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It was a truth universally acknowledged that a mage who lived in Darktown and ran a free clinic for Kirkwall's most indigent population would be perpetually short of cash.
The Ferelden refugee community had developed its own barter and payment-in-kind subeconomy, so from day to day Anders managed to get by; but what coin he collected from his outings with Hawke all went to buy supplies for his clinic, so he never had any coin to spend. This meant that on Wicked Grace nights -- on the Wicked Grace nights that Anders gave in to the friendly badgering to join in and stop propping up the wall like a scarecrow, for the Maker's sake -- Anders had nothing to chip in the pot but IOUs. For backrubs, specifically. Anders' backrubs were the stuff of legends, and all of Hawke's companions accepted the currency eagerly.
Except Fenris.
Fenris was not sympathetic to Anders' perpetually coinless state. As far as he was concerned, if Anders was not good enough to win and not rich enough to lose, then he simply shouldn't play. Fenris knew perfectly well that Anders received as much coin from Hawke's missions as any of them did -- plenty of coin to keep a man comfortable in Kirkwall, if he didn't insist on pouring it all into the bottomless well that was the clinic. So if Anders didn't have money, he had only himself to blame.
So Fenris stuck to his convictions, even if he was the only one who seemed capable of self-restraint. It shocked and disgusted him, how readily the others were willing to lower themselves to accepting such services in lieu of coin. Fenris was Tevinter; he'd been to the bath houses, the pleasure parlors at Danarius' side and he knew perfectly well what 'massage' was a euphemism for.
"Orlesian flush!" Isabela crowed, as she slapped her hand down on the table atop the Angel of Death. "Bend and spread'em, boys and girls!"
A chorus of groans went around the table as the rest of the players showed their hands. Fenris' was not too bad, ranking him a solid third in points; Anders, as was not unusual for him, came in dead last with barely a Bann high.
"You have no idea how glad I am to hear that, sweetie," Isabela said with a grin, as she pulled the pot over to herself. Her nimble hands danced over the pile of coins, plucking out a thin wooden wafer marked with Anders' abysmal handwriting in blue ink. "I spent hours today hunched over crabbing along a stone corridor with far too short a ceiling hunting a chimera, so one of your delicious massages is exactly what the healer ordered."
"And what about me?" Hawke demanded, feigning hurt and outrage that came off a little flat with one arm cuddling Merrill tightly. "I walked just as many miles as you did, and my back is just as ruined."
"If you want a magical backrub of your own, try winning a hand of Grace," Isabela said, standing up and sweeping her winnings into a belt pouch. "I'm cashing in my chips right now. Anders! Get your feathered butt over here and climb on board."
Anders sighed, but stood up, beginning to shrug off his coat as he did so. "Is that all I am to you, a pair of hands and a dispensary of healing magic?"
"Not all, sweet thing," Isabela purred, as she began to unlace her corset. "Those just happen to be the parts of you I'm interested in at the moment."
Fenris threw down his cards with a noise of profound disgust. "Must you two do this here?" he demanded. "We're in a tavern. They have plenty of rooms for rent. If you absolutely cannot restrain yourself, go rent one of those."
"But that would cost money!" Isabela exclaimed, horrified. "Why waste coin when Varric has invested in such a nice, thick rug right here?" Draping her corset over the back of her chair, now dressed in leggings and a thin white undershirt, she threw herself facefirst on said carpet, snuggling into the thick pile. "Mm, Varric, I think I'm going to steal this carpet from you, just so you know," she said.
Varric waved a hand. "If you think you can roll it up and get it out of the Hanged Man without my noticing, you'd be welcome to try," he said with a chuckle.
"You realize now she's going to have to do it," Anders warned him, his boots landing under his chair with a thump. He walked over to where Isabela was lying face-down on the carpet and swung a long leg over her back, straddling her.
"Eugh," Fenris exclaimed feelingly. "Nobody wants to have to see this. Have you not the slightest shred of common decency?"
"Oh Fenris, don't be such a prude," Isabela said, sighing into the carpet.
"You know, if you're jealous of Isabela here, you could try not being such a stickler about only accepting coin payments," Anders commented, crouching down in a practiced motion; with one knee on either side of Isabela's waist, he brought his hands together in front of them and laid them between Isabela's shoulders.
Fenris slammed his gauntlets on the table, pushing to his feet. "I have no desire to witness this depravity," he announced to the room, and made a move towards the door.
"Seriously, Broody, what's the big deal?" Varric asked, looking at him with a bemused expression. "It's just a backrub. No need to get your smalls in a twist."
"It's not just --" Fenris started to snap, before he stopped himself. Varric, and indeed everyone else in the room -- even Aveline, who never failed to call out Isabela on her licentious behavior -- seemed to see nothing at all strange or inappropriate about the situation. Was it possible he had misunderstood somehow?
It was a misstep he hadn't made in a while, failing to comprehend the difference between Southern customs and Tevinter ones, and a blush of humiliation threatened to rise in his ears. He sank back down in his chair, making himself small, and pulled a cup over in front of him to give his hands something to play with while he watched the room.
Fortunately, nobody else was paying him much attention. Isabela and Anders had turned back to… whatever they were doing, and the rest of the company was attending either to them or to their own business. Fenris watched, from behind the barricade of his chair and goblet, as Anders paid out the promised backrub.
It was… in form, it was not entirely dissimilar from the massages he was used to seeing -- or giving. Anders ran his hands along Isabela's back, kneading or stroking or pushing down with his weight, and Isabela whined or groaned or moaned in response to the pressure of his hands. But their clothes stayed on, and the atmosphere was entirely different to the subservience he was familiar with; Anders talked and joked casually even as he straddled Isabela's back, and she gave back as good as she got.
And after a few minutes, when Isabela had melted into a white-clad puddle sprawled on the rug before the fire, Anders shifted his weight, stood up, gave her a friendly slap on her lower back, and moved off.
It gave Fenris something to think about.
Fenris had been free of Danarius now for four years. That was, he was fairly sure, the same number of years he could count since the ritual. He had now lived as long -- that he could remember -- as a free man as he ever had as a slave. So why did those years loom so much larger in his memories, seeming an uncounted eternity of time that ruled over everything?
He was free. He knew that, in his head, and was even beginning to accept it in his heart -- but the mind held many tricks and secrets. To unlearn a fundamental truth did not mean that all beliefs that had descended from it were banished also. They had to be hunted out and eliminated one at a time, and many times he didn't even realize they were there, lurking under his conscious thought, until he was ambushed by them.
Backrubs. Massage, intimate touch, manipulation of the body for the purpose of relieving pain or giving pleasure. He'd only ever had a concept of that as something to give, a service done for others. He'd never even conceived of it as something he could have for himself.
What would it be like, to be on the receiving end? All of their friends claimed that it helped tremendously, that it felt wonderful and left them free of pain. What would it be like, to be without pain? Fenris had trouble imagining it, since he wasn't sure he'd ever experienced it.
He didn't know, but he thought he might like to find out.
And so the next time they played Wicked Grace, and Anders turned in a badly losing hand with only a low pair to his name, Fenris made up his mind.
"Sorry, Fenris," Anders said, a wry smile twisting his mouth as he patted at his pockets. "I don't have anything on me to pay you with. Next time I head out with Hawke on a job, I'll pay you first out of whatever I get, sound fair?"
"Not at all," Fenris said abruptly. "I have no intention of letting you stand on your debts. You can pay me the same way you pay the rest of them."
That proclamation was enough to draw conversation to a momentary halt; all eyes around the table were on him. He felt his ears heat, and fought to keep a calm and stoic expression despite it.
"Er…" Anders fumbled with words. "You mean, with a backrub IOU? That is how I normally cash in. That is what you mean, right?"
"That is exactly what I mean," Fenris said, trying not to sound too impatient. Did the mage really have to make such a production of it?
Isabela whistled. "Finally come around on our resident miracle worker, eh Fen?"
"Fenris, are you feeling all right?" That from Sebastian, looking concerned. Anders rolled his eyes theatrically.
"I am feeling the same as I ever do," Fenris responded. But I'd like to feel better.
"Well." Anders broke off his staring, looking down at his hands as he tossed his cards into the stack. "Now?"
"Don't be absurd," Fenris said quickly, then cleared his throat. "I have no desire to lie on the floor. Come by my mansion, when you have the time."
"Ooh, Fenris wants a private session," Isabela began to tease them, and "Shut up, not everybody is as obsessed with sex as you are," Aveline growled. The others laughed and chimed in with their opinions, and the conversation moved on from there.
Fenris kept his eyes on his own cards. But he could feel Anders' gaze on him for the rest of the night.
The next day Anders sent a messenger from Darktown saying that he'd be up at sunset -- a skinny young elvhen urchin that Fenris tipped a silver, although he suspected Anders had already paid her. Despite being perpetually broke, Anders always seemed to find money to give away.
He met Anders at the door, dressed in an old pair of leggings and a sleeveless tunic. He was showing no more skin than his usual spirit hide armor did, but he felt exposed and vulnerable despite that. Anders seemed unperturbed, at the least, setting his staff and satchel aside before following Fenris through the mansion.
Fenris had cleared out one of the smaller side rooms, and pulled in one of the tables to be padded with several blankets. Anders looked around at the setup. "This is new, isn't it?" he commented.
"I meant it when I said that I would not lie on the floor," Fenris said. "Nor do I have any interest in introducing you to my bed. This was… I thought this would be better."
"This is fine," Anders said mildly. He was using his calm, patient, healer-voice, and it flustered Fenris all the more. Was his nervousness really so apparent?
"I just want to be sure we understand one another," Fenris blurted out. "This is… this is strictly non-sexual, am I correct? I have no desire to…"
"Just as you say," Anders said, holding his hands up as if in surrender. "Nothing below the waist or above the thighs, if that's what you prefer. Strictly therapeutic."
"I… right. Right," Fenris huffed, and paced a little bit more in a circle. His thoughts were racing, and he felt tight as a strung bow. Was this truly supposed to help him relax? "Must magic be involved?"
Anders shrugged. "If you don't want me to use magic, I won't," he said. "But it will be a lot less effective, and a lot more uncomfortable, without using healing magic in the mix. You wouldn't be getting the full experience by a long shot."
Fenris thought about it, and decided that it wasn't really all that different from Anders using healing magic in battle. "Very well," he allowed. What an absurd situation he found himself in; that he, Fenris, was being asked permission by a mage to service him like --
He turned on Anders suddenly. "I need to be sure, before we begin," he started. "That you are truly… fine with this."
Anders' eyebrows rose. "Me? Why would I not be fine with it?" he said. "Maker knows, you're the one who categorically refused to let me so much as touch you before."
"I know, but this is…" Fenris struggled to articulate his unease, to speak of matters normally taboo. "Even if there is no sex involved, in Tevinter, this is… a demeaning thing, a servile thing. This is something that only a slave would do. Never a magister."
"I'm not a magister," Anders reminded him.
"I know that," Fenris huffed, crossing his arms. "But I am not… trying to make you a slave, in my place."
Anders paused for a moment, then appeared to be choosing his words carefully. "This isn't Tevinter, either," he reminded him. "Honestly, back in the Tower, we touched like this all the time. Day and night. Completely casually. Pack a hundred men and women of the same age into one building like sardines, give them no possessions and nothing better to do, and they'll find ways to fill the time with the only things that are truly their own."
Fenris couldn't help but think that this sounded very little like the slavery he'd known; no slaves would ever have been granted so much time to be idle. But this did not seem to be the time to revisit that old argument.
"I got very good at it," Anders said, and one side of his mouth curved in a smile. "I was proud to be very good at it. To some extent I still am. I like touching people, Fenris, and I like helping them. I like helping them feel better, move better, work better. I don't know if you've noticed, but Hawke and the others are all absolutely terrible about taking care of themselves. This lets me get away with making sure that they're all in proper shape, as much as I can."
Fenris blinked. That was not what he expected to hear. "So this whole IOU concept of yours, this is just some form of manipulation?" he sputtered. "A way of getting what you want, while making them think it's their idea?"
"There's no need to make it sound devious," Anders objected. "It is still a lot of work on my part, so I think it's fair to trade work instead of coin. I think it's a good arrangement, honestly. They get something out of it and so do I."
Fenris mulled over this for a long time. Anders stood patiently, hands clasped in front of him -- uncommonly patiently, for the mage Fenris thought he knew. "Why are you being so nice to me?" Fenris demanded.
Anders boggled a bit. "Pardon?" he said.
"We're not friends," Fenris said with emphasis. "I can't stand you --"
Anders rolled his eyes. "Oh, thanks --"
" -- and you can't stand me," Fenris finished, overriding the other man. "So why?"
Anders huffed. "I've got nothing against you, personally; just your stubborn pig-headed prejudices," he said. "If it looks like this is what it'll take for you to start reconsidering your stance on mages, who am I to object?"
"I'm not --!" Fenris started to retort, then ran out of steam. The past few days had him reconsidering a lot of his assumptions in life, it could not be denied. "...I guess maybe I am."
Anders gave him a wide, smug grin, and Fenris growled with the sudden urge to smack it off his face. "Let's get on with it," he said impatiently, and Anders mock-bowed and gestured to the table.
He climbed onto the surface awkwardly, stiff as the boards the table was made of, and then wasn't sure what to do with himself -- what was he supposed to do with his hands? Anders busied himself around Fenris, touching here, guiding there, a murmured instruction that was probably meant to put Fenris at ease. It wasn't working; he lay on the table as tense and miserable as ever. When Anders' hands came to settle on his back -- warm, tingling slightly with the pulse of magic -- he froze up even more.
What was it that he was afraid of? Not pain; he knew pain, knew how to endure it and tune it out. Did he fear that Anders would seek to humiliate him somehow? How could he? This was normal, all their friends did it. Anders had promised no sexual contact, no too-familiar touch; but just the feel of Anders' hand resting warmly above his shoulder blade, the feel of him leaning across Fenris' spine, already felt too intimate for comfort. The mage began to slowly sweep his hands across Fenris' back, and he couldn't help but tense a little at each pass.
"Maker, Fenris, your back is bloody awful," Anders grumbled, as he began to lean his weight into each stroke. The pressure increased, but never quite turned over into pain, never pushing flesh against the sharp edge of bone or poking at a vulnerable nerve. Without question, Anders knew what he was doing, and though the knowledge ought to have helped, it didn't. "I thought Aveline was bad -- that woman is built like a siege tower -- but I swear you're made of solid iron here."
"Sorry to be so difficult for you," Fenris snarled.
Anders let out a long sigh, and the pressure abated. Irrationally, Fenris found himself missing it, longing for its loss. "You know," he said, "this isn't going to work if you can't trust me."
"Don't be absurd," Fenris said, unable to hold back an incredulous snort. He would never have allowed Anders (and especially not Anders' magic) this close to him in his unarmored state if he didn't trust him. "It is just hard to… I have never…"
"Think soothing thoughts?" Anders suggested. One warm hand stroked over the back of his neck and down his spine, as though he were one of the cats Anders liked so much. "Meditate? Unless that's too magey for your taste."
"Perhaps you could talk to me," Fenris said, his voice tentative. He quickly followed it up with, "I find there is nothing like the endless prattling of your voice to put me to sleep."
He could hear the grin in Anders' voice. "Ooh, a captive audience! I could recite the latest draft of my manifesto…"
"Spare me that," Fenris said, and felt Anders tense up and pull away. Despite himself -- and his entirely sincere desire not to bring up a subject that would only work him up to argument -- he felt a bit remorseful. He knew -- could hardly help but know -- that Anders cared passionately about his ridiculous manifesto, and he was being ungracious. He tried to offer another suggestion, to extend an olive branch. "Why not tell me a tale of one of your escapes? You ran away from the Tower seven times, did you not?"
"You know about that?" Anders sounded surprised -- and a little pleased.
"You've bragged about it often enough," he said. Perhaps not all that often, in fact, but it had made an impression in his memory -- not least because it seemed more proof to Fenris that what the Southern mages experienced was not really slavery. No slave in Tevinter that had escaped more than once would survive to try a third time, let alone seven.
But still… Fenris had been impressed. Although he had never admitted it aloud, he could not help but admire the mage's tenacity, his ambition and commitment to freedom. Fenris could not fail to respect that commitment. "Tell me of your first escape."
"Hm, that one's kind of boring," Anders commented. He placed his forearms on Fenris' back, one at his shoulder and the other near his hip, and leaned in, stretching his back lengthwise. "Just a lot of swimming, for hours and hours. Very dull really."
Fenris rolled his eyes, not that Anders could see it. "Very well, tell me of your third escape."
"Oh, that's a good one," Anders said eagerly. He went back to sweeping his hands up and down Fenris' back, infused with a new enthusiasm. Up the middle of his back, out at the shoulders, down his sides. "All right. So after the Templars brought me back for the third time, and I got out of -- anyway, I was restricted from going outside or even near any of the windows on the lower levels. About the only place I was allowed to go was the mundane library, you know, the Tower's collection of nonmagical books. So I was bored out of my skull, and I picked up this book of illustrations by Leonard di ser Piero da Treviso -- have you heard of him?"
"Mm," was Fenris' reply.
Anders continued to prattle on. "He was Antivan. Not a mage, but a brilliant fellow, absolutely brilliant. Scholar, philosopher, artist, and inventor. Well, the margins of this book were full of schematics for his inventions, and one page there was this design for a giant balloon, with a basket at the bottom, and this balloon could fly, see, if you put enough hot air into it. And I thought to myself: hey, I'm getting pretty good at fire magic. I was, really, for a fifteen-year-old. And there's a whole bunch of tarps in the storerooms, which of course I wasn't allowed into, but I figured if I could sweet-talk Daylen…"
As expected, Anders' words began to muddle into a soothing hum in Fenris' ears. He felt like he was slowly sinking into the table, Anders' hands pushing and kneading at him like a lump of bread.
He was just starting to feel truly relaxed when Anders' long, bony fingers trailed out along his ribs to the point of his shoulder blade, probed for a moment, and then pushed down with a sudden force. There was a snap that seemed to reverberate through his body, and Fenris jolted back to awareness. It hurt -- for just an instant, he was certain a rib had broken -- before the familiar warm rush of healing magic poured over the spot, soothing the pain away. Fenris took a deep breath, shaken by the unfurling feeling of empty space in his chest. "What was that?" he demanded.
"Relax." Anders' hand swept across his ribs, back and forth, a soothing stroke. "That was just an adhesion letting go. It's supposed to feel like that."
"A what?"
"A binding -- it happens sometimes, when your muscles get stuck to each other, or stuck to the bone, and can't move freely," Anders explained. "You're chock full of them, but I'll see what I can do to loose them up."
He returned to his work, and Fenris lay still, trying to accustom himself to the sudden new ease in his back, the lessening of an ache he had long since ceased to feel. Maybe he could get used to this, after all. Maybe, with help, he could learn to live without pain.
"Thank you," he murmured, the words almost lost in the space between his lips and the table.
Anders didn't respond, but leaned into the movement again, hands passing over Fenris' back in long, slow waves. After a few moments he picked up the tale of his escape again, and Fenris felt his eyes begin to slip closed.
A binding. He found he liked that image. Fenris let himself drift, words of freedom winding about his ears, imagining a hundred little chains inside his body, breaking one by one.
~end.