Note: This drabble carries a mild "M" rating.

Anders didn't take off his boots before his robe.

And perhaps Nathaniel shouldn't have been surprised that Anders wasn't wearing any breeches beneath those robes, but he wasn't quite prepared for the sight of all that skin at once. Pale, but still darker than his, and covering a frame that he hadn't expected to see in a mage who had lived most of his life in the Circle.

Nathaniel swallowed hard and tried not to stare. They were bathing together in the river for safety's sake, nothing more. Anders was his fellow Grey Warden, and a friend.

But as he undid the buckles of his baldrics and unlaced his pauldrons, he could not help but watch Anders out of the corner of his eye as he sat down on a large stone in only his smallclothes and his boots. No, this was not the first time Nathaniel had thought of such things, but Anders hadn't been so close when he did. Or wearing only smallclothes. Then Anders reached for the laces, loosening them until he was able to pull the first one off.

It wasn't a graceful display, but perhaps that is why it held Nathaniel's attention all the more. The way Anders' muscles flexed as he changed position, and then threw the boot farther up the bank. Then Anders eyes met his, and a smirk curled at the corners of his lips.

"You're so quiet," he said. "Pounce got your tongue?"

The words broke him out of his thoughts. "Admiring nature," he said, turning his body away. Though it didn't matter how lush the grass was on the bank of the river or how the sounds of crickets filled the background - those were not the things on Nathaniel's mind in that moment.

He was grateful for his change in angle when he took off his leather skirt and saw how his cock was less interested about sublty than he was. Perhaps he could get into the water without Anders noticing.

There were more foolish things he had considered in his life.

He wasn't surprised when he heard Anders approach behind him, the uneven footfalls telling him without seeing that Anders hadn't taken off the other boot yet. He focused his attention on the laces of his bracers.

Nimble fingers touched the side of his hips, just above his smallclothes, and then traced around to the front to toy with his navel. Hesitant, with enough space for Nathaniel to push Anders away. He didn't.

He thought about what it would be like to turn around, to kiss Anders' neck and shoulders and commit to memory the taste of his skin.

They didn't have time for this. "Anders," he said, his voice a little deeper than normal.

"Hmmm?" His fingers continued their soft touch up his chest, dipping in and out of the lines of muscle.

"What are you doing?"

Anders chuckled. "I would have thought that was obvious," he said. "'Admiring nature,' like you were." His other hand hooked fingers at the side of Nathaniel's smallclothes, and his mouth hovered near Nathaniel's ear. "How about we stop pretending we're not?"

Nathaniel was quiet for a moment, closing his eyes and enjoying the way those words made his insides coil. He breathed in sharply when Anders nipped at his earlobe, and it was then he turned a partial way in the embrace.

And as their lips met for the first time in a brush that could barely be called a kiss, Nathaniel decided that the others could wait for their baths a little while longer.