Crucible of Accord

Hawke looked around at the numerous bodies littered across the ancient ruins. In the past he'd have promptly rifled through each and every body-coin, sound armor bits, anything of value that could be scavenged.

That had been long ago. These days he was pickier and today, it wasn't even worth the effort. Even if they did stop to plunder, they'd be hard pressed to carry it all the way back to Kirkwall without so much as decent backpacks. It was miles from the ruins back to Chateau Haine, with who knew how many vengeance-minded Chevaliers between them and their horses (and the belongings they'd traveled from Kirkwall with). A return to the Keep to collect said beasts and possessions meant risking arrest. Or worse.

So it was a foot trek home with barest supplies-a week of tromping through traitorous, heavily forested, wyvern infested mountains with nothing but their weapons and the armor on their backs. Hawke didn't feel inclined to further encumber a trek already littered with difficult challenges only for money he didn't really need.

Sure, they had nothing to show for their efforts but a gaudy jeweled 'thing' of dubious worth (and a handful of post-battle aches that in Hawke's case were stubbornly lingering, even after a potion). Yes, they had a pending political debacle with Orlais when they returned. It still wasn't worth it.

Truthfully, he was just too damn knackered and angry (mostly at himself) to contemplate profiteering, or anything, really, that didn't include getting the bloody hell home. The headache currently crawling up the back of his neck and drilling into his skull wasn't helping.

Rarely was Hawke as aware of the passage of years as he was at that moment. The youth he'd once been-twenty three, fresh off the boat and more in need of sovereigns than a good night's rest, was a long time ago. Thirty was hardly ancient, but days like today reminded him he'd packed more than two lifetimes' worth of battles into the last seven years.

Even provoked as he was, though, Hawke was never one to pass the blame when it belonged at his own feet. And if he held Tallis responsible, he had to also admit that this was his fault as much as hers. The entire debacle with the tangentially Qunari elf was just a symptom of a larger issue. More than half a decade in the City of Chains and he apparently still didn't have a handle on wisely picking his battles. Which was undoubtedly why he kept being swept up in blighted messes like this one.

How could I have been so taken in...

The only good to come of this entire venture was the absolutely mind-blowing assignation he'd had with Fenris in the gardens. They'd passed some gauntlet, sealed some final, tiny rift. Was that only yesterday? Maker, it feels like ages ago.

Hawke trudged past the body of yet another mangled Qunari (sidestepping what might have been one of its arms) and was very glad Tallis was gone-Maker take the troublesome cow. If there was any justice in the world, the Antaam would have her head for defying the Qun and he'd never have to deal with her again. It didn't help them get home any faster, but it was a comforting thought. Being as Hawke generally wasn't the petty type, it shouldn't matter what happened to Tallis, now that she was gone-but it did. This entire event was sourly engraved in his mind in big capital letters. HER MESS.

Rubbing his temples, Hawke sighed, ignoring the pounding of his heartbeat thrumming behind his eyes. He needed to let it go. In mere days they'd be home-where he'd settle in, bathe for a week solid, get appallingly drunk, refuse to answer any summons for the 'Champion' and have Varric pass the word throughout the city's underbelly that Tallis was most certainly not anyone he was getting mixed up with again. Not if he had any say in it. So there wasn't any use in belaboring the point or in holding onto his anger. Tallis wasn't his problem anymore.

What was his problem was the journey ahead of them. Profiteering aside, before departing they did need to liberate a few waterskins, at least-maybe a hunting knife or two. Flint for fires would be grand and he wouldn't say no to a longbow.

Hawke was doing his level best to ignore a sudden wave of vertigo when he belatedly realized someone was speaking to him.

"I said 'Copper for your thoughts'," Varric iterated, breaking into Hawke's dour musings. "Do I really need to up the price, after all we've been through? Or are you gonna cut your pal a deal here?"

The words were jocular enough, but that was Varric for you. More relevant was the 'you've been a bad, bad audience' tone and Hawke realized, chagrined, that he'd been an absentee participant to the better part of an entire conversation. He sighed, disinterested in even trying to prevaricate.

"Sorry, Varric. I'm..." Bloody exhausted. "...a little distracted."

Varric snorted, eyeing him speculatively. "No shit."

Conspicuously lacking in anything resembling a witty come-back, Hawke let it go, instead crouching to claim a small, blood-spattered satchel from a fallen knight...

...only to tilt perilously on the way down, nearly ending on his arse when he compensated.

Smashing... All I need is to go arse over teakettle before the Maker and everyone besides.

Any hopes that Varric had missed his momentary lapse were dashed by a thick hand steadying his shoulder. "Hey, Hawke, you feelin' alright?"

Hawke's answering wince had nothing to do with the headache eating away at him and everything to do with the fact that he'd always been a bit peculiar about having his weaknesses brought to attention, even amidst his closest confidants.

That, and Fenris had hearing like a bat.

True to form, before Hawke could issue an off-the-cuff smile complete with silver-tongued assurance, Fenris' head popped up smartly from where he'd been squatted low, liberating a coin pouch from one of the more intact bodies. Keen eyes seizing upon him appraisingly. "What's wrong with Hawke?"

"Nothing's wrong with Hawke," Hawke announced crossly, rolling his eyes heavenward. Fenris was the center of his world, but the shirty elf was ever-so-slightly barmpot as well, and the last thing Hawke needed was his lover quietly obsessing (in his own, endearingly 'Fenris' way).

As a distraction, Hawke gestured airily at his lover's acquisition. "Enough faffing about with coin-purses. We're looting for survival gear only."

Hawke knew he was being an arse, and for no good reason either, it seemed, since Fenris immediately shot Varric an inquiring look. Splendid. Hawke would have preferred Fenris send him off choking on his own teeth than be worried. Of course, nothing this entire trip went as planned. Why start now?

It was obvious Hawke needed very much to get over himself before he said something truly unforgivable-or worse, pitiful. So...a little space then. Rather than suffer further scrutiny, Hawke made his way toward the edge of the promontory, ignoring the itch of being watched, settling between his shoulders.

Hmmm... Right to where Prosper de Montfort had only just fallen to his death. Hawke's subconscious really was a bit of a bastard.

Since he was there, Hawke knelt down to look over the edge (not too close, given his recently cocked-up coordination) He knew there would be no sign of the Orlesian nobleman. Nothing to see but a long drop.

A very long drop.

Hawke swallowed queasily, giving his gorge a firm lecture on the virtues of good behavior. They'd climbed a narrow, nearly nonexistent footpath to get up there and now Hawke wasn't looking forward to making the descent again. Hopefully they'd find evidence that Prosper and the Qunari had taken a more civilized route up from the valley.

Soft footfalls approached and a slender hand lit upon his armored shoulder. Hawke dropped his head, wishing guiltily that whatever cloud was hanging over him would just blow over. Things between he and Fenris had been going so well, he desperately didn't want to spoil it. But though it was rare for him to be the out-of-sorts member of their motley herd, when he was, it was epic, and Fenris didn't deserve this. Frankly, neither did Varric.

Wanting to turn, to meet what he suspected was Fenris' uneasy regard fixed upon him, Hawke was rendered unable by simple shame. Instead he looked out over the expanse of jagged mountains the direction he imagined Kirkwall was. "Fenris... I'm sorry, love. I had no right to..."

"I've taken no offense," Fenris offered quietly and Hawke hated, absolutely hated the raw concern leaching into his lover's soft assurance. Deft fingers momentarily slid over Hawke's hair, a ghost of a stroke, gone almost before he noticed it. "I know you well enough. That...wasn't about me."

The unasked question was, of course, what was it about.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you to explain," Fenris informed him gently.

Alright, maybe NOT so unasked, after all.

Hawke didn't quite know how to answer. His gaze wandered toward the mouth of the narrow descent to the valley below, working fingers into the pain at the base of his head as subtly as possible. "Fenris, If I knew why I was being an arse, you'd never have been subjected to it," he smiled ruefully, finally turning to face his lover.

Fenris gusted a sigh of mild irritation and Hawke couldn't blame him. When the moment called for it (and even sometimes when it didn't) Hawke had no problem sharing how utterly and completely he adored Fenris. Anything else though... It was like yanking a Qunari by the horns.

"It's nothing," he assured, suspecting he was somehow lying but unable to offer any discernible truth. The fact was, he was just tired and in a strop. It didn't happen often, but it did happen. "This... This entire event has just left a very bad taste in my mouth."

Fenris 'harumphed' wryly, and after staring intently for several seconds, departed. Only to bend aside the dwarf, whispering something to Varric. Hawke couldn't be bothered to listen in. The stout wind hauling across the promontory whistled through the ruins loud enough to obscure anything further than a few feet away. Unless, of course, you were Fenris.

A sweeping perusal of the nearby carnage and Hawke spotted a fallen segment of ancient plinth. He made it over, melting onto the stone surface just as a wave of such aching exhaustion swept over him that staying on his feet seemed an insurmountable challenge. His thoughts wandered from pillar to post, mostly grim, and Hawke lost track of time, caught in a miserable mental haze of heat and dizziness and ache. The wind catching his crimson kerchief and dragging at his hair seemed to lose its crisp edge and he felt fairly baked within his armor. He could only assume that despite the chill mountainous weather, he'd somehow taken too much sun. It was the only thing that made sense.

Varric's hand on his shoulder stirred him finally. "Hey, you with us?" The inquiry was softer than was Varric's wont and that, too, was its own accusation.

"Of course." Hawke summoned forth a winning smile, quickly stowing his fatigue like so much embarrassingly ugly luggage. "I was just thinking what a perfect vacation spot we've discovered. Once the bodies rot and blow away, of course."

As deflections went, it was a starved, strained thing, but hopefully Varric would latch onto it anyway. It's just what they did. In times of trial, Hawke employed his infamously questionable humor, and Varric always obliged him by playing along.

"Sure, Hawke. A few urns, some fancy tents, we could hold weddings here, right Bianca?"

If Varric noticed Hawke's gratitude, he didn't mention it. "Of course, before we bring in the painters, I figured you'd want a report on more immediate concerns. We've got water skins aplenty." Whereby he handed a full one to Hawke, who gratefully took a long pull, suddenly struck by how thirsty he really was.

Varric cocked a brow at the nearly empty waterskin he received back. "We've also managed to salvage two small backpacks, a handful of potions, some dry travel goods and... Oh! An Orlesian cook-pot. At least I think it's a cook-pot. Prissy thing's enameled fit for a king to piss in."

Fenris walked up at that moment, 'prissy' pot in hand. "We...might want to wash this carefully before cooking in it."

And they were right, it really did look as much like a fancy chamber pot as something to prepare food in. It had a handle though, and Hawke would take that as a good sign. "There's a river along the route and beggars can't be choosers."

With that, he hauled himself off the rock, ignoring the throbbing ache in his joints. Sitting about hadn't been wise. He'd stiffened while resting, and moving was more difficult than he cared to admit. But there was nothing for it. They had a week of travel ahead of them and he wasn't spending their first night stuck on this rise amid a rank of dead Orlesians and Qunari. By morning the smell would be revolting. "There's precious little light left to get off this blighted rock and I don't fancy falling to my death in the dark. We need a better way down than we came up."

"We scouted it out," Varric offered, businesslike. "There's what looks to be a progress approach between those pillars over there. I figure that's how they got up here in force and with charming little Leopold."

That earned a genuine grin. "Varric, you are formally my hero."

"Hawke, I thought I was already your hero."

"No, Fenris is usually my hero," Hawke thumbed toward his lover, standing there holding the patently absurd cook-pot-default scowl firmly in place and the loveliest blush beginning to dust his cheeks. Just too sweet.

"And I am..." Varric inquired archly.

"You're usually my smartly dressed, unofficial biographer-cum-sidekick."

Varric snorted in mock-indignation. "Why Serah, I'm not sure whether I'm more offended by 'sidekick' or the idea that I'm merely unofficially your biographer."

"Four words for you, Varric. 'Deep Throating in Darktown.'"

Varric froze for a moment and Fenris swallowed an incredulous squawk. "Hmmmmm. You...uh...read that, did you," Varric queried carefully.

Despite feeling like week old utter crap, Hawke grinned slyly. "Isabela brought me a copy, the ink still damp. Really Varric, where did you get the idea I had that many piercings, and there of all places?" Hawke made a tsking noise at his best friend.

Varric smiled. "Well, you are the Champion, after all." As if that explained anything.

"So they keep telling me. Of course, while you continue to spread such evocative rumors, and I keep having to deny them at social gatherings, I'm afraid it's 'unofficial' biographer for you."

Varric was doubtless about to assert yet again how wounded he was when Fenris stepped in close, growling. "Keep your deranged fantasies to yourself, dwarf."

It certainly wasn't the worst threat his lover could have issued, and Varric seemed more inclined to debate than concede, so Hawke let them walk ahead, the banter carrying him along.

By the time they set foot in the valley below, he was sweat-drenched and gritting his teeth against the odd ache thrumming through him in time with his heartbeat. Hawke downed yet another potion and it saw him only marginally better, taking the edge off the hurt. It must be fatigue. What else didn't respond to healing potions?

Hawke was beginning to think he might well be in trouble.

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They'd walked the valley, heading vaguely east for an hour before Hawke suddenly called a halt for the night. It wasn't a particularly good spot for a camp. No shelter from the elements, nor concealment from anyone hunting them. But Hawke was obviously spent, so neither he nor the dwarf contested the choice.

Varric had silently gathered tinder and was busy lighting a fire while Fenris laid out their meager food supplies, all the while eying his lover discreetly. Fenris was neither unobservant nor unintelligent, so why Hawke insisted on trying to actually hide the slide of the small, ruby-bottled healing potion from his waist-belt was part of an old, frustrating puzzle.

Certainly it was more a mystery than why the man actually was spending the potion to begin with. Hawke was exceptionally fair skinned on a good day. At the moment he was verging on ghostly, a white lipped, sweating specter of his usual self.

He was very obviously unwell.

Yet, worried as Fenris was, (and he was very worried, having rarely seen Hawke look so poorly without some marked wound to account for it) the question of 'unwell with what?' was less of a mystery perhaps than why didn't Hawke simply admit he was sickly to begin with. Such admissions never came easily to Fenris either, but they were lovers. And lovers were supposed to share such things, or so he presumed.

It was an old thorn in his thoughts, wondering how Hawke could give so much of himself in other ways, and yet still hide his hurts so faithfully. Fenris had long suspected Hawke and he must share in common some fatal wounding of nature. But whereas Fenris became reclusive and distant from other beings, Hawke had learned to employ his ample charisma as a shield-unfortunately turning it even upon those who were no threat.

It wasn't lost on Fenris that Hawke's stubborn refusal to unburden himself to his friends (and even his lover) was the pinnacle of hypocrisy-especially considering Hawke's tendency to remorselessly meddle in the affairs of...well...just about everyone he ever met.

It might have cultivated into a bigger issue if not for Fenris' brutal honesty with himself, in this matter at very least. He was a hypocrite too. His own frailties and fears often stayed locked in his own mind, never to be aired. And his utter lack of skill in sussing out personal matters was a handicap in reaching out to Hawke. He had no talent for unfolding the layers of his own malformed psyche, much less those of another. That and Fenris never dared call Hawke out in sheer dread that it was he himself who'd created the problem when he abandoned Hawke those many years ago. Without a doubt, Hawke had suffered in the years since, Kirkwall stripping him of almost everything it could take away, often times in crueler twists than even Fenris had ever witnessed before. But those losses were compounded upon his original sin and Fenris balked at exploring too deeply what he suspected began by his own hand. It still lay between them, unchallenged and fragile, and Fenris feared it terribly.

Therefore, checked by his own cowardice, he was hardly in a position to contest the issue. Long ago, Fenris had chosen to be neither hurt by Hawke's refusal to share the burden of his vulnerabilities, nor insulted that Hawke seemed to think he was witless enough not to notice them at all.

That road led to a sour stomach and a cold bed.

So this part, at least, was a game of waiting. Hawke would either mend from the potion he was currently pretending not to drink (and therefore never mention whatever ailed him), or if not, sooner or later would come a reluctant confession and Fenris would finally be allowed to help Hawke through whatever this sudden illness turned out to be (sooner, if Hawke's appearance was any indicator). Either way, Fenris had no power in the matter until Hawke made the choice to take him into his confidence.

Varric, on the other hand, had never learned to let things with Hawke (or anyone else) lie. For all his sermons on patience and timing, the dwarf was almost as bad about meddling as Hawke himself-if a hundred times more subtle. He didn't blatantly get involved; it was ever a hedged manipulation. Now was a prime example. Precisely everyone knew Fenris didn't do companionable prying, not even with his lover. Yet there Varric was, eying him askance like Fenris was indeed supposed to do something-which in this case likely meant actually 'saying' something.

Very much not his area.

Blithely addressing the giant pink bronto in the middle of the room was Hawke's gift, not his. So Fenris did his level best to stare back at Varric with a glare that clearly announced 'You're the wordsmith, dwarf. You interrogate him.'

Varric sighed resignedly, which was as good as announcing Fenris off the hook.

He wasn't holding his breath against the success of such a venture anyway, even in Varric's deft hands. Not that he wasn't secretly rooting for the officious dwarf. While Fenris had been gathering foodstuffs (and mental wool) Hawke had become more and more unsteady on his pins-doubtless prompting the surreptitious drinking of the potion, artless attempt as it was.

"Hawke," Varric began, uncharacteristically tentative. "I... uhm... You know... Wow, that's a nice wobble you've got there, buddy." Set-up. Attempt. Fail.

Wordsmith, my bony brown arse.

If Fenris were the sort to give credit for effort alone he might have been even a little generously disposed toward Varric. As it was... "Oh, bloody hell, dwarf!" he snarled. "You'd think you've never strung two words together before."

Varric had a single moment to fire an impressively threatening scowl his direction before Hawke surprised them both, letting escape a strangled groan before crumpling to the ground in a loose heap.

"Hawke!" Varric's astonished cry echoed Fenris' own as they both leapt forward.

Before either of them could reach Hawke's side he was already arching and twisting sickly as convulsions overtook him.

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He's trapped in wave after wave of agony.

Certainly no stranger to pain though, some small part of Hawke wants to rationalize it-through blinding arcs of memory wants to sift for a time when he's ever been in worse pain.

He fails to find anything even close.

Oh Maker!

Worse than that Juggernaut's life-drain spell, worse than the time that smarmy little bloodmage used Crushing Prison... Worse than anything! A thousand hot needles were raking up his body, and underneath it, other sensations-some unnaturally crisp, some oddly muffled. The ground is hard and sharp against the back of his head, the air far colder than Hawke remembers even ice feeling. The ground... I'm on the ground! Why am I not standing anymore?

His jaws are locked shut, teeth grinding, spine popping, and the world tilts and flashes sickeningly, like a rope-bridge whipped about in a strong wind. Everything is wrong and Maker above, it hurts. His back is arching painfully, he can't stop it, and the feel of gravel grinding into his scalp is an actual relief from the sensation of his very bones trying to escape his flesh.

He searches for why. Doesn't understand what happened. All he can recall is the battle... Tallis walking away... The shame of having fallen so hard for the pretty lie of her supposed just cause.

Someone is screaming his name, calling for him. Fenris... If something's happened to Fenris... No!

His head slams against the ground again and this time there's a dullness inside his skull and the coppery tang of blood. He's bitten his tongue and there's so much to sort out, he can't even find that one pinpoint pain.

A glint of golden hair shoved against his nose, the sharp scent of sweat and leather and fear... A terrible weight on his chest, crushing him, and the clouds floating above in the fading daylight seem closer and closer...

He can't breathe! Everything is too acute. Too hard. Too much... Varric is yelling for him now. He can hear him, close. But Hawke can't seem to understand. Nothing is under his control...it never is...now so less than ever.

Darkness is coming fast and he thinks it's not a true night. The clang of his armor against stone rings above all else and then suddenly there's no fight in him. Like a broken doll in a hurricane, he's at the mercy of the tempest. But it's dying, whatever this is, and maybe he is too-swept along and buffeted by a storm that becomes less and less brutal with each moment.

A thick fingered hand forces his head back against the ground hard, and it's enough and too much all at once. He suddenly inhales and it's like the first time ever. The cold mountain air is sweet simply for being there. But things are fading, the sky, the ground beneath him, his name on someone's lips, the sounds of gasping, desperate breaths, the pain...

"Hold on, Hawke," he hears Varric say. He just doesn't understand what that means anym