For FenZev, who asked for more Fenris. Always happy to fulfill that request. Thanks for reading!
It was a typical Tuesday—they had been walking along, minding their own business, and suddenly were surrounded by some rabid cult or another. Hawke had long ago given up caring who they were and what their purpose was, and had philosophically accepted that the random attacks kept her people on their toes and assisted Aveline and the guards in keeping the streets safe for less well-armored folk.
She ducked a wild swing, countering with a mighty blow of her own blade, curving in from the side and catching her opponent firmly on the arm. He howled, dropping his sword, and looked up at her just in time to take a crossbow bolt to the eye.
"Good timing!" Hawke called to Varric. She didn't hear his reply, busy with the next foe. To her left, she saw a flash of lightning from Anders, and to her right the subtler but to her eye more noticeable gleam of Fenris's markings. He leaped in the air, his hair flying back from his face, and brought his sword down on the head of his opponent.
His muscular arms were gleaming with sweat and lyrium, and he had that look on his face, part joy in the fight and part indomitable determination, that made Hawke go weak in the knees. There was no question that fighting and making love had certain things in common, and all too frequently in the privacy of her fantasies she saw that look directed at her.
"Stop it," she hissed to herself fiercely, dragging her thoughts back to the battle at hand—and just in time, too, as one of the cultists, if that's who they were, appeared as if from nowhere in front of her, daggers up. Hawke gave him an elbow to the unprotected mouth, and followed it up with a sweep of her great blade, which finished him off nicely.
As he fell she looked around to see that they had won the field. A guard came out of the corner, and Hawke motioned to the bodies. The guard nodded crisply. She had to hand it to Aveline—the guards weren't getting any better about joining in these fights, but they were improving a great deal when it came to taking charge of the clean-up.
She turned to her team. Anders was straightening his pauldrons, Varric crooning to Bianca, and Fenris was looking at her, his green eyes dark and fierce, his chest heaving with the exertion of the fight. He was so damned sexy Hawke had to practically physically restrain herself from crossing the space between them and flinging herself into his arms. It was all wrong, she said to herself—she wasn't attracted to elves, and he didn't like her sister, and he lived in a dilapidated mansion drinking wine all day when he wasn't with her, and she had to take care of Bethany and get her mother out of Gamlen's. There was no time for this. None.
But when he looked at her none of that mattered—she saw only Fenris, who listened to her talk, who was always at her back whether he agreed with her or not, whose voice echoed in her ears when she went to sleep at night.
And in that moment, a simple meeting of gazes at the end of an ordinary fight, Evelyn knew she couldn't fight it any longer—finally, she had found something in Kirkwall that she wanted, just for herself … and she couldn't have it, any more than Bethany could have a life free of fear of the Templars, or her mother could have her old life back.
Hawke was pacing back and forth between bundles, muttering to herself, occasionally getting to her knees and rummaging through one. She had asked Fenris if she could use his mansion as a staging area while she packed supplies for the Deep Roads expedition—she said her mother cried when she tried to prepare things at Gamlen's, and no one else really had the space for everyone's things.
He had known it was dangerous to allow her to do so—having her there every day, dropping by unexpectedly to make certain she had remembered certain items; watching her, so focused, as she made the preparations. It all brought her into constant proximity with him, even more so than usual, and in a setting of disturbing privacy. Alone with her, Fenris sometimes found his tongue disastrously unguarded. Those frank blue eyes of hers fastened on him and he forgot much of his natural and learned reticence. Not to mention that the sight of her occasionally caused his body to react in ways he would rather she not notice. Hawke was a beautiful woman, undeniably so.
She was also utterly and completely out of his reach. Any woman would be—he was an escaped slave, trailing danger behind him wherever he went. As certainly as he sat here, Danarius would come for him, and when he did so, whoever came to Fenris's aid would be put in harm's way. If he considered it like that, it was irresponsible of him to remain in Kirkwall at all. His very presence put Hawke in danger.
He had considered it, many times. But then he would walk into the Hanged Man and her face would light with pleasure at the sight of him; or their eyes would meet over Varric's head in shared amusement or exasperation at something the dwarf had said; or he would be walking behind her and find himself imagining what it would be like to take her in his arms. Foolish and impossible as those imaginings were, Fenris found himself utterly incapable of giving them up, or of removing himself from the temptation she represented.
If he asked Hawke, she would tell him to stop running; had done so, in fact, on more than one occasion. Fenris was grateful for her stalwart support, even if he didn't understand why she offered it to him. So for his part, he did his best to watch and to be for Hawke what she needed—a strong arm to fight next to, a dissenting voice offering her alternate opinions, an ear when life at her uncle's, with her helpless sister and demanding mother, became too much for her. Did it matter what it cost his heart to draw closer and closer to her with no hope of her returning his growing feelings? She deserved the best from him—from all of them—and he would give it to her.
Because the alternative, to leave her, would be to tear his own heart from his chest—he might as well give it to Danarius, in that case.