And the smut has arrived. Many thanks to the reviewers.
This story is more political than Viciousness for sure, and I'm having lots of fun playing with the magic and the Magister thing with Fenris. Anyway, the long awaited double-whammy chapter is here, with the POV reversal and, of course, the smut you've been waiting so patiently for.
Warnings: Smut, character death, violence, bondage smut, more violence, language, some political stuff
Lightning lances around Hawke in every direction, the storm a wild frenzy that slams into foes as they try to get through it, bolts shifting and redirecting at her whim. More electricity gathers in her palms and she flings it at the shades and the slavers alike, burning it through them until it arcs from one enemy to the next in a chain. She glimpses Fenris, his greatsword tearing through their opponents and flinging body parts away, his face covered in blood and his tattoos glowing. Arrows rain from the sky, sparking into flame as they strike enemies and she hears Varric shouting jokes at her through the din, and Aveline's voice demanding the attention of the monsters battering at her shield, which seems to shift around her and be every place at once, blocking multiple opponents until Fenris can hack them apart from behind.
A slaver rushes toward her, a mean fellow with a large axe, and she freezes him in place, her palm extended to face him. Her fist closes as pure physical force crushes him in place, shattering the ice and crushing the man beneath with a wet noise. Several shades attempt to surround her as they make their way through the lightning and she sends icicles into them just as Fenris appear with his greatsword slashing through them in a burst of ice and demonic ash that makes her turn her head aside to avoid getting hit by debris.
She sees that telltale flicker in the blood mage's barrier and twists the energies apart with a flick of her wrist, her other arm jerking to point at Hadriana as a huge stone rips from the floor to pummel the Magister before a new barrier can be cast. "Fenris," she yells, aware of the fact that her face is bleeding from a gash on the cheek and that the hiss of demons is strong in this cavern and that with just one thought, just one promise, she could make that woman's blood boil in her veins.
Then Fenris swoops down and takes the choice away, backhanding Hadriana with such force that blood sprays from her mouth. Hawke shivers at the sight and reallizes that she feels a clench of excitement, even arousal to watch him treat the other mage so brutally.
"Wait," the Magister begs, "I have information you want! Don't kill me."
Fenris sneers. "I already know where Denarious is," he says, his sword creeping closer to her throat. Hawke sees his foot pressed over her staff and grits her teeth at the growing hiss of demonic activity. "I would rather kill you."
"You have a sister," Hadriana blurts, desperation mixing with cunning in her voice. "I'll tell you about her, her name and where she lives, if you spare me."
Hawke snorts and turns away from the pale, insidious eyes, leaving Fenris to have his revenge. It doesn't surprise her when he promises the Magister life and kills her once he has the information he wants. She would do the same in his place, and a surge of savage joy grips her when she sees the final pulse of Hadriana's disembodied heart. But when he whirls away from the corpse with venom in his voice and fury in his eyes, she grabs his shoulder, willing to endure any consequence he has to offer.
"She's dead, Fenris," she says, and sound seems to return in a sharp, shrill wave that hits her like a punch. "She's dead just like she bloody deserves to be." Her fingers skate around the pointed metal of the gauntlets to find the soft material of his tunic and for one second he remains still under her fingers.
Then he turns back toward her. "Do not touch me, Hawke," he shouts. "Don't comfort me or pretend to understand." One of his hands gestures at the dead witch as he snarls and screams in her face, then his sharp gauntlets wrap around her shoulders and prick through the fabric of her robe. She tries not to be hurt or to be furious but he holds her so close and his voice cuts through all of it, echoed by the taunts and murmurs of the demons in the room. "You still can't see that magic is a curse! It ruins everything it touches." As if to emphasize his point, he gives her a shake and a single spark of suppressed lightning snaps against his wrist. With a snarl, he draws his hand away and grips her hair instead, pulling her face close. "Don't you see?"
Hawke draws breath for a tirade and he shoves her back so suddenly she stumbles. Aveline's metal-plated hand steadies her as Fenris shoots them all a look that is half rage, half guilt, all shame. "No," she says, narrowing her eyes at him. "Magic doesn't ruin anything. Fear and idiocy are what ruin everything." Her teeth grind together in the back of her jaw as she forces her concentration to keeping herself sane against the whispers that have grown to murmurs to hissing and buzzing and laughing.
"All that matters is I finally got to crush that bitch's heart," he sneers, and as if that has deflated all the hate in him and thereby all the energy, he slumps and sighs, "I need air."
She's left staring at the last point where his back was visible for a second after he's left. Then she shakes her head slowly and says, "Why do I even bother?" Her eyes shift first down, to Varric, then to Aveline. Both give her near-matching grimaces of sympathy and she sighs. "Let's go to the Hanged Man and drink a round before I try to get home."
"Hawke, you know you have to check on him," Aveline comments. She sighs and shrugs. "But maybe you ought to give him an hour or two to calm down."
"I'll buy," says Varric.
The three of them go to meet Isabela and Merrill there, and after recounting the story of the magister's death with help from several colorful embellishments on Varric's part, Hawke feels so depressed at Fenris' absence that she abandons her half-drunk beer and charges out into the city alone to search for him. When his mansion proves empty she tries searching through Lowtown, even venturing into the Alienage. One at a time, her companions take shifts looking with her, leading her through every part of the city until Isabela, the last to go with her, announces that it has grown too late to look for him anymore and that the only thing she can do is get some rest.
"Sleep, sweet thing. I'll see you in the morning," the pirate says, looping an arm around her shoulders and kissing her cheek. "He'll be back before you know it," Isabela calls as she saunters off toward the Blooming Rose.
She goes home and takes a bath, scrubbing away the filth of the encounter and the last vestiges of those demonic whispers with hot water. When she gets out of the tub and wanders into her bedroom in a filmy silk robe, he's sitting there in front of her fireplace staring at nothing. Fenris stands when she steps into the room and walks toward her. Hawke holds her ground, meeting his eyes and crossing her arms.
"I owe you an apology," he says, his gaze falling to her arms and then to the ground. "I shouldn't have taken it out on you."
"I'm not going to pretend I understand what it's like to be a slave, Fenris," she mutters, slumping against his apology with her hand holding her robe shut. She expected to continue yelling, not this. "But Andraste's sacred asscheeks, you can't say that sort of shit to people who are trying to help you."
His eyes narrow. "And you shouldn't burn people," he answers, holding up his singed gauntlet. He's standing close enough that she can smell him, can feel the lyrium buzzing in his veins.
"Let me see," she says, reaching out to grasp his forearm with her free hand, well away from where she shocked him. Her palm lands against the raw lyrium lines and she gasps as they flare to light under her hand, filling her with a strange combination of strength and desire and energy that goes far beyond the bitter rush of a potion. The sensation engulfs her for a moment and then she's staring in his eyes as he presses her against the wall, his hips and mouth close. Guilty eyes meet hers as she thinks of the night they kissed and as he starts to draw back she steps forward, unable to contain her grin.
It's meant to be a tender kiss, a gentle touch of the lips to calm him from the tension of the situation but his lips catch hers again and again. Then their tongues meet, a slow exploration of one another's mouths as her hands trail up his arms and she revels in the feeling of his tattoos igniting. She slides his gauntlets off and he traces her back and hips and waist with his fingertips, his mouth not leaving hers as she moves on to his shoulder pauldrons. In bits and pieces his armor falls away, and she kisses the red mark on his wrist as he slides her robe away from her shoulders. Hawke's hands rove across his skin, following the lines of his markings and trailing small sparks of lightning in the wake of her fingers. He groans when the electricity shivers along his spine and his hips jerk against hers.
Fenris lifts her in his arms and carries her to the bed. They fall against the sheets, tangling their arms and legs together, hands and mouths brushing over new skin with growing frenzy. Lightning and lyrium light the room better than the candles, bathing them in an electric glow. She gasps when his lips close over her breast and he growls when her tongue traces the tip of his ear and trails electricity. She laughs when he swears at her underclothes in several languages and he smirks when she gets her hands tangled in the laces of his leggings.
He pulls her into his lap until their chests press together as he pushes inside of her and Hawke lets her head fall back and a ragged moan escape her mouth. Fenris takes it as encouragement and thrusts as she arches along his length. His hands twist into her hair, pulling her face to look at his. Green eyes stare into hers, lit by sparks from the lightning dancing between their skin in purple-white arches.
"Please," she whispers, pushing her hips against his, and he drives into her, kissing her cheeks and eyes and neck and mouth. His hands trace over her, finding new places to make the electricity sizzle between them and she finds herself moaning his name too soon, her muscles tensing in waves as she clings to him. Then he picks up the pace, gasping and shuddering a minute later, thrusting deep. His tattoos light again, and in the sensitive aftershocks of her climax she finds herself clenching and swearing, drawn in by the combined force of his orgasm and the pulse of lyrium-electricity shooting straight through her core and every nerve.
No sooner have they collapsed together than he starts moving again, hissing her name among a string of Tevinter curses into her ear. His hands and mouth explore her again and again, their bodies writhing together over the night until she feels drunk with the pleasure. The candles die and the fire sputters out as she moans, lost in flashes of his hands tracing her ribs up to her breasts with his sweating chest pressed to her back as he seizes inside of her; his face staring up at her with pleasure threatening his self-control as his hands cradle her hips over his and lightning crackles across his chest where her palms press flat against it; the pressure of her headboard against her shoulders as he buries his face in her neck and gasps.
When she wakes up, after finally wearing down to a pile of sleepy, tangled limbs, the absence of his warmth is the first thing she notices. She sits up and sees him standing in front of the fireplace, fully dressed. A brilliant red Amell crest hangs on his belt, the color catching her bewildered eyes before she meets his gaze. And he looks ashamed, guilty, even defeated. It makes her stomach clench.
"Please tell me you're about to fix me breakfast in bed," she grins, tossing her hair from her eyes as nonchalantly as she can manage. She fishes her robe from the floor and ties a red scarf around the waist to hold it shut. "I'll have eggs and toast. And some coffee, of course."
"Hawke."
She shuts up instantly, not wanting to babble on with a bad joke when both of them know what's about to happen. "So this was more of a one-night thing, then," she sighs, standing up from the bed and letting her hair hang over her eyes for a moment rather than look at him.
"It's not that," he says, his voice ragged, and his cool gauntlet scrapes along her jaw to tip her chin back and force her to look at him. "I want to stay, but I can't. This... this was better than anything I could have dreamed." His green eyes look pained, agonized. "But I am not ready for this."
"Is it the markings, then? Or the lightning? Did it... hurt?" she asks, raising her brows. She wants to cross her arms, to put some distance between them, but cold metal fingertips against her chin prevent it. As she stares up at him he shakes his head very faintly. Hawke settles on a cheeky grin instead, trying to summon that wicked gleam to her gaze. "I guess I mistook your reactions."
"My memories have started returning," he says, pulling back a step and releasing her. A hint of accusation lingers in his eyes and tone as he adds, "You were using magic."
Hawke narrows her eyes and crosses her arms. "So were you."
"I did not receive these markings by choice," he snarls, lifting a hand to motion toward her. "Your magic activated them, not any conscious choice I made."
She takes a step closer, raising one hand to point at his chest and withholding the spark she desperately wants to zap him with. "I didn't ask to be a mage, either. My parents didn't ask for me to be a mage. At least you got to have a life before magic took it away from you," she snaps. "And for the record, I did nothing to activate your tattoos. They didn't react to my magic until after you lit them up."
He snarls and shoves her back. Startled, she stumbles against the bed and lands seated, staring up as he looms over her. "You caused this," he growls, gripping the front of her robe and giving her a brisk shake. "You use your magic too often and too carelessly. You do not care about the consequences. You do not bother to control yourself, to control your behavior or your attitude or your magic. You burn your neighbors gardens and set gangs on fire in the middle of the street and you expect that this will never cause any problems. And now you have done something to me to bring back my memories and this is too much!" As his voice rises to a shout he shakes her harder and harder, until a loud rip silences him and he steps back with a large chunk of the front of her robe in his hand.
Before she can cross her arms to hide her breasts, his hands shoot out to grab her wrists, pinning them to her sides on the bed. "What, do you plan to tie me up so you can have me without me ever being able to touch you?" she sneers, tipping her face nearer to his. It's not difficult, considering that he's standing so close to hold her hands down.
Fenris' breath hitches audibly and he stares at her a second, eyes traveling down her body, before he lunges forward, kissing her and tackling her to her back. Hawke gasps when he straddles her hips, feeling his hardness press against her belly as his knees pin her wrists where his hands were. He breaks the kiss and stares down at her as he unties her sash. The frigid metal of his gauntlets brushes up her stomach and back down as he runs the back of his knuckles from her nipples to her hips. Heat gathers in her stomach as he takes her hands, so gentle and careful as he winds the sash around her wrists and binds them together, his eyes never leaving hers. She could break through the delicate sash a thousand ways, with a single thought, but she doesn't resist him. He lifts her bound hands over her head and leans down to trace her collarbone with his mouth, one of his metallic hands gripping her hips to hold them steady.
"Not a bad idea, mage," he murmurs in her ear, and his teeth dig into the flesh of her earlobe. She cries out and then catches her breath when she feels the pointed tip of his gauntlet running a slow track up the inside of her thigh. The thought of pain doesn't frighten her, but she does not move because she doesn't want to cause it to herself. He proves trustworthy, the pointed metal never nicking even her sensitive flesh when he brushes it against slick heat. Then he swears and tears the gauntlet off with his teeth, tossing it behind him with her ruined robe and pressing his bare palm to her cheek.
She feels the thrum of energy, that merciless buzz of his proximity. Hawke knows this feeling is unique to them, that none of the other mages in their group ever feel actual electricity in his presence, though they can perceive the lyrium. But she keeps her magic inside, controlled, bound like her wrists are as he tests his thumb against her lips and his fingertips over her neck and breasts. Fenris shifts her closer to the bedpost and ties the end of the sash there so her hands are trapped above her head as he kisses her face and neck and chest, his bare fingers pressing inside of her as if to test the sensation. Both of their eyes shiver closed and when she arches he pushes her down again roughly, holding her with the gauntleted hand. The cold metal pinches the soft flesh of her breast toward his greedy mouth and she whimpers as his tongue flicks across her nipple just as his thumb traces moisture up to the tingling core of nerves above her folds.
He growls and pulls back suddenly, as if reacting to her reaction, and she cranes her neck to look at him as he shifts away from her. With shaking hands he unbuckles his belt and draws his length free, the fingers of his bare hand stroking over himself as he shifts close again. The head presses against her entrance and halts, and she feels his knuckles brush against her tender skin with each stroke of his hand, all of them slow to the point of agony. He hovers over her, holding his weight and armor away from her bare skin with the gauntleted forearm beside her head. His lips brush hers when he speaks, a low, lusty growl.
"Beg me," he growls. "Beg for me." Now his thumb brushes along the swelling bud of nerves each time his hand moves over his hardness and she whimpers against her will, wrapping her legs around his waist.
"Fenris," she whispers, trying to catch his mouth with hers. He kisses her, a rough, possessive kiss like he gave her after the ball, and she moans into his mouth.
But he draws back and stares at her again. "Beg for me, mage," he hisses, sliding just the very tip of himself inside of her. His expression look strained and she holds in a moan that is part arousal, part frustration, and part stubborn. If she begs him, what happens afterward? He'll know he has power over her mind as well as her body, and he'll never let her forget it, either.
"Just bloody do it," she snaps, arching her hips toward him in an effort to slide herself over his teasing cock.
But he pulls back, maintaining the same position and smirking at her. "You have to beg me," he growls, husky and low, his thumb brushing against that nub more frequently.
Maker damn him. Damn his lips and hands and voice, the tense muscles of his body and the lyrium threaded throughout. Damn his brilliant mind and the throb of his hard length and the embittered hatred that led him to her and the blighted fear that keeps him away, that's stealing him from her all over again. Hawke whimpers again and shuts her eyes against his face, against the consuming green eyes. "Please, Fenris," she whispers. "Please. I want you."
"And?" he asks, his thumb remaining against the burning nerves, circling it as she tries to control her breathing.
"Please! I need you," she begs. "Please, just bloody do it." Then his hand shifts to hold her hips as his snap to meet them, filling her in a single thrust. She gasps and struggles against the sash holding her, wanting to grip his shoulders in her arms, and hears him chuckle as his mouth teases hers. His tongue battles hers, tasting every moan and whimper as he hauls her hips off the bed and drives into her at a ruthless pace. Helpless, all she can do is gasp and moan and continue bloody begging him, without shame or anxiety because with every thrust he convinces her it was the right decision to submit to him. His mouth leaves hers and his lips move everywhere, returning to kiss her often until at last his hips spasm against hers and she feels the lyrium light up in the bare hand clutching her breast. The flare and his seizing hips and the warm spill of his seed in her all gather to push her over the edge and she screams his name into his mouth as her body clenches around him.
He lies over her for a minute, catching his breath against her ear. His lips press against her neck and her ear and then skim over her cheek to press against hers. She sighs, her naked chest heaving against the cool metal of his armored chest-plate, feeling his bare hand close around her waist. But he pulls back, his expression sad.
"I am sorry, Hawke," he whispers. He reaches up over her head, lips pressing tiny kisses like drops of rain over her face as he unties her hands. He sits back on his heels, still holding the sash, and she just lies there staring at him as he adjusts his clothes and pulls on his gauntlet. His eyes meet hers as he takes the red sash that bound her wrists to the bedpost and winds it around his left wrist, tying it off like a lady's favor to her knight.
She turns away when he walks out and shuts her eyes when the door clicks shut behind him. It takes her another hour to get out of bed and wander downstairs in search of coffee and some breakfast. Depressed as she may be, she can't deny that their exertions worked up an appetite.
"Oh, darling, did your friend leave already?" asks her mother. "Have you brought down the breakfast dishes?"
"Breakfast dishes?" she asks flatly.
"Yes, I gave him a tray of breakfast when he came downstairs. I thought perhaps you two planned to remain upstairs a while longer," Leandra winks at her.
Hawke shakes her head and walks to the front door, opening it to see the tray with the dishes stacked on it, all cleaned of crumbs. "I think he didn't really get the message, Mother," she sighs ironically. She runs a hand through her mussed hair. "Is there any food left over?"
Her mother gives her a sympathetic, sad look. "I'll cook you some," she says, putting an arm around Hawke's shoulders and hugging her as she leads her to the kitchen.
Fenris dodges back at the blast of magical energy that waves out from the blood mage, but Hawke rushes forward to meet it, both hands clutching her staff. He sees the reddish air slam into an invisible barrier around her, splashing up and away like a wave crashing into a rock. Skeletons rise from the ground and he whirls to meet them with his blade, slashing and scything through foes, his feet dancing through the steps of battle as second nature. He dodges their blades and the plumes of flame raining down from the ceiling, his markings igniting as he slams his fists through shades and demons.
The blood mage, Quentin, puts up a terrible fight, but he sees Hawke at the center of everything, her staff biting through the air, her eyes hard and fearless and dangerous. The very ground shakes with the force of her spells, as enemies are encased in rock, fried by lightning, burned, frozen, or simply flung to the ground in broken heaps of bone and metal. He keeps a few steps ahead of her, slicing apart any enemies who get too near her as she lifts a hand and the blood mage's barrier breaks open. A rock slams him in the chest, bowling him over, followed by a bolt of lightning and a fireball and finally, Hawke freezes him with a snarled word. She storms through the bodies and the still-fighting monsters and Fenris is forced to turn away to deal with these remaining foes as the madman's eyes dart in his ice-encased face.
"Look at me," Hawke says, her voice low and calm to the point of being eerie. Lightning snaps in her palms and coils around her forearms, and a skeleton with a shield smacks him in the chest when he glances at her.
"Venhedis," he mutters, stumbling back a step and then leaping into the air to slam his sword down the skull and through the rest of the bones. A crossbow bolt thunks into the last skeleton's eye and Fenris whirls in time to see Hawke's mother staggering toward her. He tries not to listen to their last words, to Hawke insisting there has to be a way to save her and he looks away from Leandra whispering goodbye and touching a strangely longish hand to her daughter's face.
Where that Quentin fellow stood there is a large smear of blood and gore mixed with chunks of ice and he does not know just how she killed him, but he knows it was an absolute obliteration. He can't tell if she used blood magic or not, because the whole cavern reeks of it, and the dead mage reeks worst of all. If anything would push her over the edge, wouldn't it be the death of her beloved mother, the loss of the last of her family? Then again, he watched her freeze a slaver and then crush him with pure telekinetic force just a few months ago in Hadriana's lair, and it left a similar smear.
Aveline and Varric gather close around her, helping Hawke to her feet as he simply stands there. He's in shock as he watches them usher her out, following behind with numb steps. When they finally get free of that reeking cellar, she shoves both of them off her. Fenris hangs back as the guard and the dwarf try to touch her again and she whirls to face them, her eyes crackling with light that moves into her hair and electrifies it. He sees the lightning in her hands her palms curved as if to hold it in place as she takes a seething breath.
"Don't touch me," she hisses, and she walks off. He sees her hands close around the lightning with a hiss and pop.
Varric takes a step after her and Fenris rushes up, grabbing his broad shoulder to stop him. The dwarf looks up with tears in his eyes and says, "I need a drink, Elf." He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his leather duster jacket when Fenris releases his shoulder, getting tears and snot on the fine stitching.
He watches the dwarf with a neutral expression and nods, but he keeps looking at the snot on the jacket's cuff. Varric always complains about not wanting to get dirty. Does he care less for her than the others?
"I had better go make a report of this," Aveline says, her jaw taking on a determined set in spite of the glitter in her eyes. She walks off.
Before he can take Varric to the Hanged Man, the abomination appears from the shadows, his gaunt face and suspicious eyes tilting from the guard's retreating form to the two of them. "What's going on?" he asks, glaring at Fenris. "What have you done to Hawke?"
"A mage murdered her mother," he hisses at the abomination. "A blood mage, an abomination. Just like you."
"Like Hawke, you mean," accuses the blonde mage. "I don't see why she wastes her time with you."
"Hawke is not an abomination," Fenris counters.
Before he can say any more, Varric speaks up. "Can't the two of you ever shut up? Her mother is dead. Leandra is dead and the way he did it-" the dwarf stops and shudders and the tears fall fresh. "I need a drink. So either come with me or don't."
Fenris glares at the mage a final time before he says, "I will accompany you for a while." He falls in step beside his shorter companion and a moment later the abomination joins them on Varric's other side so they flank him. The three of them walk out of Darktown's thick stench and up into the evening clouds of Lowtown. The mage disappears to gather up the Dalish blood mage, so the two of them are left in silence as they walk toward the Hanged Man.
"Do you love her, Elf?" asks Varric into the night. When Fenris looks at him he simply stares ahead at the stars, not with any agenda to glean information but rather in an effort to fill the recent memories the quiet provokes.
He doesn't answer, staring ahead like his dwarf friend. After a long moment of hesitation he says, "I do not know."
Varric turns sorrowful eyes toward him and says, "If you love her, you'll go to her tonight. You'll go back to her again and again, as many times as it takes before you don't leave when you go back." He turns his gaze back toward the stars, just visible through the smoke of the torches. "When you love someone and you can go back to them, you should. As often as you can. And you should always be there when they need you."
"I... see," Fenris says after a moment, when he's sure the dwarf's speech isn't going to continue. He lowers his gaze and runs a hand through his hair. "She was always feeding me. Hawke's mother, I mean. Every time I came over there she said even elves weren't supposed to be so skinny and she'd hand me a plate of food."
"Even the morning you left?" Varric chuckles, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand again.
"Especially the morning I left," he says, unable to hide the smirk. He gestures with his hands in an effort to distract the dwarf from his sad staring, and in some distant corner of his mind he is surprised and amused at this reversal of their roles. "A great big plate of bacon and eggs, with toast and coffee and pastries. And she said to me, 'It sounds like you need to eat a lot after last night.' So I ate it all and found out later that it was supposed to be breakfast for both me and Hawke."
"Bullshit!" the dwarf laughs, and Fenris is relieved he doesn't have to make up stories any longer, although the part about the breakfast was true and everyone knew it. "She didn't really say that."
"I swear on my life, Dwarf," he intones seriously, and then he thinks of that morning, of the sad smile he saw on Leandra's face every time he came by afterward. The last time he saw her, he carried Hawke and her sprained ankle all the way from the Docks to Hightown and Leandra forced him to stay for dinner. He'd been too distracted by Hawke, who kept cracking jokes about the thieves who knocked her around in an effort to ease her mother's worries. Suddenly his head aches as he realizes how much she cared for her mother, how much time and energy she put in to taking care of her and keeping her safe. And all of it destroyed by the delivery of white lilies.
"You know, I just saw her this morning," Varric says, pausing as they reach the Hanged Man. "I went over for breakfast, to go over Hawke's accounts with her and all." This, he knows, is code for 'checking up on all of their illegal businesses that serve as fronts for the treasure they earned in the Deep Roads so they don't have to pay taxes to the Viscount's office.'
Fenris sighs. "She was a good woman," he says. He glances up at the sign with the hanged dummy above the door. "I need to go, Varric," he says. He glances down at his toes against the dirty Lowtown street. "I need to..."
The dwarf nods. "I know, Broody. We'll see you guys tomorrow," he says, pushing open the door to the Hanged Man.
Fenris watches him disappear into the light and noise of the tavern and then turns to jog away through the dark streets, careful to avoid the gang hangouts as he makes his way to the Amell Estate. He waits in the courtyard for a while, listening to the sound of her uncle's voice through the walls. Then he hears some shouting and then he sees Gamlen leave. He walks around to the front of her house and knocks on the great door. The dwarven manservant opens it and looks at him for a moment before motioning him inside.
"She's upstairs in her room, messere," Bodahn says, and then he adds, "Be careful."
Beside him, his simple son says, "Enchantment."
Fenris acknowledges him with a nod before walking up toward Hawke's bedroom. He sees the purplish light flickering under her door and when he walks in she stands beside her bed, crackling electricity dancing through the room and making objects jump and jingle on her shelves. Waves of lightning buzz harmlessly through him, making his skin tingle as he steps inside and shuts the door behind him.
"There are no words for times like this," he says quietly, and she whirls to face him, crackling with light. He sees that it trails through objects, that it moves without sound, not burning or tearing, just light blazing through things and making them shiver.
Her eyes crackle with electricity and the light pulls inward until it's focused around her body in waves of electricity that snap and hiss over her skin. "Well what else is there? How about some mindless destruction?" she asks, her usual wit laced with painful bitterness. He jerks back as if she'd shot him with real lightning to hear her talk like that. Even fighting, even angry, she retains some measure of humor. "You can't talk to me, you can't touch me, what can you do, Fenris? Aside from chop things up and leave."
His breath hisses between his teeth and he stares at her. The lightning crackles and he knows how it feels, how the pleasurable tremors will ignite his tattoos against his will and leave him desperate for her. Terrified, he steps forward anyway, closing his arms around her. Raw energy sizzles along his nerves and his markings alight, just as expected, but beneath the sudden arousal he can feel a certain agony that doesn't hurt him physically. It feels more like a gaping empty void of ragged emotions. She slumps against his chest and he holds onto her, his arms around her waist and hands stroking her back as she sobs against his armor.
"I'm sorry," he whispers into her hair, his lips drawing sparks of electricity against her temples and eyelids and cheeks. She fizzles and flares, the lightning blazing across their skins and weaving around both of them, bathing the darkened room in the same strange purple and blue light of their night together. Fenris trembles, able to feel the force of her sorrow and the power of her magic. It takes strength beyond imagining to make such a primal force of nature harmless, power that he cannot fathom. But no Magsiter would weep for the death of a loved one because no Magister could ever love.
He holds onto her until the lightning wears her out, though it feels like forever before she sags limp in his arms so he can scoop her up and carry her into the bed. As she always does when she overuses her magic, she stares through half-conscious lids, halfway between drunken and childlike. Hawke grasps his hand, weaving her fingers through the cold metal even as he feels it drag on her skin to draw blood. She doesn't seem to register the pain though when he glances down he can see blood draining in small rivulets between her knuckles. "Don't leave me tonight," she mumbles. "Not tonight."
He draws his hand away and unwinds her sash from his gauntlet, replacing it once he's removed the metal armor. He feels her eyes on him as he removes pieces of his armor and stacks them beside her bed, and she rolls over to face him when he climbs up beside her in his tunic. When he gathers her in his arms she feels limp, her limbs flopping against him without intent. She starts to drift off and gasps, flaring back to life with the lightning, her eyes opening.
Fearless, Fenris holds onto her, clinging to her through the night as she falls into fitful sleep, kicking and thrashing and crackling with electricity in between dreams.
A/N: This is my favorite use of the red band yet.
