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Garrett's... a little chubby, these days.
No, that's wrong. He always has been. There's muscle under it - Fade, watch him swing a sword, pick fully-grown men up andthrow them the way he has, and then say there isn't - but it's definitely there, a bit of a gut that he can't quite deny.
He watches Fenris, all muscle and taut strength, and Anders, wiry and graceful, and he thinks: that. That's what he needs to be. He wants a body that actually obeys him, moves the way he wants it to, the kind of thing that would appear in Isabela's fiction.
Isabela, who calls them "love handles" and who says the nicest things. Well, in her own way. ("Oh, come on. You're gorgeous, Garrett. I'd find your Deep Roads.") He's certain, somewhere in a cruel little part of his mind, that when she writes about the Champion of Kirkwall, she writes about a strapping man made of muscle, not... this.
He hates the reputation, the legend hanging round him now. He was never the loudest or suavest of people, and the constant attention makes him tense, uncomfortable under so many gazes. Those closest to him know that; Anders, especially, understands. If there's one person who doesn't want their name widely known, it's him.
Or Bethany. "Brother, the boys in Lothering... don't you see them?"
Or Anders. Anders, the Darktown healer, who pretends not to notice Garrett's little hesitations when he has to undress for a wound to be treated, or the way that Garrett talks to the wall, not to him. Anders, who tries to distract him, talks about business at the clinic and the people he's seen walking by. Anders, with his hands and his smile and his constant selflessness; with the line of his shoulders and the pieces of his past he's only hinted at, with his stubborn principles and his bright hair and the way he moves when he's casting, light as air and quick as steel.
Anders, a man Garrett thinks about far too much and can barely look in the eye, if he's honest with himself. The man who is currently dealing with the clothes under Garret's armour, having to rip shirt away from skin to deal with the nasty gash below his ribs. Anders touches a hand to it, palm brushing Garrett's stomach, and Garrett glares grimly at the wall, sucking in a breath.
"This has gone into muscle," Anders mutters. "Garrett, why didn't you tell me sooner? If this had become infected..."
"Didn't want to bother you," is Garrett's half-hearted reply; actually, he was dreading this, dreading the embarrassment of having a man he... is fond of handle what he himself barely wants to look at in the mirror.
He hears a long-suffering sigh, and then feels the warm relief of healing magic seep into his skin, under it, a hand tracing gently along the wound.
It's just a small thing, really, a glance to see how things are going, that makes him realize that the way Anders is looking at him isn't entirely impartial. The wound is gone, the magic dissipated, and Anders has taken back his hand, but the healer's eyes are still on him. "Garrett, why are you so afraid of people seeing you?"
Garrett laughs, a harsh, rough thing without much humour in it. "I'm the Champion of Kirkwall. People are looking at me all the time."
Anders shakes his head. "You can barely get through these sessions - I've spent them listening to you grinding your teeth. And you're..."
"I'm what?" Garrett snaps, eyes back on the wall.
The shortest brush of lips, really a question rather than a kiss, there and then gone before he can truly register it. "Driving me more than a little mad," the mage finishes quietly, pulling back to regard him, waiting for an answer.
"Anders?" It comes out as more of a croak.
"Have you looked at yourself?" Anders asks him quietly, beseechingly. "I wanted to tell you..." He's interrupted by Garrett pulling him back for another kiss, one with years of pent-up longing - and a fair bit of beard - in it.
"Well, you're certainly feeling better," he says wryly, once he's managed to catch his breath.
"You know," says Garrett with a grin, "I think I am."