The following months they fell back into their old daily rhythm. Damian adjusted the glyphs of paralysis around the hut so they would work on anyone who touched them, friend or foe. Should anything similar happen again, Fenris would no longer be able to get away. For a while he considered taking some of Fenris' blood as additional precaution but Damian found himself unable to hurt him in such a way. He could not cut the man he loved and make him bleed.
Making a similar decision for himself was less easy. Despite the successful use of his natural magical abilities to get Fenris out of the Minanter River, he kept feeling the pull of blood magic. Often, after a rough day and when he struggled with the unaddressed issue of that brief moment in which Fenris had shown a sign of preserved reading skill, Damian sat with his old knife in hand, the sharp edge pressed against his left arm. A little more pressure and the skin would split, blood would well up and trickle down. He came close, always came close, but the sight of the red marks - slowly becoming lighter and fading into scars - on his arm and hand always stopped him. They formed a reminder, a warning of the time his mind had shattered into pieces of madness and he had sunk to a level of pitiable existence he never wished to revisit. He would be lost if he did. Fenris deserved better than that. So Damian resisted, and hoped that in time it would become easier.
He stayed true to his word and no longer searched for hints that Fenris remembered something. Instead of using the purchased books for reading lessons, Damian read them to the elf. They spent most winter evenings in front of the hearth, a book in Hawke's hands. He let Fenris look at the pages if the elf showed interest but never actively tried to encourage him to do so. Damian read everything he had bought: children's stories, history, old legends, recipes from a cook book, the Chant of Light and even a few books in the Nevarran language he could make no sense of at all and undoubtedly butchered with his Fereldan accent. Sometimes he believed he saw Fenris mouth the words with him, face set in concentration, but Damian never remarked on it. Afterwards he would sit with his knife and wonder whether there was some kind of magic which could repair the damage to Fenris' mind. The demons whispering to him in his dreams said as much, but even if blood magic's mind control could bring Fenris close to his old state, Damian did not know how to achieve this and feared he would end up doing more harm than good. Blood and wounds could not heal. They were healed. Damian forced himself to leave the scars alone.
He always did his best to be patient with Fenris, carefully watching for signs he was upsetting the elf and backing down if he did. Fenris' random ideas about his master's wishes and how he was meant to serve were gently countered, the message he was not a slave and Damian not his owner endlessly repeated. It was draining, even if Fenris responded well.
And one day it was Damian Hawke who snapped.
It was four months after Fenris had run away, a reading night like any other. They were sitting close to the hearth because it was cold everywhere else, Damian on the couch and Fenris on a pillow on the floor. Hawke had reached the end of the final chapter of the book they were currently reading - a collection of folk tales. Most were disturbing, such as 'Cautionary Tales for the Adventurous', but the last short story was more lighthearted. Risks were taken, evil threatened to triumph, but the hero ultimately managed to overcome every obstacle, struck the enemy down and saved the one he loved.
"-and they lived happily ever after." Damian did not close the book after having read the final sentence. Instead he stared ahead without seeing, feeling numb and hollow, too worn down to actually feel sadness. For a long time he had hoped for a content life with Fenris, their own happy ending. Sometimes he believed he had accepted it, that he could spent the rest of his life this way, but the stark contrast between reality and fantasy was difficult to ignore. This was not what he had imagined when he had done everything to save Fenris from dying.
A tickling sensation pulled Damian out of his lethargy. He blinked a few times, surprised by the unexpected caress. Fenris had snuck a hand under the leg of Hawke's trousers and stroked his calf with light, subtle fingers. It sent goose bumps over Damian's flesh. And something else, something worse.
A few heartbeats long he sat frozen, drawn into a memory of a similar situation. Then Damian leaned forward, grabbed Fenris' arm and jerked it away from his leg. Because Fenris had been looking down he did not see Damian's reaction until it was too late. "Don't ever touch me," he hissed. "I don't want you. Don't you dare try this again."
Fenris flinched in Damian's forceful grip. He tried to wrestle free but Hawke did not let go, his fingers digging into Fenris' arm.
"Do you hear me, Fenris? Do you understand?" He knew he was holding on too tightly, that he was hurting the elf. The lock on his magic cracked, ice dancing on his hands. He could feel the skin under his fingertips cool.
"Y... yes."
Immediately Damian relaxed his hand. Frightened by his own outburst he stood up, threw the book which had still been in his lap into the hearth and stormed into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him. He sat back down on the edge of the bed and put his face in his hands.
This should not have happened. His reaction had been far too vehement, far too forceful. Especially since Fenris was not the reason for his anger. It had been his own weakness that was cause for frustration. The similarity with the blond slave whose name he could no longer even remember was too strong to ignore. The fingers on his leg, slowly travelling up, then joined by mouth and tongue... He had been so close to giving in then and now he had felt it again, the want, a spark of arousal. It had been brief, fleeting, squashed by revulsion, but it had been there and that frightened him. Was this what he had to look forward to the rest of his existence? A struggle against his own perverted desires? How would he endure?
He heard the door slowly being opened. Damian did not look up. "Go away, Fenris. Just let me be."
He did not want to hear Fenris beg for forgiveness. He could not bear it right now.
"Hawke?"
Damian stiffened. Of course. His outburst must have triggered a switch in Fenris as well. He prepared himself for the curses, for being called a monster. Deserved, but no less painful. Fenris calling him by his last name first was uncommon, but today he had had a relatively good day - up until the moment he had employed a seduction technique - and not reverted back to the title of "master" as quickly as usual. Damian remained silent and waited for the inevitable.
"Damian?"
That could not have stuck. Damian held still, trying to process what he had just heard and what it meant. Then his head snapped up so fast it hurt his neck. "F... Fenris?"
Fenris closed the door and took two hesitant steps into the small bedroom. "Where are we? This... isn't Tevinter, is it? I don't remember how..." he trailed off, apparently lost in the holes in his memory, and looked at Hawke expectantly, waiting for clarification.
Damian swallowed. His mind refused to accept what he was hearing and kept repeating it was impossible. Fenris was gone. He had been for months. And yet... the use of his first name, the caution in Fenris' posture, the sound of his voice... it was all familiar, all as he remembered. It was Fenris.
"We're... we're in Nevarra," Damian croaked eventually. "Not far from a village I don't even know the name of. We left Minrathous more than six months ago."
Fenris came closer. It was obvious he was just as confused as Damian. "The magisters simply allowed us to leave?"
"Hardly." Damian laughed nervously. "You saved me from being executed and we had to run for our lives to get out of the city. We had a mage and slave rebellion as cover, which was very helpful."
Fenris sat down next to him, his face perfectly matching the word 'perplexed'. "Why do I have no recollection of this? I remember dreams... you... putting a collar on me and locking me up... but I don't recall getting out again... or waking up." He stared at Damian, horrible realization dawning on him. "That... that was a dream, was it not?"
"I wish I could say yes to that," Damian replied softly. "But that really happened." He wanted to make Fenris understand, give his reasons, explain himself. His tongue tripped over the words. "It... it was the hardest thing I have ever done. You were so sick, Fenris. I watched you unravel and destroy our chances of finding a cure. I-I couldn't let that happen. You were dying and giving the magisters an excuse to make your end come even sooner. I did the only thing I could to protect you from yourself and the things the demons encouraged you to do."
"So you took away my freedom."
Damian wanted to say more, but he held it back. He could not begin to describe the look on Fenris' face. All he knew was it temporarily tied his tongue. "Yes."
"To appease the magisters." Fenris' voice sounded flat, as if he could not fully comprehend how gravely his trust had been betrayed.
"For you! I gave everything for you! I went through the Void and back for you, Fenris. Literally. I even sought out Danarius to find a way to fix the markings."
He saw Fenris' eyes widen. Through everything, the dementia, the confusion and a coma lasting months, the fear for his former master was still there, unaltered and ready to jump him at the suggestion the magister could still be alive. "Danarius? But isn't he..."
"Dead. Yes," Damian reassured him.
"Then how...?"
Oh, here we go. Damian's mouth went dry. "You don't remember?"
When Fenris shook his head Damian inhaled deeply. "To find Danarius I had to travel into the Fade and use a spell to pull his spirit from... wherever it was hanging around. And for that..." Another deep breath, then he pulled back his left sleeve to reveal his arm. "I had to use blood magic."
Fenris made a hissing sound of disgust upon seeing the mess of scars. For a while he just sat there, leaning over Hawke's arm and staring at the undeniable proof of what the mage had become.
"You were right, Fenris," Damian whispered. "You've been right all along. Every mage has a price. You... you were mine."
Fenris did not echo the accusation that kept haunting him. "You realize that you've damned yourself with this?" He sounded like he was in pain.
Damian chuckled mirthlessly. "In your eyes or those of the Maker? Either way I'm aware of it. Though I doubt the Maker would have wanted me near Him anyway. Turning to blood magic is probably the least condemnable thing I have done. At least I only brought harm to myself doing that."
"Has it... changed you?"
How could he deny this? Fenris had seen the truth long before Damian had abandoned his more optimistic beliefs about magic. If Fenris had been right about this, then why would he not have been right about Damian and what he had turned into as well? Even now he felt the darkness tug inside him, the call of blood magic in his veins.
"Monster."
"Yes." It was more a squeak than a spoken word.
Fenris shut his eyes. Perhaps it was due to the limited lighting in the room, but new shadows, deeper lines, appeared to claim his face. "How can you call blood magic your least condemnable act?" he eventually asked. "You cannot believe yourself above its corrupting influence."
"I don't. But I didn't need blood magic to... to lock you up. Or to hand the information we found to Claudius in exchange for his promise to use it to help you." When Fenris did not say anything in return, he added: "I destroyed the documents before we left. Feynriel is dead and Claudius likely is too, so with any luck the ritual is still a secret in Tevinter. And... and if it's any consolation, the product of that had his hand around my heart not much later, and he was a lot less gentle about it than you. "
"It's not," Fenris sighed. "So you're saying blood magic and... Danarius saved me?"
"No." He shook his head. "Sandal did. Varric, Merrill, Aveline and Donnic found him and brought him to Minrathous. I don't know what he did but it seems to have deactivated your markings."
Fenris' voice broke when he next spoke. "So... it was all for nothing? Going to the Imperium, everything that happened... while we simply could have gone to Orlais?"
"No, no, don't say that," he groaned, shaking his head more vehemently. "It can't all have been for nothing. We had to... I had to... It was our best chance. The Chantry is hunting me. What if we had gotten arrested while searching for Sandal? Varric got captured and interrogated when passing through Kirkwall. Knowing what I know now, I would still do the same. There's no way to tell what could have gone wrong if we had chosen differently. At least... at least now you're still alive."
"But what about Danarius? You said you searched for him in the Fade."
"I did." Damian hunched his shoulders and looked away. "He had no clue what was going on with the markings either. Not that he openly admitted it, but he let it slip." He drew a shaky breath, already knowing he should shut his mouth, that he would regret saying this, but he could not stay quiet about it, could not keep it in like Fenris had all this time. "You loved him, didn't you? Back then, when you didn't know any better. I-I know it's not the same as... as what we had, but till then I never realized... I never understood..."
"Vishante kaffas, Hawke!" Fenris leapt to his feet and strode to the end of the room, back turned to him.
The reaction should be warning enough but still Damian did not hold his tongue. He had to speak, just as Fenris had had to ask about Danarius. The specter of the magister haunted them both, though in different ways. "He loved you too, you know. In a horrible, twisted and messed up way, but he did. Even in death he wanted you back by his side."
Fenris spun around to face Damian. "Why are you telling me this? Am I supposed to buy whatever lies he told you? You know not what you speak of! Danarius was incapable of any form of affection." Anger and fear roughened his voice. "Blood magic, execution, rebellion... Why can't I remember any of this? What foul magic has done this to me?"
Damian, still seated on the edge of the bed, stared at Fenris with wide eyes. He knew he should lie about this, keep the truth with him so it would not destroy the elf with its weight. After everything he had fought for to get away from Danarius, only to have the markings destroy what he had gained over the years... Damian had to lie, had to come up with an excuse. That there were no gaps in his memory, he had only recently awoken from his slumber, Sandal had just left... But he could not. He could not look Fenris in the eye and lie about the past months.
"Not magic," he mumbled, almost hoping Fenris would not be able to hear him. "It's... it's lyrium poisoning. Your markings weren't just becoming unstable - they were falling apart and releasing lyrium into your body. It can cause amnesia, but also dementia. I'm... I'm sorry, Fenris, but you're suffering from severe dementia. You woke up six months ago and you've... you've been convinced you're a slave ever since and didn't remember anything about your escape. Or us. I've lost count of how many times I've tried to make you understand I'm not your master but you always forget soon after. This is the first lucid moment you've had in all this time."
He watched all the blood drain from Fenris' face until he looked ashen, as if he had drowned in the Minanter River after all. Never had Damian seen him so helpless, so crushed. It broke his heart and he immediately wished he had come up with a lie instead.
"You lie." Not an accusation, but a plea.
A quick nod. "Yes."
Fenris' shoulders slumped, his attempt to deny the truth failed. "You're not." Another, desperate silence, filled with pain absent of a name. Then the inevitable explosion, a last cry to smother the suffering. "Venhedis, Hawke! All you've done, and for what? So I can be your slave for the rest of my days?!"
"So you can live!"
"You should have let me die!"
That hurt too much to deflect. It struck right in the fear which had been festering for so long, ever since he had held his mother's mutilated corpse in his arms. "Don't you dare act like that was ever an option!"
"You sit there and tell me my mind is lost, but what of your own mind, Hawke? You bound me. You chained me and locked me up. You claim to have acted only in my best interest, but do not pretend this wasn't for yourself!" Fenris spat. "I never asked you to save me. I never asked you to turn to blood magic!"
"Alright, fine!" Damian screamed back. "I did it for myself. Because the very thought of losing you terrified me so much I couldn't... If you think I was going to bury you and stand over your grave with flowers in hand, you're out of your mind. I wasn't going to go through that again! I wasn't going to end up with just a pile of corpses to love."
Fenris' face turned milder, if only slightly. "You would have found someone else, Hawke," he said less loudly.
"No, I wouldn't." Damian tried to laugh to show how much this suggestion deserved to be mocked, but the noise he produced sounded more like sobbing.
"What would you have done if everything had failed then? What would you have done if Varric had not found Sandal?"
"I-I don't know." During moments like these, when he was forced to think back on the time he had lost all control, he could feel madness' fingers caress the back of his neck. A gentle threat, a reminder how close he had been and still was. One step back and he would end up in its embrace. Permanently. Remembering that period after he had discovered the lyrium poisoning made Damian feel cold all over. He had been reduced to something less than human, an irrational, repulsive state he could not comprehend. The endless cycle of cutting and casting, only interrupted by the most basic daily functions of eating and sleeping, had been a waking nightmare. The time between his confrontation with Danarius and the arrival of his old friends was even more difficult to recall. That state of pure helplessness, of having absolutely nothing left to live for... He did not want to stop and consider what he might have been capable of then, stripped of all hope and dignity.
"That is no answer."
Damian hung his head, his hair falling to the sides of his face as if to shield him from Fenris' questions. "Please. I... I don't want to think about that. Your imagination has never been lacking when it came to picturing what lost mages are capable of. I'm sure you'll have no trouble coming up with some suggestions yourself."
Silence fell while Fenris let the meaning of Damian's words sink in. When he spoke again his anger seemed to have escaped him. Only sorrow for both their fates remained. "You would have...?"
"I don't know." Damian turned his face away to hide even more from Fenris' gaze. "Maybe."
He listened to Fenris' breathing until suddenly one single, lonely word escaped along with one of the elf's breaths. "Why?"
The answer was so obvious, so inescapable, it did not need consideration. "Nothing can be worse than the thought of living without you."
Fenris flinched upon being confronted with his own words, spoken when he had pledged his love in what seemed like an age ago. Then he returned to the bed and sat back down next to Damian. "How do I know you're not just keeping me this way so I cannot leave?" he asked eventually. "How can I believe anything you say?"
Damian squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before answering in a small voice: "Do you really think so low of me? If I purposefully kept you in a state of dementia, why would I bother talking with you now? I won't waste this moment we've been given by lying to you. I swear I would have let you go if the markings hadn't damaged your mind. It... would have killed me, but I would have let you go." He did not turn his head to look at Fenris. Could not look at him. Instead he talked to his knees. "I will always take care of you, Fenris. I promise. I will never treat you as my slave or-or take advantage of you. I will spend the rest of my life making up to you what I did."
"What if I don't want you caring for me, Hawke? What if I wish to leave?"
"You can't. I'm sorry, but I won't allow you to go."
Fenris bristled next to him. "You just said-"
Damian mercilessly interrupted him. "I said I would have let you leave if your mind had been undamaged. You can't take care of yourself, Fenris."
"I feel fine!"
"Tell me how we got here and then try saying that again," Damian bit back, his own voice rising to the volume of Fenris'. "I'm not exaggerating. Like it or not, you can't be left on your own." After several deep breaths he felt more calm again. "You got away once," he told Fenris softly. "A few months ago. You hit me with a book and knocked me out. When I woke up you were gone. Eventually I found you again. There's a river not far from here and you had tried to cross it. Not by bridge, but by jumping from rock to rock. You had fallen in the water. If I had come later or not at all, you would have drowned. Can you even swim?"
Fenris needed some time to let that sink in. "But what is this then?" he asked. He sounded lost, small even. "Why do I suddenly remember if my mind is truly gone?"
"I don't know," Damian admitted. "For months you've shown no progress at all. Maybe this is just one brief lucid period... I've heard that older people whose mind has frayed into dementia sometimes experience this. A moment of clarity, in which they revert back to their old selves. Or..."
"Or?"
He glanced at Fenris before quickly casting his eyes down again. "I-I don't want to give you - or myself - false hope, b... but maybe your mind is recovering from the lyrium poisoning after all. Its effects on your body weren't permanent, and maybe it just takes longer for the dementia to disappear. It seems that you can still read, even if you don't appear to realize it. You panicked when I asked you to try and I've left it alone since then. But maybe this is a sign you're finally recovering."
"Is there truly no way to heal it?"
Damian bowed his head. "No. I'm sorry. I tried to heal the lyrium poisoning when I first noticed it, but my magic couldn't find anything to mend. B-blood magic might, but I... I don't know how and I fear I will only make things worse. The mind is a fragile, delicate thing and cannot easily be messed with." He glanced to the side, to see Fenris staring ahead rather than at him. "I'm truly sorry, Fenris," he said. "I'm sorry that everything wasn't enough to save you, to save all of you. I'm sorry I made you believe I was strong while I'm not. I wanted to be, I tried to be for so long. For Mother and Father, Carver and Bethany. For you. For myself. But I'm..." His lips continued to move without producing a sound before he discovered his voice again. "I'm no better than any other mage. If I had been born in Tevinter I probably would have been just like the magisters. And I'm sorry I tricked us both into believing the opposite. I'm sorry I betrayed your trust. I'm sorry I couldn't lose you."
"That's not much of an apology, Hawke."
His attempt at a careful smile turned into a grimace. "I thought it was pretty impressive myself." He sighed. "I know what you want to hear, but this is all I can offer. Apologizing for anything else would be unfair, because if I could go back, I would do it again. I would do anything to keep you alive. And I... I can't apologize for that. I said I wouldn't waste our time with lies. So I won't."
Fenris did not reply to that, but Damian believed he saw him give a small nod. Whether it was out of understanding or simply to indicate he had heard, he did not know.
It was all out now. All laid bare. Only one thing remained. A shudder went through Damian before he mustered the courage to ask. "Do you think... if things had turned out differently, if I could have saved all of you, if you had been well again... would you ever have forgiven me?"
Silence followed his question. It stretched out for so long that Damian started to believe it was supposed to be his answer when Fenris finally replied.
"I don't know," he admitted eventually. "To be honest I don't think I would have given it a chance."
Damian swallowed and nodded, tears in his eyes but not crossing the threshold of his lashes. Fenris would have left him, turned his back on him and the ruins of their relationship, unable or unwilling to rebuild. Of course Damian had known. He had realized taking Fenris' freedom away would be the death sentence for his trust and love and he had been prepared to make that sacrifice. Yet hearing it confirmed now hurt to the depths of his torn soul. He had known, but not known, not with absolute certainty. As long as Fenris could not irrevocably end their relationship, he could live with the misguided hope they would have worked it out. Now that fantasy was taken from him, ripped from grasp.
He could not stop the next question from falling from his lips. "Fenris... do you hate me?"
Another silence, even longer than the previous one. Damian did not dare to look up. He had asked the same question once before, ironically right after they had ended up in bed together for the first time. Till that point Damian had never been completely certain whether Fenris would overcome his distrust for mages enough to give in.
A jolt went through him when he was struck on the chest, leaving him breathless. Startled he looked at his sternum, where the pressure remained, and then to the side. Fenris had hit him with his left hand, held it pressed flat against Hawke's chest.
"I should tear out your heart for everything you've done," the elf growled through gritted teeth, his voice heavy with emotion.
Damian tensed but remained still, not even daring to breathe. Reminding Fenris his markings were no longer functioning and that this would complicate such aspirations seemed... overly helpful.
"But I can't." Now it was Fenris who looked away.
Because your markings don't work. He was still working out a strategy for when Fenris would opt to strangle him instead when the hand withdrew.
"Even after all this I can't find it in me to hate you."
Damian stared at him, heart battering against his ribcage as if to taunt to get torn out after all. He had been so convinced to hear an unforgiving "yes" as answer that Fenris' response completely caught him off guard. It was hardly a profession of love, but given the circumstances, everything that had happened, everything he had done, it made an invisible weight fall off his shoulders.
He doesn't hate me. It was the only thought remaining in his head, floating lightly with relief. In a sudden burst of recklessness - and yet it seemed the best, the one possible course of action - he leaned to the side and pressed his lips to Fenris'.
The kiss surprised them both. For four fluttering heartbeats their mouths remained locked, then Damian pulled free, some startled sense returning to him. Fenris' lips had been stiff and unyielding but parted slightly upon being relieved from contact. Damian breathed shallowly through his mouth, almost panting, fearing he had overstepped and quietly waiting for Fenris' reaction. He watched the elf's mouth, the full lips carrying the memory of softness and warmth, and knew Fenris was doing the same. As they sat there, faces close, breathing each other's breaths, the tension between them rose. Damian tried to swallow and say something, to apologize for his impulse. His eyes darted up to finally meet Fenris'. As soon as they did, the stunned tension holding both of them still broke.
Fenris closed the minimal distance in an instant and let their lips touch again, this time more willing, eager even. Damian sighed against the elf's mouth as he felt the invitation of a tongue, warm and moist, slip past. The kiss deepened but never became forceful. They both moved with attention and care, a desperate, gaping pain smothered by being deliberate and gentle. Damian snaked an arm around Fenris' middle and soon the elf ended up straddling his lap. When Damian moved his hand under Fenris' shirt to feel the bare skin of his back, Fenris immediately tugged at Hawke's tunic to make it clear it should be taken off. A little clumsily because they were sitting so close to each other and neither was willing to part more than strictly necessary, they stripped of their clothing until they were both in their breeches.
Damian tried to suppress the sense of embarrassment fluttering in his stomach upon being so exposed. His - slightly neglected - beard could hide the softening of his chin and jaw line, but undressed there was no way to hide his form could no longer qualify as 'lean', or at least not as lean as he had been a few years ago.
Fenris did not seem to care. Without a trace of reluctance he pressed himself against Hawke, entwined his fingers in the mage's hair and picked up where they had left off with the kiss. The lyrium markings remained lifeless and did not light up in response to the contact.
A purposeful roll of Fenris' hips sufficed to quell the first and last of doubts about superficial appearances. The stimulation, combined with the feeling of Fenris' warm skin against his chest, sent sparks of pleasure through Damian's spine and had him respond with a movement of his own. His breathing deepened with his desire.
He wanted to say something but did not know what. That he knew this was not forgiveness. Too much had happened and there was too little time to restore what had been lost. Yet it was more than mere resignation, acceptance of damaged hopes and dreams. He could not name it, could not find the right word for it. So he continued to kiss Fenris.
Fenris' fingers went to the laces of Hawke's breeches and untied them. Damian did the same for him. Once they were naked, Damian held Fenris' face in his hands as a sign they did not need to proceed. He would be more than content if they left it at this, the feeling of Fenris naked against him, the taste of his tongue, the shared warmth of their bodies enough, already more than he deserved.
As if he had heard Damian's thoughts, Fenris broke the kiss and turned his head a little to the left. Then he placed a hand over Damian's and let his tongue swirl over a fingertip before enveloping it with his mouth. The heavy-lidded look he gave Damian while suckling on his index finger sent a clear message. A message which went straight to Damian's groin.
Last reservations abandoned, Damian lowered his hand, letting his moist finger escape from Fenris' mouth, and cupped his buttocks. He took ample time to prepare before taking his lover, switching to the balm he used to craft poultices once saliva was no longer sufficient to ease the friction.
He wanted to say something when he finally pushed inside, but there was so much that his mouth refused to form the words. How happy and grateful he was they had been granted this moment. That this was what he had needed, what they had both needed, to live with the wedge their stay in Tevinter had driven between them. That he had found peace now and knew he could care for Fenris the rest of their lives without it slowly eating him up. That he would give Fenris the patience and affection he deserved and never betray the trust placed in him here, now. So he held Fenris even more closely and angled himself to find that tender spot.
Neither of them made a sound during their lovemaking. Only their laboring breaths betrayed the continuous buildup of arousal, the nearing of the edge. Once Fenris grabbed Damian's left arm for support, but immediately withdrew upon touching the scars. There was no forgetting, no forgiving. But their kiss burned the worst of it away.
Their movements became more sloppy, more frantic. It did not take long before Damian felt Fenris shudder. Warm wetness against his stomach marked the elf's orgasm. He managed a few more thrusts before he too reached his peak. Damian hid his face in Fenris' neck as he came, a throaty moan dying before it came over his lips.
He wrapped his arms more tightly around Fenris and lay back on the bed, waiting for the remnants of pleasure to ebb away. For a while they remained still, not yet ready to accept it was over.
Eventually time came crawling back, making him aware of the chill in the air, of Fenris' ribcage pressing uncomfortably against his chest.
Damian Hawke wanted to say something. He still had not decided what yet. Perhaps it would come to him when he opened his mouth. The important things had already been said. The even more important things Fenris understood, without need for words. Perhaps he would go with the most obvious. The simplest, yet never spoken enough. Three words. He could manage that.
He took the necessary breath to carry the words, the first already forming on his lips, when Fenris pushed himself up a little and looked at him. Dull, emerald eyes stole the words away. The light, the spark which had marked the brief return of his sanity, had left them. A small, timid smile curled his mouth. "Thank you, Master."
THE END
Note of the author: when I started writing to fill in what was going through Fenris' head before he left Hawke in the middle of the night I could not have fathomed it would turn into two monster fics which together count more than 200,000 words and took almost three full years to complete. I can scarcely believe I have managed to finish it now. I would like to thank everyone who has read all this. It's a big compliment people cared enough to reach the final chapter. I really hope it was worth it and that I haven't let you down with the ending. Or that you hate me too much now. ;) An even greater thanks goes to everyone who has left a review. Although I enjoyed writing this a lot I doubt I would have made it this far without the shared enthusiasm of the sweet people reading it all.
