Thank you for your reviews, my pretties. This one's for you.
Warnings: SMUT, death, angst, language, violence, post-Leandra Hawke breakdown
Fenris hates himself as he climbs over the roof and through Hawke's window, cursing the replaying image in his mind of the furious fire in her narrowed eyes and the vicious hitch in her voice as she sneered at Hadriana's cooling corpse. He hates himself as he paces the room, back and forth in front of her fireplace as he waits for her because he is waiting for her as a slave waits, more enslaved by her than any Magister could hope to have him, and of his own free will. He hates how his feet falter at the whiff of her skin as she enters, the scent of sweat and blood still lingering over that faint odor of night-blooming orchids that seemed to permeate her.
"Where the hell have you been?" she snaps, kicking the door shut behind her and tossing the pile of her weapons and armor into the corner. "I've scoured the bloody city looking for you."
He turns to her and glares. "This is your fault," he snarls, pointing at her. He feels his eyes narrow and thrills to see her eyes narrow in response. "I think of you constantly. You are like the Magisters, just as demanding and far more cruel. Hadriana denied me meals and hounded my sleep but you- I deny my own food and am unable to sleep because of you."
"How is it my fault that you're not eating and sleeping?" she demands. She steps closer, but not close enough to touch. He's keenly aware of the red robe she wears, of the silken material, and how similar it must feel to the dress she wore when he kissed her weeks ago.
"Venhedis," he growls, attempting to step around her before that vicious heat of her can consume him. "This is not why I came."
"So why did you come?" Hawke's hand flashes out and grips his arm, her thumb tracing the arch of one of the swirls of lyrium in his flesh. The touch is too familiar, too enticing to ignore. When her hand wraps around his arm Fenris feels the heated buzz of liquid lyrium lighting under his skin. He's furious at her for for ensnaring him, furious that her touch rouses every emotion in his limited spectrum and furious because until this moment the blaze of his tattoos has always seared agony into him and now the pain is different and aching and centered around his want for her. When he shoves her against the wall she shoves him back, tossing her head back and clenching her fists as if preparing for a fight. He lunges toward her and grabs her waist with one hand, the back of her head with the other, fingers digging into her hair.
Startled at the gesture, he hesitates and stares with wide eyes as she leans back against his hold with a bewildered expression. Her hands press against his chest but don't push him away. She seems as frozen as he does for a long moment as both struggle for some word or action. Fenris doesn't know what he expects, doesn't even dare to hope, his muscles tensed in case of the worst.
"What are you doing?" she asks in a sharp voice. Still, she doesn't struggle or pull out of his hold, her hands moving to fist around the oiled leather covering his shoulders and her chin tilting up to put their faces closer.
"What do you think?" he murmurs, staring at her face as his hand shifts and the palm of his gauntlet brushes against her cheek. He closes the last inch between them slowly, giving her time to withdraw even as he revels in her entrapment, her tension as he leans toward her mouth. Her eyes remain steady on his throughout, her body unflinching, but he can feel the quivering anticipation of her muscles through the silk of her robe. She doesn't breathe and neither does he, watching her in that last second before his lips can touch hers, sinking into her eyes.
He kisses her, pulling her body against his as her arms reach around his neck to grip him in return. The fierce yet gentle way she grasps him, the softness of her mouth as it grows pliant under his, all of it seems such a contrast from that vicious woman he obsesses over. And that he can drink in such a moment, experience this vulnerable facet of her and explore what others do not know exists makes him want her more.
His hand slides under her hip until his gauntlet snags in the fabric covering her rear and he presses his fingers against the soft flesh, lifting her off her feet without pulling his mouth away from hers. Her legs wrap around his waist, her hips against his, her tongue brushing against his with growing hunger. Fenris turns toward the bed and presses her down against the coverlet, growling into the kiss when her legs tighten around him as her back compresses the thick down of her blankets. Deft fingers dance over the buckles and harnesses and she strips him to the skin within seconds, her mouth finding other bare skin when the removal of clothing forces them to break their endless kiss. Each time she pulls such an obstacle free (his chest piece, his tunic) he dives back to her lips, pulling her mouth away from his wrist or stomach to reclaim it.
It is not perfect by any means. He doesn't lean back far enough, loath to lose the feel of her against him, and she bumps his nose with his chest piece. His gauntlet tears the fabric of her robe and when he tries to apologize she tosses the gauntlet aside with a chunk of red silk still attached and laughs against his lips. A discarded piece of armor clanks against something, but neither of them looks up to see what damage it may have caused.
Their coupling is like nothing he ever imagined, nothing he could have pictured her or himself capable of having. He kisses her face and neck as he presses inside of her, bare hands brushing over her skin as if in a dream. Her lips tremble against his ear, murmuring his name, and they cling to one another in the sheets. As difficult as it is not to consume her he tries to keep a slow pace, but she urges him to let loose, to devour her with his mouth and hands and body, and soon they gasp into each other's mouths. The first shivers within her as she builds up send him to a frenzy and she moans into their kiss. Their backs arch, pressing their chests together at the same moment, eyes clenched shut against the brilliant lyrium flare and the force of their shared climax.
The images shatter and strike at him like walls of breaking glass, snatches of-red haired sister girl, sunlit courtyard, barking dogs-weighty sword, stumbling steps-kind eyes, mother, warmth smelling of soap and herbs-sweat leaking from dark pieces of hair before he flips them from his eyes and strikes at his opponent.
Her serious eyes meet his a moment later and he draws her close again, his desire still too strong to pull away. Again and again he tests himself with her body, drowsing with her weight on his chest and waking when his loins stir to life. Each time the memories come flooding in, and he feels he might be able to cling to them, but as that last blazing moment fades away the images and sounds and smells scatter out of his reach. He loses count of how many times he reaches for her before he's spent hour later. Much as he wants to sleep, holding her back to his chest with an arm around her waist feeling warm and sated, he cannot. He stares at the early rays of dawn through her window and tries to remember, but he can't.
After long hours of staring, holding onto her, he gets up and searches for his clothes, dressing as he gathers bits and pieces. He doesn't feel any hate for her anymore, just guilt and sorrow. He's a coward, he knows, and he only hates himself as he discovers that his pants- with the belt attached- have torn the small Amell crest over her desk off the wall and that was the crash they heard. He sets it down on her desk and stares as he pulls his clothes and then his armor on, saving his gauntlets for last. The scrap of red silk still clings in the sharp fingertips of his right hand one and after a moment he snatches up both the crest and the silk, retreating to sit in front of her fireplace and stoke the blaze there. He alternates between turning the crest over and over in his hands and brushing the silk against his lips as if it's her skin. Eventually he fastens the crest to his belt and focuses on that red scrap of her robe. The sun creeps higher in her windows and falls across her bed at noontime and he's still sitting there with the silk when she stirs and twists to check the space beside her.
When she realizes it's empty she sits up and stares at him, eyes narrowed on the piece of her robe in his armored hands. "What are you doing?" she asks.
He shakes his head, gathering his voice. "This was a mistake," he says, managing not to whisper the words. His chest feels full of steel, heavy and cold as he presses onward. "It's too much. Too soon. I... I can't." Fenris tries to stare at her, to meet the brilliance of her gaze and see the stir of viciousness returning as her lips press into a line and she pulls her smallclothes on, retrieving them from Maker-knows-where among the tangled sheets.
"Was it that bad? Was that why you kept at me all night?" she asks, strapping that fabric band around her breasts to hide them from his sight. He can still see the lean planes of her hard stomach, the definition of every muscle apparent from her acrobatic fighting style.
Although he promised himself he wouldn't touch her he steps forward then, pulling her against him and kissing her again. His hands cup her face and tangle in her hair as she makes a noise of shock or protest against his mouth. He doesn't care because she relaxes into his embrace and returns his kiss, her lips parting at his insistence so he can memorize her again with his lips and teeth and tongue. She shivers when one of his hands trails down her back and grips her waist, the metal scraping gently across her bare skin and holding her in place. With a growl, he pulls back before he can return to her bed and the torture of having his memories come and go in an instant.
Both of them breathe hard as he whirls away, incapable of looking at her face. "I can't do this," he says.
"Was it the lyrium?" Hawke asks, an unexpected flat note to her voice without any pity or hatred, just rational comprehension.
Fenris looks at her over his shoulder through the pale edges of his hair and for a moment sees dark hair instead, lanky and damp with sweat. He holds in a shudder. "No. It's... the memories. They returned while we were-" he gestures at the bed, unable to finish the thought as he eyes narrow. He hangs his head, expecting that at any moment the dam will break and she will lunge and fight him and he won't even try to defend himself. He deserves for her to beat him with her fists and feet, to endure any pains she wants to inflict on him.
"Did you want to try another six or seven times to be sure?" she asks in a sarcastic tone. His head snaps up to look at her mussed hair and bruised lips and crossed arms pressing her breasts together unintentionally. He almost says yes, but then he realizes how little she cares for his predicament at this moment and remembers his fury for her.
"Clearly you do not know or care how upsetting this is for me, to remember what I have lost and then to have it snatched away from me in the next moment," he snarls, stalking forward and twisting her hair in one hand, not realizing that he clutches the silk there still and the red tangles into her hair like a ribbon. For a moment the ribbon looks green and her hair a vibrant red, her face elven and young and frightened, and then Hawke returns, a ferocious woman with her neck arched proudly and her eyes flashing with fury.
Need returns to him like a monsoon crashing through the jungle and this time when he kisses her it is the fierce, vicious kiss they shared in his house, the sort of brutal, frenzied touch that he would have expected in their lovemaking. When he shoves her down against the bed she snarls and bites his ear, making him shudder. His teeth sink into her neck and she moans as his gauntlet tears her breastband and the leather palm scrapes across her nipple. She twists them over so she straddles his hips and pulls his straining hardness from his pants, sliding down his length in one swift thrust that arches both backs and tears shouts from both throats. Fenris sits up against her, metal-clad arms around her back leaving deep scratches as he clings to her, his mouth trailing bites and heat over her neck and chest as she flexes her hips with his. Her teeth cling to his neck, her tongue against the skin caught there and her hands grip his hair as heat and moisture clench around him in waves and he falls with her into the Void.
The memories surge with him and he bites her neck as well until his teeth puncture her skin and he tastes blood on his tongue.
They lean back, gulping for air as their eyes meet and as he feels his gaze sadden and soften, he sees hers harden. He shakes his head, lips sticky with her blood, and withdraws when his body betrays him, hardening and begging for more while still inside of hers. For a second he stares at the damage he's done, at the torn teethmarks on the left side of her neck leaking dual trickles of blood to run over her bruised breasts.
"I can't," he whispers again, turning his head away from her as he stands from the bed, tucking himself back into his pants and trembling as he tries to put his clothes and armor together again.
"Then go," she answers, and her voice is not even deadly. Just quiet, shaken. He stares at her and she turns her head, eyes flashing too bright in the combined sunlight and firelight before her hair hangs in front of them. As he shifts toward her she looks up and he sees tears flooding the vicious depths of her gaze. Her lips draw into a line and she speaks through gritted teeth one insistent syllable: "Go."
His shoulders slump and Fenris wants to reach out to her again but he can't, so he reaches down to retrieve that piece of cloth from where he dropped it on the floor at her feet. He looks up at her as he crouches in front of her knees, shivering as he smells the musk of her, still damp and so near. But he stands when her stare tightens to a scowl and her arms move to cover her breasts just as her legs cross to hide the curls between her legs from him. He walks from her room, past the sharp gasp of her mother and the awkward greeting of the dwarven manservant, ignoring their stares as he exits through her front door.
When they leave Quentin's lair in the sewers, Hawke runs home at top speed, not hesitating as Aveline and Anders both cry out for her to wait. The scent of blood and decay clings to her clothes and skin and hair and she bursts through the doors of her Estate still covered in gore from the battle and from her dying patchwork of a mother. The room seems to swim as Bodahn and Orana rush toward her and she snarls for them to draw a bath.
"Make it scalding," she hisses, and both of them hurry off as she storms up to the ornamental bottles of spirits gifted by her friends over the years, tearing the cap off one and draining the bottle in a searing gulp. The scream of Bethany's death is a roar now, one she tries to drown without success. She flings the bottle against the wall just like Fenris did the first time she visited him, sending a spray of amber liquid and glass across the carpet. After a moment she screams and kicks the chair into pieces. Abruptly, as wood shatters in splinters around her armored shins, she drops to her knees and grips her head in her hands, shaking. But she can't hold it in. Her hands slide back to her daggers and she slams both into the carpet in front of her, dragging the blades through the expensive plush rugs Leandra wanted so badly, an exact replica of her childhood home. Eyes burning, she drops the blades to stare at her trembling hands and then, with another gritted scream, she flings the blades to score deep in the wooden mantle of the fireplace one at a time.
The moment the daggers leave her hands she hears a shuffle of footsteps on the carpet. Strong, metallic hands close around her shoulders and haul her upward. "Get up," his voice murmurs against her ear, and the shock of the physical pleasure it evokes makes her struggle, elbows and hands flailing as her feet kick. His arms wrap around her, hands gripping her wrists to hold her still.
Hawke tries to pull out of his grasp, but he holds her steady. She can't see. The world has become a blur of swimming lights and streaky colors, all of it red- the red of the Amell crest and the drapes and the carpet and the blood that covers her. Her ears ring and her throat feels raw and she might be screaming still as he hauls her wild, struggling form up the stairs. She continues to fight him as he strips her armor off and thrusts it at Orana.
"Burn it," he growls and she sees the delicate elf girl rush off with terror in her eyes, stumbling under the burden.
Fenris grabs her again, his hands leaving fresh, new bruises on her shoulders and legs to mingle with the fading ones from their night together and tosses her into burning water, still in her shirt and smallclothes. She tries to escape the water but he pushes her down in it, his clawed gauntlets ripping through her remaining clothes so the fabric swirls in the water like hunks of bleeding, rotten flesh. Her stomach turns and she lunges to vomit over the side of the tub, retching and gagging as he combs her soggy hair away from her forehead with cold metal hands.
When her stomach is empty she tries to break free of him again, to get out of the tub though in her frenzy she has no idea where she means to go. Metal clatters on the floor a few feet away, echoing on the tiles of the bathing chamber, and out of the corner of her eye she sees his other gauntlet go flying in the same direction as the first. His hands feel warm in comparison to the gloves and she struggles against this as well, hating his heat and presence in equal measure. She screams again, ragged and bleeding, and a second later water sloshes into her face and his limbs weigh against hers in the tub. He pins her to the side, holding both her hands in one of his. Droplets bead over the lyrium swirls on his bare chest and she glimpses the vivid green and white of his eyes and hair as he scrubs blood away from her shoulders and arms with a washrag.
He isn't gentle, attacking each spot of blood with the same viciousness he attacked those corpses with, knees holding her hips down until her struggles weaken when he reaches her collarbone. The cloth moves to her face, scrubbing stains from her cheeks as his mouth whispers against her ear in his strange Tevinter language. Although she can't understand the words, his tone is at once fierce and tender, and in some coherent part of her brain she recognizes that he's making promises to her and uttering his sorrow for her loss.
The water splashes as she kicks her legs against this and he shifts off her to cradle her body against his chest, strong arms gripping her shoulders with enough force to crack the bones. She weeps, incoherent, sometimes tearing at his skin with her fingernails and other times pounding her fist against his chest. He clings to her through it all, wrapping them in towels without letting go of her when the water cools. The world spins again as he lifts her and settles when her bed fluffs up around them. Still tangled in towels and damp, she sobs and screams against his chest as he holds her steady against the frantic beat of his heart, unable to appreciate the significance of his bare skin against hers. His mouth presses to her brow and her cheeks, skimming away from her lips to her ear and the soothing rumble of his nonsense language fills her ears until she falls asleep.
When she wakes up breathing slowly around the heavy ache of loss in her chest, he's gone.