3. [xestsemon au]

[birdhousesoul]

Anders has some idea Hawke and Malcolm will be in the village today, only he's not sure when. This place doesn't run on clocks. Things happen when they happen. In the meantime, he goes about his business. Unless anyone has a surprise woodchopping accident, he ought to have today to himself for a change, with no one in the village environs known to be sick or at the point of giving birth. It's a day for doing chores that take more time.

The planks of the clinic floor are in need of scrubbing, the hearth needs a good sweeping out, and after accomplishing both these tasks, Anders feels he himself is in need of scrubbing. This is ordinarily accomplished with a bucket of water and a rough cloth. He's had a square wooden tub made for soaking in, one he keeps in the clinic with a privacy screen shielding it from the main room, but he seldom gets to use it himself; it's more for allowing people to soak things that need soaking, swellings or cysts or pulled muscles. Today he has time to fill it.

He doesn't get into the bath until after he's already scrubbed clean, though, with said bucket-and-cloth method. In a place where it takes considerable effort to collect and heat the water for a bath, you make good use of that bath once you've got it. You don't pollute the water unnecessarily. It can be used by more than one person, and after that, the water can be used for laundry. He misses the station showers, sometimes. He misses the hippie laundry. Anders takes his time sitting in the water and absorbing its heat, every once in a while idly using a little fire magic to re-warm it, secure in the knowledge that he's not going to be needing an untouched mana pool for anything soon.

By the time he hears the door creaking to signal Hawke's arrival (and Malcolm making a curious noise in answer to that creak), Anders has only just hauled himself out of the tub and into a fresh pair of pants. He's drying his hair with a somewhat ragged linen towel as he steps out from behind the screen. "All right," he says, "your turn." And smiles, as it ought to be a pleasant surprise. They didn't plan any bath day. "Give him here." Malcolm's small enough yet that a basin suffices to wash him, and he's far too small to put in a bathtub.

Comments

[birdhousesoul]

"Mm. Fair point." There's decided appreciation in his voice, and not a little satisfaction. "A conspiracy to make their lives less complicated, of course."

[questionablewit]

Hawke laughs quietly. She's doing that a lot this afternoon. "Not to mention that if we're distracted, they're free to get up to all sorts of mischief? Maker help us." Hawke leans up on an elbow so she can kiss Anders' nose. "No insulting your nose, incidently. I'm very fond of that nose, on your face and his."

From nose to mouth is not a long distance, so she kisses him there as well. Their second kiss in a year and a half, and if it's less passionate it's no less heartfelt. No less wanted. "You think this will make things less complicated, then?" It's hard not to sound hopeful, and she doesn't try.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders doesn't hesitate to return the kiss, with interest. "A rare thing, I know. To think sex could make anything less complicated." But he turns serious. "I don't know, sweetheart. What do you think?"

[questionablewit]

Hawke takes another, slower kiss and returns to her previous position of resting on Anders' chest and shoulder before she answers. "I think it will make some things more complicated and some things less complicated. But I also can't think of anything I want more than this." One hand splays on his chest. "Our child asleep nearby, and your arms around me, and Teo guarding the door. If there's a better life than this out there, I can't imagine what it is."

[birdhousesoul]

"I ought to ask how it'll make things more complicated, then. Forewarned is forearmed, and all." He strokes her shoulder idly. "Since you can't tell me this won't happen again, now that it has."

[questionablewit]

"More complicated for a number of reasons. Because you live in the village and I live in the mountains, and nights are already too long; they'll be even longer with this as a possiblity instead of something I tell myself I can't have. More complicated because I don't know what permissions you'll allow me, because it upsets the balance we've managed to forge over the past months." She takes a long breath. "More complicated, because it raises the questions we've been so careful not to ask. I know you can't forgive me, Anders. I don't ask that you do. But can you live around that? Can you love me despite that?"

[birdhousesoul]

"It's true there's not much else to do in the mountains once the sun goes down," Anders notes dryly. Unspoken but present: You're the one who chose to live in the mountains. He's not too thrilled with the idea of being an outlet for recreation, and it irritates him a little, even though he knows that's not what she meant. This isn't the Denerim Pearl, and he's a different man from the one who spent pleasurable hours there.

Fortunately or not, before he can say anything else, a quavering cry rises beyond the bedcurtain. Malcolm has woken. "Duty calls," Anders murmurs, and plants another kiss atop Hawke's head before he slips out of bed.

[questionablewit]

That's not what I meant at all, she wants to say, but Malcolm's cry interrupts it and she doesn't get the chance. Recreation was the last thing on her mind. Nights are long not because of boredom--Hawke is very skilled at keeping herself busy, and thus not bored--but because she misses Anders. She chose to live in the mountains originally, yes, but she's had no invitation to suggest an alternate arrangement since he arrived. No opening, until this one.

Give me time, he asked. She has. She'll continue to do so, even if there's no answer to what might be the outcome of waiting, even if this too-easily-upset balance is all they're ever able to build.

But she bites her lip and lets herself be pained, just for a moment, at the unanswered question. He didn't open the curtain when he left the box bed, so she can curl unseen for a moment, breathing in the scent of him--of them, of what just happened--mixed in with wool and whatever herbs he uses to repel insects. Already she misses that moment, that brief space of contentment: Malcolm asleep, Teo guarding the door, Anders laughing at something she's said and holding her as though he can let himself love her. All the pieces in place, safe, happy. If she concentrates hard enough, perhaps she can keep it.

Hawke's not one to wallow, however, and Malcolm is awake and might need her. Plus there's still the echo of a kiss on her head, of a caress on her shoulder, of an arm around her waist. Foolish to feel disheartened, given those things.

She sits up, pulls back the curtain and gets out of bed.

[birdhousesoul]

But Anders pads over in his breeches, with the yowling baby. "He's having none of me, I'm afraid. Even odds he's hungry, or else that molar's coming in."

[questionablewit]

Hawke smiles ruefully and reaches out her arms for Malcolm, who's clearly not happy with anything in the world and determined to make sure everyone knows it. She slips a finger in his mouth and feels the gums, checking for new teeth coming in, but Malcolm's too frustrated to permit this for long. Even so, it takes him a while to be willing to latch on and feed, he's so busy throwing a truly epic temper tantrum. But eventually he gets settled at her breast.

Hawke sits back down on the bed with him, folding up one knee and making quiet soothing noises, brushing Malcolm's hair back in a caress as she holds him in place. She winces a few times; he's learned how to bite, and she's trying to teach him not to, but so far it's an uphill process. Breastfeeding a teething infant is a hazardous process.

[birdhousesoul]

"Stop biting your mother," Anders scolds. While Hawke has been trying to soothe and feed Ser Grumpypants, Anders has been busy with something he thinks might help. First an ice spell, then the pouring of some ordinary water over the frozen result, and he has a basin of chilled water he can use to soak a clean cloth or two. He knots the cloth into a shape bulky enough as not to allow trailing ingestable ends, flat enough to allow Malcolm to fit his mouth over the knots.

"Try giving him this?" he suggests, handing it to Hawke.

[questionablewit]

Hawke chuckles. "That's a bit rich, coming from someone who's been known to enjoy biting me himself." Making this cold-cloth-thing took enough time that Malcolm's been able to feed a bit--he's always hungry when he wakes up, but not very hungry--and he lets go without protest. Or at least, without real protest beyond being generally cross.

Hawke takes the cool, wet cloth, head tilted with curiosity, and offers it to Malcolm. He immediately bites it, of course. Even without the teething, he's at an age where he bites most things that are handy. He looks faintly surprised at the fact that the cloth is cold, then concentrates on gnawing, expression thoughtful, as though he hasn't made up his mind yet.

Still, any distraction will do, however brief, and Hawke breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank the Maker," she murmurs, looking up at Anders and smiling. "Take him for another minute so I can get some clothes on?"

[birdhousesoul]

Anders snorts. "I make sure to bite nicely. And I have healing powers," this said dramatically with a wiggle of his fingers. "When he gets old enough he can find his own person to bite."

Which rather presupposes that Hawke is Anders' designated bitee; which says something about what he might have gone on to say had Malcolm not interrupted (a merciful interruption, to Anders' mind, but an untimely one).

"Come here, you," he says to Malcolm, scooping the baby up out of Hawke's arms. "Someone thinks it's a good idea to wear clothes."

[questionablewit]

The implication isn't lost on Hawke, who laughs and flings her arms briefly around the pair of them, catching Anders under the ear with an unaimed kiss. "You'd rather I lounge around here naked all day? Don't answer that."

[birdhousesoul]

Anders only chuckles. "Your chances of lounging around here are better than your chances of lounging around at home, until Teo grows hands or Ser Grumpypants has a good many more birthdays. Don't you think some casual nudity is a small price to pay?"

Happily, she'll have something fresh to change into, if she wants. Neither of them owns many outfits, but they have enough that they can keep some spare clothes at one another's houses, stored against the ever-present possibility of Malcolm spitting up all over whoever's holding him. Both houses, too, stock piles of diaper cloths which serve not only as diapers but also can be draped over one's shoulder as a shield. Babies are a messy business, even this baby, who's extremely healthy.

Having a healer mage as a parent has saved Malcolm from any uncomfortable (and mess-creating) illnesses thus far, but there's nothing magical that Anders can do about teething pains. The tooth has to emerge, and it can't be rushed, and the gum can't very well be healed around it, as the tooth needs to cut itself free.

"It's no fun, is it," Anders sympathizes with him, and cradles him so that if Malcolm lets the ice-cloth slip free of his tiny fists it'll likelier fall back onto the baby's chest than onto the floor. He doesn't want to annoy the baby into another bout of yelling, so he won't probe for confirmation just yet, but it's about that time: probably a molar just starting. And those are big, and logically the most uncomfortable given that it's not a clean edge cutting through the gum, but an unevenly ridged plateau.

"If the cold helps him much at all," he calls to Hawke, "you might consider staying here overnight, so I can keep him supplied." It's not winter. There won't be ice or snow up at Hawke's.

[questionablewit]

"I'm not sure I know how to lounge around," Hawke says over her shoulder as she walks back towards the screen. "Even just doing one thing at a time is decadent by my standards; doing nothing at all, clothed or unclothed, verges on inconceivable."

Her clothes are stil clean enough for today; it hasn't been a day of much exertion. Or at least, it wasn't until she got out of her clothes. Wryly Hawke wonders if she should get back in the bath, and settles for dipping a cloth and rinsing herself off with that before she gets dressed again. Well, partly dressed, smalls and shirt, mostly to combat the slight chill that she feels now that the bedplay is over. It's summer and the air is warm, but her body temperature cools down rapidly after sex, and she wants that extra layer.

She doesn't bother with trousers however, so she still looks fairly casual as she wanders back around the screen. The offer's caught her a bit by surprise, for all that it's a logical extention of all the afternoon's various events. "If it does anything to help him sleep, and if you're willing to have us, then yes, please," she says at once. There's certainly nothing needing doing back at the shack that can't keep for another day or so. Her smile is genuine. "Sorry I can't contribute anything towards dinner, I didn't plan ahead that far today."

[birdhousesoul]

True enough: when she lived in a vast estate with three servants at her beck and call (well, two servants and Sandal), Hawke wasn't much for lounging; living here, in this rustic village, where everything has to be done laboriously, it's well outside the realm of probability. Funnily enough, neither Hawke nor Anders is really poor, for all the sparse simplicity of their homes. Hawke's a deft trapper, the mountains afford some lushly furred animals that she's got a special knack for catching without any damage to the pelt, and when she hadn't been able to work much, she'd built up enough goodwill in killing that infamous bear that the village was willing to keep her going, eliminating the need to dip too deeply into her funds. Anders, for his part, actually draws a modest stipend from the station as an active agent. It's about enough to live extremely frugally in the capital city, but here it's almost untouched.

As always, he's hardly making a living on the work he does as a healer — the outlay for supplies and ingredients is greater than the income it affords, even taking barter into account — but with that small contribution from the station, it doesn't matter, and his political affiliation is an open secret, making this a positive public relations effort for the Resistance. Besides, there are no grocers here. Bartering services works much better than currency. Hence, dinner: venison smoked by someone other than Anders, bread baked by someone other than Anders, greens grown by someone other than Anders.

Teo, too, eats well. Dinner for Malcolm is up to Hawke, of course.

After dinner Malcolm needs changing, and then he finally gets his long-promised bath, with water reheated to a proper lukewarm temperature for his tender skin. If Hawke doesn't lounge, it's not for lack of opportunity. Anders seems to have everything well in hand, and gives the baby another chilled cloth to gnaw on when he grows fitful again.

It's all ... incredibly domestic, really. Not that they haven't enjoyed similar occasions before, mornings or afternoons when one's visiting the other's house, working on some project that needs two people. But it feels different, in a subtle but significant way, when Anders remembers that tonight she's not going home.

[questionablewit]

By Hawke's standards, the day turns into a veritable holiday. She finds things to do, a few small tasks, helping with dinner, soothing or playing with Malcolm, taking Teo for a walk at one point (she does get properly dressed first).

But they're all small, unhurried things, intersperced with things that for her are rare or cherished: still-fresh bread with goat's butter, the knowledge that Malcolm is entirely safe and guarded and she's free to be distracted for a time, small talk mixed with jokes about nothing in particular. Hawke likes to talk; conversation is in short supply when you live with a dog and a baby, and she and Anders have always been able to banter the sun down.

As great a pleasure is a new (or reclaimed) freedom: permission to touch each other casually, a hand resting on a shoulder in passing, aiming a swat and deliberately missing when a particularly terrible joke is made, feet side by side under the table during dinner.

It is domestic, far more so than anything they ever had in Kirkwall. Hawke thinks of it as having come full-circle, in a way; her childhood was built on domestic lines like these, for all that her adult life has been far more tumultuous. Perhaps that's one reason she settled into it so readily. She's not the first in her family to abandon everything in order to live in obscurity and raise a child. The comparison is far from perfect--and Hawke can't imagine what either of her parents would think of her life, of some of the choices she's made along the way--but to have any similarity comforts her.

Just at the moment Hawke is lounging, sitting on the floor with Teo's head on her lap, scratching between his ears, as she thinks about all this. It's strange to not be going home tonight. More so because she's aware if she did, it would feel more like leaving home than journeying towards it. Anders makes another chilled cloth for Malcolm, who's willing enough to grab and bite at it. "Where did you learn how to take care of babies?" she asks idly. "In Darktown?"

[birdhousesoul]

"No babies in the Circle," Anders confirms. "Oh, we learned about what leads up to babies, right up to the birthing, and after that, the assumption is the teyrn's wife or the arlessa or whoever will have a wet nurse to take the baby off her hands." He has never made any secret of his resentment for the fact a spirit healer's services seem most often employed for improving the nobles' quality of life, unless the healer turns apostate.

"I didn't hold much truck with babies until I wound up amongst a whole lot of people who had a tendency to pop them out and who got to keep them after. Break your leg, or step on something rusty in the foundry, or run afoul of a Coterie blade, and I'm your man. But hand me a baby who's crying for the inscrutable and mysterious reasons of all babies, and I'd be a hopeless mess. I'd show brave enough, just to keep from disheartening the poor mother, or sister, or mother pretending to be a sister, poor things all. Then I'd wait 'til they weren't looking, and send a runner off to Lirene."

He laughs in fond reminiscence of the indominable Lirene. "After the second time, she got tired of doling out clues, and came down herself to the clinic."

[questionablewit]

Hawke hasn't thought of Lirene in years, and smiles at the memory. Formidable, pertinacious Lirene. It'd taken a while to convince her to give Hawke directions on how to find the 'Grey Warden healer' in Darktown. Lirene wasn't inclined to take anyone at their word, and she protected her own with a fierceness that Hawke found impressive. Hawke had liked her at once, and they'd gotten along well enough in time. "I should have guessed," she laughs. "I can just imagine the expression she would have worn, too. What'd she say to you? Something along the lines of 'Move over and watch what I do, and pay attention so I don't have to show you again'?"

[birdhousesoul]

"Something like that." Malcolm has lost interest in the cloth, perhaps because it's losing its chill, perhaps because it's just a cloth, no colors or textures or movements to engage his curiosity. Babies are curious, it's their occupation, and Malcolm is especially so. Fortunately, he's a good-natured specimen of the type, and quite willing to make his own fun. Just now his idea of fun involves gnawing on his own hand. Anders notices when the cloth falls, and grins down at his son, who's riding on his hip, nestled in the crook of his arm. "Next you'll be biting the mabari." He conjures a spell wisp to divert the baby. Malcolm bats at it, wide-eyed and cooing.

Baby thus entertained for the moment, Anders looks back over to Hawke. "Lirene wasn't that cruel, though. She wouldn't leave the poor young mothers of Darktown to suffer my incompetence. Said she'd only show me the once, but 'round about that time, some of the more experienced mothers among the refugees started popping by for chats with remarkable regularity. I didn't catch on right away, because they were always bringing food, so that explained the visits." Anders' clinic was mostly a wide open space, the size of the two rooms of Lirene's shop put together, but without any partition. It was seldom empty. People would accompany a sick family member or friend, and make conversation as they waited. For a visitor to hang around was far from unusual. "But they'd have this terribly convenient way of chiming in on baby-related matters. Babies and young children. Believe it or not, I'd never heard the phrase 'terrible twos' before. I learned a lot from them. I think tons of education happens that way, not in a lecture or a formal tutorial, just people telling stories and comparing notes."

With obvious fondness practically splashed across his face, Anders watches Malcolm track the spell wisp. "Sometimes I wonder if Lirene supported that clinic just to give our people a secondary location for meeting when her shop floor got too congested. In their villages back home, most of these people would never have seen a spirit healer or thought to need one. Their mothers and aunts and grandmothers knew it all, or some old herbalist in the area could mix them up some stuff. Then the Blight took out whole swathes of people," no need to go into the multifarious ways that happened, not all of it the direct work of darkspawn. "And those people they'd have tapped for help were just gone. Coming to Kirkwall, getting tossed into a slum full of strangers with the same accent and general cast of face ..."

Malcolm seems to sense his shift in mood, or else just feels like flailing; whatever the child's motive, he thwacks Anders on the arm with a soft half-open hand, and Anders snorts. "You're a good audience, you." To Hawke: "He only likes the stories with tigers in. Anyhow, I was saying. Yes. The point is, I had the magic to heal, they valued that immensely, but these women had the experience to know what probably needed healing. They'd seen ailments I'd only read about, if that. Not just with babies, either."

He has theories as to why people came to him for certain things, and why they didn't just go to one another, cutting out the middleman. Those aren't directly relevant, and Malcolm is distracting him, and he hoists Malcolm off his hip and into the air to dangle in front of him so they're face to face. "What? What is it? Everyone should just ask you about babies, and you'll tell them what's what?" Malcolm crows a delighted laugh.

[questionablewit]

Hawke could be content to ignore everything Anders says in favor of just watching the expressions that cross his and their son's faces: smiles and lit-up eyes, Malcolm's playfulness, Anders' joy. At this last sally she laughs as well, getting to her knees and crawling forward so she can kiss Malcolm on the back of the head. He squeals and flails his arms, trying to turn his head around and failing. "Oh, Malcolm knows everything, of course. Weren't you aware? He tries to tell us about it, even, but alas, we can't understand him. Not enlightened enough." She sits back on her heels, grinning broadly. "No doubt he and Teo have long conversations about our limited perspicacity."

[birdhousesoul]

"Whilst playing diamondback, yes?" He turns Malcolm around and holds him up facing toward Hawke, with the toes of the baby's knitted socks dangling to touch Anders' knees. "Ask him the secret to getting a baby to sleep."

[questionablewit]

"Mm, you're right. It's all a conspiracy. Isn't it, my love?" That last is to Malcolm, as she places her hands over Anders' so they're both holding him, and bends forward to touch her nose to his. Malcolm gurgles and grabs her hair in his fist. Hawke rolls her eyes and carefully but firmly uncurls his fingers to free herself; he does this a lot. "Stop that, sweetheart. You're not interested in sleep at all, are you? You're much more interested in seeing how many things you can grab. I'd ask Teo to tire you out, but he's already half-asleep. Can't you take him as a role model?"

[birdhousesoul]

"Hmm. Grabby, takes after me. Good at cards, takes after you. Knows everything, takes after Varric. Something's not adding up here." Anders calls another spell wisp to replace the one that's winked out, and makes it hover over the tip of Hawke's nose.