IMPORTANT Note: I want to make it crystal clear that merging those last humorous scenes are for the entertainment. It does create the illusion that Hawke and Fenris are still going at each other's throats, but it isn't so and I tried to put as much "calmly" and "joyfully" adjectives in describing the dialogues as I could to stress this. Fenris is brooding and trying to analyze everything because they are still on a trip far away from home (which means also that it has been like a week and a half since they first kissed, so duh, not much) and it's much easier to do that than become overwhelmed with his usual thoughts of self-hatred and denial over how much of a poor choice of romance he could be for Hawke or anyone. His moods revolve around calmness and a bit of joy, and Hawke just as much. So don't get all confused! :) Things will settle down in Kirkwall.
Notes on this chapter: So, have you wondered how it would be like to see Zevran and Armand go all over Fenris with giving him advice on love? Well, there you have it. Oh, trust me. Your jaw will drop. At least Fenris's will.
A few of those long seconds before…
"What were you saying earlier?" Fenris asked her in-between the now more than ever heated kisses. "That I was a furnace of passion?"
She continued the ardent kiss, and for a moment she muttered, "I don't quite remember." She kissed him again. "I cannot trust my mouth in these situations."
A belated gasp came upon her after Fenris suddenly and with no shame grabbed and harshly squeezed the roundness at the back of her pants.
"Well what about now?" he demanded with a devil's contained smirk. He gave her pale neck a kiss with as much gentle a peck as the opposite way in which his hand was making its conquest on her.
"I'm positively parched," she said with a smile.
She bent down on him again and he caught her hair with his free and more polite and knightly hand and ran his fingers through it as to bring her closer. His right hand was a despicably evil scoundrel and had a mind of its own; and he felt shameful pleasure from it, considering how long a time it had been since that one night in the courtyard a million years ago when he first cupped a feel. And that was only a game, because she did it first as means to annoy the hell out of him. How unfortunate for her, that she didn't even remotely foresee the hell she did bring out of him. Now his hand came back from the dead and sought to bring that hell with it voluntarily.
However, in such moments where logic was obliterated straight from that one fascinating source called the brain – fascinating because it never seemed to be servicing him with its originally intended functions – he resolved to ignore it and let that dreaded evil hand of his do as it pleased to the limit of her permissions. Yes, she seemed to be quite alright with it. Her cheeks were flushed and burning horribly as his tongue moved serpentlike into hers. And positively parched.
Oh, such deceitful euphemisms for one who detests all euphemisms, and with reason. He kissed her hard and eagerly and felt her body soften, felt her lock to him for one precious instant, and then the flash of icy coldness as she pulled away.
Fenris's scowl of inconvenience honoured her with its appearance the millionth time that morning.
"Do you hear that?" she asked in a sudden rush.
Yes, it is the sound of utter exasperation, magically brought out from me in insanely gigantic amounts, which is highly ironic considering it is the work of an impossibly tiny being in comparison.
But not a second passed and his long elven ear twitched, as his senses came back too to honour them with an appearance. There were two separate pairs of footsteps. One loud and hunky, accompanied by quieter tones of comedy. One more cat-like, accompanied by way louder tones of bullshit. One could easily be fooled in trying to guess which belonged to who from the two rogues, really.
One could even manage to decipher their conversation.
Something-something-something – breasts, Isabela
Something-something-something –bullshit, Varric.
Yes, now the thought finally arrived into their sanctum of reason, that Hawke was all on top of Fenris in a bed in which she was previously tackled to death, then slept in with him beside her, and in which they were presently exploring the depths of each other's mouths as if to be sure neither would be drowning in fever.
They quickly shared an awkward, stunned look of what-the-hell-do-we-do-now. Perhaps she could get away with saying Fenris magically choked on his own self-hatred and she resolved to save him by giving him a proper mouth-to-mouth taste of her own self-righteousness.
She wondered what would have been the more mind-blowing news either from that, her sudden return, or the simple fact that she was in his room without a black eye to match her historical discourtesy.
"Shit," she said and tried to get off of him. He caught her in place with a look of irritation. There was still time, apparently.
"Just for the record, because I will surely forget what with my mind going terribly numb for about a month now," Fenris started with an edge to his tone. He caught her firmly by the collar of her coat and brought her only an inch away from his bright and angry eyes. She looked at him startled and listened to him when he said in a very dominant tone, "I cannot quite articulate what has been going on for the last month, but now that I have got you," he grasped her coat tighter and brought her even closer to his eyes to make it clearer, all while breathing tigerishly on her face with an air of complete determination, "I am not letting you go."
He wasn't pertaining to right now, she got that much.
…But the statement threw her off completely. The footsteps became louder. Her brain was becoming deafer.
"You're not?" she almost whispered with eyes unbelievably stunned.
Fenris stared at her unyieldingly in irritation. As if he didn't know her game by now once they would return to Kirkwall. "Do you think I'm an idiot?" he asked with a scratch in his tone.
"No," Hawke said, still caught in his impossible grip and nose bumping into his. "I've just escaped from a den of idiots yesterday, so I'm well familiar with the breed, and you're something else entirely." Fenris narrowed his eyes with annoyance most adorable and she narrowed her eyes as well, with determination most profound. "I am, however, hoping you're not a terribly good shot." She showed him her fist.
Of course. Violence. His eyes were rolling and reaching the back of his head.
But not a moment passed and Fenris exhaled and quickly caught her by the hips and pushed her on the side. The sound of footsteps and of their voices suggested they were going down the hallway now. Yes, his mind was indeed, numb, because there was no more time now. He looked to his right and saw Hawke going for the window.
"Did you leave the window of my room open?" she asked quickly. (He had previously appointed himself gatekeeper and held her key in his pocket because, as he ever-so nicely pointed out, she was a giant klutz and if she would somehow get in her hands the key that held the universe together, shortly thereafter the Apocalypse would certainly be upon them)
"Yes, but what does that–"
"See ya," she waved nonchalantly. In a blasted second she turned into a black bird and took off.
Oh, so she was the bird which showed up and startled everyone when it caught the wheel from the puzzle in its talons and dropped it to them all with the pretense of going to "take a leak." Numb yet again, for the thought didn't really have time to travel in his mind that he should now become mortified with Hawke turning into a bird. As if that was just another Tuesday. Well, yes, it was just another Tuesday indeed, all with the crazy and the inexplicable darted everywhere around them as if they were silently begging for it. Wonders… wonders… He was growing too old to finish that sentence. The redundancy of it was almost repugnant.
His head fell on the pillow much to pretend he was asleep and just the same to cradle the collapse of his poor little mind. Too many wondrous calamities and ancient sorceries for one day. And the next fifty years at least.
A few of those moments later…
Fenris came out of his room after Isabela gave him the murderous look that said she was going to hurt him soon. Whatever did he do?
"Varric!" resounded Hawke's voice most joyful further down the hallway.
"Hawke!" Varric shouted and to everyone's shock now in the hallway, he hugged her by the waist with the mighty grip of a lion. "Andraste's ass I thought you were dead."
Her voice and face came very smug as she hugged him back tightly, "Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm sorry oh mighty indestructible princess, I have a great imagination and I can't help not using it," Varric said sarcastically.
"Oh, thank those stupid gods, I thought I would have to go beg Armand to give me some money," Isabela shouted and came to hug Hawke too. "Now that is a pathetic way to die."
"Ah, I love how you stay so true," Hawke said joyfully and pat Isabela on the back. Her eyes came now on Fenris. It was high time one of them pretended they just came across each other.
"Glad I'm not dead?" Hawke asked Fenris with a smile while still in Isabela's hug.
"I knew you weren't dead," Fenris said calmly, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed. Hawke's throat stiffened fearing he would blow her cover, but he shortly drew up a smug grin to match his smug posture. "There'd be terrified little angels and spirits crossing the Veil all desperate to get away."
She narrowed her eyes and pretended to scratch the air for his stinging comment.
"How are you? What happened?" Varric shouted impatiently.
"Oh, nothing much," she said calmly. "What about you?"
"Cut it Pantaloons before I shoot you in the face," Varric demanded seriously.
"Ah, fine," she said and her shoulders sank. "I saw the Warden. More like hallucinated. You know? Zevran's wife? I took off to chase her thinking if I impress her enough with my stunning acrobatics we might just stop at some street café in the city and share war stratagems, listen to her stories about the Blight and discuss the fate of Thedas over tea. Then I kinda blacked out and I woke up in the Bone Pit with some elf reciting poetry to me in Antivan. After that I thought I'd just sleep it off."
Little did she think to take into account that she had not yet told Fenris about the waking up in the brothel with an elf part and he would quickly misinterpret and in good reason. She didn't seem to be lying about anything else, so this had to be true just as well.
This was very quickly the case. She looked across Isabela at Fenris who was still leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, but giving her a very dark, flat look through his hair which could only mean murder. The claws of his gauntlets were a squeeze away from drawing out blood out of his arm.
Great…
Meanwhile, Varric lifted his eyebrows in amazement and shook his head. "And there came the most calm and equally crazy sentence said in history since Andraste told Maferath: Despair not for your betrayal was Maker-blessed and it returned me to His side."
"Since when do you know the Chant of Light?" Hawke asked with a laugh.
"Hello? Are you deaf? Blind? Hit in the head?" Varric shouted in protest and stretched his arms. His tone was very friendly in its sincerity, "Worried and mortified for two days straight, Hawke."
Hawke remained silent and seemed to ponder something as she frowned. She retained that frown as she looked at both Varric and Fenris. "You two are weird. I'm gonna take a bath now."
Sometime later
Finally after so much time spent in those clothes in the filth and havoc of those Antivan catacombs, she could take a bath. A long, hot, well-deserved damn bath. She went down the stairs of the palazzo-inn and into the bathing rooms all made of luxurious white marble and adorned with wall-hanging perfumed roses. It was most beautiful.
Just when she was about to go to the ladies room of those charming and breath-taking premises, she heard the silent flaring nostrils of murder greeting her from behind.
"Taking a bath are we?" came Fenris's flat tone.
"No, I am," Hawke said calmly as she turned around.
"A wise choice," Fenris replied nonchalantly as he approached her. "All with cleansing the filth off from your recent adventuring."
"That's usually how a bath goes," she replied with a lifted eyebrow.
Fenris studied her for a second, as if she had a spot on her face. They locked their gazes together as she kept her arching eyebrow.
"Well… I'm off to my bath now," she said impatiently and turned around.
His nostrils flared and he turned around to go. "That one will not be enough," he muttered with masked insipidness.
Hawke turned back with a frown and asked in a controlled tone, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Fenris stopped his pace and turned his head half-way with nonchalance. "It means what it means."
"Oh, I was afraid meaning was making a special effort not to be annoyingly redundant today," she said with a scowl.
Fenris returned her scowl in silence. Finally he said in a tone of inconvincible tranquility, "It has recently lost its ambition."
"Well why don't you make an effort to bring it back?" Hawke demanded firmly.
"I don't see the point in trying," Fenris said insipidly.
She sighed and crossed her arms. "Maybe you could borrow some from that high ambition of your passive aggressiveness. That one seems to be plenty loaded."
"My what?" Fenris asked with an indomitable gaze.
She sighed. "Why are you here?" Hawke fired back to destroy his stubborn deflections.
He remained calm and content. He pointed at his old clothes. "The same reason you are."
"Oh, to cleanse yourself from the filth of your recent adventuring," Hawke said while accentuating the words. "I'm sure."
Fenris turned his gaze to the men's room and his face became a little weaker in hiding his annoyance. He took off towards it as he muttered quietly, "Not my adventuring."
The impossible scowl on Hawke's face couldn't get any bigger. She lost her temper. "How about you look me in the eye when you call me a whore?"
Fenris flinched and turned around. She kept her self-assured and strong gaze locked onto his quickly crumbling one.
Cornered and such, he turned his gaze straight to her eyes and calmly said, "I tend to tell the truth when I look you in the eye."
She crossed her arms again. "Do you also tend to stand still when you stare Death in the eye?" she asked with a heightened annoyance toned.
"Not really, although I prefer to die well-informed," Fenris said calmly.
"Well, then," Hawke said with an edge to her voice. "Good thing you didn't look me in the eye or your famous last words would have been belonged to the land of insane and wild exaggerations." She uncrossed her arms as he watched her firmly. "You can add that to your list of last regrets, since it's uncharacteristic of you to be unfair, right?"
"That is quite right," Fenris said with a chivalrous nod. "The only question remaining," he said and lifted his eyebrows as he looked up, "is if Death has any more interest with me," he lowered his gaze back at her with half-lidded eyes, "now that I haven't explicitly stated my insane and wild exaggeration."
Hawke finally smirked and rolled her eyes. "She's fairly annoyed with you and your clever semantics," she said, then innocently mused, "but she'll live. If that makes sense."
Fenris returned her smile shortly and he lowered his head in shame and scratched his head. "It seems I've dodged a fatal arrow there, haven't I?"
Ah, it would have been stupid to be mad at him now. She couldn't expect him to be fair with expressing his doubts, jealousy or discomfort properly, unless it was through anger and violence. And he did vow in his mind that he would never lose his temper with her again. She had to appreciate that.
She'd have to give him a medal.
"Next time, you can save us both some time and nerves and simply ask," Hawke said with a smirk.
"How simple it sounds, yet in practice," Fenris said with an ashamed sigh. "A bit more complicated than that."
"Well, that's what I'm here for!" she said with a joyful kind of grump. "Explaining and reminding everyone they're idiots."
"How generous and not at all arrogant of you," Fenris said sarcastically.
"It's not arrogance when it's the truth," Hawke said with a smug grin. She turned to the door. "Now if you'll –" Fenris approached her from behind. "Uhm."
"Yes?" he asked nonchalantly.
"See this?" Hawke pointed at the sign of a lady with a hat on the door. "This one has a pretentious little hat. Do you have a hat, Fenris?"
He lifted an irritated eyebrow. His tone was calm, "Well can't you just give me your little pretentious smart-ass and I could wear it like one? Half the time it does block my sunlight, after all."
She remained silent for a moment, trying to sink it in with an amused smile. "Wow. You're starting to sound like me."
"Regrettably," Fenris stung calmly.
"Sad isn't it?" Hawke asked cockily with a smile.
"That it is not so little?" Fenris asked nonchalantly.
She gave a mocking glance to his butt. "Well now, it would be quite a tragedy if we sounded and looked like one another, now, wouldn't it?"
"That seems fair," Fenris said with a smile. There had to be some sarcastic comment lurking in the air. "I think we should focus on the positive side and cherish our differences."
"Pssht. Since when?" Hawke asked unconvinced.
"Since I see it can be rather productive when they come together," Fenris said with a shrug.
"Yeah. Crazy redhead with extreme rage issues on the battlefield and a blue glowing snowglobe of perfect calm and tranquility," she said while shaking her head and stretching her arms. "I see your point. We complete each other yadda yadda, bull-"
"Indeed. And imagine we had a child," Fenris said abruptly while looking away. Hawke froze and her jaw landed somewhere in the Deep Roads.
Please let there be a follow-up punch-line, she pleaded in her mind.
Fenris leaned on a wall nearby in slow motions as if to deliberately harrow the pits of the Void upon her with the waiting. He finally continued, "With your quick wit," Fenris pointed and then drew up a smirk, "and my stunning good looks."
Thank the Maker.
She resumed her joyful face. "Or with my botched face and your remarkable stupidity."
"Now that would be sad," Fenris said calmly.
Sunrise, Near the Bridge of Liberty
Hawke and Fenris had up until now slept together in three different beds.
Three times they had slept together. Next to one another together. Not together-together. But it was still more or less together, wasn't it? He sighed.
His thoughts almost seem to have a striking resemblance to the elven blood mage's inane rambling, to which he would always roll his eyes. Sometimes within, if his head hurt too much because of Hawke's loud voice overshadowing everyone else's. He would always feel a little grateful for that.
First time, it was out of pure fate and necessity, in The Sunken Orlesian's Inn. He was perfectly sober, but he had only just met her. And at that time he was battling between the wondrous idea of simply killing her and the truly starlit idea of only just slightly killing her.
Second time, he was dead-drunk. Not the usual even stingier Fenris full of the rampant tones of a mean and grumpy drunk, but past the point of his natural character and down the hill.
Down on the ground.
Uppity back and in her bed.
When he awoke, it seemed only natural that he should be there. Two seconds later he would have really truly hoped that his lyrium haze could also slowly just make him fade away and disappear. Yes, like a withering flower or a vapour in the dessert. A wisp. Poof. Yes, and indeed two more of those seconds passed and only afterwards had it been truly the most awkward moment of his life, because his courage was lost somewhere in the cruel threads of time, and so was hers, all tangled up into a following wind of masked nonchalance. And lest not he forget, he impulsively tackled her with kisses the night before this happened, because at the time, it made perfect sense to him to follow her into her room and glue and sink or melt himself into her simply because he preferred her long and wild crown of thick red hair to the duller-looking and much duller-feeling one coming from a horse that made the outer layer of his armchair.
The third time, well, he was just dead. Correction; he was dead with anger and exhaustion and this time nothing in the world made more sense to him than to throw her on the bed and demand of her to tell him where she went, even if he knew she probably had no idea all with being overly exerted by the lack of health and magic in her by the time they had escaped. As Hawke suddenly showed up and took her really nice, very smooth, much sluggish time to sloooowly build up to her usual number of comedy… he had lost it.
Most times it was rather like an honor to be mad at her.
Yes, one could say she was very lazy with her sarcasm. One could say she put a lot of honest effort into being exactly that. And when she was truly "lazy", he was truly very "nice"with his anger, as if the most impertinent thing he could do was simply to strike her with all the fearsome might of his scowl.
And then came upon morning and it was rather bright and perfect this time.
Except for the fact that, pardon the scratch in the phrase – he woke up with morning wood and she woke up with morning wouldn't.
Ah. Come back, you one thought.
Let us be more organized.
Bed no. 1: Sober, wanted to kill her only slightly in his thoughts, only mumbled in competitive snarkiness upon morning about the bed breaking and such.
Bed no. 2: Drunk, wanted to do something else and very a lot to her, and not in his thoughts, positively attempted to… what was the word… jump her, no arguing or snarkiness upon morning as he recalled, only yet again mumbled something about not losing the bet because of technicalities and bed breaking and such.
Bed no. 3: Exhausted and dead-worried, angry to the bone, wanted to void her and not in his thoughts, wanted to do a lot more to her and not in his thoughts, wanted to protect her and never let go of her and not in his thoughts.
Yes, now it seemed that the truly one, two actually, very different things – ah, three ideas – about Bed no.3 were – Make a list, he screamed at himself.
- That everything he had ever felt for Hawke, all those separate feelings, not only grew more fervent and combined each other into a rampant kettle of boiling blood-rosy soup of emotion, but it, or they – all of those feelings into one simply blew out of cosmic proportions.
- Upon morning, although they both had that distinct scratch lurking in their tones, those were remarks made with calm, joyful, playful behavior. And deliberate, courageous flirtations. And dragging her into his strong embrace and ardent kisses without being provoked, or drunk, or threatened, or worried, or angry, or uppity – well, one could argue about uppity –
- This had been the best morning of his life.
Joy of joys. That was not sarcasm.
He never guessed. He thought, he pondered, he deduced, he decided. But he never guessed.
And he concluded it was happiness.
Almost content with his triumph, suddenly he also concluded that in all his defensiveness, fear, worry, the numerous shocks he had lived through in the last two weeks… He displaced his perspective. Not entirely, but still.
Yes, yes, he was enchanted by her sarcasm. The fine tunes of sharp and flat coming from him, the mean, the grumpy and the joyful little jokes and the mighty battle of wits galore from both. Yes. But it had been quite a long time since they had truly argued or went at each other's throats. When was that last? … Somewhere possibly down the lines of when she started to thoroughly teach him how to read and write. Preposterous, that was months ago… Sure, some little comments even he could not abstain from doing afterwards. After all, he was an ocean of grumpy sarcastic comments muttered in hush and calm tones, perhaps to be perfectly in tune to match Hawke's loud and joyful equally sarcastic comments – now he realized. They balanced each other out.
He must be remarkably stupid indeed.
They were making jokes. Playing, musing, satirizing, humoring, whatever. Not all of it had some scratch lurking in it. More than half the time that was the case –of simple jokes and having fun, laughing with each other instead of at each other… a half of the other half was more of a snarky-uppity approach, and the other half of the other half was but a mere fullness of calm and peaceful dialogues. And they had a lot of those too. Indeed, they had managed to cover almost the whole of worldly and galactic subjects and topics, except little short of their secretive despair, the ghost of their separate pasts and lastly, their true feelings for each other. There was still time for that… Not today. Today, as was yesterday and the day before, and forever tomorrow until something or someone caught on fire, nothing seemed more appropriate than for them to continue in this manner. Not the secretive, defensive part, but the musing and joking in calm or lively tones part.
They were funny people.
The sky was blue and the grass was green.
Yes, now it made sense.
He was displacing his thoughts and worries to better suit his private fears. He would never forgive himself if he had lost his temper again with such a change in his manner as to almost be on the verge of killing her out of sheer raging idiocy. Or idiotic rage. Both made a fine case out of him after all.
He felt it though. He felt it all, that she understood him, that she accepted him, that she resolved in her mind to even better understand him. That she intended not to defend herself at all because she trusted that he would never do it. And she proved him right. His rage came as quick aflame as those raging flames quickly died. She was ready to understand. Emphasis on the ready. Without pressing him. No, that would be a wicked thing to do. He appreciated this liberty she gave him.
Things were going well, either way.
It was clear now that he had to take delight in this happier turn of events and enjoy it. Enjoy life, enjoy her, enjoy it all, no matter what she chose to do with him. The curious feeling of content, of being fulfilled, of feeling so remarkably free, was but a stone's throw away. He only had to make sure he was not going to deliberately throw the stone in his face, as his unconscious automatisms usually dictated.
Finally, his brooding was slapped away when Armand and Zevran approached him as he was sitting at a white fancy table in front of that restaurant – or more realistically speaking, a more luxurious tavern – with outdoor seating from across the street. They went there in their first night in Antiva City and it seemed perfectly deprived of all souls since the sun had barely even risen yet.
The chilly morning was accompanied by a very beautiful mantle of fog all around the city. It made all the colors simply become more radiant and contrasting to the current air of coldness and paleness that Mother Nature had bestowed upon the world.
"His face does have a brooding sensuality to it, you were right, my friend," Zevran said joyfully as they each took a seat at the table.
"Pardon?" Fenris asked in sudden discomfort.
"Ah, nothing," Zevran said with a smile and conquered the table with his fine elbows. "We were just discussing beauty. The beauty of dead people."
Fenris lifted an eyebrow and looked down around himself. "I seem awfully flushed for a dead man."
"That's because you are alive," came Armand's sharp and flat tone.
Obviously, Fenris thought grumpily. But then it hit him that Armand's rare-if-ever humorous remarks seemed indeed, rare, because he was much more clever and subtle with his approach. While appearing to say a mere serious, dull platitude, what Armand actually intended was to say "Do not be so hasty. He said the beauty of dead people and you are much alive. Obviously, you think too highly of yourself."
Thus his laughter came belated, but at least it made an appearance. "Indeed perhaps I was a bit hasty."
Armand smirked at last and Zevran resumed his louder speeches. "Ah, how did the saying go? From the cradle to the grave? Well I find graves to be insanely useless in my doing of things."
"I'm trying to think of how you will manage to throw the impending perverted punch-line with that sentence," Fenris said grumpily as he rested his leg on the empty next to him.
"That is because there is no impending perverted punch-line," Zevran said with a smile. Then his smile turned into a standalone grin. "Although…"
Armand rolled his eyes. "Way to put ideas in his head, Fenris."
He returned a smirk. "I see we're on a first name basis now. Or should I say real name basis."
"Yes, and see how quickly it died out when you managed to annoy me?" Armand said grumpily and sighed. He resumed his sharp familiar Antivan scratch with his saying, "Back to little bitch it is."
"This is most curious," Fenris said in a flat tone.
"What is?" Armand asked.
Fenris nodded towards the childishly snorting Zevran. "You seem to have nerves of steel with this one, yet with me-"
"This one! As if I'm some common lowly whathisface!" Zevran protested loudly and gestured. "No surprise why Hawke is so snarkity-uppity with you."
"Snarkity… uppity?" Fenris asked in disbelief with a tone that said he thought him an idiot.
"You are a man of few words," Zevran said with a smile and then nodded, "But they are quite enough to make someone wish to kill you within three seconds of meeting you."
"I suspect when she has so much in common with someone, she can't help but like me a little," Fenris said nonchalantly. He knew it to be true.
"Yes you are quite similar, are you not? You must have felt like quite the fool cursed by irony, no?" Zevran said and smiled again brightly.
"You cannot even begin to imagine," Fenris said while shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
"A snarky and peppery fugitive ex-slave from Tevinter meets a beautiful salty Ferelden apostate right halfway through the world in the enigmatic city of Kirkwall. This seems like quite the perfect idea for a dark and sexy romance novel," Zevran said joyfully. "Oh, yes, Dorian must surely try and cook up a draft in the near future! I would love to read something like that."
"I suspect someone has already outrun you in that endeavor," Fenris said grumpily, pertaining to Varric. "Feel free to pester the dwarf about it and leave me alone."
"Haha, oh, well now," Zevran said with a smirk and bent over the table. "I'm living my love story." Then he winked at him. "Yours still appears to be tangled up in the imaginary." Straight below the belt he had went, and not just in battle or in bed.
"Just the one?" Fenris asked stingingly, raising an eyebrow. "I am truly impressed by your loyalty."
Zevran frowned and the corner of his lips went a bit crooked. Of course he gave an appearance of someone who would hump a chair if there was nothing remotely similar to a living being in sight, but that was just what it was. An appearance. He was more faithful to the Warden than the Chantry and the Templars were on torturing the entirety of the magical race.
Finally he muttered, "Tsk. She must have nerves of steel indeed to have suffered you all this time without giving you a proper and thorough beating."
Fenris lifted his eyebrows. "She has to possess the nerves of steel?" He rolled his eyes. "Have you even listened to one word she said in-between strategically cheating on your wife with other little organs than the one which would indeed make it a little like betrayal?"
Oh, you are playing with fire, the Antivan's eyes said.
"You beg for it, my friend. The beating I mean," Zevran said almost with discomfort through his smile. "And how dare you throw such mean accusations on me!"
Fenris shrugged calmly. "You beg for it," he said with an edge. He shortly smirked, "The beating I mean."
"I beg to differ," Zevran said and cupped his chin. "I usually make do with at least half a day before someone wishes and tries to kill me." Then it appeared his eyes sparkled as he looked around. "Speaking of which –"
"Oh, I do not wish to kill you," Fenris said nonchalantly and dismissed him with a wave. "Although anything I would say I wish to do to you, you would just turn it to sound like a twisted perversion."
"How true," Armand said with a sudden smirk, as if he was remembering something. No doubt sometime in the past Armand and Zevran did not get along. They were the screaming proof of utterly different existing attitudes and personalities. It was absolutely inconceivable that it could have been any other way than Armand first wanting to gag and kill Zevran within three seconds of him opening his dirty mouth.
"Nope," Zevran said sweetly. "You could say you wish to buy me coffee."
Armand suddenly snorted. "That is Antivan code for shacking up."
"Well, he did not need to know that," Zevran fired back with inconvenience as he turned his head to Armand.
Being in the presence of two men very familiar with men, Fenris felt a bit cornered. Indeed, it seemed he had to be a little grateful though. He was quick with his jealousy. First he felt a rush to rapidly hate Dorian and his flirtatious familiarity with Hawke and almost got to the point of beating him up on the road. Then Zevran butting in to steal the glory with his charming advances within three seconds of meeting Hawke and thus within four to really bring his nerves out. Armand was the only one who did not turn him into a ticking time bomb and that was because he managed to find out he was taken with a man. Yes, he had to be grateful for that. Feeling the urge or ending up beating a second gay guy would have looked bad.
"I am quite bewildered as to how you ended up being married," Fenris said calmly, after the sleepy waiter finally brought their morning Antivan coffee.
Curiously, Armand took a sip of the fourth additional coffee he ordered, and then left it alone there.
"Has your eyesight not been working this whole time?" Zevran asked eagerly. "I am a delight!"
"A delight to be brutally offed and out of this world," Fenris completed calmly as he drank his coffee.
"That's exactly what she said to me!" Zevran almost shouted while smiling. Then he stared in blank. " 'Zevran, do not doubt that when we meet the Archdemon, I'm using you and your smug little mouth as an elven shield. If it's as unyielding at being smug as it is at saving my ass, then you shouldn't worry. Darling, don't look at me like that. You should be grateful with me. I am actually trying to be nice and controlled with my urge to simply throw you at it'. Quite the love declaration."
Fenris broke into laughter. It startled both the men.
"Is she generally that mean or was she saying that all in good reason?" Fenris asked as he was fairly amused.
"All in good reason," Zevran laughed.
"I respect that," Fenris said and gestured a cheers with his cup.
"Mi cara," Zevran said while sighing. "Not a second passes that I feel I will die if I don't see her again soon."
"You or just one part of you?" Fenris asked in amusement. If one particular part of him died, it wouldn't seem like such a tragedy. No, even if that part was cut off, Zevran would probably still want to have sex.
"All of me!" Zevran shouted happily. "I love her with all of me." Then Zevran painted a very intrusive and triumphant risen eyebrow. "Can you say the same about yourself?"
Consequently, Fenris's throat stiffened and his breathing air ways suddenly blocked. His eyes were empty and he quickly forgot where he was and whatever else that was happening. The chilly fog around them was clearer than the howling confusion in his head.
That word did not belong to his vocabulary. That word did not belong to his anything. And even without making use of that word, he knew little short of less than nothing about what he was doing or what he was feeling for his particular redhead. Who was not even his to call as such.
Suddenly his air of triumph for what happened in the last day had been viciously crushed by one short decisive sentence from an equally short decisive elf.
Curse him.
"Leave him alone," Armand said suddenly. Fenris finally breathed again. "He's utterly clueless."
"Well, obviously," Zevran replied confidently while sipping his coffee.
"Oh, wonderful," Fenris said grumpily. He took a sip from his cup, then said, "Why don't you illuminate me."
"Gladly! You see –" Zevran started eagerly.
Fenris dismissed him with his palm. "That was sarcasm."
"I resolve to ignore it," Zevran said confidently, shrugging. "So as I was saying– "
"I do not need advice," Fenris fired back in annoyance.
There came an air of silence from the two other elves, both raising their eyebrows with half-lidded eyes and intending their being quiet to make the strongest possible impression that what Fenris had said was the biggest most impossible little lie since Andraste had told Maferath it was the Maker's.
"Fine…" his voice came very low and quiet as he looked down and started appearing very immersed into admiring the circles in his coffee as he put it down. "Maybe I need a little advice."
Both of them snorted. "A little," they both said.
"Either state your ground-breaking ideas or cease with the inane prodding," Fenris demanded with a very obvious edge in his tone as he squeezed the cup with both of his hands.
"We are a couple of wiseasses are we not?" Zevran laughed while looking at Armand. "But all in good reason, of course."
"Of course," Armand said nonchalantly, almost drawing up a smirk.
"Here is the deal – it does not matter who has the penis –"
Fenris rolled his eyes. "I could swear you would start with –"
"Either shut up and listen or we will cease with the inane prodding," Zevran fired back and leaned over to the other elf. "Aren't we, Armand?"
"Very much so," Armand said sharply, resting an arm over the back of his chair.
Fenris rolled his eyes again. He waved a hand grumpily. "Proceed."
"Yielding are we? That is quite a good tactic even it if does not appear so at first glance," Zevran said with a nod and a confident grin.
"Riddles..." Fenris muttered, lifting his eyebrows and looking down. "…Shocking."
"Tsk." Zevran leaned back in his chair and gestured a dismissal. "You are on your own."
"Oh, come on!" came Fenris's sudden angry voice. He was little short of banging his fist on the table. He was abstaining.
"Begging," he laughed. "That you do not want to do," Zevran grinned abhorrently confident. "Unless she finds begging sexy, in which case knock yourself out."
"If she does then I clearly must have mental problems," Fenris muttered sharply.
"Of course you do, regardless of that," Zevran replied. "All people sitting at this table are utterly and irrevocably crazy. Which makes it even better."
"Meaning?" Fenris asked.
"None are better equipped to venture into the unknown and enigmatic lands of love as we crazy people do," Zevran said innocently. "It is a law of Nature. All unbeknownst that She is crazy too."
More riddles. Shocking.
He abstained from commenting.
"But of course all these thoughts are moot," Zevran said surprisingly. "What matters is what to do once we're there. Have you been…" he raised a naughty eyebrow, "…there?"
Fenris frowned in confusion. He didn't know how to answer that.
"He's tested the waters and the waters were shallow," Armand answered calmly for him.
"Oh, I am perfectly sure that he can thrust deeper," Zevran said with a devilish grin.
"I am perfectly sure I do not understand," Fenris said with a sigh.
"Dear man," Zevran started warmly. He put an elbow on the table and raised his palm to gesture while looking up to gather wit from all-knowing Heaven, all-stranger to him, for if Heaven knew who it was talking to, it would have started weeping with massive showers of rain upon them. "A woman, or a man, it does not quite matter really – but let's call it woman for the sake of your situation – one who is clever enough to dismiss you even with the slightest of scratchy gestures, must be approached with the same amount of sentimental wit."
"And by that he means you need to beat her at her own game with all the gracious respect a gentleman holds for a lady," Armand joined in with a nod.
"And by that of course, he means you have to woo her," Zevran said with a smile. "With an o, not with an e, well - one could argue- "
Fenris's gaze turned from one potentially insane elf to the other with such rapidity he quickly became dizzy and all the more lost.
"Woo her?" he asked with the highest that his eyebrow could reach and the most he could sharply articulate the word.
"So being all knight in shining armor until she finally puts out," Armand said rather surprisingly. "That is how it is commonly known to go. If you do that with her," he gestured to the inn with half-lidded eyes, "You can pack your bags and move to little phlegmatic pretentious Orlais with six broken ribs, a black eye and missing one testicle."
"And we all hate it when that happens," Zevran said with closed eyes and approving with his tranquil nods.
"Well, we don't want that, do we," Fenris said with half-lidded eyes and a crooked grimace.
"So what you can do is be a knight in… how should we put it," Zevran said and looked at Armand.
Armand smirked a bit and finished his sentence as if they had lived together for a decade, "Darker armour."
How dramatic. He abstained from commenting.
"And by that we mean this: rather than trying to pointlessly impress her and be all kittens and rainbows," Zevran started while rolling his eyes at the last bit, "simply make do with showing her what nobody hardly ever does –understanding. Accepting. Giving her the helping hand even if she doesn't call for it. Even if she utterly and stubbornly refuses it."
"And of course, cut it with the jealousy," Armand said sharply.
"She confessed that she enjoyed it," Fenris protested.
Zevran shook his head calmly. "No, no, no. It is fine to show her you are threatened. It is fine to show her what a big bad Fenris you can be. Harrowing Hell, even I was impressed and a little bit frightened, I must confess," he said with an innocent smile, "But if you are threatened by any man or woman who even remotely looks at her and you act as if she is yours and abuse of that possessive pronoun and stretch it to marvelous, unreasonable extents…"
"You are doomed," Armand finished sharply, arm still resting nonchalantly at the back of the chair.
Fenris didn't seem to be impressed, but Zevran pressed, "Do not doubt that she has or will have other admirers. Of course, she is rather strange, a bit sharp on the edges and a threat to most men and their pretentious masculinity, but there is always going to be at least one other man or woman that will not be so threatened."
He couldn't conceive of such a one, but alas. He abstained from commenting.
"I've learned it the hard way," Zevran said with a sigh. "Armand did too, no doubt. Didn't you?"
Armand rolled his eyes very shortly. His tone came very grumpy in its reminiscing, "Fun times."
"Very fun for the one admired, not so much for the admirer," Zevran said and narrowed his eyes while clenching his fists a bit on the table. "No, not for us who were secretly abstaining from going at the other's throat, but quickly made do with politely excusing ourselves and crawling into a dark corner to bark," Zevran said with a sharp tone.
"I am just filled with joy all with you making all of us seem like dogs," Fenris said grumpily.
"If I make us seem like whales or hippity-hippos, would it make you feel any less offended?" Zevran asked while rolling his eyes. "Besides, if we are dogs, then that makes the object of our affection bitches. And while we say that with affection it never sounds quite that offensive."
"Yes, it does sound a bit endearing, doesn't it?" Armand surprisingly agreed.
Hawke's mabari, Mojo, was surely smarter and more content than any of the men sitting at the table like such civilized people. Well, the most civilized they could get. Fenris resting a leg on the empty chair beside him, Armand resting his arm at the back of his chair and Zevran conquering the table with his reeking elbows of confidence and widely parted legs under the table. He would not have the stomach to look under it if he dropped something by accident.
"You were saying something about jealousy before going tangled up in animalic terms," Fenris brought it back quickly, since he was growing positively impatient.
"To match our tigerish little appetite and our wolfish little hearts!" Zevran mused with a big smile.
Armand smirked arrogantly. "And our horse-like giant c-"
"Please tell me there's some coffee left for me," Dorian's voice came to save the impending perversion coming from Armand's evermore truthfully shocking dirty mouth.
The words that came out of Armand's usually cold and sharp tongue, now made Fenris's eyes fatally dry from growing wide and his jaw to land somewhere in the dwarven thaigs with full force. Armand's voice was deep and full with warmth in his sharp accent. "I saved you a cup, Amore."
"Thank goodness," Dorian said with a laugh. "You are goodness in a cup."
"I am also a god," Armand said rather arrogantly in his musing. His flirtatious eyebrow and half-lidded eyes were most disturbing.
"I do tend to call on you in bed," Dorian mused with a smirk. He drank his coffee joyfully and resumed listening to the others.
"Like I was saying, there is always room for some other smug bastard to rival in your courtship," Zevran explained calmly. "And you will do well to rival him with perfect tranquility."
"And pretend he doesn't exist," Armand added with a nod. "Once you grant him the right to existence, to hell with all the peace and quiet."
"If she is taken with you, you should not even worry," Zevran said with a shrug. "And trust the words of an Antivan, she is quite taken with you."
Fenris snorted at his dramatic comment. "Trust the words of an Antivan? That sounds like quite the contradiction."
"Well, now," Zevran said a bit offended. "Perhaps you would do well to trust the words of two Antivans then."
"Perhaps," Fenris said flatly. He took another sip of nonchalance.
"And even with no rival, you should always and always be ready to take her down as well," Zevran said. "Well, besides taking her down into the ever-more-wished horizontal positions. Yes that is the hardest part, is it not?"
"Very hard," Armand said sharply. You could guess he meant it as a clever hidden dirty comment to shortly explain exasperation.
It had been quite easy to take her down into a horizontal position, in fact. But alas, technicalities. He would do well to abstain from commenting. His curiosity was piqued.
"And what would you have me do?" Fenris demanded.
"Press," Armand took the initiative. "Always press. Don't give up. It's stupid."
"Yes, never yield," Zevran said. "Yielding is for bastards." For some reason, all with being aware of the history of the group that defeated the Blight, Fenris suspected Zevran was subtly pertaining to a particular bastard now on the Ferelden throne.
"Well that is a big load o'crap with your coffee of stubbornness this sodding morning of self-denial," Dorian surprisingly intervened in irritation. He looked at Armand and Zevran with a very disappointed protest in his eyes. They were both startled. A very tiny elf with now a very decisive outraged voice.
Zevran looked at Armand as if he would know what Dorian meant, but the Antivan shrugged with a trembling lower lip.
"You don't press, at least not like a big barking bowl of bestiality," Dorian said firmly.
"Big barking bowl of bestiality!" Zevran shouted. "I wonder how quickly I can say it five times in a row? Let's see. Bi-brking-bo-"
"If you want to make someone stay, then you need to kinda let them go," Dorian said confidently.
Armand frowned a bit. He didn't understand. Zevran only looked as if he had understood.
Dorian sighed and gestured, "You boys are clueless."
"Well now, we do have a penis after all," Zevran protested sharply with a raised eyebrow. "I wonder where yours went."
"It's landed much quicker where I wanted it to land than yours did," Dorian stung back firmly.
Now this was most amusing. Zevran was finally being dethroned. And Armand was ripe and flushed with redness in his once indomitable cheeks.
"Hm, 'tis true," Zevran yielded with an edge in his tone. "Do go on then, precioso."
Dorian resumed his explanation, "Well, if she's all – wait. We're talking about Hawke, aren't we?"
Fenris swallowed heavily. Curse him, he forgot they were friends.
"Well with Hawke I can tell you this," Dorian said and conquered the table with his elbows. He took a sip of nonchalance, and then resumed his grin, "You do not have a chance if you're a pretentious little douche."
"Does he seem like he's little or pretentious?" Zevran asked sarcastically.
Dorian laughed. "No, he's fine. What Hawke dismisses are jerks. He's not a jerk. He's more of a … half-stingy harmlessly-venomous little snake."
"Emphasis on the little snake?" Zevran asked innocently.
"It is not the size that matters, it is where you get to put it, - Adonis, 9:33 Dragon," Fenris mockingly quoted the elf. It didn't matter. Of course, if it did, he would not have to be worried. But he was abstaining from feeling smug about it since Zevran was stealing all that ambition and leaving him careless in that not so little endeavor.
"Ah, you do listen!" Zevran shouted eagerly. "How shocking it is."
"And you do spew perversions whenever a poor little word has the unfortunate fate of being cheaply twisted," Fenris stung back nonchalantly.
"It had been a long time since I made a euphemism," Zevran defended himself innocently. "Truly, you must give me some credit. I tried to abstain for as long as I possibly could."
"He's not bullshitting," Armand said seriously. Then glanced sharply at him, "This time."
"You wound me," Zevran mused with a smile. "And I never did mind a few burns."
"So how does he get to put it there?" Armand asked Dorian shortly thereafter, as if he was actually curious as to why he was protesting and discarding the two Antivans' theories.
"Well first of all, be yourself," Dorian said to Fenris with a sigh. "I don't care what shit you do. First rule of thumb is never stop being yourself. Otherwise you'll probably manage to come to be together, but your stupid fake relationship will just as soon come to an end. You'll become yourself later and then you'll both be surprised of how much a fantasy you built up in your heads that you actually got along."
"That seems only fair," Fenris approved calmly. "What is the second rule?"
"Well since I'm familiar with the particular garden you're trying to reach," Dorian said with a naughty eyebrow, probably to get on Fenris's nerves again and play a little, "I can say very confidently that this applies to me as much as it does to you."
Fenris lifted an eyebrow. "And that is?"
"If she's all defenses and dismissive while still showing that she wants you," Dorian said and gave Armand a very obvious and sharp look, "you just gotta be a little more distant and colder. Just a little. Nonchalant. Joyful. All full of whatever." He quickly lifted his cup of coffee as if to make a toast. "Then they be tremblin'."
"You did that on purpose?" Armand asked in sincere amazement and discomfort, his nonchalant arm at the back of his chair falling into sudden not so nonchalant defeat.
"You noticed?" Dorian mused with a snort, drinking the coffee.
"Hardly," Armand said honestly. "Not until much later."
"Well then," Dorian grinned, holding the cup to his face as if it was a symbol of victory, "I mean, don't get me wrong, like I said," he said back to Fenris. "First rule of thumb is to be yourself. I'm just pertaining to how much of yourself you should give. Like not throw yourself at them more likely. That's quite about it."
"You actually did that on me, Amore?" Armand protested calmly.
"Well it worked, didn't it?" Dorian said nonchalantly while drinking his coffee. "You ran and ran and I didn't give a fuck. I showed you I gave a fuck through my actions dime a dozen and it was enough and you knew it to be so." Then he gestured all-knowingly with a giant grin. "So you started to show you actually gave that fuck you worked so hard in hiding from me."
"You little fiend," Armand said sharply and caught Dorian by the shoulder, bringing him closer to him. He kissed his head as if he were chaste, but with all the fire of warmth he could possibly show.
Fenris had his brows lifted up to Heaven again. He searched in Zevran some kind of protest.
"Don't look at me," Zevran muttered grumpily, shoulders sunk. "I did the same thing. Or she did. I don't quite remember."
"I can guess," Fenris said calmly, drawing up a smirk.
Zevran shrugged. "Tsk." He cupped his chin. "Although I do remember endless nights of throwing myself at her, all while shortly thereafter – after being so viciously refused over and over again – I slowly learned my lesson and backed off a little."
"And then she came to you?" Fenris asked, curious.
"Well, it was inevitable," Zevran said with a cocky grin. "Or so I tried to point out to her afterwards to save it."
"Did it work?" Fenris asked with a laugh.
"No, she said she seduced me," Zevran chuckled. "Yes, what a saucy little minx she was. She didn't know it to be true, however."
"But, even so," Dorian intervened. "This is Hawke we're talking about. Just like Zev's girl and my big guy," he said with a grin and glanced at Armand, "they're not people to be really played with. Trust in your damn little heart. They'll come to you if you let them. Don't stretch it. It's a recipe for destruction."
"Ah, but how can we, when we have such appetite for destruction," Zevran said macabrely in his Antivan accent.
"Though, to be fair, we don't do well with self-destruction," Armand pointed out calmly. He sighed heavily and resumed, "And that brings me to another difficult lesson which only I can truly give to him."
Fenris's ear twitched and he was ready to listen, although growing tired of the endless love lessons.
Armand leaned over the table and gave him a sharp, determined look. "It makes little difference if you kill your master. It doesn't make one shitting copper of a difference." His tone remained very sharp, "Being truly free is in the soul. If you deliberately destroy your soul as if to comfort yourself that you are hopeless, you are doomed. You are doomed and it will be ugly."
Fenris didn't answer. He was swallowing heavily and his hands became shaky, so he quickly hid them in his lap so nobody would see.
"I know how much it cost me. Amore knows too," he continued, giving Dorian a sad glance masked by firmness. His lover nodded only slightly with his eyelids, but only warmth came with it. "And Hawke will know it soon enough."
Scowling even more, Fenris remained silent.
"I am merely saying the truth, I do not mean to scare you out of it," Armand said. "It would be a dumb fucking thing to pull away from something so true and worth our poor little tortured and clueless hearts." Then, to make his statement all the more clearer, he added, "And it would be a fucking insult to our lovers simply because they are ready to take our burden." Then he sighed and shook his head, "Dumb-, dumb fucking thing."
"Dumb it is," Dorian said and went to caress Armand's red hair. "But you were worth the trouble."
"As were you," Armand said with a very warm smile. He took Dorian's hand and kissed it, then squeezed it with a fervor that Fenris wondered if it matched his own or he was simply fooling himself. His mind resolved to block everything from overthinking or shock him, and simply keep watching the two elves in their beautiful romance.
"Ah, love," Zevran said joyfully. "It is not for pure cowards. For half-cowards yes. It turns them into the bravest of men."
"Yeah," Armand said. "You really shouldn't say you love someone unless you mean it." Then he looked at Fenris a bit narrow-eyed. "But if you mean it, you should say it a lot." Then he closed his eyes and shrugged. "People forget."
"Yes, love is when you smile when you're tired," Dorian added tranquilly and glanced at Armand as if he meant him. His returning look confirmed it.
Zevran closed it. "Love is also when you kiss all the time, then when you get tired of a thorough good kissing, you still want to be together and talk."
"Yeah, we're something like that," Dorian laughed.
"Indeed," Zevran approved, then looked at Fenris and grimaced with sarcasm. "They look gross when they kiss."
"We have each other to kiss," Armand said confidently. "You only have this." He gestured a very polite up-yours finger.
The sun had barely risen and the day had already been full of wonders.
Antiva was creepy. Varric was correct.
But Fenris did have one conclusion, in-between all those raging love definitions his brain was exploding from with utter protest.
Love was, as he suspected, what Armand had done a while ago. He took a single sip of the coffee meant for Dorian before he came to drink it, to see if the taste was just alright.
Some minutes later
Varric and Isabela joined shortly thereafter and brought upon holy salvation even with the adjective not even remotely seeming characteristic to any of them.
When Hawke finally showed up, his jaws, his hands, his everything, landed down to the fiery core of the earth.
Yes, Fenris was about to fall off from his chair. She was wearing a simple blue-greenish sundress in which every pretty little curve of her thrashed and shouted without being revealed almost at all.
As if by an automatism, Fenris removed his leg from the empty chair next to him. Hawke quickly took a seat, as it turned out. He unconsciously conquered it to save it for her.
"Wow, get a load of you. You look so pretty. I hardly recognize you," Isabela said with a wicked smile.
"Sadly for you, I still recognize you," Hawke stung back with a smile.
"Hiss," Isabela mused with a wink.
"Well now," Hawke said cockily. "Still alive… and well?"
"Still and both," Armand said with a chivalrous nod. "And I have you to thank for." His tone was sharp and warm. Truly grateful. No other words were necessary between them.
"No need," Hawke said with a dismissing palm of modesty. "I would have done it with my eyes closed."
"Hawke," Dorian said sharply.
She batted her eyelashes in mockery. "Yes, Dory?"
"I am speaking for both of us, and probably all of the fine people at this table when I say – stop being so fucking modest," he almost shouted. "Accept the thank you. You are a damn good woman."
"I am damn good-looking, yes," Hawke corrected defensively with joy. "Thank you."
"How about some coffee of truth with that smug grin of self-denial," Dorian pressed again with a wink.
"Coffee sounds good," Hawke agreed with a nod.
"You know the difference between right and wrong," Zevran intervened.
"Do I?" Hawke asked innocently.
"You know the difference between right and wrong," he repeated pressingly. "How do you not rule the world, I cannot possibly conceive. You are a genius, a sage, a giant among men. You have solved the problem which philosophers have been debating since antiquity—the mystery about which no two nations or tribes have ever agreed, and no two men or women have ever agreed, and no intelligent person has ever agreed totally with himself from one day to the next!" Zevran continued in a lively tone. "You know the difference between right and wrong." He raised his hands up in the air. "I am overawed. I swoon. I figuratively kiss your feet."
She could feel Justice growing green with jealousy all the way from Darktown.
"Why thank you, though no need for such swooning gestures," Hawke said in amusement. "So what's up?"
"Me, Armand and Fenris are now best friends," Zevran said cockily. "Yes, we are quite the funny colorful trio, no?"
"Right. I can tell from the bat wings and the leeches that you three are just all happy-smiles and rainbows," Hawke said with lifted shoulders and a joyful smirk.
"I am the happy one," Zevran said with confident arching brows. "Those two," he gestured, "Well, they're just two of them because they couldn't possibly take me down separately."
"Yes, why don't we test that theory?" Armand asked sharply. He glanced at Fenris. "Care to gag and tie him later?"
"Ah, affection always comes with strings," Zevran fired back nonchalantly with a smile.
"Why are you in a dress?" Fenris asked and startled everyone.
The utter silence was broken off by Hawke smiling crookedly and saying, "Well, Lord Seeker of Truth, if you must know, I ran out of clothes."
"Really now?" Fenris asked with a risen eyebrow.
"Yep," Hawke said confidently. "Someone flushed them all."
"Guilty," Isabela said with a shrug.
"Mmmm. I'm sensing a dirty story," Zevran outran Varric in pointing it.
"Not really. Well, if it counts that she saw me naked, then yeah," Hawke said with nonchalance.
Fenris's eyebrow remained there up and paralyzed. Blushing. Much blushing. She didn't seem to notice.
"I knocked her baggage in the bathtub," Isabela said innocently.
"On purpose," Varric added with a nod.
"Well you know how they say – you catch more flies with honey, but drown them straight and you save up on the perishables," Isabela said with playful grin.
"Next time I'm not gonna try saving those perishables," Hawke said stingingly with a wink.
"Muah," Isabela blew her a kiss.
Hawke pretended to dodge it entirely.
"Hiss," Isabela fired nonchalantly.
"Oh, you two are a delight," Zevran noticed with ease.
"We're much more of a delight naked," Isabela said with a grin, while making use of knowing how they both looked like.
"Hm. Well, I must disappoint you," Zevran said with a sigh. "Whatever you lovely temptresses would look like, my eyes automatically hallucinate mi cara and that is all I see from then on to eternity."
"I heard you the first nine times," Isabela said with an edge. "I got your drift."
"Well I'm insistent like that," Zevran said sarcastically, mirroring her own insistence.
"You think too highly of yourself," Isabela said in defense. "For a short person."
"Ah, now why do you sting?" Zevran said in protest and dismissed her with a childish wave. "Tsk. Assassinate that attitude."
"Well that was a crappy pun," Varric laughed and made a pun himself for mockery, "Which is kind of a pleonastic redundancy."
"I'm all pun-sexual like that," Zevran said with a shrug.
"Like pansexual, but with a pun?" Hawke asked in amusement. "Pantastic."
"Funny," Varric said cockily. "How about we go back to the higher forms of wit."
"They say that sarcasm is actually the lowest form of wit," Armand said calmly.
Hawke snorted. "Well they've obviously never met me."
"Obviously," Fenris articulated with an unexpected smirk.
"We're all kings and queens of utter sarcasm back in Kirkwall," Hawke said joyfully. "Yep," she gestured, "We check our parachutes and launch ourselves into the Waking Sea of Sarcasm."
"Then when we're feeling really ambitious," Fenris started with a smirk, "we cut our own strings and fall straight to drown into it like idiots."
"You said we right?" Hawke asked. "Like, you know that includes you too, I hope?"
"I'm fairly aware," Fenris nodded calmly, pertaining that she had already made her point way back in the bathrooms that it was her duty to tell people they were idiots and he hadn't still forgotten.
"You did not just say that," Hawke almost shouted with a happy smile, which could only mean there was something else lurking about. "I have a feeling we're on the verge of hugging and coming up with cute nicknames for each other."
"Haven't we already done that, Tuffpants?" Fenris asked mockingly.
"Priscilla, please, it's high time we're on a first name basis," Hawke mused back.
"You know what's coming for you if you call me Fenkis," he said with an edge.
"What now?" Isabela asked also with a suspicious edge.
They ignored her quickly. "I wasn't going to call you Fenkis," Hawke laughed. "I was going to fall back on Mister Fister. Well, since it's a first name basis I should only call you Mister. Or is that Fister?"
"Well since you've already fallen back on that so frequently," Isabela said vaguely, "I'd say it's growing a bit tiring and redundant."
"Nah, it never gets old," Hawke chuckled and dismissed her with a grimace. "It's a classic."
"I bet it is," Isabela said with narrowed eyes and glanced at Varric, who also dismissed her, because he still didn't believe her.
"Mister Fister!" Zevran shouted. "Ohhh, because of his-" He snorted childishly. "Oh that is a classic."
"He's bright and must be given credit to appoint it a classic upon only first hearing it," Hawke said in amusement.
"I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, yes," Zevran said with a smile, "And yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden," he gestured articulately, "gagging, writhing, agonizing death."
"Right… the guild master. How's that going for you?" Hawke asked curiously.
"Oh, Pas-caca?" Zevran asked with an edge. "He's dead."
"Dead?!" almost everyone shouted.
"Yes, when I happened to be looking for our Hawke here in the other half of Antiva City you two hadn't looked in," Zevran started while pointing at Varric and Fenris, "I magically came across the bastard in a dark alley. No, truly," he said calmly and shrugged, "He was startled."
"And?" Hawke asked with lifted eyebrows.
"And so I said Fool!" cried Zevran and he gestured dramatically to match his tone,"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in the North', but only slightly less well known is this," he leaned forward across the table and eyed his audience with the most confident look, "Never go in against an Antivan when death is on the line."
"Ah, you are your mother's trueborn son of Arainai," Armand said sarcastically.
"Am I?" Zevran asked innocently sardonic. "Do tell my father. My mother died birthing me, and he's never been sure that it was she who bore me."
"His grave is too far away," Armand muttered sharply.
"That has never been an inconvenience with you before, my friend," Zevran shrugged.
"I'm growing old, Zev," Armand said with the genuine tone of an older man than he really was.
"We remain children at heart," Zevran smiled joyfully. "Do try and preserve that."
"You're lucky though. I do not even know who my mother was," Armand said a bit bitterly.
"Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are," Zevran said childishly, shrugging up with his elbows on the table.
"PAS-CACA, what happened to him?" Hawke demanded impatiently.
The elf quickly snapped back to reality and resumed his lively story, "Yes! Pasquale! So well, I killed him," he smiled childishly.
"Care to elaborate?" Varric asked with a bit of an edge. He needed to know the story.
"Ah, well, you want to describe how I killed him?" Zevran asked.
Everyone nodded.
"How truly macabre you all are," Zevran said innocently. "Anyway, as I was saying – what was I saying?"
"How you killed Pasqaule," Hawke gestured impatiently.
"Do dead people like music?" Zevran shouted vaguely, but with much ripeness. "I hope they listen to mine if they do, in their coffins, in the cold underworld, between the mind and the body in an insomniac wall of sleep."
When nobody said or gestured anything anymore – since they learned their lesson – Zevran continued his story with a bit of short-lived grump in his cheeks.
"Groin' is a funny word," Zevran said suavely with an evil smile. "'I do not know the Tevinter word for it, but I'm sure you do', I said to him. He began to talk more quickly then, because I could tell he was starting to die.
'So I said to him – "Oh, maybe you didn't see it in the papers, but they've made this fabulous theological discovery, do you know what they've found? People don't go to Heaven, at the Maker's side or to the Void, to the Inferno, no. No, no,"' Zevran gestured very calmly.
'You see, they all go to one spot first, sort of a way station, and that is where things happen, because, you probably will not believe this, but some people on this earth have been known to do bad things to other people, innocent people, and at this way station, the innocent people wait, and then when their savager comes, they get to exact a little portion of revenge. The Maker says revenge is good for the soul. Do you know who's waiting for you, Master Pascalus?'
He then gestured dramatically, but in a calm, firm tone, "'All the elves. They're all there, and you know what else? They've all got spiky whips and thumbscrews, like you used on me - remember how you said how wonderful it was, anyone could learn that, how to use them?'"
He formed a fist and resumed, "'Well, they have and they're waiting, and I don't know about you, but I think it's gonna be terrific.'"
"Pasquale was almost dead by now, but I just had time to get that in, more the lucky I am, yes?"
"'Have a swell eternity,' I said."
"It must have been fifty seconds more before he died." Then Zevran closed it with a short smirk as he stared in blank. "Long time."
"That… was awesome," came Hawke's quite voice as her jaw dropped and her eyebrows were highly lifted.
"I told you I am ridiculously awesome," Zevran shrugged calmly with a little smile.
How positively tranquil he was with all of that. Most curious, Fenris thought. Indeed, it seemed as though there lurked a little triumphant air in Zevran, but mostly it seemed as though he had been truly at peace with it for a long time beforehand.
"So what will you do now?" Fenris asked.
"Well, first things first, I get out of this wretched damned country," Zevran said with a dismissive wave. "And I see mi cara. Yes, first and last thing I will ever do alive."
"How romantic and full of crap," Hawke said joyfully.
"Trust the word of an Antivan, my dear," Zevran said with a grin.
"I can't," Hawke said with a wink. "I know too many Antivans."
"You have come to known the two most true Antivans alive," Zevran said with stretched arms. "Cherish that. Let yourself fall into it."
"I'm afraid she'll get lost in there forever," Fenris surprisingly intervened in a tactful sharp tone.
"This is an Antivan in his true form, my friend," Zevran said with a nod.
Fenris shook his head, "I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point."
"Said the elf with the impossible smug look on his face," Hawke said with a wink.
"What you meant was improbable," Fenris corrected her wiseassely. "It's an improbable look of arrogance."
"And very likely," Hawke added with an edge.
"To be improbable," Fenris finished calmly.
"Ah you must adore this man," Zevran said joyfully. "Aren't you lucky to work and fight with such a charming fellow, come to this restaurant thereafter and drink strong coffee like fine and true warriors, dabble in the wondrous depths of the absolute and whatever else you do when you're not bitching at each other as if you are an old married couple!"
"He's even more charming at home," Hawke said with a smile. "Isn't he, Varric? He rides a unicycle through the house – "
"- even up and down the stairs," Varric added peacefully.
"He juggles eggs as he sometimes makes breakfast for us when we're sick–" Hawke added.
"- which he serves to us in bed of course," Varric added.
"- and pulls fragrant bouquets out of his ass," Hawke finished and smiled towards Fenris. She lifted her shoulders and smiled ever more widely. "He's just a joy."
Upon leaving Antiva City, Ponte della Misericordia (Bridge of Mercy)
"Well, there it is," came Hawke's sighing voice as she turned back to gaze at the marvelous city. "Goodbye, Antiva."
"Let we never come back," Fenris said a bit bitterly.
"Oh, come on, it wasn't all death and despair," Hawke pleaded innocently. "It was more like near death and half-despair."
How true.
"Regardless, I shall never wish to return," Fenris said with an edge as they gazed at the howling rivers and swinging gondolas in the distance. Birds were somewhere flying blind in the persistent fog above them.
"Well, I've got enough cigarillos to last me about ten years. Five, if I do smoke," Hawke mused.
"Five years it is then," Fenris said calmly. "And two or three until that pretty little face will irrevocably fall off."
"If it's because my jaw will land somewhere, well," she gestured, "here, because you might just crack me a damn compliment for once, instead of an insult, then yes."
"It was a compliment," Fenris said in a tone of rather innocent fakeness. "Have you not heard when I said pretty face?"
"I was too busy listening for the pretentious scratch lurking in it," Hawke said with a raised eyebrow.
"Well aren't you paranoid?" Fenris asked grumpily and enclosed his arms. "Maybe if you cease with expecting that pretentious scratch from me, I might just unconsciously stop."
"Maybe if you cease beforehand, I might just stop now and stand corrected," Hawke said calmly, smiling.
"Then I do stand corrected," Fenris said sarcastically, locking his gaze much too passionately calmly onto hers.
Varric's voice came ever sweeter, "Well now, since you stand in the same bridge with one another why don't you two just jump off."