An Anders Appreciation Blog

kassafrassa:

waugh ok so i was doodling cold things last night then bna;lksjdf shimmy wrote and sent me this lovely bit of writing BF’OiaehglkajdflaLKJALKJSDFLJ the sketch is dumb and does the story no justice at all HAHAJUSTICE but ln;akjsdf shiMMY IS AMAZING LKNAFB;LAKJDF WAUGH

Hawke comes inside with snow melting on his beard, stamping the same off his boots just inside the doorway and chafing his hands together for warmth. A lone gust of wind rifles his hair from back to front, already messy over his brow; his breath still mists for a few hot moments in front of his mouth, white condensation against wet snow against black hair, easy to see as the little lines that crease his skin whenever he smiles and the white flash of teeth as he catches Anders watching him.

‘No,’ Anders says, ‘don’t come over here,’ which is exactly the opposite of what he means, also exactly the opposite of what he wants. ‘You’ll get me all damp and shivery. I’m freezing just looking at you.’

‘Another noble sentiment,’ Hawke replies, brushing snow from the corner of his jaw, then off his broad shoulders, shaking it from the stiff folds of his cloak to reveal the simpler cloth beneath. Colder, softer, stuck to the skin with chill-sweat, the fall of Hawke’s vest pushed open and the sloppy tuck loose enough to reveal a v of his chest beneath.

This is the trouble with Hoth, the glory of Hoth, the warmth a fellow finds in a fellow—that is, if he doesn’t say Go away but rather Come closer, if he can ever find the words. It would be that easy, sentiments framed on Anders’s lips in the proper shape for once, Hawke’s cheeks flushed and ruddiest over the bridge of his nose.

Anders was there when Hawke broke it—or had it broken for him, a quick scuffle in the early afternoon with more fists than Force. The blood after got on Anders’s hands, on his Padawan robes as he stuffed a ball of fabric beneath to stop the flow, and Hawke winked at him, or squinted into the sunlight. It was either one or the other, so small a thing meaning so much in the unsolved years to come.

‘I didn’t do it for you, in case you were curious,’ Hawke said. His voice was muffled below so much sweaty cotton, and it sounded older—deeper—than Anders remembered it. ‘But at the same time… I guess I didn’t do it for myself, either.’

Hawke comes closer with a wet beard and wet hair, a mess of ice and flesh and shivers, shaking his head like a Tauntaun after a long ride. Anders hates Tauntauns because of an ill-fated trip to Hoth some years back.

And he thought they smelled bad on the outside.

That same smell lingers on Hawke’s cloak but he sets it aside—so all the cleaner, fresher scents supplant the less pleasant ones, each gust and eddy of scouring wind, each flake and twitch of frostbite. Hawke is somewhere beneath it all, cracks on his knuckles and next to his nails, the cuticles almost black with cold. Anders has no choice, if he ever had one to begin with, and opens the folds of his robes for a second time—Jedi robes, not Padawan trainers, heavier cotton so much better for warming a man than for sopping up his blood.

Anders is all damp and shivery. He’ll smell like a Tauntaun himself by morning. The winds of Hoth howl without end, one blizzard bleeding into the next, only the pause between dark storms like the pale gray strip of light on the horizon before the binary dawn. Hawke pushes his cold nose against Anders’s warm throat, stubble scraping stubble, and Anders holds him close against his racing pulse.