Anders (crazycatman) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-04-13 09:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, anders, tinkerbell |
Who: Anders and Tink
When: End of March
Where: Tink’s Place
What: Anders dreams of becoming a Warden; eats Tink out of house and home.
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete when posted.
Anders’ dream had not started well. After nearly a year and a half of being away from the Circle - his longest escape attempt so far, he had finally been found and caught by the Templars. He supposed he didn’t have The Blight to keep them busy anymore, so they had come after him.
The Templars had taken him to Vigil’s Keep as a layover in his dreams, when the Keep had been set upon by Darkspawn. The Templars had been slain (was it wrong of Anders to be very happy about that?), and he had fought them off with fire, before he was found by the Hero of Fereldan, a girl who he had grown up with in the Circle.
They had caught up, fought a darkspawn that talked (were darkspawn supposed to be able to talk? He didn’t think so). He finally met Alistair in his dreams (who had certainly never mentioned his standing in Fereldan when they had bumped into one another), and was conscripted to the Grey Wardens. The look on the Templars’ faces when Alistair told them that they couldn’t have Anders because of his conscription was priceless. He wished had had a camera).
They he had undergone the Joining, a ritual that involved drinking a mixture of darkspawn blood and lyrium (definitely the most disgusting concoction he had ever drank in either the real world or Thedas), and then passing out and having really intense dreams.
He woke up, Tink next to him, Sir Pounce-A-Lot curled up at his feet. He could still taste the Joining mix, which was terrible, and after a couple of minutes of attempting to scrape the taste off his tongue with his teeth, he realized that he was hungry. Not just hungry. Starving. He could not remember being hungry like this in his entire life.
Attempting to be gentle, he rolled Tink off from his arm, and headed to the kitchen. He couldn’t cook very well, but he did sort of know how to cook scrambled eggs. He cooked himself a couple, and after inhaling them, realized they didn’t sate his hunger at all.
So, he did the next logical thing. He cracked the remaining ten eggs in the carton, and began to cook them up as well. He wouldn’t eat all of them, because he probably couldn’t no matter how hungry he felt, but Tink would probably be waking up soon and she would no doubt want a few of them.
Tink stirred when she was gently moved to the side. But Lady Widge was there, purring contentedly by her head, and Tink couldn't help but feel the lull back to sleep. Anders probably went off to the bathroom or something. She was out for a few more minutes before Lady Widge stood up and walked across her head to jump down off the bed and follow Anders out of the bedroom.
Cats.
Tink rolled over, finding that Anders wasn't in the bed with her. She paused for a moment, listening for the bathroom--shower? Toilet? But heard something moving in the kitchen. Was Anders... cooking? She climbed out of bed, grabbed her silk robe, and wandered down the hall toward the smell of cooking eggs.
A smile crossed her features. "You didn't have to make me breakfast."
“Tink, good morning,” he said, half turning from the stove to smile at her. “I hope you like scrambled eggs.”
Everything seemed to be cooking well on its own, he hoped, so he began to make a pot of coffee. He couldn’t remember the last time he made or ate food before his first cup of coffee in the morning, but apparently that’s what starving to death overnight did to you.
“I had another Dream,” Anders said conversationally. Really, as far as Dreams went, it was probably one of the better ones he had had. Dead and pissed off Templars, being released from the Circle to join the Grey Wardens, getting to spend time with Amell, a drunk dwarf (who was disgusting, but Anders kind of liked him so far). The fact that there was also some very unpleasant moments involved was really just par the course, and he decided that he probably shouldn’t judge his dreams on how many bad things happened so much as if anything good happened.
"I do." There had been an entire carton of eggs in the fridge. Tink was fond of eggs. One of the only meals she could cook well was scrambled eggs and toast. With jam. Yum.
Tink was instantly worried when he said he'd had another dream. She moved further into the kitchen, grabbing some keurig cups from the cabinet to help him make coffee. "You okay?" She asked, trying (and probably failing) to sound less concerned than she was. She'd had mostly average dreams, but she was well aware how horrible they could get. Neal woke up with a gunshot wound from his. She'd been asleep beside him in bed when it happened. Kinda traumatic. At least Anders hasn't woken up covered in blood. ...yet.
“Oh yeah,” Anders said. “It was one of the better ones. Ran into an old,” well, Amell hadn’t really been his friend per se. She had always spent a lot of time around Jowan, who Anders didn’t really get along with, “acquaintance of dream-Anders from the Circle. The one who got conscripted into the Grey Wardens and ended the Blight. Killed some darkspawn, drank some disgusting drink, became a Grey Warden myself. And since I was conscripted, the Templars couldn’t do a thing about it and had to go back to the Circle sans Anders.”
The eggs seemed finished. A little runny, but he didn’t really want to wait for them anymore. He put what he estimated to be three eggs on Tink’s plate, and then put the rest on his own. He went to hand her plate to her, and then walked to the table with his own plate in hand, already digging into it as he walked.
Tink finished up the coffee while Anders finished up the eggs. She accepted the plate and set it on the table, then brought the coffee mugs over.
"Wait, you became a Grey Warden? That's good, right?" She was still confused about his dreams a bit, though she was trying her best to understand. She wanted him to talk to her about it when he was comfortable. "...you look hungry."
"It's good," he said, swallowing a mouthful. "Well, goodish. Not ideal." Another couple of bites. "A lot more chance of dying while fighting darkspawn." He hadn't learned of the pitfalls of becoming a Warden yet. The nightmares, or the 'only getting to live for 30 years after going through the Joining thing, though he knew that there was a lot of Not So Great things he'd learn about it eventually. No order kept as many secrets as the Wardens if everything was rainbows and unicorns. "But the Circle can't take me back. You should have seen the Templars faces when they were told to fuck off."
He shoveled a few more mouthfuls of food into his face. "I'm famished," he said. "I feel like I haven't eaten in decades."
Tink frowned a little. "Well I hope you don't die," she offered, slipping into her chair. She started eating her eggs, watching him shovel his food in between sentences. "That's a relief." She wanted him away from the Templars, too.
"...Do you think... I mean, are you hungry from the dreams?" Tink asked. She got her wings. Maybe he had powers from his. Maybe the hunger came from it?
"I hope I don't either," he said. "I heard that that tends to carry over to real life."
He took a break to clean off his plate - he certainly hadn't expected to eat the whole thing as quickly as he did - and washed it down with some coffee. "Actually, that might make sense. I'll ask Alistair if he knows. He also dreams of being a Grey Warden."
Anders definitely wasn't feeling as hungry as he had been, but he was still pretty hungry. "Did you want to go for breakfast with me before work today?" he asked, a little sheepishly.
Tink frowned. “You don’t really think that’s true, do you? If you die in the Dreams you die in real life?” She asked. “Because it’s not for these Dreams. I’ve known people who... “ She cleared her throat, biting back an urge to touch him. Want his arm around her.
“Let’s go get some pancakes.” She said, scraping the remaining eggs from her plate onto his. “I’ll just get dressed.” She added, pulling up from her chair to head back to the bedroom.
Anders frowned to himself when she cut herself off. “Well, I’m not sure,” he said. “Someone mentioned on the ‘net that injuries and the like carried over,” he said. He stood up when Tink did, because she seemed upset, and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m still pretty new to this whole dreaming thing, you know. Can’t take everything I say seriously.” There was a pause. “Actually, you shouldn’t take most of what I say seriously, whether it’s about the dreams or not,” he joked.
Tink knew full well that things carried over from the dreams. Injuries, magic, wings... but she knew that Neal dreamed his death. And she knew that Severus Snape did, too. And there were a few others who'd talked about it on the net. She didn't like thinking about it. It was painful. She was confident that he wouldn't die, even if he did dream about it. Though, there was always that tiny worry that this time it might be different.
She was tense when he wrapped his arms around her, but she couldn't help but melt into them. "I always take what you say seriously," she said, though she meant it in a more serious way than he meant. She thought. "I mean, I think... it's gonna be okay. It has to. If you're... stronger in the dreams now? Because of the Grey Warden thing?"
“It will be okay, yeah,” he said, kissing the top of her head. He wasn’t entirely sure about that. Mhairi hadn’t survived her Joining, after all, and it seemed like everything in Thedas was out to kill them. But he didn’t want Tink to worry, so maybe he’d just… brush over how easy it was to die. “I’ll definitely be stronger now in the dreams, and my boss is the woman who almost singlehandedly saved the entire world.”
Tink took a deep breath and let it out again, still wrapped up in his arms. She forced herself to calm down a bit, closing her eyes. It will be okay. Funny how he’d been the one with the rough dreams last night, and here he was comforting her.
Tink broke into a grin, deciding to lighten the mood, and said the most un-Tink thing she had possibly ever said. “Is she prettier than me?”
“I don’t think there’s anyone prettier than you,” Anders said. “Not here, or in Thedas.” He kissed her forehead. “But you get dressed. I’ll be there in a minute.” Right after he polished off the rest of Tink’s eggs.
D'awww. Tink went a little pink, grinning. She squeezed him around the middle in a tight hug, then released her arms. "Okay." She was glad he was all right. The idea that he was struggling with his Dreams, or that something weird had leached from them into his waking life made her feel weird. Nervous? Protective. She felt protective of her boyfriend and didn't want anything rotten to happen to him.
She turned to head down the hall, mind abuzz with curiosity and concern for what Anders must be going through. And wonder. Did he really just cook an entire dozen eggs?