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]

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.

[questionablewit]

Malcolm, of course, grabs at the spell wisp and thus Hawke's nose, though his grip slips off almost at once. She makes a face, which only makes the baby laugh and try again. "Except that Varric's better at cards than I am. Are we sure he's not really the mother?"

Hawke turns mock-serious as she examines Malcolm's face. Malcolm giggles and swipes for her nose again. "Your eyes look like they're going to stay brownish, squirt. Could be another sign of Varric being involved somewhere..." She pretends to consider. "But that black hair is definitely mine, so presumably so are you. And I'm sure you have me to blame for the way you always want to run off and find some trouble to get into, Maker help us all." Her hands are still resting on Anders', holding Malcolm's sides, and one thumb unconciously strokes his hand. "You really should consider taking Teo as a role model. He's got more sense than the rest of us." Teo, as though to argue this point, snorts.

[birdhousesoul]

"He did just steal your nose. A born rogue, that one. Definitely yours; you've always been much more hands-on than Varric."

At the very outset, Anders was concerned to assert his paternity, for Malcolm's sake; old Anderfels prejudices coming to the fore. He needn't have bothered: the locals could put two and two together, and they'd have worked their way to the correct conclusion all on their own through indiscriminate application of gossip. It's known he's associated with the resistance movement, and Xestsemon is pro-rebellion, so it's generally not held against him that he wasn't around at first; rumors as to what he was really doing the whole time have varied. What remains to be determined by the villagers is why the family's split between two residences. The clinic partly explains that, but there's obviously still going to be some speculation. To Anders' chagrin, a minority opinion holds that Malcolm isn't Anders' son but the son of an unknown brother of his, and he's doing his fraternal duty taking the child as his own. Shades of Sebastian and SMIAV!

The important thing is that no one could ever mistake Malcolm for a cast-off. He's a loved child, very much wanted, and if it sometimes gets Anders called the local equivalent of Mister Hawke, well, that's not overly objectionable. And with that understood, Anders is more than comfortable joking about Malcolm's genetic makeup, his putative heritage ranging back hundreds of generations, and the possibility that Malcolm may actually be an unholy changeling rather than a real live human boy. (The unholy changeling business generally comes up only in the event of a Diaper Explosion.)

When Malcolm gets older and starts running around tearing his clothes off, Isabela may well be implicated. It's a way, too, of keeping their distant friends alive.

"I'll tell you what," says Anders to Malcolm, or rather to the top of Malcolm's head. "You take Teo as a role model as seriously and as faithfully as you like. I'm willing to suffer the drool and the wanton destruction of textiles. What I fear is the day you come asking for a wallop mallet."

Oh, Gamlen, you too will never be forgotten.

[questionablewit]

"Oh, the nose-stealing comes from you, definitely." Hawke turns a look of fond affection on Anders. She's never denied Malcolm's parentage. When asked, before Anders arrived, she would say only that his father was fighting in the war and couldn't be there; truth, as she saw it at the time. Since Anders arrived she's been asked if he's the father in question, and has always been firm in her answer. No one's quite had the audacity to ask why they don't share a house, and the rumors of Malcolm actually having a different father haven't directly reached her ears, or she'd squash them. Hawke doesn't much care what people think of her, but she won't have them thinking ill of Malcolm or Anders if she can help it.

For now, she removes Malcolm from Anders' hands, then turns so she's sitting in front of him and he can hold both of them at once, if he wishes. Malcolm gets deposited in her lap, pouting at now being so far away from the nose-spell-wisp. "We already get drool and the wanton destruction of textiles." Inevitable with all babies, no doubt, though to Hawke's biased eyes Malcolm seems a master of both. "But if he takes after Gamlen, I honestly think I'll cry."

[birdhousesoul]

"Don't say that where he can hear you," cautions Anders. "You'll give him ideas." He wraps long limbs around Hawke, a leg to either side of hers, arms circling to reach about her and tickle Malcolm, who squeals. "No, I've a better idea," and he speaks with exaggerated clearness: "It would be horrible if our son ever emulated Gamlen Amell, who was the most stable and fiscally prudent man of his generation. He never drooled on anything, nor did he destroy clothing, and he was toilet-trained at a miraculously early age. No, we would cry lots if our son behaved in such a way as Gamlen, and it would send us into ridiculous fits most amusing to watch."

[questionablewit]

Hawke laughs long and delightedly at that. Malcolm echoes it, either from imitation or more likely because Anders is still tickling him. "He's our son. I'm pretty sure he's too smart for such blatant reverse psychology." She leans back and turns her head to kiss Anders' cheek. "You'll have to try something else, I'm afraid."

[birdhousesoul]

"He's our son, therefore he's too stubborn to do as he thinks he's being told," Anders argues. "He gets that from his mother."

[questionablewit]

"I do as I'm told sometimes," Hawke protests. "I eat all my vegetables, even. May Malcolm be so obedient once we start him on solids. And you're at least as stubborn as I am, and you know it, so no complaining."

He does complain, of course, and the evening passes. Bickering and playing turn into storytime, increasingly silly stories designed to convince Malcolm to go to sleep. It takes another round with the cold knotted cloth before he starts drifting off, and Hawke holds him close as he gums at it, humming and rocking him. Her expression is one of quiet contentment and focus, overwritten by deep, open affection.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders, who's just finished improvising a dog bed for Teo, trails off in the midst of admonishing the mabari (dog bed only, no human bed for you). He simply watches mother and child, his heart swelling with happiness.

[questionablewit]

It takes a moment for Hawke to realize she's an object of scrutiny. Once she has, she looks up and meets Anders' gaze. Her smile is serene and joyous, and it's entirely possible that he's never seen her look as happy as she does at this moment.

The moment holds for a long time, ending when Malcolm drops the knot-cloth, which he does because he's finally fallen asleep. Hawke lets out a breath of a laugh and brushes her lips on his forehead, turning to get him settled in the basket of cloths that serves him as a cradle here.

[birdhousesoul]

Anders comes to wrap his arms about Hawke from behind and look over her shoulder at Malcolm. "Thought he'd never nod off," he murmurs.

[questionablewit]

Hawke chuckles, resting her hands on his arms where they cross her chest. "We got off lightly. Sometimes it takes half the night for him to fall asleep. Invite me to stay over more often and you'll see."

[birdhousesoul]

He inclines his head to kiss the side of her head above the ear. "Is that something you'd like?"

[questionablewit]

"Yes." Simple answer, given without ornamentation or pause. She tilts her head towards his mouth, eyes closing. "Is it something you'd like?"

[birdhousesoul]

He could hedge. He won't. "I think yes. Only I haven't got a basket big enough for you." A hand slides slightly northward.

[questionablewit]

Hawke smiles. "Pity. You'll have to find somewhere else for me to sleep, in that case." Her arms are pinned; she can't reciprocate much. But she can lean back into the embrace, and does. "Think you can come up with something?"

[birdhousesoul]

Come up with something, honestly. He chuckles. "If moved by inspiration, most certainly."