Characters/Pairing: M!Hawke/Fenris
Rating: K
Word Count: 1200
Prompt: (Written and posted for a FenHawke Secret Santa in 2015.) I got the very lovely queendeannatroi as my giftee, and she asked for something with purple mage Garrett Hawke and Fenris. She was also kind enough to provide some post-DAI ideas of their relationship on her tumblr, and I've done my best to write something (hopefully!) in keeping with that.

I hope you enjoy, queendeannatroi, and I hope you and yours have a very merry Christmas! Recommended listening: any sentimental Christmas playlist you've got.

—

"Well," Hawke says, "I suppose that's that."

Fenris pauses in his inspection of the dubious hat Hawke has tossed to the table before the couch, scarlet poms peppering the knitted-snowflake wool. "That's what?"

"The end of the holiday. As far as it matters, anyway." He collapses into the armchair by the library's merry hearthfire and the joists groan, too slender for Hawke's careless girth. "I should have bought you more things to unwrap."

Fenris snorts, surrounded already by a new cloak, a knife fine enough he fears to dull the blade, and, inexplicably, a slim volume of poetry bound too well in black leather. As if Hawke, already governed too easily by his whims, had simply swept every item Fenris had touched during the last months into one great basket for his approval.

Well. Fenris hesitates, the tips of his fingers brushing across smooth leather. He will not deny he approves.

All the same, there is something in Hawke's voice. "You are unhappy."

"Unhappy!" Hawke seems genuinely startled, leaning forward suddenly enough in the chair that his hand slips off the armrest. "With you? Never."

Fenris snorts again, pushing to his feet, and goes to stand before Hawke in his over-strained chair. This man, this mage—every inch of him, broad and brash and so very Fereldan in his love of mud and dogs, stubborn beyond belief and deceptively tender for all the wildness of his appearance. He does not know what shows in his face, but all at once Hawke's eyes soften and he reaches up a hand to cup Fenris's cheek.

He allows it, allows himself to lean into the touch. Hawke's hand is warm, as he always is, despite the damp chill of Kirkwall's tepid winters. "Not with me, then. I know you, Hawke."

"I know you do." He pushes up from his chair, just enough to press a kiss to the corner of Fenris's mouth, and his beard scruffs familiarly against the lyrium down his chin. Then he settles again, fiddling with the crimson scarf in his lap—Fenris's own gift to him, selected with much hinting from Varric—before tossing it around his neck. "Have I told you about our holidays, growing up in Lothering?"

"Frequently."

"Cynic."

Fenris laughs, bending to brush his lips over Hawke's forehead. His hair still bears flakes of snow from the dog's earlier walk, white stars in dark hair, and Fenris flicks one of them away with a finger. "Only as you have made me, Hawke."

"Now that," Hawke says, his eyes bright, "is the biggest lie I've ever heard in my life."

Fenris laughs again, ceding victory to the man's relentless optimism, and goes to stoke the fire as Hawke begins to tell him of some winter evening in Lothering, the farmhouse snowed in to the eaves. Carver bundled to his ears in quilts and sweaters to fight some sneezing cold, Leandra and Bethany popping pans of corn in the fire, his father making a show of sneaking whiskey into his coffee until his mother had protested, smiling, and taken the cup for herself.

The story is nice enough, Fenris supposes, but—he likes the idea of it more, Hawke in the festivities of his home, safe and warm and surrounded by family as he ought to be. Likes the look of Hawke as he tells it, his face aglow in the candlelight, his hands tracing out the memories, just enough nostalgic annoyance at Carver's complaints to keep it from saccharine.

For the hundredth time Fenris nearly tells him of the ship. Isabela had written him near a full month ago; by now she must be to the Waking Sea already with Merrill and her crew—and in her hold a delivery direct from Weisshaupt, Carver's extended leave hidden at every step from his brother for the surprise. Aveline and Donnic have already begun to prepare the food for the meal, and by this time tomorrow the empty estate will be—

But for the hundredth time he swallows back the words, leaving Hawke's scarf and a pair of new boots by his chair his only gifts. Only a few hours more.

"A far cry from our last few winters," Fenris says instead, and leans on the poker. "Skyhold last year, and your recovery from the Fade."

"And flight the year before," Hawke adds. "Hard to believe it's only been two years since—anyway. Varric's done well for the city."

"As little as he should hear it," Fenris says, his voice dry. "There will be other seasons, Hawke."

"You're right, of course. Plenty of time to make enough friends to fill up this rambling place. You know, with your easy approachability and generally welcoming demeanor."

Fenris rolls his eyes, but does not demur as Hawke stands and stretches, broad shoulders rippling with the motion, before shaking out his malaise with his tension. Neither does Fenris shift away as Hawke comes to join him before the cheerful hearth, his grin flickering with the firelight, his eyes dangerously warm. "Well," Hawke adds, low and far too affectionate, "I suppose sometimes you can be approachable."

Now Fenris reaches up, flitting his fingertips briefly over Hawke's black eyebrows, the edges of his beard, lingering on the line of his throat where his heart beats. So strong, even after all this time— "Sometimes," he agrees, and feels the skip of Hawke's pulse. "If nothing else, Garrett, you will have me."

His eyes flutter shut, then open again. "And you have me," he says, husky. "Though I'm sure I don't know what I've done to deserve it."

"We may renegotiate the terms in a few years, if you're so inclined."

Hawke throws back his head and laughs, a warm, room-filling sound that makes Fenris's stomach flip. He has done this, has made his lover laugh. "We may need to, now that we've nothing else world-ending to fight. Maker, what if I go soft and paunchy?"

Fenris pretends to consider this. "A grave misfortune indeed. I suppose I'll bear it somehow."

"Or rheumatic. One of Mother's friends never stops complaining about the wet."

"A trial for everyone, I'm certain."

"Or—Maker, Fenris," Hawke says, a tinge of real alarm to his chuckles, "what if I go bald?"

His hand slips upwards, fingers twining into the black hair in question, its coarse texture pleasant and so familiar to the lyrium now that there is no discomfort. Only peace, and contentment, and the knowledge that there are years ahead for them both, endless season after season like this, a family made from strength of will more than any chance of blood.

He crooks a smile, tugs gently at Hawke's hair. "I will have you all the same, Hawke."

Hawke's grin broadens, worry vanishing behind the expression like so much snow before the spring-warm sun. "Then I suppose you'll have to do," he murmurs, and bends to kiss Fenris directly on the mouth.

There will be others tomorrow, Fenris knows—family and food and a gathering of enough old friends to brim over even Hawke's generous heart, a reunion of brothers separated by more than only distance for too long. But for now—for now, wrapping one arm around Hawke's shoulders to bring him even closer, his warm smiling mouth better against his own—Hawke, this foolish, sentimental giant he loves better than all others, is his.

He needs nothing else.

—

Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke/Fenris
Rating: K
Word Count: 1200
Original Notes: more beachfic, because apparently watching awesome parents play with their adorable children makes me want to write like a fire's been set under me.

Untitled Fenris/F!Hawke + children under the cut. Unapologetic fluff, 1175 words. (Originally posted July 2013.)

–

Fenris looks down. "You wish me to…what?"

"Bury me!"

"…Why?"

His son blows a lock of dark hair from his eyes and huffs, crossing thin arms over his summer-tanned chest. "Because. I want you to."

"The sand will go everywhere."

"I don't care," his son tells him, drawing out the last word in open wheedling. "Papa. Please?"

"As you wish," Fenris says, mystified, and his son flops to his back on the foot-marked white sand with a noise of delight. He spares only a moment's glance at the sea beyond until he finds Hawke walking with their oldest in the sky-clear shallows; then he kneels beside his son and levers one arm deep into the sun-heated sand beside him.

Concern flashes briefly across green eyes. "Not in the face, Papa."

Fenris lifts an eyebrow, suppressing a sudden smile. "Perhaps you are not prepared for this."

"No! No, no, I'm ready—"

And before he can finish his sentence, Fenris sends a load of damp sand the size of a mabari hound across his son's bare stomach.

His son gasps, startled, gasps again at the shock of coolness from sand hidden so deep beneath the surface; then, as Fenris obediently begins to spread whole armloads across his son's bare legs, across the short, close-fitting oiled trews Hawke had found for all of them a few weeks ago, his son begins to laugh. "It's cold!"

"It will warm," Fenris tells him, brushing away with his forearm a bit of white hair stuck to his own sweat-dampened forehead. Despite Hawke's enthusiasm, he had not thought he would enjoy this trip northward overmuch, even if Isabela had promised nothing but relaxation. But this climate reminds him of Tevinter's heat, one of the few things he has missed since his flight to the more temperate city of Kirkwall—in weather's respect, anyway—and even besides that, he cannot deny that his children have enjoyed every last moment of it.

It takes surprisingly little time to bury an eight-year-old in sand, even with his wriggling and occasional shrieks of laughter as sand tickles his exposed toes. Fenris tweaks one, snorts a laugh of his own at his son's giggle, and proceeds to bury both young feet with large, two-handed scoops of sand. "Is this what you wanted?"

"Yes!" his son shouts, still laughing, still wriggling, and Fenris shakes his head in bemused amusement as he continues his unexpected task. Soon enough, though, the wriggling slows, and as Fenris packs the last bit of sand around his son's neck he cannot help answer the broad, delighted smile that spreads across his son's face.

"So foolish," he murmurs, still smiling, and sits back on his heels. His son resembles nothing so much as a deformed slug, a small dark head with blunted ears and green eyes tossing side-to-side above a long sand-caked dome that stretches towards the sea. Fine white sand clings to Fenris's shins, to the palms of his hands and his forearms, and he brushes at it ineffectually before abandoning the attempt. The lyrium will blister if he leaves it beneath raw sand for too long, especially in the crook of his knees and the tattoo-laced small of his back, but it is worth it to see his son so pleased at his own entrapment.

A hand settles on the nape of his neck, gentle and damp and cold enough to raise chillbumps across his naked shoulders. He looks up into the looming shadow, lifts an eyebrow. "Have you come for something?"

"My son," Hawke says, bending so that seawater drips from her nose to Fenris's own, her smile mischievous even through the halo of sunlight that dims her features, edges her hair in gold. "Have you seen him?"

Fenris glances out to the ocean where their oldest daughter stands with an armful of seashells and various flotsam: her mother's influence at work, Fenris knows, and swallows a smile as he looks back to Hawke. "It seems he's absent," he tells her, feigning dismay as he searches over his shoulder, behind her legs, out to the sea.

Hawke puts both hands on her bare waist, rocking her weight back on her heels. "Oh? Gone forever, then. We'll have to go back with just Leda and the baby."

"Mama, I'm here!" their son says at her feet, laughing again, and Hawke blinks down at him in exaggerated surprise.

"Well! If it's not my favorite middle child. In a bigger mess than usual."

"Papa buried me."

"I can see that. I can also see that we're going to be shaking sand out of your ears for a week."

"I can hear just fine," he mumbles, and Hawke leans over just enough to wring out her hair above her son's face, cold sea-drops splashing on his forehead, his tanned cheeks. He laughs again, pout disappearing, and shakes his head from side to side in futility. "Mama, stop!"

"Say the magic word."

"Please?" their oldest daughter offers, arriving at last with her seashells and interesting twists of dark, salt-stained wood.

"Don't help. That's cheating."

"He's going to be dirty tonight," she says, wrinkling her nose, and Hawke ruffles her hair.

Fenris puts his hands on his knees and pushes to his feet, dusting again at the sand glinting on his knees. "You may help with the bath, then."

"Ugh. No, thank you."

"Then keep your complaints," Fenris advises her, and looks down at his son. "Are you satisfied?"

"Yes. I'm hungry."

"It is near dinner," Hawke notes, glancing at the setting sun. "We might as well head back."

Fenris studies the sand-slug before him, considering, and then he thrusts his bent fingers into the place where his son's hand lies buried. He pauses for a moment, finding the small fingers that wrap so easily around his own; then in one strong motion he pulls his son free of the shore to dangle in mid-air. Sand pours from him in white, glittering trails, dusting Fenris's bare feet, spraying across Hawke's damp legs and sticking there; their daughter pulls another face and hops a few steps back, clutching her treasures.

"Home?" he asks his son, their eyes of a level like this.

"Home, Papa," he agrees, and Fenris swings him to his back. His son's arms come around his throat; his own hands find the bends of the small, unscarred knees at his waist. Hawke falls into step with him, seawater still beading beautifully across her bare shoulders, the smooth curve of her hip. She catches his heated look, gives him a crooked smile in answer—and promise—before their oldest tugs away her hand and her attention. Fenris snorts and Hawke laughs, both of them ceding the moment to chat amiably with their daughter about dinner and her salvaged secrets as they traipse over the glass-glimmering sand, sunset gold and rose to the west, rushing sea at their backs.

His son drops his chin to Fenris's shoulder between two lyrium-veins, rests his temple against Fenris's pointed ear. "Thank you, Papa," he whispers, soft enough that no one hears but him.

"You're welcome," Fenris says, and carries him home.