Thanks to Miyu (Fixed it!) and Amy for beta-ing (not a word, I know) my crappy drafts. Potential OOC-ness, graphical mental images and a whole crapload of cliches ahead. Enjoy!
...
The cold leather collar had grown caked with dirt and grime around Fenris's neck after weeks of neglect (he has lost sense of time after "three days"). The irritating chafing was partly one of the few sensations that kept Fenris from losing his mind entirely to the perpetual darkness of his prison.
It had been his fault, he had thought, though some times he struggled to remember why before the morphine began to feather away at his mind. He occasionally tried to resist the lull by thinking about his friends, whose faces and names began to disassociate from each other until he only remembered "the short witty man with chest hair" or "that one doctor I wanted to kill so much". Nevertheless, the fragments brought some sense of longing to him, a bit of identity for him to distinguish himself from the rest of the dark room.
Then there were times when he remembered more. The swill of beer accompanied by bursts of hearty laughter came into mind, as well as a distant chanting of a woman in a clergy hall. He remembered nights spent sitting on a threadbare couch next a loud, humming heater, immersed in a book, turning upwards only when a familiar voice called, "Fenris, do you want it with marshmallows?"
Hawke.
The name alone felt like a punch to the stomach, guilt that he thought was buried and packed away gushed forward and the tears threatened to spill again. Hawke and his stupid grin that quickly became contagious. Hawke and his ridiculous sense of humor that would make Fenris chuckle, just a little, and the beaming smile he would give in response as if he just managed to end world hunger.
"Dammit, Fenris, wait up! It might be a trap-"
"No! I'm not waiting, Hawke! She ran this way! I'm going to kill that betraying bitch myself!"
And then there's Hawke's dying body, bleeding out onto the rotting floor of an abandoned house, blood-matted hair barely hiding the hole the bullet dug into the side of his head.
Fenris curled up into a fetal position then, letting the regret eat through both the morphine haze and himself. As if on cue, it was around this time when his master would come in, with a syringe full of morphine that seemed to sing to him promises of ending his pain and the raw, festering hole that seemed to grow in his chest. Fenris would accept it every time without complaint, fully aware that his guilt would only be greater once the haze ends.
Imagine if Hawke sees you now. A voice whispered gleefully, as he wondered how far his mind has gone. Not far enough it seems, as he snapped up to the sound of his cell door creaking open.
Hawke won't see him like this, because Hawke is dead. He's off to a better place now, "full of kittens and virgins", as the man once said jokingly, though thinking about it now made Fenris hurt rather than laugh.
After a quiet murmur of familiar voices, a familiar man entered, impeccably clean suit completely out of place to the dirty room around him.
The man, Denarius, glanced at the dirt-covered Fenris on the ground, a sight that brought a faint sense of nostalgia to the elderly man. Fenris wasn't looking at him, instead focused on the dusty floorboards. Brandishing a syringe and a small bottle, he took it as another sign that his old pet was back as he cooed false gentleness to the despondent man and slowly pushed the needle tip into Fenris's skin.
…...
It didn't take long for Denarius to finally lead Fenris out of that dirty room by his leash out of the dark, dank room to one of the bigger bathrooms in the house. A large tub full of steaming water that smelled faintly of lavender occupied most of the rooms, and the usual bathroom commodities were situated on a cabinet next to it.
Hawke had a small showering booth in his apartment. Fenris noted when he heard a more muted version of Denarius's voice ordering him to strip down and get into the tub. Denarius himself sat on a chair next to the tub with a sponge in his hand, and proceeded to wash Fenris himself.
The sponge moved almost fanatically, keen on scrubbing every evidence that Fenris was ever out of Denarius's grasp. Fenris busied himself to admire the eggshell white ceiling, while the man himself started talking about the current events in Tevinter. It wasn't long before Fenris began counting the bumps when the words coming out of Denarius's mouth sounded like what Hawke used to say, and the occasional sloppy kiss felt so much like Hawke's-
"Fenris!" A back of an old, clammy hand slapped him across the cheek, the abruptedness snapping him out of his reverie. Denarius was standing, face almost livid with fury, panting slightly from the slight exertion. Fenris stared at the man, face betraying no emotion, before Denarius seemed to remember where he was.
"O-oh my," Denarius stammered, looking at his hand, then back at Fenris as if he was shocked over what he just did. "I'm sorry, my pet. I-I didn't know what came over me." He gave a stuttered apology that Fenris only heard small bits of, and hugged the still-soaked Fenris. "It's partially your fault however. Haven't I taught you to pay attention when people are talking?" Picking up the drifting sponge, Denarius continued his ministrations.
Fenris had stopped counting the ceiling's imperfections and instead started counting the wrinkles on his fingers when Denarius finally stopped. Giving an approving smirk and seemingly forgetting his outburst earlier, he grabbed Fenris's leash again, this time leading Fenris out of the tub. With a towel in hand, Denarius slowly wiped the water off of his pet and picked up a set of silk tunic and breeches set aside earlier by one of the servants. As he clothed Fenris, Denarius allowed his fingernails to drag slightly over the moist skin, marred by thick lines of blue he, Denarius, had created what seemed like another age ago. Fenris gave a slight shudder from the contact, earning a chuckle from the older man. Done dressing his pet wolf, Denarius stood up with the leash in hand once again, the clinking chain ringing eerily clear in the steam-filled room.
…...
Once Denarius had finished parading Fenris past possibly every slave and servant in the household, the two retired to Denarius's bedroom. The morphine must be wearing off already, because Fenris noticed that most of the room remained untouched. The sheets were probably a different color then, and the furniture was moved around a little, but his small sleeping mat at the foot of Denarius's bed was exactly where Fenris recalled it was. Denarius wrapped the chain around one of the bedposts and left for the adjoining bathrooms, and Fenris settled cross-legged on the mat, trying to remember what else was in the room so long ago. The old man came back with another syringe and injected another dose of liquid euphoria into his veins, the now familiar haze returning once again as the bubbling warmth left his limbs feeling weak and his head heavy. Denarius proceeded to change into his bedclothes before Fenris, who's eyelids started to droop. When he was done, Denarius then knelt down, scratched Fenris behind the ears a little, and stood up again to climb into bed. A switch was clicked, and the lights were off.
Fenris allowed his mind to wander a bit and his breathing to deepen as the rustling of sheets began to die down, signaling that Denarius was most likely asleep. Fenris recalled that he had been shown a loaded shotgun under Denarius's bed by the man himself, in case of midnight burglary, assassination, or an unwitting servant who stumbled into the room somehow. Denarius was, and most likely still is, confident that Fenris won't kill him.
Just like Hawke was. A murmur. Fenris did not deny his guilt. He was the one who dragged Hawke with him to find his sister. Denarius had just pulled the trigger in Fenris's stead.
He found himself edging towards the shotgun. The chain gave a slight clink, but Denarius did not stir. Silently, Fenris shifted his legs a little and found that his fingers could touch the firearm. With a little more effort, he had secured purchase around the stock and pulled the shotgun towards him. The barrel dragged a little, but the floorboards managed to muffle the sound and Denarius remained asleep.
Fenris needed some sort of closure, and the only way to do so is to return Denarius's favor.
He padded as quietly as possible to Denarius's side, the difficulty of the act itself greatly increased by the chain and the added weight of the shotgun. Nonetheless, he now stood next to Denarius, laying supine and still somehow asleep. Fenris's arms trembled slightly from both the unaccustomed weight and morbid anticipation as he aimed the shotgun straight at Denarius's sleeping face. Somewhere in his mind, he saw Hawke instead, gray eyes unseeing and fixed to the ceiling no matter how much Fenris pleaded and begged.
Blood pounded in his ears now, the feverish voices in his head screamed contradicting words, a cacophony of both "Do it! Pull the trigger!" and "Drop it and run!". Opening his eyes as wide as possible...
He needed to see this for sure.
...he squeezed the trigger.
The resounding gunshot sobered Fenris up completely and the chorus of voices immediately silenced. The shotgun threatened to buck out of his hands from the recoil. Fenris took a deep breath and waited.
And waited.
The hole in his chest continued to burn and itch.
Feeling emptier than before, Fenris dropped the shotgun onto the blood-covered bed and went to get cleaned up.
...
AN: I'M ALIVE! *flails around in the dirt* This was largely inspired from a prompt generator on Adam Maxwell's Fiction Lounge, and I figured, "Hey, I haven't picked up the fanfic pen in years! I should totally attempt to write again. I actually feel like writing out the universe this story takes place in, so tell me what you think!
Now I'll just go crawl back into my zombie hole and come back out again in another 5 years. Don't forget to review!