disclaimer: disclaimed
dedication: to Em, Sid, Claire.
notes: happy zombie jesus day, y'all!
notes2: together till it ends — embrz.
title: with the twilight slow
summary: A baby. He brings her a baby. Oh, Creators. — Merrill/Fenris.
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Her shoulder in his mouth is a revelation.
The witch makes the softest sound when Fenris pins her against the wall, half-whine, half-need, all pleasure. It slides out of her, a drop of heady, honeyed light.
"You ought to be quiet," Fenris murmurs into the soft warm skin of her throat. "We do not wish to wake Iseth, do we?"
"You're awful," she whispers, gasps, frantically covers her mouth to muffle the sound. "Creators, if he wakes up, Fenris—"
"He will not," Fenris says, distracted by the sudden sharp rise of her chest. He hooks a thumb into the band of her leggings, tugs. He wants to puts his hands on her skin more than he ever wanted anything in his life. "Off, witch."
Instead of an answer, she writhes. Roll of hips like a wave, and the fabric carves off of her like snakeskin. Fenris moans a curse, closes his eyes, buries his face in her throat for a hot moment. The image of this is going to stay with him until the day he dies: the witch in the halflight, eyes glazed, mouth red, the column of her neck bruising already with the shape of his teeth.
It is not enough.
He finds her lips in the dark, palms curling around her thighs to lift her against him. The witch is very enthusiastic about this, giggling high and breathless into his mouth, perfect and light-headed and Fenris wants to consume her entire.
They stumble inelegantly towards the bed.
"You could help," Fenris growls in her ear, even as the thought of putting her down is abhorrent.
The witch flexes her hips against him and kisses his nose in reply.
She is going to be his death.
Fenris will never know how they make it to the bed without breaking something. He is preoccupied; Merrill sighs when he splays a hand over the soft of her abdomen. The warmth of her skin is torture, and he would touch her everywhere if he could: the inside of her knee, the inner bend of her elbow, the delicate skin of her wrists. The scars there, too, silver in the flash of moonlight through the hole in the roof.
He thinks about pressing his mouth there, hungry in his soul.
He skims his palms over her hips again, again, catching on her smalls. Tugs.
"You, too," Merrill whispers through the dark, and Fenris realizes he has been muttering beneath his breath. Quiet things, little benedictions, mumbled over and over into her skin. "Why're you—I want t'see, you're always so spiky, Fenris, please—"
They both struggle with his shirt.
It is a relief to have it off, because it allows Fenris to press against her skin.
"Oh," she says. "Oh, Fenris, you're glowing."
"So I am," he says, utterly disinterested. The lyrium-gleam is useful, in this instance. It lights her face soft and silver, the wide of her eyes, the shadows between her breasts darkened by the shift. He wants to drag her into his lap and suck on her tongue until the world makes sense again. "Witch, if you do not remove that, I will tear it off of you."
She blinks at him. "Really?"
"I would think about it," Fenris says, mild for how brightly his blood pounds through his veins. He wants to put his face between her thighs. Nothing else will be enough.
"D'you promise t'kiss me if I do?"
"I swear to every one of your gods, witch, if you take it off, I will kiss you everywhere," Fenris says, fervently, like a promise. "Do not make me beg."
Merrill laughs soft and breathy through the dark, does something eldritch to the ties at her shoulders. The shift falls around her waist in a puddle of fabric, and she flushes all the way down. Her breasts are perfect.
Fenris stops thinking entirely.
—
Morning comes, and brings with it shame.
The with looks as though she's been mauled. If she were anyone else, it would be easy to ignore, but pale as she is, the mouth-marks stand out sharp and violet against her skin. And where there was satisfaction in the nighttime, there is only gut-churning humiliation.
Fenris thinks he might be ill.
She curls in on herself, a shred of a yawn sliding out of her. Already waking, stretching, going to see—
The witch sits up, blinks sleep-dark green eyes at him. Fenris wants to pull the covers around her, to hide the marks. If she doesn't find them right away, perhaps he could explain, or apologize, swear on his life that he won't touch her again.
Merrill leans down, and kisses him on the mouth.
"I don't think I'm the one thinking too much right now, y'know," she says, a little wry.
"We should speak," Fenris says, low and quiet and hating himself for the way he wants to draw lines on her skin. He wants her to choose to move away, but she does not: if anything, she gets in closer, sliding down to prop herself against her chest.
"Oh, yes, I s'pose we ought," she hums, rubbing her nose against his side. Fenris squirms, and the witch smiles up at him. "Are y'ticklish?"
"I am not," says Fenris, but she rubs her nose against the spot again, and he squirms a second time without meaning to, because he is ticklish, not that he's about to tell her that. "Quit that."
"No," says the witch, very cheerfully for someone who had asleep less than a minute ago. "You're ticklish! Y'are!"
"If you do not quit it, I am going to have to take drastic measures to force you to stop," he says, neutrally.
"Oh? Like what?"
"I may have to kiss you, witch."
The witch blinks at him. "Is that s'posed t'be a bad thing? I don't see how it would be."
Fenris sighs. He reaches up, slides his hand into the tangle of braids her hair becomes overnight. "It should be."
"Why?"
Because I do not want to hurt you, Fenris thinks, but cannot force the words from his throat.
Silence hangs between them.
"I didn't want t'ruin things, either," Merrill says, quietly, when the question goes unanswered for too long. She ducks her face against his side. "I thought I'd ruined it? Last night. But y'haven't left, so…"
Fernis stares at the top of the witch's dark head. She thought she had ruined it? She? He shifts, twists, looks her in the face and finds only hollowness in her expression. She means it, for true, in a way that he isn't entirely sure he can assuage.
"You did not," Fenris murmurs, swallowing around a sudden tightness. He has managed to not feel so helpless about her, but it is more difficult when she looks at him the way she is, and empty of emotion as clear water. They share air in the dawn's leavening greys, breath mingling.
"Aye. But I could've," she says, very softly. "And y'didn't leave. Aren't we even?"
"No," Fenris says. "I think not."
"Why?" Merrill asks, again.
He reaches for her throat, to press down on the peeping purple blooms there. She inhales audibly, drops boneless into the touch, and Fenris has to kiss her quick and sharp just to swallow the low hot sound of her moan.
"That would be why," Fenris says, with gravel in his throat. Rough all over. He noses at her temple. "I do not think so rationally when you are involved, witch. Do these not hurt?"
The witch does not bat his hand away. She presses into it, as though she wants it worse.
(Perhaps she has a death wish, too. Fenris grinds his teeth.)
"No," she says. "And even if they did, it wouldn't be terrible, I don't think? They're love-bites, not hurts."
"Love-bites?"
"Yes? What else am I s'posed t'call them?"
She is not precisely wrong, even if the sight of them makes him want to cut his own hands off. Fenris huffs against the top of her head; whatever he feels for her should not be taken into account, not about this. About to argue, about to apologize, about to extract himself from the comfort of her body.
Before he can get there, she puts her hand over his mouth.
"Fenris," Merrill says, with far more patience than he thinks this deserves, "Stop. Please."
And Fenris, for the first time in his life, allows himself to listen to her.
Whatever fight had been gearing up inside of his chest deflates. Fenris sort of—crumples, that's the word. He crumples, and the witch wiggles on top of him, folds her arms beneath her chin. They lay nose-to-nose for a little while, examining one another.
"Y've freckles," the witch says. "I don't think I ever noticed, before. Have y'always had them?"
"I wouldn't know," Fenris says, quietly. His hands settle at the small of her back. They settle. Settle. "I would assume so, if they are there now."
"I forget that y'don't remember, sometimes," she murmurs. There is a confession in it. "I'm sorry, Fenris."
"You needn't apologize."
"No, I should do," Merrill says. She exhales, soft and slow, a careful rush of air out of her lungs that Fenris thinks he can feel. She looks at him, and he thinks he might crack open beneath her gaze. She shakes her head, just a little. "I should do, if we're going t'be honest with each other. And we are, aren't we? Going t'be honest?"
His throat works in the silence.
It seems such an insurmountable task, honesty. Fenris rubs circles into the base of her spine to calm himself down, methodic and winding, and the witch does not seem to mind that he needs a moment to sort himself out. She is content to wait in the early-morning stillness without saying a word.
And Fenris finds his voice, eventually.
"Yes," he manages, steadier than he feels. "We are."
The witch smiles at him, luminous through the dim, and Fenris finds that he struggles to breathe for another reason entirely.
Sometimes, he does not know what it is that he ought to do with her. It is not as though she needs him to amuse herself—it is not as though she needs him to amuse the child, either. But she lays there on top of him with her chin propped on her hands, gaze lambent, and her weight anchors him into the world in a way that little else has.
"We should get up," Fenris says, eventually.
"Y'don't really want to," hums the witch "And I don't, either. Iseth's not awake yet. Can't we stay, for a bit?"
She is not wrong. He would like to go back to sleep.
But.
Fenris thinks that so long as the witch is lying on top of him as she is, going back to sleep is decidedly unlikely. She is so wriggly, always moving, always shifting, breathing easy as though he could not pull her pulpy beating heart from her chest, warm and soft and—
"Do you do this on purpose?"
"Do what?"
"The wiggling."
She does not answer him. Just blinks, instead; once, twice. And then a mischievous little smile sneaks its way across her face, pulling up her vallaslin. Fenris has half the space between a blink to regret his entire existence.
She wiggles.
Fenris swears.
They scrabble for a moment, all sound muffled. But the witch is smaller-framed than Fenris, and he wrestles her neatly beneath him. Her fingers twitch, and he knows, all of a sudden, that if he allows her free, she will dive for the ticklish spot. She is laughing, the little miscreant!
"Witch," Fenris says, and then, when she has the gall to giggle at him, "Merrill."
"I never get t'tease you, Fenris, let me have this," she says, around a mouthful of near-silent giggling. She breathes hot and short, wedged beneath him.
Fenris wants to kiss her again.
But she goes lax in increments, muscles untensing slow. There is a languidity to the way she raises her arms to loop around his shoulders. They do not need to be anywhere; there is nothing that demands their attention for now. There is only Fenris and the witch, and the rising of the dawn.
"Good morning, Fenris," she says.
"Good morning, Merrill," he replies.
—
The child learns to run before he learns to walk.
To Fenris' great consternation, the witch is entirely delighted by this. She darts backwards, laughing brightly every time Iseth chases after her to crash flailing into her legs, and then sweeping down to catch him up and nuzzle against his nose. They giggle together, witch and babe, and they look as though they have never belonged anywhere else.
It is the most heart-wrenching thing he has ever witnessed. Fenris is suddenly aware that if anything were to ever happen to either of them, he would set the city on fire and then himself.
It is not, he muses, an entirely healthy response.
But there had been a time when her presence was unbearable, not in the least for how little she had cared for his opinion. She had always been the witch, and Fenris had always been Fenris, and he did not think that this détente was something that they would be able to manage. That this place, here, now, would be somewhere that they could find one another.
And yet—
He would not want her any other way.
Merrill is still giggling with the child, entirely absorbed, hair in her mouth. Fenris watches her for a time, them, how wholly unselfconscious the way they adore one another is.
Fenris will not be surprised if the child's first word is mamae. And it will be about the witch, because he knows no other way; she is what the child has, and she is everything that he could need. She will be—is—a good mother.
The witch loves the child unreservedly, and will not allow him harm. That much is indisputable.
Fenris thinks that little else matters, truly.
And in this alone, he is aware that he could leave. Perhaps he ought to—perhaps the staying makes things more difficult for them both. The witch will look after the child. And Tevinter still stands; there are still crusades that Fenris could go back to, still slaves that must be free. Still magisters that need murdering. Still blood magic's thick cling.
Fenris stares at her for another long moment, so quiet in his soul. To leave the witch, now…
He cannot breathe around the thought of the loss.
Because despite these things, factual as they are, Fenris would prefer to remain. He would prefer to continue to crawl into bed with her when the sun has gone down. He would prefer to watch the child grow into his ears, become demanding and imperious and curious about the world. He would prefer to know for certain sure that the pair of them are safe, and that Kirkwall's bloodsport has not made them into new victims. He would prefer that they should be together, and that he should he be there to prevent it from being otherwise.
The truth is that Fenris would prefer to stay, if he could.
(Fenris is beginning to suspect that the witch is what he might need, himself, as well. The possibility is not so world-rending as he had thought it might be. Comforting, instead.)
"You are going to spoil him," Fenris says, lightly.
"You're s'posed t'spoil babies," says the witch, without even a pause. She continues her cuddling as though he had not spoken. "And besides, it's not hurting anyone."
"I did not say it was," says Fenris, the tiny little thrill of bothering her prickling at his mouth. She is very much fun to tease. His fingers twitch.
Merrill finally raises her eyes to glare at him.
"Fenris, are y'being contrary for—" and then she stops, blinking at him for a long moment. The annoyance drops away as though it had never been, and she just looks at him. A slow, funny little smile works its way across her lips. "Oh. I see."
"What?"
"Nothing, never mind," she says, the corner of her lips pulling, shaking her head. "D'y'think we ought t'take him outside?"
Fenris squints at her. She does not rise so easily to the bait, anymore. Or, worse: she is beginning to see through him. He is not so certain how he feels about this. "Why?"
"The lanterns," the witch says. She cocks her head to the side. "Why else?"
"The lanterns. Of course." Fenris wants to wind his hands into her hair. He wants to kiss her again, and apologize, though he knows not for what, and he wants to take her apart with his mouth until she cannot think of anything else. And she wants to go see the lanterns. Kaffas. It is too early for this.
But Fenris cannot help himself.
He catches her around the waist, draws her in with the child between them. The air is still, and something in her gaze goes very soft and very fond, warm as a crackling fire through the night. "Is that meant t'be a yes? It's not a very good one."
"I am going to kiss you," Fenris sighs at her, like a warning.
"I think I'll be very upset if y'don't," Merrill says, and smiles.
And so Fenris does. He pulls her a little closer and kisses her, head tilted down and mouth slanted over hers; kisses her hot and hungry as he has wanted to since the wretched beginning of the day. Cradling the back of her neck with one palm, the other a smooth touch to the small of her back—the witch makes a tiny pleased sound into his mouth. It slides down to his stomach like warm oil, and if it were not the middle of the day (and if they did not have a small, fussy child between them who subsumes all attention so long as he is conscious), Fenris would drag her back to bed all over again and damn the consequences.
When he finally manages the willpower to pull away, the witch's breathing is heavy. She is flushed all the way down her throat.
"Well," she says, swallowing hard. "Well, that's—I—hm!"
Fenris attempts not to be very smug about this, and fails spectacularly.
Merrill seems to find a hold of herself. The flush recedes—how disappointing, Fenris thinks—and she sighs at him. "You're going t'be insufferable about this, aren't you."
Fenris contemplates this for the space of half of blink.
"Yes, witch," he says. A fraction of a smirk lights his face, and he does nothing to stop it. "Unfortunately, yes, likely, I will."
—
The lanterns are no less brilliant in the daylight. The alienage rustles with awakenings, the mad morning rush up to Kirkwall's upper rings stalled for the celebration of the shortest, darkest day of the year. If Fenris was of a mind, he could convince the witch to wander up to Lowton; Varric is undoubtedly holding court in the Hanged Man, and Lowtown's alleys have no truck with the Chantry.
But there is something in the alienage air that stays his tongue, crisp and sugared. Like hoary ice creeping along windowsills, fractals It freezes so rarely on the coast of the Waking Sea, but the air bites crystal-sharp down his throat.
Fenris is not surprised when fat white flakes begin to drift down from the grey of the sky.
Wet and cold and horrid.
But a moment later, when Merrill sneezes and Fenris turns to assure himself that she has not caught ill, he is startled to find that she has snow caught in her eyelashes.
The white makes her eyes greener. Deep and wide and endless, a forest glade blazing with light. She watches him over her shoulder, the child in her arms.
"Fenris?" she asks, when he says nothing for too long. "Is everything alright?"
You are everything, Fenris thinks, and it settles in his bones, down marrow and blood, scoured bare and clean as the Wounded Coast after a winter storm. There is weight to it, sitting heavy on his shoulders, and the witch is entirely unaware that the axis of his world has changed.
The third time is the charm.
(First, Hawke, brilliant and bloody, crowing horrible under the light of the moon the night they'd met. Then the child, in the hot and the dark and the too-close press of too many bodies; Fenris' arms had trembled in the holding. And now this, now the witch, snow in her lashes and a question in her eyes. Affection and apprehension, hand in unsteady hand.)
You are everything, he thinks, again, suddenly stupid with it. Fenris raises his gaze to the sky. Blinks. She is sunlight and shadow and endless velvet night. She is purple thistle and knife-nicked fingers and the pale green of new leaves. She is waking up to warm skin, waking up rested, and knowing that there is nothing outside save for the winter air.
Everything. She is everything.
"Merrill," Fenris says, blankly. "I am in love with you."
—
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tbc.