InsaneJournal

Who: Anders and Tink
When: This evening, May 25th
Where: Tink’s Place
What: Anders begins to dream as Justice, decides to tell Tink about his impending possession (Tink apparently has a type) and the events in Kirkwall.
Warning/Rating: Warning for mentions of political terrorism and vague mentions of execution.
Status: Complete!


Anders had woken up that morning incredibly disoriented. The light was coming from the wrong place - filtering in through the window, instead of coming from the walls and the stones around him. Everything was too solid, too real. It was supposed to be constantly changing.

It had only taken him a moment to recognize that he was Anders, waking up next to his girlfriend, and that he had just dreamed of the Fade. But he hadn’t dreamed of the Fade as a visitor, as he had been before. He had dreamed it as a citizen. He had dreamed it as Justice.

He didn’t speak much to Tink that morning, lost in thought, and had gone off to work at the hospital. He had gone through the day, not being able to get the Dream off of his mind, and aware that there was something inside him. Not something new, not something that hadn’t been there before, but rather, something that had always been there but was suddenly just a little bit louder. Was it possible that that was Justice?

He had been hoping that Justice just… wouldn’t show up. Part of him had been expecting him, perhaps part of him had known that Justice had been with him from the start, but still, he had hoped fervently that the spirit would stay in his dreams.

He was going to have to talk to Tink about it, he knew. When they had first started dating, he had decided that whether she dated him, despite the fact that he had lost control and killed a man (had that been Justice, too?), that she would be honest with her so she could still keep making informed decisions about their relationship. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to lose her.


When he returned to Tink’s place after work, he was still obviously distracted. He tried to play some video games with her, had eaten supper, but had been unusually quiet for most of the evening, trying to think of the best way to tell her.

“Love,” he said after deciding that there really wasn’t a good way to say ‘I’m a political terrorist, who shares his body with a spirit.’ “Can we talk?”

Tink hadn’t really noticed how distracted he was in the morning. She’d been really sleepy, and struggling with her own wakefulness. Tink before coffee was zombie territory. She’d gone to work like normal, and came home for frozen pizza, bag-o-salad, and video games with Anders. He was spending so much time here, she was about to suggest that he just… move in.

But something was off tonight. He was quieter than normal. Almost cold. His mind wasn’t on the game, which didn’t bother Tink that much. She could play for the both of them and he could just enjoy the story. She paused the game and turned to face him. He wanted to talk? This sounded ominous--and her caution showed on her face.

“Of course we can. What’s up?” Lady Widget jumped up into her lap.

“It’s Dream stuff,” Anders said. It was a lot harder to do this than he expected. It was rare for him to be at a loss for words, or not knowing how to say something that he wanted to say. Maybe the difference was, he didn’t want to say it.

He reached over and gave Lady Widget a couple of scratches behind the ear, and then sighed. “I was talking to Isabela - the one from my Dreams? - a while ago, and she told me some things that I suppose I should tell you.”

Tink’s hand came to rest on the cat in her lap. Lady Widge started purring instantly, the moment she got attention from both of her ‘parents.’ Tink was listening carefully, and nodded once. “Okay.” Dream stuff. Not necessarily good. But not terrible, either? Maybe? She could tell that Anders was having a hard time telling her, and it made her even more nervous. “It’s okay. You can tell me anything.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said. “But I -” he was scared, really. Scared that Justice would become a stronger presence, and would pervert Anders’ own sense of justice. The spirit he had dreamed as would never do anything as extreme as what Bela had told him, but then, neither would the Anders he dreamed of. Something about the two of them together did that, and Anders wasn’t sure what it was. There was no Circle of Magi in the Orange County, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other injustices that made Anders’ blood boil.

“You remember me explaining about mages getting possessed by demons and becoming abominations?”

Now Tink was really scared. If something had come up that was so jarring for Anders, it had to be huge. Really big. Ridiculously big. World-shattering? What could it be? Did he really think he was going to lose her? She wasn’t going anywhere.

Tink reached forward for his hand, her eyes on his face--the face she loved so dearly. “Yes.” She said, though her own heartbeat had quickened now.

“That… I mean, it’s not the same thing. There are spirits too. Good spirits, that embody qualities that people strive for. Valour, and compassion and… Justice. I … I apparently bond with a spirit of Justice. And it uh… doesn’t really go that well? I guess? I think it’s going to happen soon. In the Dreams, I mean. I’ve uh… started to Dream as him. As Justice.”

Tink wasn’t sure she really understood. “You’re someone else in your Dreams now?” She asked, for clarification. “What does that mean, it doesn’t really go that well?”

“Yeah,” Anders said. “Weird right? But last night I Dreamed… just of Justice. Just hanging out, being justice-y in the Fade. No Anders to be seen.” It had been really, really weird.

He gave a bit of a wince at Tink’s question. “It’s uh… the Templars. And the Mages. There’s… a lot of injustice going on there. Templar abuses, and all of that. The Anders in my dreams is already really angry about it. Anders meets Justice in my Dreams, I assume after whatever it was I Dreamed of, and they talk a lot about Mage rights. Justice is trying to convince Anders to fight for their rights which, I mean, I agree. Anders shouldn’t just be concerned about his own self.” It felt really weird to talk about the Anders in his dreams in third person, but Anders wasn’t him. And he refused to become him here.

“Bela tells me that Anders does take up the fight though. And at first he does a lot of good. But then… I don’t know. Maybe Justice becomes corrupted. Maybe Justice turns into something else, into a … a demon.”

Tink went quiet, listening intently again. She was trying to understand, and she wasn’t sure she did. “...so, you’ve been told that in your Dream World you become possessed by a demon. Or, a spirit? That goes bad inside you? And makes you do bad things?” She sounded like a valley girl, with all of her sentences ending in questions. But she was confused and focusing, and didn’t really care.

“And… now you’re Dreaming about it, so you’re worried it’s going to bleed over?” Was that the whole of it?

“I… yeah. That’s the jist of it. Tink, I uh…” Oh man. Here came the hard part. Better to just get it out, no flowering it up or beating around the bush. “He blows up a Chantry - a uh, a church. One that was filled with people.”

Tink frowned. “Why did he.. oh. Wait. Innocent people?” She asked, though she probably knew the answer already, didn’t she?

"Innocent people," Anders asked. He hadn't specifically asked Isabela, but Chantrys housed the clergy and the people who went to pray. It wasn't the home for Templars. "As to why, the Circles are run by the Chantry. I don't know all the details, and I doubt Bela would know all my motivations. I can't possibly figure out why he thought it would be a good idea. It will just make people fear us more..."

He sighed, then cradled his head with his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He was a little comforted when Sir Pounce-A-Lot butted against his arm, and he reached a hand out to pet his friend. Last week he had dreamed that the Grey Wardens - with that "former" Templar (Anders had suspicions about that) weighing in heavily - had made him give up Ser Pounce-A-Lot, as he was "making Anders soft." He wondered how much that had played into his decision all those years later.

"I uh... Understand if you'd rather not continue to see someone who may, in the future, become a terrorist."

“Anders.” Tink frowned. She sat up a little, so abruptly and almost angrily, and Lady Widget jumped down off her lap, the purrs quieting as the cat stretched. “This isn’t just… this isn’t just something I decided on a whim. It’s not just something I can turn off, either. I’m not just going to decide I don’t want to be with you anymore. I love you. I’m not going anywhere. Especially not over something that may or may not happen.”

Anders let out the breath he hadn’t been aware that he had been holding, and turned his head toward Tink, offering her a small, forced smile. “Maybe it’s something you should decide,” he offered, in case she changed her mind further down the road. But for now, he was glad that she was staying with him. He reached out to take her hand.

“Thank you, Love. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Her fingers laced with his without hesitation. She had things to think about, sure. And she knew she was going to be worried now. Things came through from the Dreams all the time… this Justice thing was probably… on the way. And they’d cross that bridge when they came to it. Tink wasn’t going to run away scared. She was going to stay and fight for the man she loved.

“Wither and die,” Tink said without a hint of playfulness on her voice. Then she broke into a smirk to show she was kidding. “But please don’t. I’d rather if you stayed alive and hung out with me.”

Anders bit his lip, and glanced over to her. "About that..." he said, then took a deep breath. "Apparently, they execute me." Well, it was obvious that that's the way things would go. You couldn't exactly blow up a Chantry and walk away from that.

“What?” Tink was frowning now. She shook her head. “It’s not going to bleed over, Anders. That part isn’t. You know that, right?” Neal had died in his dreams. Severus in his, too. She knew of a few who’d bit the bullet, and in the Real World they went right on kicking. But her hand tightened around his a little. She didn’t want to lose him. If all this stuff came true from the Dreams, though, she knew she would.

"Yeah. I've heard of people just waking up a little bloody, and I have my healing magic, so it shouldn't be that big a deal. I just... Thought I'd give you a heads up." He didn't like to admit it but... "I'm scared though. Scared of what I might become."

Tink moved closer a bit on the sofa and wrapped both of her arms around his to hug it against her chest. She rested her chin on his shoulder. “We’ll get through it. No matter what, okay? I’m not about to let you go.” She knew if the Dreams wanted to infect him with some other spirit or demon or whatever, there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. But she wasn’t about to just let him go. She was going to stand and fight. “...how… how did they execute you in the Dreams?”

“You know, I didn’t think to ask.” It hadn’t mattered much to Anders how it had been done, just that it had been. “I was told that it was by a friend of mine though, and that I was glad it was them who did it.” He sighed. “You ever consider dating someone who has nice dreams?” he asked, teasingly.

“Wait… is that an option?” Tink asked, breaking into a little smirk. “I must not have checked the right box on the application form. Damn. I’m always messing these things up.” She shook her head a little. “Ah, well, I guess I’m stuck with you now.” And she leaned up and in to tap a kiss against his lips.

“That’s what you get for not reading the fine print,” Anders said. “It’s right underneath ‘doesn’t live with parents’ and just before ‘has a good job.’” He was feeling a little better, all things considered. He was still thinking about what might happen if Justice managed to get control here in Orange County - Isabela mentioned that there weren’t any mage-templar issues here, but there were a ton of other injustices all over that Justice might try to take up the mantle of - Anders himself was fairly active as far as protests went. But his immediate worry, the one that had been preying on his mind all day, was that Tink might leave him.

Maybe she still would, sometime in the future, but right now his worry was abated. “I don’t know how I managed to end up with such a wonderful woman. I must have filled out the form correctly.” He gave her a wink.

Tink broke into a grin. “Well, that makes one of us.” It was a gentle tease. A playful one. She leaned in to kiss his lips again, but then pulled back abruptly. “You know what we need? Time in the bath.” They definitely hadn’t taken full advantage of that amazing tub in the Old Man’s master bathroom. “You’re not too tired for a bath, are you?”

Anders had been ready for the kiss, and when Tink suddenly pulled away a very brief thought of ‘well, she changed her mind’ crossed his mind. He was glad to be wrong. “Oh, I think a bath sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day.”