"So," Anders said while they were still out of earshot of the assembled crew and their friends, "I don't suppose you know any traditional wedding dances?"

Fenris gave him a sidelong look. "And when would a slave have learned such a dance?"

"I don't know," Anders said. "But we're going to have to fake something real soon. Do you think they'll settle for seeing us put our arms around each other and shuffle in a circle?"

"Here you go, boys," Isabela called. She had untied the blue sash from her hips and came forward with a shameless grin on her lips. "You can't do this properly without the traditional handcuffs, I mean binding."

She slipped one tail of the sash under Anders' cuff and knotted it. It was a little tighter than Anders would have liked, but she ignored his attempt to complain and reached for Fenris' wrist, grabbing it with a snake-quick dart of her hand when he tried to pull away. She threaded the sash through Fenris' cuff with more difficulty with his gauntlet covering much of it, but soon enough they were tied together in an all too familiar manner.

"We couldn't let that part of the tradition slip could we?" she asked.

Anders wanted to be angry with her, but how could he? It was Isabela; he might as well be angry at Ser Pounce-a-lot for sleeping in the sun or Fenris for being... right, strike that, he was angry at Fenris for being Fenris.

Fenris gave the sash a disgusted look. "I do not think shuffling will satisfy them."

To finish out the indignity, Isabela held out her hands and gave a gimme wiggle of her fingers. "Hand over the weapons. We wouldn't want any accidents from our newlyweds."

Anders reluctantly unshipped his staff and put it into her hands for her to hand off to a sailor who immediately passed it off to Hawke. They might be accepting of Anders' status as an apostate, but the sailor had handled the staff as though magery might be contagious.

Fenris hesitated until Isabela tapped her foot and said, "Don't make me get it off you."

He unsheathed his sword and held it carefully by the blade to offer Isabela the grip. "I promise we'll take care of it," she assured him, taking the grip in both hands and making a silent oof as the full weight of it settled in her hands. She left them then to stow the sword in one of the equipment chests that dotted the deck before she rejoined Hawke to slide an arm around his waist, regarding them with an expectant grin.

"Are you ready?" Captain Mustow called. A short man with a scar that cut a pale line along the right side of his jaw through his dark beard stood at his side holding an accordion, clearly waiting for the cue to begin playing. Another sailor had produced a long whistle carved from bone or pale wood, and all eyes were on them.

Anders startled when Fenris leaned close to put his lips by Anders' ear to murmur, "Battle can be like a dance. Remember our practice?"

All Anders could think of for a moment was Fenris' breath like a spider web brushing his ear, but once he got his libido to stop capering giddily toward his groin, he started to smile. Yes, they had practiced fighting while chained together, and when they got it just right, it was like a dance.

The musicians must have taken his smile for the signal to start playing. Isabela stamped out a beat on the deck with her boot until the sailors took up the rhythm, clapping, stomping, and even beating the rhythm out on a half-full water barrel. One of them, a man with a clear tenor, began to sing.

Up aloft amid the rigging
Blows the loud exulting gale

Anders met Fenris' eyes, caught his hand for a quick squeeze, and released it to move toward the open circle with steps timed to fall with the beat. He had no real idea what he was doing, but he put a sway into his step that he had learned from women – and a couple of gifted men – who had made good money to draw the eye and mind to their bodies.

Never let it be said that he had wasted all the money he had spent at the Pearl in Denerim.

Fenris lagged behind him, either reluctant or simply unsure what his part should be. Anders kept moving until he ran out of slack in the sash tied between their wrists, then pivoted on his heel, bringing his bound arm up to spin under the sash before he gave it a hard pull.

Fenris had not expected Anders to pull as hard as he did and stumbled forward for Anders to catch him in his arms. "Pay attention," Anders murmured in his ear, letting his lips brush Fenris' earlobe before he pushed away from Fenris with a hand in the center of his chest. "Unless you want the mage to show you up."

He pivoted again and raised the cuffed arm over his head to provide the axis for a spin. If they had been fighting, he might have thrown out an arc of ice while Fenris guarded his flank. It was a natural, practiced movement after the hours they had spent training together.

Like a bird's wide outstretched pinions
Spreads on high each swelling sail

This time Fenris caught his free arm as he came out of the spin and pulled him close, pressing the ridge of his breastplate into Anders' chest. "How far can you run like this?" Fenris asked, and the predatory light in his eyes made Anders's heart stutter so hard that he wondered if Fenris could feel it.

"Are you going to chase me this time?" he asked before Fenris looped the sash over Anders' left shoulder, pulling Anders' right wrist across his body before the loop dropped to his waist. He was caught, but before the fear could rise at being restrained, Fenris released Anders' unbound arm and pulled hard on the sash.

"I have already caught you."

With the help of a little push from Fenris, Anders found himself spinning out of the hold to the sound of whoops of approval from their audience. He might have been annoyed, but he found himself grinning like a maniac instead, even while he tried to catch his footing as he came out of the spin. He caught himself on his free hand as he went to one knee, his other heel describing an arc along the decking so gracefully that it almost looked as though he had meant to do it.

Certainly it seemed all the more intentional when Fenris somersaulted across his back with his unbound hand planted between Anders' shoulder blades, both for balance and to leave his other hand free to keep the sash loose enough to allow the movement.

And the wild waves cleft behind us
Seem to murmur as they flow

He landed neatly beside Anders and tugged again on the sash to help Anders rise from the deck. Anders pulled back and for a moment they had a graceless tug of war before Fenris' greater strength won and Anders found himself pressed against Fenris' armor again.

"If I have a bruise…." he hissed, jerking away, taking several steps backward only to have Fenris pull him back against his chest.

"You'll do what?" Fenris asked.

He was smiling.

Anders forgot the music and the pretense of the dance and just stared.

"You'll do what?" Fenris repeated.

Anders wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt.

He turned on the slowing beat to walk away, but this time Fenris' hand closed over his and pulled; it was gentle, but no less demanding than the earlier pulls.

There are loving hearts that wait you
In the land to which you go

Anders went to him, stopping chest to chest, eye to eye. He could feel Fenris' hand in his – cold metal and warm flesh – and Fenris was looking at him. Fenris was seeing him.

Whether Fenris leaned in to him or he leaned toward Fenris did not matter. He forgot the fading music and the watching crew. He forgot everything because what he saw in Fenris' eyes was that some decision had been made.

Then Isabela laughed and broke the spell, "Just kiss him already!"

They both snapped their heads around to pin her with angry stares, but she was unfazed. "Oh that's right, I forgot, the tradition's that the clan – their family – would carry the couple to their home and lock them inside until the next sunrise." She grinned. "You know. For a good marriage."

She snapped her fingers. "Go get 'em boys. You want these two to have a good marriage, don't you?"

They could have fought off a dozen sailors bent on picking them up and awkwardly carrying them down to their cabin, but it might have required considerable bloodshed.

Anders gave in with only a few complaints, but Fenris cursed and twisted away from the eager hands until Anders finally shouted, "Hands off my husband!" He invested the words with enough magic to make some of the men clap their hands over their ears, but the manhandling stopped abruptly.

"Isabela got it almost right," Anders said with as much dignity as he could muster considering what he was about to propose. "But it's not the family. One of us has to carry the other." He batted his eyelashes at Fenris and said as smarmily as possible, "And Fenris is so much stronger than I am."

He pushed the sailors back and looped his free arm over Fenris' shoulder. "I'm ready, dear."

Fenris looked at him with narrowed eyes before he plucked Anders' arm off his shoulder as though Anders had dropped a dead fish there, then picked Anders up and slung him over his shoulder, heedless of his protests and complaints about being poked in the stomach by Fenris' armor.

The crew serenaded them with more cheers and bawdy suggestions. The last thing Anders saw of the main deck was Hawke, apparently swept up in the moment, throwing Isabela over his shoulder to mock-paddle her backside to the rowdy approval of everyone, including the captain. His last thought before the deck was gone from sight and Fenris' shoulder was jouncing into his stomach with every step was that he wanted to hear what Isabela would do to Hawke to even the score.

Then they were in the dark and narrow passage that led back to their cabin and Fenris' was whisking him down the hall and into their cabin. Anders pushed the door closed before Fenris could turn to do it himself and wriggled even if it did make poky bits of Fenris' shoulder and armor seem even pokier.

"Put me down!"

Fenris bent at the waist to change Anders' center of gravity and as easily as that, he was sliding down the front of Fenris' body until his feet hit the floor and they were once again chest to chest.

Fenris' mirage of a smile was gone, but he held Anders' eyes without flinching, without hostility, and without that incredibly irritating slide away from him that had been the norm for them for weeks.

Anders gave the tiniest shake of his head before he clasped Fenris' cheeks between his palms and kissed him. It was a frustrated kiss, a needy kiss, a demanding kiss, a press of lips that said I will not be pushed away or denied, and Fenris responded as Anders needed him to. He closed his arms around Anders to hold him there, to assure him that he was not going to turn away or push him away or take a step back that was only going to put his back against the wall anyway.

Somewhere deep in his mind, Anders heard a faint sigh from Justice – Just get it over with – before the spirit withdrew as far as he could to let Anders have the moment to himself as much as it was possible for them.

And Fenris was kissing him.

It was not a first, but when he let his hands slip from Fenris' cheeks to glide down his neck and over his chest before he finally took the freedom to pull him into a tighter embrace, Fenris did not pull away, and that was a first of sorts. A corner of his mind noted that Fenris did not catch his hands or hold their lower bodies apart, but instead, he leaned the weight of his body into Anders, leaving their bodies pressed together in an unbroken line from their chests down to their thighs.

When Fenris took a half step forward to press his thigh up between Anders' legs, Anders finally broke and groaned, leaning their foreheads together while he canted his hips to rub the swiftly hardening length of his cock against Fenris' leg.

"Don't change your mind," he said hoarsely.

Fenris gave a tiny shake of his head and pressed his thigh a little harder between Anders' legs. "I won't."

Anders caught the start of a moan in his throat and found it forced his voice down to a whisper. "Don't run."

Fenris took longer to answer this time before he said, "I'll try."

A/N: Thank you for reading this far. I hope you've enjoyed the ride even half as much as I've enjoyed writing it. This is not precisely the end of this postscript, but due to ff net's rating restrictions, the consummuation of a large amount of unresolved sexual tension between these two can't be posted here. If you want to read it, there's a link to my AO3 account in my profile where you can find the full version of Latibule and many more stories in the Volutions AU setting.