#An'da makes a good pillow

[theluckywizard]

DADWC prompt:

As requested 😁 For Hawke/An'da “it’s not my fault you’re so comfortable to lay on!”

Woohooo my first OC OC nonsense piece! @dadrunkwriting

Here we have an injured Garrett Hawke staggering to Darktown to Anders' Clinic where An'da is working as a healer. First he's suffering from blood loss and later is under the influence of a sedative as An'da works on him. Shenanigans all around!

WC: 2399

CW: Blood and stab wound

Rating: Teen

Hawke can feel his pulse in the wound made by three maybe four inches of dirty steel. It had been a boy, eleven at most, though it’s hard to tell with the malnourished. He sheathed the little blade in his side, his saucers of fear for eyes catching Hawke’s before dashing away and merging with the crawl of people in Lowtown. A message from the Coterie. Or the Carta maybe.

Hawke staggers down to darktown clutching his side, brushing aside the fuzz that enters his mind at the edges as he parses through the possible takeaways. The message.

First, one should never be lazy about armor in Lowtown. It may be home, but even the kids will cut you for a couple silvers.

Second, cutting into the profits of either group of malodorous ne’er-do-wells is asking for it. 

Third— well, there might be a third but his thoughts meander, a little bit like the crowd around him, anyone who notices the deep crimson wicking widely in his tunic stumbling back, recoiling from the preamble to death like it isn’t a daily fixture in this cursed swathe of Kirkwall.

He knows the route well enough to stagger there in this state, his mind swimming like there’s a half a bottle of Corff’s potato grog inside of him. He stumbles his way into the alleys that sink low under the city, into the stagnant air of Darktown, smearing his very essence on the tuff walls. Nonsensically impertinent thoughts invaded his mind as he bled his way to Anders’ clinic. The one who carved this tuff passage so long ago. Did they imagine the way it would smell dozens of ages hence? Did they secretly enjoy the break from the insolence of Kirkwall’s sun or did the humidity kicking up from the bay make them more miserable under the surface?

Darktown opens up to the harbor and the scent of mildew and human waste gives way to stagnant aromas of decaying seaweed and sloshing mystery flotsam. He’s close, he can tell by his nose, but his senses are getting rather unreliable and he’s beginning to think this is all some manner of mild inconvenience, something he could probably patch up himself given the right instruments and materials.

A healing draught to perk him up perhaps. Clean linen. Corff’s potato grog. A bent needle and some waxed thread.

He shoulders his way through the flimsy door to the clinic, a few workers startling to attention as he staggers into the space like a wayward drunk. He raises a hand, a little meekly and tries a few casual looking poses before leaning against a support timber, summoning his best winning grin.

“I— uh— heard I could get some supplies here. For minor lacerations and the like. I’ll be no trouble— just— ask Anders. Patch up my own stuff all the time,” he says, his head lolling to one side slightly before he rights it. He lifts his unfastened doublet from his tunic and stares at the blooming bloodstain laughing, the jerking of his diaphragm sending fresh surges of deep red through the fabric. He looks up and scans the room for what he needs, ignoring the baffled, questioning looks of the clinic workers. “Ah— there they are!” Hawke makes for a table laid with instruments beside a wooden operating table with a bloody trough down the center that makes him recoil slightly.

He’d rather not lie on one of those death slabs. He’ll patch himself up good as new, troubling no one.

“Hawke, is it?” come a lyrical voice, floating in pleasantly like it might be a dream as he picks up a needle that looks the right shape and a wad of clean cloth. He answers without looking up. “I’ve— seen you here before. Usually moments before Anders vanishes on some harrowing adventure.”

“I don’t know why he insists on tagging along, but I certainly can’t complain,” mumbles Hawke, collecting a handful. “The man could reattach a severed head in a pinch.”

“That’s a fair bit of blood, Serah Hawke,” she says gently, her hand creeping in to cover the hand he’s loaded with the needed supplies. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather let me have a look?”

“No, no— I couldn’t— possibly inconvenience you. You’re all so busy— and this is just a—“ he looks down again, the blood having spread into his trousers. “Flesh wound,” he breathes in a faint falsetto.

“Easy there, da’len. Easy…” she says softly. Hawke turns to see her, his vision growing fuzzy around the edges. Rosy cheeks, a delicately branching vallaslin and serpentstone eyes meet him. Hawke blinks languidly, admiring her shock of ashen white hair managed in tidy plaits and the elegant length of her elven ears. Lovely, he thinks as his head nods. Really lovely. She motions for assistance but it’s not soon enough.

Hawke lists, his consciousness dissolving into jelly as assuredly as his legs and he slowly pitches forward. The worker slips between him and the bench, pushing on his chest, desperately trying to hold him up to organize him around her shoulders in the most stable position but instead she melts under his floppy, hulking mass until they’re a heap on the floor.

“Looks like you’ve got quite a wound there, big fella,” she squeaks under his mass. But Hawke finds this position irresistible, his wits, his failing body melting into her. Into the ground.

“Actually this— is— really, rather comfortable. Perhaps I’ll just— stay— here.”

“Creators,” she mutters. “A little assistance please?” Her voice is the adorable squeak of a pantry mouse, he thinks, neverminding that the octave is at least in part because of squashing her languidly. He waves off those who come for him, his arms thrashing lightly wanting to keep the sweet little pillow beneath him. Perhaps she might just keep talking until he’s slipped into this delicious nap that’s calling him.

But hands circle each ankle and then his arms by his shoulders and he’s first gently lifted off the small woman and then arms find their way under his chest and hips and he’s heaved onto the death slab he’d dreaded, his mind practically circling the drain.

Emerald eyes hover over him solicitously, and it’s nearly all he can focus on, two little jewels suspended under a cloud and that voice.

oOo

Hawke comes to, at least partially anyway, because there’s a mushiness to it all that he finds unbelievably pleasant, the sharp edges of full awareness beyond his grasp still. Figures mill about him and he can’t tell if they’re there for him or someone else, but they might as well be there for him.

“Didja fixmeup?” he asks the first face to venture into his line of sight, his words dribbling out like molasses spilling off a spoon. But he’s smiling at least and the world feels as light as spun sugar and he can’t keep the rapture inside.

Green eyes peer over him, lifting up the hem of his tunic to check his wound.

“You.”

“An’da,” she corrects him, smiling, and he’s too hopped up on sedative herbs to catch the amusement behind her expression.

“Annnnn’daaaaa. Annnnderrrssss. You two planned it this way, din’tyou?” Hawke laughs to himself, his grin wide and languorous, practically spilling off his face. An’da is unmoved by his tumbling words, having heard it all before.

“A little longer and you would have been taking tea with Falon’Din,” she notes. She presses gently around the side of his abdomen.

“Owwwww,” he says flatly, his head falling back, hair spilling away from his face.

“You’ll need to take it easy for at least a week, da’len,” she says, ducking down to take a closer look. “But I’m guessing you’ll be testing your limits tomorrow.”

“If I ripmy sitches can I come back?” he slurs dreamily.

“You’re going to stay in bed like the darling man that you are so that you are good as new,” she says, reaching over him for a pot of salve that she dabs on the tidy stitches above his hipbone.

“But I wanna come back,” he says, his expression dulcet with sedative fueled-longing. “I would have died. You’re— you’re the bess.”

“I’ll add you to my collection of partially sedated beaus, sweet thing,” she smiles, two little rosy balls of warmth in her cheeks that Hawke thinks must have been pinched by the Maker himself. He reaches to touch one but his hand bobs heavily and he giggles at it as it lolls sideways away from its intended destination.

“But they don’t love you like I do,” he mutters to her with glazed eyes, his grin rather dashing for someone dashed out of his mind on a tincture of black lotus and ghoul’s beard.

“You’re right, da’len. Nobody’s ever loved me like you,” she replies sweetly. She slides along the bed and leans over to pat his cheek gently, and it would wipe his wits clean away if he had any to begin with. Anders sidles up alongside her, his hands on his hips, eyebrows arched high as he regards Hawke pityingly. Hawke lets his eyes slip closed.

“Anders,” he intones softly, as high as his name implies. “You have the mose beautful sister.”

“I know,” Anders replies gamely, giving An’da a quick squeeze around her shoulders. “I greatly look forward to your wedding.” If Hawke was more lucid he might notice the roll of An’da’s eyes in Anders’ direction or the way she elbows him lightly. He might notice the hushed conversation they have about the likelihood that he’ll tear his stitches back open unless he’s under strict bed rest. 

“Hawke, have you been a difficult patient?”

“I’ve been a perfeck gennleman.”

“That’s a separate question. An’da here kept you from bleeding out and I think we’d all like to see you live to fight another day. But if you’re going to ignore our recommendations and bash about Lowtown looking for the people responsible…”

“Gotta find the little sprog and have a word,” he says. “Probly hungry”

“I’ll pay you a home visit if you agree to stay in bed,” she offers. “Someone will have to come check to make sure you behave.”

“Never been one t’behave,” Hawke sighs. “Bud I’d be good for you.”

“Shocking no one,” says Anders. “If he gets fresh, hit him with another dose of sedative. Or just— hit him.”

“I could never hit such a puppy,” says An’da, giving his big hand an affectionate pat. Even miles from his right mind, Hawke musters a smug grin for his favorite battle medic.

“Maker, don’t encourage him. He’ll never leave you alone,” pokes Anders. “The wound looks good, another dose of healing and we can give him the antidote for the sedative.”

“You really don’t though,” muddles Hawke. “I could juss. Stay like this. Here. With Annnn’daaaa.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve seen the way you live,” quips Anders. “Can’t have my clinic looking like that.”

An’da drags a small stool alongside the clinic bed so she can reach the wound with her hands which he finds to be unbearably darling, abundant as he is in stature. She leans forward and places both hands over the wound, her Elvish words bouncing like a pebble across placid waters as she summons her mana and pushes the blue luminescence deep into his abdomen.

“Maker, you’re wonderful,” he sighs at the ceiling.

“I— um.  As much as I’ve enjoyed your sweet nothings,” she begins, wandering over to a bench of bottles and mixtures and mortars and pestles, “It’s time to set your mind to rights.” She arrives with a precious vial of liquid and kicking her stool over a few feet, climbs atop to lift his head and press the vial to his lips.

“Drink up,” she encourages him. “That’s right, da’len.” Hawke submits to her instructions like her very nearness enchants him, his eyes filled with stars as he blinks at her blushing cheeks and kind eyes.

The antidote for the sedative works quickly, replacing the haze with a headache that outstrips the worst of his hangovers. 

“Andraste’s smoldering arse,” he groans, clutching at his entire face like it might banish the pulsating behind his eyes if he claws at it enough. At least the wound seems to be behaving in this regard.

“Sorry,” she squeaks and his attention alights again on the sweet pantry mouse. He squeezes his eyes shut, nodding as he recollects his antics.

“I— believe I owe you an apology. Or at the very least a drink at the Hanged Man,” he says, in a shameless pivot.

“Careful, An’da or he’ll add you to his collection of beguiled healers,” says Anders, returning. He gives Hawke a clinical look and checks the stitches closely. “Pain on a scale of one to ten?”

“Stab wound? Two. Head? Eight.”

“I— um— I think I could be talked into a visit to the tavern,” she says softly, sheepishly, her chin tucked low like his gaze is some manner of threat. Anders just shakes his head, his grin wide and knowing. “But— only after you’re healed up fully.”

“Lovely! Maker knows if Corff’s special mead is ready there’s a solid chance I’ll need a comfortable pillow on the tavern floor. You’ll do nicely.”

“Oh— I—“ she fumbles, her entire face blazing, but she seems to catch on. “That was a joke, wasn’t it?”

“Have you and Merrill been trading notes?” Hawke asks and then calls after Anders. “Have they been trading notes?” He turns back to her again, fixing one of his usual brazen looks upon her. “It was a joke. Unless you’re secretly a pillow after all. In which case it very much wasn’t.”

“I— um— I’ll—just be over there,“ she stammers and blushes and stammers some more and Hawke thinks she looks as beautiful as a Fereldan sunrise. She turns and hurries away and Hawke mulls over another chance he’s dashed with his cursed trap flapping and misguided flirting.

“Hawke,” says Anders, “you always do this to my staff. I’m going to have to hang a picture of you on the wall with appropriate warnings. Yes he will profess his love to you under sedation. Yes he will attempt to enchant you with a sky blue smolder. *Do not engage*.”

“Please do,” replies Hawke. “And make me a copy. I’ll give it to Varric to hang on his wall.”

#Hawke & Anders #Garrett Hawke #Dragon Age 2 #Anders Clinic #An'da #theluckywizard #OC & OC Fic #Gift Fic #Kids will stab you in lowtown #Hawke is a terrible patient #And very large #An'da makes a good pillow