a Kind Apostate Day and of course Satinalia—and, without warning, lips on Hawke’s throat, Anders suddenly said: ‘Cloudreach.’
The end of spring, hopefully not the end of the affair, but probably the end of the honeymoon. Some people could afford those—and as far as coin went, Hawke was one of them—but time was a trickier currency, causes even steeper than that, and perhaps it was no surprise that both of them were in some way bound to the City of Chains.
‘A bit on the nose, isn’t it?’ Hawke asked, though the best part about relationships and people falling in love—after the sex, and after the cuddling after the sex—was how you could find that meaning in anything, anywhere between First Day and the end of Haring. The seasons themselves were never free of that investment; what autumn meant to a lover was so different from what autumn meant to everyone else.
‘Bright light in Kirkwall, reminding you of spring—the clouds are within our reach, Anders,’ Hawke said.
‘Bit on the nose, isn’t it?’ Anders replied.
Hawke bit him on the nose, then kissed him on the mouth.
*
Hawke couldn’t help it; it was awkward to be the only individual among his merry band of misfits who knew the day of his own birth or could admit he knew it, who’d celebrated it for many years around a campfire with ugly presents included—to set the precedent for more ugly presents, which as Hawke understood them implied family. It was the thought that counted, not the crudeness of the carving, however much it managed to look like something that made Mother laugh and Father blush, while Carver tugged at his sleeve and asked what is it and Hawke pretended he knew exactly what it was, even and especially when he didn’t.
That was why anniversaries were important—because there was no other way to celebrate, no other way to imply Fenris needed new curtains for his haunted house, or remind Aveline in some small affectionate way about copper marigolds, or sneak Anders a new pair of boots without outright offending his old ones, or make sure Merrill got to drink a cup of tea every now and then that didn’t taste as though it’d been stirred with dried rat tails and sweetened with spider venom.
Or to explain, without having to explain it, that he was always thinking of them; that he remembered Varric and Isabela most when he saw the glint of gold in the Hightown market, something overpriced and gaudy as Hawke’s tastes unfortunately ran; that with every staff he imagined he saw, his heart formed a single name. That his selfishness extended to these other, selfish people.
It included and encircled them.
Try as they all did to run and skilled as they all were at it, they’d never get away.
‘Happy Appreciate Your Beardless Dwarf Day, Varric,’ Hawke said, and, ‘Happy I’m Glad You Don’t Wear Trousers Day, Isabela,’ and ‘Happy I Can See My Face Reflected In Your Shiny Breastplate, Sebastian,’ with an arm thrown over every shoulder, and indeed, a gift for all occasions.
*
‘Do we really need a day to celebrate our love which is, in fact, eternal—all the way from First Day to Haring?’ Hawke asked.
There’d been another incident in the Bone Pit early that morning and also one of Varric’s tips, handed down to him through Athenril, that there might be some trouble in the sewers that evening—but only if you were a mage who didn’t know how to stay locked up in the Gallows. Everything in between dawn and dusk had been just as exciting; Thank The Champion For That Day was more of a week, really, one that turned into a month, one that turned into a lifetime—which was exactly what Hawke was trying to say about their anniversary, the one arbitrarily decided while basking in the afterglow of something that still hadn’t faded.
‘But if we did,’ Hawke added, ‘then you might want to check under your pillow in the master bedroom, because a little nug told me—’
Anders held up the present in question, a pair of torn trousers Hawke had hung onto, left-over spoils from the original Stuff Your Unwanted Garbage Into Barrels and Crates Day. It had been the first thing to hand when Hawke jogged back from the sewers, desperate only to bathe himself before Anders arrived for the night. Torn trousers for his present or a better one and a smellier lover; six nugs on one side, half a dozen on the other. Like mages and templars, actually.
Perhaps Hawke had chosen poorly.
‘You see, it means I want to tear your trousers off, Anders,’ he said.
‘A bit on the nose, isn’t it?’ Anders replied.
‘Also massages for a week, imported Orlesian truffle-chocolates and no mabari in the bed until Bloomingtide,’ Hawke added.
So Anders bit him on the nose, then kissed him on the mouth.
more for the star wars/dragon age crossover shimmy and i are farting around with klnvla;kjlkg precious jedi babies for shimmyshimshims
i’ll draw them in poses that aren’t closed eyes face rubs soon i promise lknv;alkjfdg
i need to learn how to shade dang
It’s the same principle behind meditation. There are fewer wrong reasons to close his eyes and fewer right reasons to open them.
Focus clarifies itself if you aren’t—always—looking for something, or something else. That quality implies restlessness, dissatisfaction, and apparently those are bad things. But understanding oneself is also apparently just like managing a fussy Voorpak. The trick is not to care, or at least to pretend you don’t.
Let yourself go, and feel the Force, Anders.
Karl likely never meant for his advice to return with new applicability and more impressive meaning at at a moment like this one.
But Anders is letting himself go all right.
It’s the same principle behind finding the one brightest light in the galaxy—in the Force—all of it bright enough that it’s often so hard to distinguish the song from the song’s shadow. When Anders closes his eyes for meditation in the morning, which never gave him the right amount of peace or the right amount of compromise toward pretending it did, he’s drawn to that light, not the general midi-chlorian rhythm but the up and down of Hawke breathing, successfully, peacefully, nearby.
All things to their balance. All successes to their distractions.
It’s the same principle as doing exactly what you aren’t supposed to. Anders knows more about that than almost anything else.
Hawke’s cheekbones; Hawke’s warm hands; Hawke’s form in the earliest morning, eyes shut, finding his focus. The curve of Hawke’s arm, the lightsaber an extension of that curve, but also Anders as an extension of that curve.
They’ll all return to the same place, to the same stuff in the end.
Anders just doesn’t want to wait until then to be close to a person.
It’s the same principle behind the imagination that kept a lonely padawan—just a few years too old to wear his braid without incurring ridicule—half-awake at night, imagining the faces he cared for in such specifics, also the faces he could never speak to of that caring. Yet when Hawke leans close, Anders closes his eyes, and not for any lesson beyond instinct, which is one he was born with and hasn’t learned to shed like an old skin, no longer necessary.
They find each other’s mouths and it’s not the same principle, the shared pause and the shared breath and the shared warmth, and the shared song in the shadows of their two hearts beating.
So I drew Anders…. 8I This man’s face. You…you don’t understand. *touch*
Also, you know when you can feel yourself start to slip into fandom mode annnnd you’re fighting it really, really hard? Yeah. YEAH. /sob
Or I can practice with photoshop THIS WAY
I see no difference really
They’re the same characters, I hardly had to change them at all
Though I did make that ponytail craaaazy on purpose xD
I bet someone has done this already. Oh well
