Alistair Theirin (bloodoftheirin) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-04-08 22:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alistair theirin, anders |
Who: Alistair Theirin and Anders
What: An Ex-Templar and a Mage walk into a coffee shop
When: Backdated: Early March
Where: Coffee Shop
Rating/Warnings: Family Friendly
Status: Complete!
Alistair had just left the theater for the afternoon and had decided to stop for a cup of coffee before heading home. He was sure that when he got home he’d be helping Sam and Lara with the baby, which he didn’t mind in the least, but he would need some caffeine to stay awake; not that he had any real desire to go to sleep after the recent dreams he’d been having. First Vigil’s Keep then meeting Hawke in Kirkwall and lastly the aftermath of the Kirkwall Chantry being blown up. Yeah, it had happened in Kirkwall, but the Mage/Templar Rebellion had spread into Denerim and throughout Fereldan.
Reaching the coffee shop that was just down the street from Clarice’s theater, he went inside and got in line, gazing up at the menu as he tried to decide what size coffee he would need and exactly how strong he wanted it.
Anders was pretty sure that if coffee plants went extinct one day, he’d have no choice but to curl up and die. There was the problem involved that Anders refused to support slave labour in his coffee addiction, so he had found a bunch of Fair Trade coffee shops around, and those were the ones he frequented.
He had never been to this particular coffee shop before, but he had been told that the coffee was both tasty and Fair Trade, and he was willing to try anything once.
He wasn’t entirely paying attention as he gazed up at the menu - should he get himself some sort of snack too? All he had at home were TV dinners - and wasn’t really paying attention when he bumped into the man in front of him.
“Oh, sorry about that,” he said. “I should have been paying more attention.”
Alistair had been paying attention to the menu so he hadn’t realized anyone had come in or that that person also wasn’t paying attention. Not until the other person had bumped into him, causing him to turn to face the other man, stumbling slightly, “No, it’s fine. You didn’t knock me over, so it’s okay.” It wasn’t until Alistair turned fully that he recognized the man who had bumped into him.
Anders. The Mage from Vigil’s Keep. The Mage who had become a Grey Warden. The Mage who had blown up the Kirkwall Chantry. Alistair knew that he was staring a little, but he couldn’t help it as he recalled the conversation he’d recently had with Isabela about whether or not they should tell Anders about Kirkwall. There were definite pros and cons to doing that, but Alistair wasn’t entirely sure what the right thing to do was. It wasn’t like when Zevran had told him about knowing him from the dreams before Alistair had had any. This was something entirely different.
“Well, if only everyone was as easy-going as you,” Anders said with a smile. “Some people act like being bumped into is the end of the world.”
And now this fellow was staring at him. Awkward. “I don’t have anything on my face, do I?” Anders asked, and ran a hand across his jaw just in case. He wasn’t a self-conscious type of person, but running into someone and then having them stare at you was never an entirely comfortable feeling, especially not now that he was dreaming. When people stared at Anders in the dreams, he was always worried that they recognized him as a mage (which wasn’t all that hard, really, given that he continued to wear a staff and a robe even when he was on the run) and were going to turn him into the Templars. He knew that there was no chance of that here, but there was still a small part of his mind that nagged at him about it.
“Crap. Sorry. No.” Alistair had never been great with words when in a bind and this occasion was no different. He was much better with the witty one-liners. “I don’t mean to stare at you like that. I just…” Perhaps if he hadn’t dreamt about the whole Kirkwall Chantry fiasco this would be easier, “...you’re Anders, right?” There really was no other way for him to salvage this encounter. He was gonna have to ask Zevran to teach him how to be a better conversationalist in awkward situations.
“That’s me,” Anders confirmed. He was pretty sure he had never met this man before. He supposed it was possible that he was one of his patients, though most of them referred to him as ‘Dr. Anders’ when they ran into him on the street. “Are you from the Network then?” he asked. It seemed like the most likely conclusion.
Alistair nodded, “Yeah, I am. And we sort of met briefly in the dreams.” He figured that he’d already stared at him like a creeper, so he might as well tell him that much. He’d just do his best to leave out the blowing up the Chantry part. “So, you can imagine why the staring just happened.”
“Alistair?” Anders ventured. The only three other people Anders knew about from Thedas who were kicking around were Alistair, Isabela, and Leliana. “When I met Isabela I did a bit of staring myself, so I get it.”
Alistair nodded, “Yup. That would be me. Sorry again, for the staring.” It was always a little strange to meet someone he talked to on Valarnet, but it was always a little stranger to meet someone he’d dreamt about, “Yeah, but I’m sure when you met Isabela, you were staring at her for much different reasons.”
Anders started to laugh, but aware that Alistair probably wouldn’t get exactly why what he said was so funny, he stopped himself. “I’m guessing so,” he said, unless he and Alistair also slept together in the dream world. He supposed it was possible (Alistair was a pretty good looking guy, and Anders had no qualms about sleeping with men), but not very likely.
Honestly, he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about Alistair. Knowing the man had been a Templar made Anders’ skin crawl just a little bit, but he had left the order. That definitely put points in the man’s favour. That, and the dream world was something totally different from the real world. He was surprised sometimes at how strongly he felt about some of the things in the dream, in particular, the Templar Order.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Alistair,” Anders said, holding out a hand.
Alistair wouldn’t have blamed Anders if he’d known that he was a little weary around him cause of the whole Templar thing, but had he known, he would have reassured him that he was not like the other Templars he had met in the dreams. And as for whether or not they had slept together in the dreams, dream Alistair would surely have turned six shades of red at the suggestion. Besides, he hadn’t even had sex with a woman in the dreams, let alone a man.
“It’s nice to meet you too. Again, sorry for the staring.” He shook Anders’ hand, smiling a little.
“Don’t worry about the staring,” Anders said. “If that was the weirdest thing I’d have to deal with since moving here, I’d count my blessings.”
They were getting closer to the front of the line. "Buy you a coffee?" he asked.
Alistair hadn’t expected Anders to offer to buy his coffee, but he wasn’t about to pass up a free coffee. “Thanks, that’d be great. I promise not to get the most expensive one.” He smirked as they moved up in line, “So how long have you been out here?” Just because Anders was new on Valarnet, that didn’t necessarily mean he was new to the area so Alistair didn’t want to assume.
“I moved here just over a year ago from Germany,” Anders said. “Though I grew up in northern Cali.” He stopped a moment to order his coffee and a croissant, and then turned back to Alistair. “What about you? Orange County born and bred?”
“Wow. What’s Germany like?” Alistair had traveled a bit, but he’d never been to Germany. “I’m originally from Sacramento. Moved here a little over a year ago.” And he was glad that he had. A lot had happened over the last year or so, most importantly, Alistair gaining independence from his family.
“Germany was great,” Anders said, smiling. “I went to med school there. Free tuition is a magical thing,” he said with a wink, more because of the whole magical pun than anything. He liked Germany for much the same reason that Alistair liked the OC. While it may not have been independence from his family, it was independence. A way to forge his own path. “How are you liking it so far? It’s … different than I had expected.”
Well, the first year was more or less exactly what Anders had expected. The strange dreams wasn’t something he thought anyone would have ever expected.
“You’re a doctor then?” From what Alistair could remember from the dreams and meeting Hawke, he had heard something about a Mage healer and now that he thought about it, he wondered if that was Anders. “It’s too bad America doesn’t do that.” Sure, Alistair hadn’t had to worry about tuition since his father had more than enough money to have paid for his children to go to college, but not everyone was as lucky.
Alistair thought for a moment before answering Anders’ question, “It’s different. Being on my own is good, but there’s been some stuff that has happened over the last year that wasn’t so great.” Like the Blight for instance, but he wasn’t going to bring that up. At least not right now.
“I am,” Anders said. “Surgeon at St. Joseph’s, but I spend most of my time running a free clinic in Santa Ana.”
“There’s a lot of things America could stand to adopt from other countries. Free tuition and universal healthcare, to name a couple.” Anders was a socialist through and through, and for all he loved America, how capitalistic and consumer based it was tended to rankle.
“I’ve found being alone tends to have that. Good, and bad, and everything in between. You just have to make sure the good outweighs the bad.” It wasn’t always possible, and his dreams had certainly brought that to light.
“Maybe someday America will get with it.” Whether or not Alistair would be alive to see it though was the question, “Yeah, I mean, I’m not completely on my own. I have two roommates, which I actually prefer over my family sometimes.” Lara and Sam didn’t judge Alistair or try to make him fit into a specific mold like his father did. If he missed anyone in his family, it was his mother.
“Hopefully,” Anders said. He picked up his coffee. “Roommates who you get along with are great. They can definitely end up being more like family than friends sometimes.” His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to look at it.
“Well, it was nice,” pause, for maximum punnage, “bumping into you Alistair. I’ve got to get going, but hopefully I’ll see you around.”
Alistair grabbed his own coffee as it was set down on the counter and nodded, “Yeah, I should get going too.” It was actually for the best that they parted ways now, because the longer they talked, it was more likely that Alistair would slip up and tell Anders what had happened in Kirkwall. “I’m sure we will and thanks again for the coffee.”