A/N: More of what happened in the three months after Aodhan's life went to shit.
At three months the first invitation came, We would be most honored if the Champion would grace our gathering with his esteemed presence. Hawke had a laugh, and threw it away.
The second one came a week later, and this time, because he found the people who'd invited him at least mildly tolerable, he penned a respectful refusal and had Bodahn deliver it to them.
The third one came two weeks after that, while Aveline was visiting, and she read it for him, an amused little smile coloring her face. "You should go," she said after. "You fought so hard to get this place; you should take advantage of it. Besides, it will be better for you than rotting alone in here."
Aodhan flinched, looked away from her, but composed himself quickly enough, putting on a little self-deprecating smile and making some joke he couldn't remember a few minutes later. The wounds were still too raw, and people chafed against them without meaning to all the time, so it hurt all the more when someone started prying at the edges with their fingers. She had a point, though. The nights when he found himself standing alone in his mother's room, crying, too drunk to remember how he'd gotten there, were worse than the dream-memories of Fenris' skin under his fingers and lips, but Fenris lived across the court and was still part of his everyday life. He could look forward to a time when the pain of mother's passing was just a dull ache, but Fenris' very existence was salt in his wounds. Never mind that he understood, and didn't intend to force the issue.
So Aodhan had some proper clothes tailored and attended the coming of age party of one of his neighbors. She was an adult now, marriageable, quite striking for a woman—his tastes didn't really lean that way, but he could appreciate a woman's beauty for what it was, and there was certainly a charm to her smooth skin and her youthful form and the delicate bow of her lips, red as ripe strawberries and supremely kissable-looking. He ended up stealing a little of her thunder, unintentionally, endured a night of toasts and boasts and tales and gentle hints from her parents that twenty-eight was far too old for a man of his status to be unwed, which he fended off with equally gentle insistence that he'd just come to the very awkward end of an equally awkward romance and wasn't quite in a right state of mind to consider such a thing.
But after a night of raising his glass at every opportunity with nearly everyone and a little whisper from a particularly handsome friend of the girl, he found himself abed with her, and found that with a little alcohol and encouragement sex was sex. The curves of her and the softness of her body were strange and foreign, but he deflowered her nonetheless, and she thanked him after, breathless and flushed, for showing her a night of passion before her parents married her off to some hook-nosed inbred noble bastard since he wasn't interested.
Apparently, in his drunken state, he accepted another invitation at the party, which was later formally sent. This one was for a private performance from a group of Orlesian musicians, and after a sufficient amount of wine the night was a blank, but Hawke remembered enjoying himself. The lutenist, who had been a striking young thing, blond and pale and smooth-skinned, left a little trinket on his bed stand and later sent a letter thanking him for a wonderful night and politely refusing his offer of patronage.
Hightown was suddenly a lot friendlier, even if half the time Hawke couldn't remember quite what he'd done. The elders who disapproved of his family now disapproved of his behavior, which was much more tolerable because it was his. And the younger folks who'd been afraid of him or distasteful of his company no longer cared. A few of these party-goers were genuinely interesting even when he was sober, started paying social calls and asking for his company outside these functions. And those he liked he obliged, though the interaction was often hollow, Aodhan feeling as though he was speaking through one of those elaborate Orlesian tragedy masks. But it felt like that with everyone nowadays.
Except when he was drunk. If left to his own devices, it tore open those wounds and bared them to the air, and at least he could feel something. In the company of these pretty and petty strangers, the mask became a second skin. It became real. The humor and charm that was such a part of him, that made Carver hate him, that he wielded against his friends now to keep them from worrying, it consumed him. He was witty, desired, liked. And he could distract himself in meaningless words, wine and song and flesh, and wake up with a head so full of pain and stuffing he couldn't get his thoughts straight enough to dwell on everything he'd lost, not until it was time to start dressing for the next gathering.
Varric was waiting for him in the entry hall when he was ready to leave, entertaining Sandal with a coin trick. "Varric!" It had been some time since he'd seen the dwarf, too busy suddenly, but the look Varric turned on him drained any pleasure Aodhan felt at his presence. He knew that smile, meant to hide the same look Aveline turned on him when she was about to tell him in exacting terms what an idiot he was.
"Hawke." Varric turned to him as he was coming down the stairs, gestured with open arms. "You don't stop by, you don't write, we're starting to worry. We still keep a space open for you for Wicked Grace, you know."
"I figured since no one is here to take care of it for me, I should try to fit in. The more people like me, the less danger I'm in, after all." He stopped a pace from Varric, hesitated, then gave the dwarf a hearty embrace.
When they drew apart Varric gave a little extra shuffle in his step, one of his few signs of nervousness. "That's why I'm here, actually. I've been hearing some rumors and Aveline asked me to stop by and look into it."
"Those rumors being?" It was a dance at this point, each of them knowing what the other was about to say.
For a moment Varric looked a little helpless, and said, "Can we not talk about this in front of Sandal?" They ended up in the library, Hawke bringing a spare chair down from the upper level, before Varric spat it out. "I've been hearing all kinds of rumors, some of them bother even me. That you're the biggest lush in Hightown, an easy drunk and an easy lay. Which I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been hearing a few months ago had you taken an interest in being a noble then."
"Things change, Varric. People change. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but that's how it is."
"You see, that's what I told Aveline." The dwarf gestured sharply with a finger, as if pointing to the woman somehow from here. "But then I talked to Fenris about it. He said you'd promised him you wouldn't do this sort of thing without telling him first so he could be there to keep you from getting shivved in an alley. Well, he didn't say that exactly, he was a lot kinder about it, believe it or not. And he was just as upset as Aveline, if not more. He finally told me what you told him when he asked you about Lothering—I've been trying to pry that out of the elf for months now. He said you hated all the attention, that you'd go back to being a muck farmer in a heartbeat if given half a chance. Which doesn't make any sense to me, I don't see how you get the way you are being a muck farmer, but there it is all the same." Varric leaned forward in his seat, draping his arms across his knees. "What changed? Is it what I think it is?"
"Mother wanted this," Aodhan murmured, looking away towards the fire. "Not exactly this, but she wanted me to be a noble here, wanted me to have the life she remembered so fondly. All I have ever aspired to has been very neatly taken away from me, and I am left only with the shell of her desires. There's nothing left of me, Varric, nothing worth having at least. I find... I'm too much of a coward to do what needs to be done, so if I want to go on I have to fill that void with something."
"And when the wine and the good will run out, what then?"
"Then I hope that this crucible will have transformed me into something else, something that can have new aspirations. Or that I have suddenly grown some courage and can take matters into my own hands, as a man should."
The implication stole words even from witty Varric, who had nothing to say, but shook his head and left.
That night the party was private, and they passed around more than drink, thick sweet smokes from Seheron that turned the air cloying and muddled his brain in a happy way. A week later he made an embarrassing visit to Anders' clinic, who made a wry joke about the circumstances but by the twist of his fellow mage's lips he was none too pleased with Aodhan.
And a handful of blurred-together days after Aodhan woke in the wee hours of the morning to Isabela shaking him, smiling with her eyes. "Your elf told me you don't lock the balcony doors. That's dangerous, you know, a thief might sneak in."
"Like you?" he muttered groggily.
"Yes, a terrible thief, like me. Put some trousers on, I'm stealing you."
Aodhan followed her out in rumpled clothing, his hair even messier than usual, blinking away the wine and the haze left by a night of debauchery. By the time he was worrying about the strange taste in his mouth they'd made it down to the docks, and Isabela fell back a little and into step next to him. She sat down at the edge of the causeway, throwing her feet over the edge, and beckoned him to do the same, staring out over black water at a setting moon. It was peaceful here in a way he couldn't recall having noticed before, and the cool, salty breeze blew the stuffy feeling out of his head. A smattering of clouds puttered past overhead, stars winking in and out behind them.
"I come down here to watch the ships sometimes," she eventually said, looking out at the water and never at him. "I miss it terribly, but I'm sure you know that by now. There's nothing I wouldn't give to have that freedom again—except one thing." And she didn't need to say it, Aodhan knew already, which made the whole thing less awkward: friendship, his specifically. "I used to think it was everything that I am. I know that's not true, now, but I still want it like a Templar wants his lyrium." Isabela finally turned to him, only gentle acceptance in her eyes. "This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you I know what you're going through. I'll be honest, though, I really have no idea at all. Its different for everyone. Not your family, or whatever is wrong with you and Fenris—you get over those sorts of things. But losing what you are... filling that hole is much harder than filling the hole left by a person."
Aodhan choked back a sob and was surprised to realize that he was crying, but Isabela continued, no pity in her eyes. Only understanding. "You have to find your own way to live with it, and no one has a right to judge your methods. So long as you're not putting yourself in truly undue danger, no one should really give a damn. I just want you to know... some of us will stand by you no matter what."
"Did Varric put you up to this?"
"No," she looked away again, pursing her lips, and for a moment Aodhan thought she was lying. "Fenris stopped by to talk to me about it. Told me he thought I might be the only person who could explain to him what was wrong with you. I took it on myself to come talk to you, because if he was worried enough to ask for help, well... it was worth looking into."
Aodhan had nothing to say to that, so they sat there for a while, and as time drew on the little sounds and smells of the docks began to fill him, salt air and the repetitive waves against the stone. "This is all I've ever wanted," he blurted out without meaning to. "Just... to have what I have and be left alone. To have peace."
"I think the world's got different plans for you, kitten." Isabela did look on him with some sympathy then, her voice a gentle purr. "You'll have to carve out your own little slice of quiet to get that."
When the sky began to lighten she walked him home but didn't enter, and Aodhan went back to bed to sleep off his hangover. He wrote a note apologizing for the party he intended to miss that night, had Bodahn send it out, and spent some time tending the garden on the balcony that had been his refuge before. Mother had insisted on having it, and Aodhan eventually realized it was as much for his comfort as hers. Of all the places they'd lived Lothering had been his favorite, and he'd been happy with the sleepy life the town offered, with being one of the troublemakers solely based on his sharp tongue and quick wit without actually causing trouble, but happiest working the soil and coaxing green things to life, providing for the family with the work of his own hands. It had been his solace after Father died, something to connect them besides the magic he couldn't really use without drawing attention. He'd not been out here much since Mother's death, because it was a reminder of everything he'd lost. Bodahn had been tending it, but the garden had suffered under inexpert hands.
Once he had some dirt under his nails and his nose was full of the green smell nothing was any clearer, but Aodhan felt a little better, like empty hole in him was a little less raw. He sank down to the floor of the balcony, and pressed his forehead into the vines that spilled up and over the balustrade, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. But for the stone and the distressing coppery smell that permeated Kirkwall, he could pretend he was back in Lothering, and for a few moments everything was fine.
Fenris was light enough on his feet that Aodhan had no indication when the elf climbed onto the balcony, save the faint buzz of lyrium that would fade in and out when he was around. He stood there for a moment, likely standing stiff and awkward but internally quite distressed, uncertain what he should be doing and off balance. Aodhan let him stay like that, wanting nothing more right now than for Fenris to leave and let him return to his own little fantasy that the Blight hadn't happened and he was still a happy muck farmer with an intact family instead of a miserable, lonely Champion of some city he hardly cared about with just a floozy pirate and an emotionally stunted slave as the only friends who didn't rightly judge him.
At length Fenris sat down next to him, and laid a hand on Aodhan's knee, a surprisingly intimate gesture from the elf. He was close enough that Aodhan could feel the heat of his body in the air, feel the buzz of the tattoos crawling across his skin briefly, reacting to his magic, and he smiled into the greenery.
For a moment he pretended that they'd acquired some land out in the countryside, that Kirkwall was more or less minding itself, that Fenris had agreed to come with him and give this supposedly simple life a try. It wasn't a bitter fantasy like the memory of his family, but a sweet one, a future not yet touched by pain. After a moment Fenris switched which hand was on his knee, and Aodhan finally drew back enough to look over at the elf, who was sitting nestled in the greenery, doing exactly what Aodhan had been doing at first, breathing deeply, taking some pleasure in the feeling of the leaves against his skin. Aodhan laughed, surprised himself with the sound, and Fenris offered what passed for a smile.
"Isabela told me that when a sailor was afraid of the water, they would throw him overboard and he either learned to swim or drowned. When I told her that seemed cruel, she said that later on they added a rope, and kept dunking the man in until he got the hang of it. And other methods, but she made sure everyone on her ship knew how to swim, just in case." Fenris didn't even flinch when Aodhan's hand wandered down to cover his own, just kept on with his story. "It seems like that at times, trying to navigate all this, that I've just... jumped in, with no instruction."
"You don't have to make apologies."
"I'm not." Fenris stroked Aodhan's knee with his thumb, careful to avoid tearing the fabric of the other man's trousers with his gauntlet. He could, at times, have such a gentle touch... "I want to spend more time with you, want you to teach me how to live as a free man. I fear I may drown otherwise."
There was a little twinge of pain at that, because somewhere under that stoicism Fenris was just as desperate as he was, that things seemed to be spiraling out of control on a personal level. It was less dramatic than Aodhan's descent, but more dangerous by far because it was being conducted alone. "We'll hold each other up, then, as best we can. I think I can manage that."
They passed much of the evening sitting on the balcony, leaning against the vine-covered stone shoulder to shoulder in relative silence, save for the occasional remark from Aodhan on hearing certain voices down in the courtyard and rarer responses from Fenris. When the Chantry rang the appropriate hour they left to go play Wicked Grace at the Hanged Man, and if Aodhan was a little more subdued than usual and Fenris a little more open, no one commented on it.