Hawke snipped off the end of the suture with a tiny pair of scissors instead of her teeth. Leaning upon his elbows, Fenris watched through bleary eyes the entire time she tended to his wound. Her movements were more methodical than he anticipated, or remembered, as if a small voice in her head was reminding her of every step needed. Was it experience or...?
Shaking off the thought, when Hawke picked up the bag, Fenris moved to slide his feet to the ground. Her smile faded a moment, before snapping back brighter than ever, "What in Andraste's name do you think you're doing?"
"Leaving," he grunted, then flinched at his callow answer.
If Hawke cared about the barb, she didn't let on. Her hand landed upon his shoulder, the full might of the Champion pinning him down. "By Mafarath's infected toe you are. I ain't even bandaged you up. Look, there's still blood and pus oozing out of the hole." She jabbed towards the wound but didn't touch it. Fenris swung his head up from watching the macabre display and found himself a breath away from those stormy grey eyes.
His entire body went rigid, all the heat draining from his limbs to pipe awake the cheeks for a bright burn. Hawke blinked a moment, her lips settling open as if a million thoughts were about to tumble free. But she clung to silence instead, her hand lifting off of his shoulder so she could yank out yards of muslin.
"This isn't necessary," Fenris continued, even while sitting up and extending his arms. Able to act as if there was nothing strange at all about it, Hawke wrapped his torso in the cloth, her cheek almost glancing across the tattoo dipping down his third rib. He watched transfixed at how the warm brown skin kept bobbing close and far, Fenris realizing he was gritting his teeth in anticipation. But was it out of fear of her touching him, or because he hoped for it?
The thought shook him from his stupor, "Thank you for your help, but I don't...I have disturbed you long enough."
"Disturbed? You didn't even bring an accordion with you. Now, get a trio of barking nugs and a harmonica then I might have to toss you out on your ear."
Her smile didn't waver, cracked lips lifted wide. There were new scars to match the old, what looked like a partially fresh one undulating with her bottom lip. Another long since healed scar was gashed over her forehead. Why was Hawke not properly healed? She should have been taken care of, at least by him.
"I don't wish to bother you or..." Fenris' eyes burned through the air, "anyone else here."
"Anyone...?" Hawke's smile climbed in uncertainty when it fell like a rock, "Oh. That anyone. Well, you're in luck 'cause he ain't here. Be right damn stupid to let him anywhere near Kirkwall, in fact."
"With the rebellion over, I thought," Fenris tried to look around the house anew. It was plainer than the Amell mansion she'd lived in prior, but homier than Gamlen's hovel. Swords hung upon the mantle, not the kind formed from precious metals and jewels, but a favored one leftover from an old battle in a place close by should the inevitable happen. Paintings not of famous faces he couldn't recognize but familiar ones out of Hawke's past graced the walls. All were known to him save a small dark skinned woman in mage robes. He assumed at first it was Bethany, but the woman's face was more rounded, with a fire in her eyes the painter captured that must be terrifying to see in real life. A few tables filled the empty spaces beside walls. There was even a fruit bowl, though being Hawke's it was stuffed with daggers and what looked like uncut jewels. The place was lived in, cosy without being claustrophobic.
Hawke snatched up a handful of pins off a cushion and jammed two in her mouth. Carefully binding together the bandages, she said through the pricks, "Yeah, you'd think lots of stuff woulda changed with that finished. But, people are still people, ya know. Once a right bastard, always a right bastard. Anyway, I ain't letting you leave, not in this condition, and not with that condition out there."
"You think you can stop me?" Fenris said, his words hollow.
She paused in her work and stood up tall. With a single extension of her elbow Hawke prodded a finger against his shoulder. He tried to fight against it, but pain seized up and down his side and his body rocked backwards. "That answer your question? Friends don't let friends head out into ice storms while their organs are being held inside with spit and glue. Fancy metaphorical I mean, I don't spit in it."
Her spiel paused and she stared almost impishly into his eyes. It looked as if she didn't want him to leave. "Then I will stay. To limit your worrying."
"Good," Hawke gasped in relief, either playing the part or honestly fearing he would attempt to barrel through her for the door. "That table's about as cozy as crawling inside a ditch. There's a bed upstairs that'll do you up better."
Fenris guided his feet to the ground, while Hawke assisted. "You speak from experience?" he asked as the pair shifted together up a small flight of stairs that grew astronomical from the pain gouging into him. Not answering, Hawke only shrugged, but he caught a sly smile from a no doubt legendary night that ended in the Champion of Kirkwall sleeping upon her own table.
A silence thudded between them. While Fenris preferred the cloak of solitude, at the moment the emptiness beat its fists upon his skull. No doubt because of the rarity of a quiet Hawke.
"Your hair," he fumbled for anything to say.
"Oh yeah, got hit by some acid spraying monster. Think it was a sea dragon, or some relative there of. Stank of wyvern like no other, but with fishy scaley bits. Had to shave all the damage off, and then kinda came to like it." Flipping her free hand over the dangling sides of the remaining hair, Hawke shrugged with her cheeky grin.
Beautiful in the way a volcano or tornado was, Hawke was a presence that burst through your life unexpectedly, often leaving debris and scars in its wake, but a strange smile in your heart. While no artist would ever ask her to sit for a portrait of a lady, it was impossible to take your eyes off of her. She commanded a room merely by walking into it. Fenris fell silent again, his tongue knotted up in the dozen compliments he wished to give while knowing that none would be welcome.
"Here it is, big fluffy bed with big fluffy pillows and probably a few blankets. Fluffiness is debatable for those," Hawke kicked open the door to the bedroom to reveal the exact same four poster bed she had in her mansion nearly a decade past. Even the drapery was the same, the years fading the crimson to a soft reddish pink. Memories flooded through Fenris as he gazed upon it. Fearing his lyrium would react, he shut his eyes tight and focused on the pain in his body instead of the wound to his soul.
As he lowered to the bed, Hawke fussed with getting the proper blanket to pillow ratio as if he hadn't spent his days sleeping on grass and rocks. Groaning, Fenris' side jabbed fresh pain through his lungs. He tried to shift to get the knot worked out, when Hawke's fingers darted through his hair. Tenderly, she massaged upon the only part of him that didn't rear back from touch.
Was she even aware she was doing it? His eyes slowly closed, the methodical tug of hair soothing Fenris. He wanted to pin her hand to him, to tell her she need not sing that silly song to touch him, that she was the only one who could. "Is this your bed?" he said instead, his eyes focusing upon her.
"Don't go worrying about me, or where I'll sleep. I've got a few options available in this place. There's a fancy stuffed chair out of the Anderfels, says it's loaded with griffin down. And if worst comes to it I have a bit of an in with the new owner of the Hanged Man. Or I could always crash on the Viscount's couch when he's not looking," Hawke winked as if Varric wouldn't put her up proper with silk sheets and breakfast in the morning. Perhaps she didn't think Fenris knew about the dwarf's rise in political power. They hadn't spoken in...many years.
"Sleep," Hawke ordered, "heal, and stop oozing everywhere. If you need anything, just throw something at the wall. I'll hear it out there and come find ya." Having said her peace, she nodded and shuffled towards the door. Still as magnificent as ever, Hawke had to stoop to slide under the frame.
"Thank you," Fenris gasped out. He had to say it now in person. Every attempt to send a letter ended in him burning the parchment, certain that it would be unwelcome or unread.
"Ain't no problem. Friends are always welcome," Hawke smiled while tugging the door shut behind her.
Fenris twisted around in near sleep for what could have been hours or minutes. A haunting purple glow emanated off of what looked like a small carved bear, perhaps a toy given to her by...Varric. It seemed more his style than him. Aside from the count of his breaths, he had no idea how to measure the passage of time. Pain ebbed and flowed like the tide through his body, sometimes leaving long enough he could almost convince himself he may fall asleep. But then the memories returned. Hawke's fingers prying into his armor to electrify his skin with her touch. His hands tugging apart her robe to caress the breasts he'd tried so hard to not think about.
A different room, a different time, a different person, but the same damn bed.
Unable to sleep, Fenris stumbled to his feet. Pain lacerated his skin but he'd grown used to it; some days he barely even noticed unless one of the others in his group pointed out the blood. For a brief moment he wondered how they were getting on back in Tevinter without him. Who would have ever imagined he'd be in charge of a resistance? People looking to him for guidance, for answers, for a leader. He was no one's leader, no one's guide, certainly no one's friend.
Almost no one's friend.
By the bear's haunting violet stomach, he picked at books left sitting haphazardly in a bookshelf. Hawke seemed to approach the concept of organization by haphazardly placing anything she wanted off the ground onto shelves. Books were held in place between daggers, a cutting block shaped like a pig, and five boxes all labeled 'elfroot' with nothing inside. Fenris recognized some of the titles, there were more than a dozen copies of the same Hard in Hightown book. Perhaps the Viscount was having trouble moving them.
Past the shelf of Varric's extra curricular life, Fenris found a tome on knitting next to one on proper sword maintenance. Hawke would be the type to attempt both, perhaps at the same time. His fingers flitted past hobby books, cookbooks, instruction manuals on random matters, even a tax code for Orlais, before he paused upon a strikingly familiar title.
"Wanderer's Trails" was thin compared to the rest, perhaps a hundred pages long in a once blue binding that faded until it...it matched her eyes. Fenris tugged it off the shelf and the book fell open in his fingers, right back to the very sentence where they'd left off.
The knocking against the manor's door was so furious dust rained down off a shelf above him. He glowered first at the filth coated bottles tipping over, then over the railing towards the front door. Whoever was behind it wasn't about to give up. Fenris rarely received visitors to the home he stole out from under Danarius; most attention came in the form of solicitors trying to tempt him with guaranteed real Rivani rugs or charms enchanted to repel demons that were clearly cheap tin. On occasion a few of the chantry tried, thinking they could garner tithes from the wealthy section of Kirkwall but one glance at his glower and pointy ears and they ran back to their sanctuary without looking back.
Fenris stopped answering the door unless he was expecting someone. But whoever was outside either had no intentions of leaving until he approached or the wood collapsed from the pounding allowing entrance. Accepting his fate, he padded down the stairs barely glancing at stains that over the years merged into the stone. By the time he thought to try and clean some of the blood out, it was far too late. After awhile, he simply stopped caring. Perhaps there was some special maintenance required for keeping a manor in shape, but aside from removing the bodies for the sake of the smell and disease, the ex-slave saw no point. He'd rather live in squalor than polish up a grand estate built upon the bones of elves.
Fingers reaching out towards where he kept a sword stashed inside a stand by the entrance, Fenris opened the door a crack. A single grey eye set inside a brown face darted down to him and a burst of white broke free.
"Hawke," Fenris stumbled back, pulling open the door.
She wasn't in the typical traveling armor he'd normally see her wearing, nor the softer house outfit that others would mention and he'd on occasion spy Hawke in while walking the markets. This wasn't exactly a dress, nor was it pants. The long purple tunic frilled out thanks to a belt cinched tight to her midsection, but - due to her height - it barely made it past her mid-thigh. Hose were suckered to her legs, but they somehow made her seem more naked. Fenris blanched at the thought, a scowl slotting into place.
If she spotted it, Hawke made no mention. Instead, she smiled wide, "Fenris, it's been a few days. How are you? Good. You look good. Still growing tumbleweeds in here, eh? How are the mushrooms coming along in the bathroom? A few looked about right for picking."
He tried to speak, but sighed and shook his head. Sliding back, Fenris allowed Hawke entrance, as if he ever had any intentions of keeping her out. She was the one to help him secure the place after all. Nodding brusquely at his formality, Hawke's pinned up hair slipped out of bindings that looked torturous. Barely batting the mass away, she pointed at Fenris' hand.
"Planning on cutting me down if I didn't have the right password?"
He followed and sighed at the sword clutched in his fingers. Stuffing it back into the stand, he gruffed, "Most surprise visits are unwelcome."
"Oh, don't tell me the Blades of Hessarian have been hitting you up too? Bodahn bought like ten subscriptions off them before I could convince him it's a scam. Still, he has high hopes that Sandal will get some use out of the periodic serial 'How To Make Friends and Not Scare People.' I'll strip naked and run through the market square if anything they promised shows up."
"I..." Fenris blinked rapidly at the image she painted, his eyes darting down the straining neckline of her royal amethyst tunic. Whether Hawke meant to display such cleavage for effect or a mere happenstance of her fortress-like body not fitting inside it, his tongue dried out either way. "You came for some reason?"
"Yes," Hawke clasped her hands together, revealing a book in one as she begged, "please let me hide out here for a few hours."
"You don't need to ask," Fenris said, always grateful for her company. The woman was pulled in every direction; requirements of her station, Varric's various travels, Isabela's ideas of adventure, Aveline trying to knock a modicum of sense into her, whatever she did down in the abomination's miasmic clinic. And yet, she managed once a week to stop by Fenris' estate for a literary lesson. Though, those were always on Tuesdays and this being a Friday he wondered why she was here, but didn't require an explanation.
Hawke, being Hawke, felt the need to give one.
"I'd have messaged ahead, assuming you don't kill the messengers and then stuff their bodies in the walls," her eyes rolled around the ransacked manor but there was no vitriol there. She seemed to find it all hilarious, as Hawke did with near everything. "But I didn't realize what was going on until I was nearly to my door and spotted a tufted feather through the window."
"You need me to kill a bird in your house?" Fenris asked warily.
"No, no, no," Hawke chortled. "Unless that's a secret code I..." at his stoic expression she sighed, "probably not. Feather means someone fancy, someone fancy means high born overstuffed blah blah, high born means mother's gone off and found another suitor for me."
He didn't respond, his eyes glaring into the ground. It was unsurprising that the woman who gained back her family's title and fortune would be betrothed off to another wealthy inhabitant. That was what the noble houses did after all, breeding within each other to keep the blood sacred. Fenris scratched at the back of his neck, trying to flick away a hot sensation squatting there.
Hawke seemed unaware of his reaction, her arms animatedly slicing apart the air, "Course I turned on my heel and ran as quick as I could from that mess. Just how I want to spend my day - sweaty palms, knocked knees staring into some droopy eyed face while doing my best to not say something stupid otherwise mother'll give me that glare she does. Though, that musta been why she insisted I put this thing on."
She picked at the stomach of her tunic, lifting the front of the hem's edge higher up her thighs. He tried to not burn a hole staring at the normally hidden flesh but Fenris was drawn in like a moth to a flame. Unaware of anything untoward, Hawke yanked it back down and said, "So I really need somewhere to hide where mother won't look. For a few hours. At least until the latest one's gotten bored and fled the coop."
It took a beat before he realized she was staring expectantly at him. A snarl echoed with his curt, "Stay." He meant it at himself for his mind caring a whit about Hawke's family life. There was no reason for his skin to itch as if it were infested with spiders at the idea of her being wed off to some chin-less noble who couldn't possibly appreciate what he had.
Hawke slammed the door behind her and jerked her chin up to where his room was, the question inside her movement. Nodding his head, Fenris trailed after the woman already waltzing towards the staircase. It wasn't until they were halfway up it that he trusted himself to speak without appearing too interested in the answer. "If you have no use for a suitor why not tell your mother to stop?"
"Spoken like a man who's never had to deal with the 'I was in labor with you for 47 hours. Would it really hurt you to wear this lovely pink skirt with all the ruffles?' motherly haranguing." Hawke laughed to herself, but paused a moment and those grey eyes skirted down at him. Swallowing, Fenris didn't do more to react to the state of his lacking family than slightly sneer. Hawke stampeded over the awkwardness quickly, "It also seems to make her happy. She can spend all her free time getting together with other mothers of damaged goods men who are stuck at home with no fertile prospects on the horizon. Who am I to go and ruin that?"
Three years had passed since Fenris first met Hawke on that dark, blood stained ground of the alienage. He kept waiting for her to vanish from his life, for the offer of friendship to cool until she'd only offer a cursory glance in the elf's direction. After the deep roads expedition her name meant something, even the Viscount would call upon Hawke for help. What use could she have with an ex-slave that tolerated people as well as he did a hand upon his bare arm?
Fenris wouldn't have thought anything of it, but the others often floated assumptions that once Hawke had her fancy house and wealth she'd probably settle down with another rich man. All except for Varric. The dwarf cracked, "That's a woman you can't tie down even if you nail her feet to the floor." While Fenris assumed the others would be correct, people often preferred security to the unknown, it was Varric who knew Hawke seemingly best of all.
"What if you chose your own suitor?" the words dribbled out of Fenris' mouth before his brain had time to mull them over.
Hawke froze upon the landing and turned over her shoulder to look at him. A solitary eyebrow shot straight up her forehead. "My mother'd curse up a storm for a week, calm down, then dive right into wedding planning. I bet the cake would be ten feet tall. The dress would somehow be nothing but ruffles and it'd take ten miles to walk the receiving line. Shame she got saddled with me though. Now Bethany..."
Her bubbly words crumbled at the mention of her sister. What few things broke through Hawke's effervescent shield stuck deep. The blame for Bethany being discovered by the templars never wore away. Shaking it off like a dog out of the rain, she smiled, "Bethany would have dozens of 'em all lining up out the door for her hand. Probably singing songs in the middle of the night to serenade the lady, flowers doffed along with hats."
What of you? Fenris had the decency to hold that thought in, but a dangerous silence permeated the air as Hawke stopped speaking.
Shaking her head, Hawke stood up tall. She never stooped, no matter if she was a head and a half above every man in the room. Never feigned being unable to hurl a drunkard through a window. Never held her tongue for anything, a trait she shared with Varric. She was a woman who lived her life her way, and it fascinated Fenris endlessly. The lack of pretense, of never having to fear he'd say the wrong word soothed him. Hawke was a blaring trumpet that never pretended to be a soft violin.
"Never mind all that romancey love stuff," she crinkled her nose and shook her head like a bee flew in her ear. "I brought us a new book to read." Lifting up the cover he spotted earlier, Hawke tapped it thrice as if it required a secret knock to open.
"What about Shartan?" Fenris asked. They'd been slowly working through it, Hawke sitting beside him to peer over his shoulder and sound out the words. He'd felt bitterly foolish at the pace, as if he were an old man being guided across a small stream, but Hawke never said a word against it. Some visits they'd only get a page done, perhaps two, but as time drew on he was often handling entire canticles without needing her to glance over.
Smiling wide, Hawke passed the book to him. The cover was a soft blue while the golden text proclaimed the title to be "Wanderer's Trails."
"This one's shorter, with less thees and thous, and a lot more punching. We can probably get it all in a few go's. Though, if you want to go back to stuffy Shartan and his army of dullness..." she made her position crystal clear. Fenris hoped to finish the book on the elven general, but he couldn't deny Hawke this request.
Tipping his head to her, Hawke smiled wide and spun towards the couch beside the fire. "There's some wine by the table," Fenris began, his fingers slipping the cover open to find the first page.
"When isn't there?" Hawke chuckled, already filling the mugs. While she gathered up the refreshments, Fenris sat rigid upon the edge of the couch and began to read aloud.
The afternoon passed quickly, Fenris flipping through pages. He'd relaxed enough thanks to a simpler text and more invigorating story. With one leg crossed over his lap, he leaned deep into the couch while Hawke, sitting in the chair beside the couch, had her legs up on the low table.
"'Deafening growls shattered the air. Liam shook each one off, his dead leg dragging a rut in the mud. Behind, a head poked through the thick fog. Its mane rattled in the winds, the pupils of the yellow eyes sharpening to slits when the wings of the creature beat apart the air. Flying off the ground, it landed a single paw upon the man's chest. Spraying hot saliva in a bone crushing roar, the...the, Mani-tie-or-e?"
Hawke sat up at his stumble, her eyes opening from what had looked like an afternoon slumber. He tried to sound out the words the way she'd shown him, but it kept slipping through his grasp. Sliding in beside Fenris, Hawke sat upon the couch and inched the book closer to her face. "Ah, manticore. Mythical beast with the head of something and the body of something else. Because that's what thedas needs, more weird shit stalking through fogs and rivers."
He blinked at the word a bit more, repeating it in his head, before turning over to Hawke. Her lips were bright red, stained from the wine, and her eyes shined not as if she'd been roused from a light nap but had been hanging upon his every word. "Manticore," Fenris said aloud, and Hawke clapped him on the back in exuberance. She was always celebrating the smallest achievement as if each was a miracle of the Maker.
"How do you know of such things?"
"Mage father plus mage sister means you hear about a lot of weird shit. Least you do when you're pretending to be doing your chores, but anything's better than washing up socks. Blech. I hate socks. Exact matches of things are weird. No one comes out exactly perfect, we ain't made to be, but socks. Oh they all get their pairs because reasons of never being alone. Very clingy socks are."
To most a woman ranting about socks would probably be a sign that she'd had too much to drink or been exposed to a poisonous gas, but Hawke was often doing that. She'd spout out her opinions on life that when revisited bore a strange resemblance to a philosophy. Varric even hinted that he'd tried to start writing some of Hawke's thoughts down on the assumption of getting a small Self Help book out, but people found her ability to strip away the facade of life unnerving. Fenris was drawn to it like a suffocating man was to a breath of air, even though he shouldn't be.
"Keep on going," Hawke said. Folding her hands behind her head, she stretched back against the couch. As her eyes slipped closed, she said, "You're getting to the best part."
Fenris blinked, "Best part? You've read this before?"
"Course, it's one of my favorites. When the wanderers get to the cave with the bear that's not really a bear but one o' them skin changers. Used to scare me all the time as a kid. Kept looking under the floorboards for secret bears," Hawke's reminiscing paused and she opened an eye at his look, "What?"
"Why have me read something you know?" he stuttered. No wonder she was nearly asleep the entire time, her eyes closed as he droned on the words and sentences she knew well.
"'Cause it's one of my favorites," Hawke chuckled. "I thought you might like it too. If you don't, ya know..." she moved her hand down as if to pull the book away, but Fenris kept a grip to it.
"No, I am, I only was...Never mind." Shaking off the feeling of stepping on the wrong branch over a bear pit, Fenris searched for his lost place.
"Also, with that voice," she whistled softly under her breath, "there ain't a book in my library I wouldn't want to listen to you read. Shit, I bet you could make Anders' manifesto sound sexy."
Fire burned in his veins, red hot coals squatting in his stomach that had to be from her mentioning the abomination. He was often pressing upon Hawke's time, inviting her to assist in small matters he could easily handle himself. Drawing closer than need be, touching her shoulders and hands as if it was a simple matter not laid with a dozen wire traps. Fenris wanted to ruminate upon the anger of thinking upon Anders because he had no concept of how to approach the rest of her sentence.
Blinking through the haze, he began to read, but the story slipped away from his attention. Liam and the Manticore faded in favor of his mind's eye drawing over to the woman perched beside him. One hand remained behind her head, cushioning the black hair, while another sat upon the knee so close if he shifted an inch her knuckles would touch him. As his mouth moved the words, his eyes kept darting down to the hand, wishing that it would break from her skin in order to glance across his. Cup his knee, in a friendly manner.
Friends would do that, familiar pats of encouragement or the like. Hawke was exuberant often with the others, hugging nearly everyone upon greeting except for him. There was no reason to inquire why, Fenris knew it was because she felt embarrassed or didn't wish to draw close to him. He couldn't blame her, Hawke could have the world at her fingertips if she wanted it. Why turn even a moment upon the elven man with no name, no past, and potentially no future?
Sexy.
She called him, no, his voice, that word. Concept. It was meaningless, as shallow as Isabela's attempts to disarm him. Hawke was playing, as she did with others, or being polite to him. That had to be it. A way to apologize for interrupting his day of sitting and staring at the fire by offering up a compliment.
Gorgeous.
He'd thought it on occasion, the hungry parts of his body that cared nothing for food noticing a pretty face or toned form. But Hawke was the first to draw it from a fleeting glimmer before he moved on and transform it into something else. Fenris began to dream of her; those fingers rolling across his skin, her hair falling beside his face, her naked body tumbling with his. It was unnerving to stand near the real woman while the memories of his dream clung like leeches.
To touch her cheek once, to taste her smiling lips...
The words of the story clogged in his throat, Fenris' hands trembling at the notion of kissing the woman beside him. Hawke, oblivious to his lecherous thoughts, sat up and tried to peer down at the last sentence.
"'Micha, a woman of great esteem, approached the campsite with a pack of goods. Her golden hair glimmered-,'" Hawke paused, those stormy eyes staring deep into Fenris' as she waited for him to pick up the tale.
A handful of dark spots, perhaps freckles or moles, darted across her nose as if Hawke blew poorly ground pepper against her face. He couldn't stop staring at them, wishing to caress his fingers down the freckles on her bridge until they scattered from her rising cheek. Lips of cherry wood glistened as her tongue glided over them in a thought.
Darting forward, the ache in Fenris' body took command, and he kissed Hawke's beautiful smile. She tasted of the sea, crisp winds wafting down the clear mountain until they blended with salt rising with the tide. Hawke sat still below him, Fenris realizing he had no concept of what came next. Was it...wrong? Bad? Had he ruined everything between them in one foolish grab?
His body slid away slowly in failure, pulling his mouth from hers, when Hawke's hands curled around the back of his armor and pressed him tighter. As if roused from a hundred year slumber, her lips cupped around his, softly nibbling and sucking with a shared hunger. Rising to meet it, Fenris pressed his palm to her cheek for balance. A gentle moan rolled through her throat at the contact, and he tugged it away for fear of hurting her.
Hawke's eyes opened at the loss of his fingers and slowly she shifted back, not away but far enough to talk without accidentally biting him. "So that happened," her eyebrows scrunched together in uncertainty. He melted deeper into himself, wishing to vanish, but Hawke chuckled, "If I knew it took an old action story to get that reaction, I'd have brought it over first."
"I should not have, you have given no reason for me to. I am sorry," Fenris shuddered. He wanted to slink away, perhaps crawl into the wine cellar and not return for a few weeks or months. When he attempted to slide further away from the couch and his abject humiliation, he was startled to find Hawke's hand pressed against the back of his armor.
"Sorry for what?" she smiled. "Okay, the first kiss was a bit like biting without teeth but you more than made up for it with the next one."
"You were..." She had moaned, no doubt in pain or regret, and he pressed her. He never wanted to press her. "I should not have done that."
Hawke's hands slid down to land upon her lap. She stared at her strong fingers as if they were ten little caterpillars attached to her hand. "It's funny, people always say 'Oh, that Hawke. Ain't much going on in her head, but at least you know where she stands. Easy to read. Like one of them picture books for kids.' I..." Her eyes stared into his and so close he spotted a dab of brown streaked through her silver grey. "I like you Fenris. Maybe I'm no good at showing it. No, I know I'm not. Bury any proper interest away deep because, well... Most men get rather grumpy being seen with someone who's taller and can take a punch better. I'm used to that, don't see any point in risking myself if it'll just get slapped away and all, but..."
Barely a breath from his body, Hawke drew her fingers through the air directly over his thigh, then skirted it up his chest until they flexed right beside his cheek. "I know you don't like being touched, so I try to not do it even if I really, really want to. Doesn't seem right to, so I sit on my hands a lot and hope you don't notice."
She didn't hug him because she didn't want to hurt him?
The irony drew a snicker to Fenris' lips. Unaware of the joke, Hawke's trembling smile faded. Fenheedis! She must have read it as his laughing at her. Grabbing onto her hand before it faded back to her lap, Fenris guided her fingers softly towards his cheek. They barely skirted over his skin, but the reaction was instantaneous, his eyes rolling shut as energy sparked over every inch of his body. Such a tiny thing, and it nearly sent him reeling. Opening his eyes, Fenris stared into hers. Slowly he guided her fingers up and together they combed through his hair.
"Here," he said, releasing her hand, "you can touch here and it won't hurt. The rest I need a warning, control."
Smiling, Hawke parted through the fringe dangling before his eyes. The tug of her fingers felt like wind trembling through his hair, like the breeze of Seheron blowing across the sea while he sat beside the Fog Warriors. Shaking off the pit in his gut, Fenris buried the growl he felt in his heart. Her gentle swish of his hair was soothing, but deep within himself he felt the rise of the slumbering hunger.
She seemed entranced, batting at his hair like a cat would, while he memorized her sharp face. In all the time they'd known each other, the most Fenris would risk were furtive glances from the edge of his eyes. A quick check to make certain it was Hawke and no one else. Any more would be... He didn't know, but it felt wrong. And now he let himself stare into her defiant eyes, noticing even more specks of brown sparkling within the field of grey. Always smiling lips that maintained a pillowy cushion despite the stretch. He didn't realize he'd rushed forward, his lips crushing to hers, until Hawke's genuine and impudent eyes slipped closed.
Her one hand remained in his hair, gently tugging the silver strands higher, while the other sat limply at her side. Taking control, Fenris circled a hand over her chin, his fingers walking the path of her unbendable jawline until they cupped the back of her head. Hawke was guiding him with only her lips, softening his voracious attack by lapping her tongue across his mouth. Uncertain what she wanted, he paused in the heavy kissing and parted his pursed lips.
Darting in like a cloaked assassin, Hawke's tongue slipped fully into his mouth. A moan rolled in her throat, but not one of agony - he could tell that now as he tasted so much more of this impossible woman. Wily and as powerful as its owner, her tongue tussled with his as Fenris roused from following to forging his own path. Twisting his head, he rose up on his thighs to sit higher than Hawke. Both hands cupping her firm face, he delved deep into her warm mouth. Sweet as summer's rain, the wet heat inviting him in, his hunger wondered if her other lips were as welcoming.
As if reading his thought, Hawke's hands climbed across the armor on his chest. The pressure increased against the tattoos, burning like a light abrasion. He wanted to remove the armor, to free himself from the rising pain, but... Fenris shuddered, the enormity of that cliff threatening to engulf him.
With the kiss broken, her beautiful eyes opened and Hawke smiled. "We could always move to the bed that's conveniently over there," she pointed towards the one he never bothered to make sitting in the corner.
Fenris whipped away, a concoction of shame and revulsion burning tracks through his skin. Without an elf shoving her down onto the cushions, Hawke sat up. She batted her hands together and stared over at him. Furiously, Fenris cursed at himself to cease being so mercurial, to pluck himself out of his mind and live for a moment. It wasn't as if she was asking him to serve her, only to put his trust and his body in her hands.
Fasta Vaas! Why must he damn himself at every turn?
"Fenris," she whispered, her voice light but he had to have stung her.
"I am uncertain if now is the time to explore each other," he rumbled, mentally wincing with each word. Pathetic. No one would accept his cowardice, because that was what it was - a spineless worm scampering away from fear of the unknown.
Hawke smiled and her fingers waffled against his hair, "Okay. You think about it, about all the thinking parts of it, for when you're ready, and then get back to me."
His eyes lifted from the ether, lost in her sweet face. "You're certain?"
"Course. I mean, it ain't like we're all gonna die tomorrow in some horrible invasion. Time's not a big deal to spend. And that stuff, is, well it's kinda a big deal, to some, I guess. I doubt Isabela'd stop to blink beyond trying to figure out which of her buckles got stuck."
A single laugh reverberated in his throat before sinking low into his chest. It was a simple matter, it should be to let loose for a time, to be with a beautiful woman, fully with her as one can be. "I will consider it," he said.
"Good," Hawke smiled. "And now I best be getting back home before mother sends Bodahn to hunt me down. Last time he managed to get himself turned around in Darktown, then I had to rescue him from blood pirates...whole mess."
"Blood pirates? Malifecarum pirates?"
"No, just pirates who drank blood for some Maker tainted reason. I swear something in Kirkwall makes everyone lose their damn minds. Maybe it's the water," Hawke tipped an empty glass near her and pretended to sniff it before smiling wide. She was disarming the awkwardness the amazing way Hawke could. Stretching, she rose to her feet.
"Here," Fenris slipped an old piece of parchment into the book, then handed it to Hawke. Her eyes folded a moment in concern before he added, "In case you wish to read ahead before you return with it next week."
Her smile warmed his heart, "Got ya. So," Hawke patted the book, "I'll be seeing you whenever. Later. Um, goodbye, Fenris." She wafted closer to the staircase, too far away for him to easily slide up near her.
Nodding his head to her, Hawke took the walk down the stairs alone. It wasn't until she was at the door that it struck him she was hoping for a goodbye kiss or something from him to reveal his intentions, and all he could do was dumbly nod. What were his intentions? To bed Hawke? The idea was impossible, as impossible as a slave escaping from his Tevinter master. As unimaginable as the same slave tumbling into the circle of a Ferelden refugee who rose to the heights of society without losing a scrap of what made her amazing.
And what would come of it? He scowled at himself, trying to dampen the thrush to his cheeks and in his heart. If he was with her, fully with her, what would occur next? Would he find himself as beholden to her as he was to Danarius? Trapped not by chains on his wrists or in his mind, but by his heart?
As the door closed with a great thump, rattling more dust off the shelves, Fenris told himself that he wouldn't think of Hawke that way.
He broke his promise that very night.
The words "Micha, a woman of great esteem, approached the campsite with a pack of goods. Her golden hair glimmered-," screamed up at him from the book courtesy of the same scrap of parchment he placed in it as a mark. They never made it past that sentence, because he did think about it. He couldn't stop himself from thinking about her kiss pressed not just to his lips but imagining her lips touching his entire body. Couldn't stop considering what it'd be to have her smell envelope his own. To wake with her warm body curled to his, not for warmth but because she didn't wish to let go.
Screwing up the tears in his eyes, no doubt courtesy of the painful saw blade that bit apart his abdomen, Fenris returned the book to its shelf. He didn't want Hawke to catch him reading it, to wonder if she even remembered the significance it held for him.
Fenris crawled into the bed and drew the coverlets over his head to try and blanket out the light. He never should have kissed her or taught her how to touch him without pain.
Rolling over, he glared at the light rising off his body from the lyrium singing with his grief.
He never should have gone to her. That one moment of weakness ruined everything they ever had.
