Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke/Fenris
Rating: G
Word Count: 950
Prompt: from faejilly: your OTP in space
Notes: So apparently "space" has irreversibly become "Mass Effect" in my head. Oh well!

—

God, but it's a beautiful ship.

Nothing big, not the most expensive ship she's ever seen—but fast, and sleek and beautiful and perfect and hers, even if Isabela had to help get her the registry in the first place and Varric's broker fee had nearly cost her the last of her credits. And broken, at the moment, which is why she's in a helmet and hardsuit, floating in a black sea of stars, not a sound but her own breathing in her ears and the faint crackling hiss of comlinks.

"Wrap it up, sweet thing," Isabela drawls, and Hawke snaps the last panel into place over the now-repaired communication array. "I'm dying of boredom here."

"You could have done it yourself," Hawke suggests, flipping out the solder iron of her omnitool. "It'd be more exciting than just sitting in the cockpit twiddling your thumbs."

"If you think that's what I'm twiddling, you don't know me very well."

Hawke laughs, face-shield darkening as sparks spray weightless and gold around her, reflected off the mirrored black hull. "Almost done. Tell Sebastian to prep the airlock, will you?"

"Copy. See you soon, Hawke."

The last seal darkens and cools, and when Hawke is satisfied that the panel will hold she lets her omnitool go dim. It takes a moment for her face-shield to adjust; then, slowly, the stars rise again from the emptiness, one by one, until there is no space between them for the light.

"Beautiful," she says to no one, and pushes away from the ship. The umbilical is woven steel and long enough she can move freely via the mass effect generators on her heels, and as she makes her way along the hull towards the airlock she lets herself drift, still as silence, caught in the grip of the stars.

Then—light, behind her, gold and not stars, and she glances over her shoulder to see she has reached the crew quarters without realizing it. And this particular window—she laughs, the sound tinny and too loud inside her helmet—Fenris's quarters. Of course.

His room is cluttered, his small worktable covered edge to edge with half-finished mods and blade attachments for his shotgun. His own armor is on the wall, ablative ceramic glinting in the light of his lone lamp, the carefully-articulated gauntlets smaller without his hands in them.

With a sudden burst of cooler light, the door to his room opens. Her mind provides the familiar pneumatic hiss and in walks Fenris himself, shirtless, a towel draped over his damp hair, long white tattoos made whiter by the dark expanse of naked skin. Hawke laughs again and turns full face to the window as Fenris crosses to the shelf above his bunk, scrubbing the towel over his neck absently as he runs his finger along the books' spines there. His lips move faintly with the titles.

He pulls one free at last. A burst from her heels and she drifts closer to the window, close enough to read the title—asari poetry—close enough that she can touch the reinforced silica-fiber plastic.

So she does.

He startles at the rap, his tattoos lighting a biotic blue for a split-second before he sees her at the window. His lip curls and Hawke grins, clearing her face-shield further until he can see her expression; at her gesture he comes to the window and crosses his arms over his chest, book still dangling from one hand.

"Nice shower?" she mouths.

Fenris rolls his eyes as he answers. It was fine. Are you all right?

A drop of water trails down his temple, vanishing briefly under his jaw before sliding down the line of his throat. It is harder than Hawke expects to look to his eyes again, harder still when she sees his faint smirk. "We're—almost done. Lonely?"

I have this book.

She does a little shimmy, graceless hips made more so with the clack of armor and no gravity to keep her grounded. "Sounds thrilling."

Better than mission reports.

"Too bad you have the only copy on board. I'll have to take your word for it."

He uncrosses his arms, leaning forward until his knuckles rest on the window's sill, his damp hair just touching the clear plastic. His smirk is wide enough now that Hawke can feel it to her toes, a floating that has absolutely nothing to do with the cloud of white stars behind her, reflected in the window around Fenris's head. He reaches for the slim band of his omnitool beside him; then his voice fills her helmet, deep and rich enough to drown in even through the comlink distortion. "Perhaps you might prefer to read it for yourself."

"Fifteen minutes," she says, pretense gone, and leans forward until her helmet knocks gently against the glass where his hair brushes. Not quite a kiss; close enough for now. "Ten, if you don't make me hack your lock again."

"If you would bother to memorize the code, you would have less trouble."

"I would if you'd stop changing it every two weeks."

He laughs and her stomach flips, and then again when his mouth softens into the smile Fenris so rarely shows her. Then he touches his omnitool without looking away, and the console at his door flickers from orange to green. "Ten minutes, Hawke," he says.

Hawke grins, touching the glass briefly over his cheek; then she turns and grips the steel-woven cord that holds her home, the thrusters in her boots firing, silent and sure, until she soars into the stars.