Hawke made her way across Lowtown, careful not to make eye contact with anyone she passed. Night had settled over the city, and the full moon illuminated the cobbled street in front of her. She tugged the hood of her cloak over her eyes as she passed a small crowd of people. She didn't have her face adorned with her typical swipe of red. She was anonymous.
A night like this, calm and bright, usually meant that the thieves and blood mages stayed in whatever holes they usually crawled from. Instead, the streets were littered with beggars, children in rags, their mothers and fathers past the point of desperation. Hawke stopped here and there and pressed silver coins into the kids' outstretched hands. It never felt like she could do enough for all of the people in this town. She liked to help people -- even if she didn't always do it in the best way -- but her heart tugged even more than usual when she saw a child with a dirty face and a distended belly.
Hawke shook her head and tried to put it out of her mind. She couldn't do anything to help all the children of Kirkwall tonight; it would have to wait. She pulled her hood off, fixed a grin on to her face, and slammed open the door to her destination for the evening -- the one and only Hanged Man. Her friends were there already, gathered around a large table. Hawke watched for a few moments as they passed drinks around and joked with one another. A genuine smile reached her eyes as she took them in, the merry band of misfits she had brought together. They looked like a family. Nowadays, they even felt like a family.
"Always have to make an entrance, Hawke!" Varric shouted at her from across the room.
"Oh, you know me," she called back. "Drama. Suspense. Mystery." She made her way to the table. On her way to her seat, she clapped Anders on the back and ruffled Merrill's hair. It was only when she moved to sit down did she recognize that the one empty chair left for her was right next to Fenris.
"Hello, Hawke," he said, his voice calm and smooth as ever. In the cacophony of clinking bottles and shouting voices in The Hanged Man, Fenris' voice was a refuge. "Ready to lose? Again?" Fenris chuckled at his own joke, a quirk that Hawke found so endearing she thought her heart might give out.
"Me? Lose at Wicked Grace? You must be joking." Hawke rolled her eyes and tossed her coin purse onto the table. She leaned back in her chair, hands behind her head, and winked at Fenris. "Deal me in, Anders."
Hawke was, in fact, horrible at Wicked Grace. Two hands in and she'd lost three sovereigns, owed Aveline two bottles of wine, and somehow lost a bet to Isabela that involved switching living quarters for a week. By the end of the night, a flush brightened her cheeks and her grin was easy, not forced. Despite everything that happened since she arrived in Kirkwall, at least she had these people around her.
"Alright, fearless leader," Isabela slurred to Hawke as the group packed up. "Go enjoy your last night in that comfy mansion of yours. I'll be there to take over at noon sharp."
Hawke laughed and rolled her eyes at her friend. "Aye, Captain," she teased. She waved at the group and made her way to the door, more unsteady on her feet than usual. Maybe she'd had more to drink that she thought. She shook her head and fixed her eyes on the door, determined to make it outside without stumbling.
"Want company on your way back to Hightown?" asked Fenris. "We are neighbors, after all. As you so often remind me."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "Sure," she responded, "I wouldn't want you to get lost."
They walked out together, and cold air bit at Hawke's ears. She furrowed her eyebrows at the feel of it and drew her cloak closer to her.
"Not a fan of the cold?" Fenris asked. They fell in step together towards Hightown.
Hawke shook her head. "There's a reason I'm always shooting fireballs out of my hands," she joked. She was well past the point of feeling awkward about being a mage around Fenris. Since she had moved to Hightown, and especially since the day she started to help him learn to read, they had formed an easy, even comfortable, friendship. Not to say that Hawke's other feelings towards him had gone away -- in fact, they had swelled so much that she got a lump in her throat every time she spoke to him -- but she respected him too much to say anything about it. He didn't need a woman throwing herself at him. He needed trust and stability. If he felt the same way, he would say something. She hoped.
They wandered through the streets of Kirkwall and discussed the state of the Carta and the increasingly tense situation with the Arishok. She was never more at ease than when she was with him. Even as they spoke about the issues they were facing, the very issues that put their lives on the line day in and day out, she felt calm.
In what seemed like minutes, they approached the entrance of her home. Everyone would be asleep by now; Leandra, Bodhan and Sandal weren't people Hawke would describe as exciting. She looked up at Fenris and an overwhelming sense of longing washed over her. She didn't want this evening to end.
Before she could even think of a clever way to spend more time with him, he spoke up. "Well, we didn't have to kill anyone on our way back."
"An improvement from most nights," she replied. "Should we celebrate with a nightcap? I have to wash the taste of the Hanged Man swill out of my mouth before I can sleep."
Fenris' face broke into a crooked smile. "Lead the way."
Hawke and Fenris climbed the stairs to her sitting room. She poured them each a glass of whiskey and handed Fenris' to him before she plopped down on the sofa. She patted the cushion next to her, inviting him to sit down. He settled in closer to her than she thought he would. Her breath caught in her throat, and she prayed that he couldn't see the sweat start to bead at her brow.
"Hawke," he said, abruptly, and sat his drink on the side table. "Can I --" he cleared his throat. "Can I try something?" He had lowered his voice, and the syllables of each of his words were rhythmic, almost musical. Hawke caught his forest-green eyes with hers. She searched there for something, though she didn't know what, and fought the urge to make a joke. (italics)Not the time, he's serious,(italics) she berated herself. Instead, she nodded.
"Let me see your hand," he said, his voice closer to a whisper now. She was mesmerized. They were facing each other, both of them cross-legged. She tugged her one leather glove off and balanced her hand on her knee, palm up. She wondered if he could tell she was shaking.
His eyes darted from her bright blue ones, to her hand, to her eyes again. With precision and assurance, he stretched his long, slender fingers out towards hers. She watched them, watched his tendons strain underneath taught skin. Before she knew it, the tips of his fingers met hers, and he brought them down to stroke her palm. He slowly, delicately, laced his hand with hers. The touch of her skin on his made the lyrium glow, faint but pulsing. Hawke's breath grew shallow, the desire she felt for him crawling through her belly and setting fire to her chest. She fought the urge to kiss him right then and there.
Instead, she let his hands explore hers. First he was tracing her palms, then the backside of her hands, both of them. He kept one of his hands locked with one of hers, but let the other run up to her shoulder, up her neck, tangled in her hair for a split second, then back to her face to cup her chin.
Hawke held his gaze, then, as his hand so tenderly, cautiously, held her chin. "Does it hurt?" she breathed. She didn't want to break the careful balance they had struck this evening. Hawke knew, now, that he at least somewhat felt the same was as she did, but she didn't want to push it.
Fenris shook his head. "No. Only a little."
Hawke looked down at his lips, full and parted, and then back into his eyes. "Can I try something?" she asked. "You can say no. I don't want to...to make you uncomfortable." Hawke was sure she never felt so vulnerable in her life.
He nodded. His eyes never left hers. Her hand fell to his knee. She felt her eyes shut. She leaned in and kissed him.
It was fleeting, but it was everything she hoped it would be. She felt her face flush, and she gripped his knee tighter than she meant to. His hand clutched at hers, and the hand that had cupped her chin now ran to the nape of her neck and tugged at her short black hair.
The kiss lasted only a moment, but Hawke never felt so blissful in her life.
When it was over, they sat there, on Hawke's sofa, and Hawke took in Fenris' expression. "Was that okay?" she asked. "I'm sorry if I --" she was interrupted by his voice, now truly a whisper.
"Do not ever apologize for that, Hawke." He said it to her as if it were a secret.
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Good. I'm not sorry at all."
He smiled, too, but he began to pull back from her. His hand left her neck, and he inched away so that their knees were no longer touching, but he kept his other hand intertwined with hers.
"Don't go, Fenris," she breathed. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of his absence. "Just stay with me."
They sat there, on Hawke's sofa, as Hawke traced tiny circles on Fenris' soft brown skin, a spot where no lyrium marks scarred his flesh. They fell asleep like that, and did not stir until dawn broke the horizon.
Sumary: Hawke is desperate to get Kirkwall High’s mysterious Tevinter elf to notice her. But he won’t answer her love letters!
Notes: This is a High School AU no one asked for. Inspired by this (x) post. I hope you enjoy. ETA: Also, I wrote an alternate end for a meme. Check it out here (x) when you’re done.
Ao3 Link: (x)
“I’ve slipped him ten notes now and he’s ignored all of them.” Hawke moaned loud enough for half of the high school cafeteria to hear her. A few heads turned, but most went along with their day. The Fereldan transfer’s crush on a certain Tevinter elf was well known news.
Except, apparently, to the Tevinter elf.
“Now, I don’t want to get all crazy with the plans here, Hawke, but have you tried, I dunno, talking to him?” Varric leaned back in his chair, fiddling with his phone.
“He’s sooooo hot. I freeze up.” Hawke’s head dropped to the table, hands tangling in her hair. Her empty tray rattled. She always ate fast, and lunch stretched on before her. She’d tried to make the time useful, by waving to a very particular elf, but he’d grabbed his food and ran off.
Fenris of Tevinter (no last name, that was like so mysterious) went to Kirkwall High, technically. Despite Hawke’s best efforts, and Varric’s endless connections, they couldn’t find him in any class in any grade. He came to school, often seconds before the bell, slouched his way to the main office, appeared for a minute during lunch, then was out the door as soon as the bell rang.
Not that...Hawke followed him or anything.
“I still do not see the appeal.”
“Have you seen his arms? Ugh, muscle city.” And the way he glared, all sharp eyed and big nosed. His lips, soft looking and full. The way he walked, in a tense cat-like readiness to run.
Hawke knew nothing about Fenris, and yet something about him was familiar. He was a runner, and if there was one thing Hawke knew, it was runners.
“Excuse you.” Varric took his eyes from his phone to roll up his sleeve. “Muscle city right there.”
“Uh huh, and how is your girlfriend in Orzammar?”
Red crept into Varric’s cheeks and he cleared his throat mumbling something. They both knew the girlfriend was a lie, but until he wanted to come clean on why he didn’t date, Hawke wasn’t going down that route.
She didn’t care that Varric had secrets—they both did, that’s why they were best friends—but you can’t be in love and hold parts of yourself back.
Not that she was in love with Fenris. Probably. She just...He was hot. She was allowed that, right? After everything it cost getting to Kirkwall, escaping the Blight, didn’t Hawke deserve a flirtation?
“You’re doing it again.” Varric was back on his phone.
“Doing what?”
“Regressing. Come on. Tell me about your brother. Or your scary friend.”
“Aveline isn’t scary!” She sat up, eager to defend her second best friend, Aveline. Varric smiled as he looked at his phone. His plan had worked, jerk.
He always knew what cheered her up.
Fenris wasn’t looking where he was walking. He moved with a quick step out of the school. He never forgot where he was. The murky sea air of Kirkwall, with city stink and an over abundance of fish would never smell a thing like Minrathous or even Seheron. He had a slave’s talent of knowing where he walked without seeing and so he let himself focus on other things.
The notecards in his hands had overly big letters. He mouthed their sounds as he walked, struggling to remember. Memory wasn’t his best skill and this was all memorization.
He walked from the school into Kirkwall proper, cutting through an alleyway to his foster home.
He’d grown stupid. He’d grown soft. Gravel crunched behind him and he froze. Someone stepped before him.
“Fenris.” A sneering human looked down at him, Tevinter thick in his voice. He spoke in quick, course Tevene. “How good to see you. Danarius has missed you.”
“I’m not going back.” Fenris spoke in faltering common. The man laughed.
“How will you stop me?”
Fenris didn’t have his sword. The school wouldn’t allow it. The idiots in charge promised again and again no mercenaries would come through. They said that Kirkwall had tightened its visa policies after the Fereldan Blight. They said he was safe.
It was a lie. It’d always be a lie. Fenris would never be safe. Not with the skin still on his body.
He balled his hand into a fist. The lyrium in his skin warmed.
A crack of wood against bone echoed behind Fenris. The man leaned to look over and Fenris didn’t hesitate. He slammed his fist into the man’s chest. Lyrium eased the journey, but without his claws, bone and muscle tore at his fingers. The man’s eyes widened as Fenris took hold of his heart. Brown eyes met green.
“I will never return,” he hissed in Tevene, just so the man would understand.
Then he ripped his heart out.
A lick of fire roared behind him. Fenris spun on heel, lyrium bright in his skin but it was just….
“Hawke?” He stared at the girl at the edge of the alleyway. She fought two remaining mercenaries with a staff and—yes—magic. Tension coiled so tight in Fenris back he thought something would break.
Then her face brightened at her name and she slid the bladed end of her staff into one man’s neck. He died with a gurgle. The remaining man saw his allies and tried to run. Hawke turn and pointed one long finger at him. A burst of ice jumped from her hand and hit the man square in the back. He fell to the ground with deliberate stillness.
Hawke still smiled. Blood smeared on her cheek.
“Were those slavers?” she asked, trying to rub the blood away. “I hate slavers.”
“You did not know?” Fenris switched back to his weak common.
“You said you didn’t want to go with them.” She shrugged and pulled a brown stained cloth from her coat pocket. She cleaned the blood off the blade with practiced ease. “I wanted to help. Anyway, were they slavers?”
“...Yes.”
“Oh man, thank the Maker I got here then.” She beamed at him. “Fuck slavers, am I right?”
“Why are you here?”
“You needed help. I helped. It’s something I do.” She rubbed the cloth against her face then offered it to him. He looked down at his hand, still holding the gory piece of a former man.
“This does not bother you?” He didn’t hold the heart up. He didn’t need to. Hawke shrugged again.
“I’ve seen it before.”
“How?”
“You’re not the only one on the run.” She offered the cloth again. He dropped the heart and took it, carefully rubbing the blood off his hand. He hissed as he rubbed cloth over torn off nails. There was a reason he prefered his armor.
“Here.” Hawke stepped forward and took his mostly clean hand. She covered it with her own and his lyrium buzzed with her magic. It was bright, and colorful and aching with the Fade. The pain faded and when Fenris pulled his hand back, his nails had returned. “I’m not much of a healer. But I can help.”
“...Thank you.” He stepped back from her, barely avoiding the bodies.
“Um, so, I was wondering—” She started when a voice called from behind her.
“Sister!” A young voice, but deep. It carried a whine in it. “Sister!”
“Oh shit.” Hawke’s eyes went comically wide “Carver can’t see this. He doesn’t need that.” She waved Fenris back with frantic hand motions. Fenris walked backwards until she stopped. She shook her arms out and his tattoos ached again. Magic grew in the space between them, screaming up and up until…
Fire rained from the sky. It hit the bodies in careful aim, burning them up quickly until there was only ash.
“Sister!” A boy’s face appeared at the end of the alleyway seconds after the last fireball fell. Dark haired and scowling, the younger man glared at Fenris. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, Carver. I didn’t hear you.” She marched over to the boy and grabbed him into a headlock. “Try yelling even louder next time.”
“Let go.” The boy squirmed uselessly until Hawke let him go suddenly. He fell back an extra few feet, nearly falling over. Hawke laughed as her brother charged her and hit her twice, in the gut and the arm.
“Okay! Okay! That hurts.” She still laughed though, bright and warm as if she hadn’t just killed three men.
Fenris didn’t say good bye. He just walked away. Her words taunted him, common bouncing around in his head as he desperately tried to translate.
You needed help. I helped. It’s something I do.
“Varric! Varric! Varric!” Hawke bounced on her way to Varric’s table. He sat in his regular chair, balancing on the back two legs. His brown bag lunch sitting unopened on the table. Hawke dropped her tray next to it and immediately dug into the bag. They swapped food regularly and she bought almost nothing without thinking what Varric would like.
“How’s my hero?” Varric asked, waiting for Hawke to finish the trading before putting down his phone and starting to eat. “It’s all over school that you helped the broody elf.”
“He doesn’t brood.”
“Right, and I’m not an incredibly handsome and talented dwarf.”
Hawke laughed. Which Varric wasn’t sure was agreement or disagreement. He could never tell with her.
Varric knew people. He could—often after only a day’s acquaintance—have them pretty figured out. But he’d known Hawke for six months now, and he still couldn’t quite get her down.
Most of the time, she was a walking exclamation point. Someone so bright and eager to be alive that it was annoyingly perky. But there was something darker under all that cheer and if you let her fall to it, it’d take days before she’d come back, literally and figuratively.
Varric prided himself on keeping her from that edge.
“It was just three guys. He took care of the strong one.” Hawke shrugged and bit into a traditional dwarven sandwich with more gusto than Varric ever would.
That was the other thing about Hawke. She was, at seventeen, a practiced killer.
That wasn’t so strange a trait in Kirkwall, where the wrong alleyway could land you in a slaver’s cage, the morgue, or a prostitute lap depending on your luck, but she had something else to her.
Then, of course, there was also the fact that she was fresh from a smuggler’s contract and an apostate. But those were minor things to Varric Tethras, businessman. Even if he was sixteen.
“Did you finally ask him out?”
“Nooooooo.” She drew the word out around a mouthful of bread. “I was going to but.” She grabbed her school purchased milk and drained the tiny carton. “Carver showed up and then he vanished.” She pouted and Varric couldn’t help but laugh. “But! But!” Hawke perked up again. Watching her talk was a treat. “He waved at me today. He got food and so I waved to get his attention because I was farther back in line. I was hoping he’d wait but he didn’t but he waved back! Varric.” She dropped her food and gathered Varric’s hands between hers. Her eyes shone like stars in the sky. “Progress. Actually, honest to Maker, progress.”
“When’s the wedding?”
She laughed, head thrown back, shoulders shaking. Varric grinned and took some carrots from her tray.
He’d pay anything to keep her just like this. He might need to track down an elf.
Hawke had the whole thing planned out. Fenris knew her name. So she wasn’t a complete stranger to him. He still ignored her little love notes she left for him to find, but that was okay. She could just be his friend. It was only a flirtation.
Besides, he was in trouble and she wanted to make sure he was okay. Yeah, that’s it.
She waited by the school door, resting against the brick wall of Kirkwall High. She skipped her last class to beat Fenris here, but she would have any. The last thing she needed as a vague and clearly Chantry written history lesson about the Dales.
“Hawke.”
She jumped at the deep voice behind her. Fenris stood just inside the door, green eyes glaring at her with unbridled suspicion. She grinned.
“Fenris! You’re here.”
“I always leave this way.”
Hawke swallowed an “I know” because there was being attentive and there was being creepy and she actually did know the difference.
“You dropped something yesterday.” She held up a slightly bloodstained pack of cards. They were toddler bright colors of the alphabet. Fenris’ face paled and he snatched them from her hand.
“Why did you take this?” He snapped.
“They were on the ground. I made Carver pick them up since he’s why you disappeared. I thought you needed them.”
Red snuck into the elf’s cheeks. It colored his skin beautifully. He really was handsome.
“Thank...you.” He said the words with careful enunciation. Shockingly, for how slow he spoke, he didn’t talk with much of an accent.
“Is that why you’re not in class?” She pointed to the cards. “You’re learning common?”
The red spread farther and guilt twisted Hawke’s stomach. She didn’t want to mock him. She couldn’t learn any language. Her mother tried to teach them all Orlesian, but it was the one time the three kids revolted wholesale. They were Fereldans, they claimed. They would not speak Orlesian. But, for Hawke at least, she just sucked.
“It’s really hard learning a language.” She looked away from him, promised herself she wouldn’t chase if he ran. “My mother tried to teach us, me and my siblings, but we were failures at it.”
“I can speak common.” He snapped the words faster, a hint of an accent sneaking through.
“Yeah?” She turned back to him, as bright as a songbird. He scowled. “Awesome. That’s amazing. I couldn’t learn Tevene.”
“It’s a difficult, archaic language. Useless to know.”
Hawke laughed.
“Fuck Tevinter.” She raised a fist in the air. “Mage ruler slaver fuckers, all of them.”
Fenris gave her a strange look. He carefully slipped the cards into a jacket pocket.
“But you’re…” He trailed off. Hawke cleared her throat, a little red in her cheeks now.
“Oh, well. Um. Yeah. But I don’t want to rule.”
“What do you want?”
Hawke opened her mouth but closed it again. The answer would change everything with Fenris, she could feel it. Tension grew in the air like magic before a spell, but she didn’t know the right flow of energy for this.
“Why don’t you stick around and find out?”
Fenris eyes narrowed. His thick eyebrows bunching together. She had no clue if that was right. He pushed past her, heading down the stairs. He was halfway down when he stopped and turned back to her.
“Thank you, for yesterday. I am not….try...ing to be unthankful.”
Hawke beamed from the top of the stairs.
“Anytime! I’m always happy to help. With anything.” Oh Maker, could she sound more desperate?
The elf glared at her for an extra moment, but turned and walked away. Hawke let out a long sigh just as a low laugh from inside the building emerged through an opening door.
“Smooooth, Hawke.” Varric grinned up at her.
“Oh shut up, it’s amazing progress.” She punched Varric in the arm. “Come on, my mom’s making your favorite tonight.”
“Oh, I couldn’t intrude…” Varric started but they were already walking together to Lowtown.
Fenris didn’t know how it happened. He didn’t have “friends.” Emotional bonds were weakness he could never afford. Danarius was jealous about his property, and Fenris was Danarius most prized possession.
And yet, he couldn’t think of another word for Hawke.
She appeared at his locker before class. At least once a week, waited for him as he left. She waved at him every lunch period, often gesturing wildly for him to join her and the dwarf. He declined every time.
She talked animately every time they were together. Big hand gestures, endless words, a voice that rose and fell with every spare emotion. He listened to stories about Varric, Aveline, Carver. She told him about meeting with “an actual, honest to Maker priate, Fenris” or how she heard rumors of a Grey Warden Fereldan in Darktown. She was never out of words, Hawke.
Oddly, he didn’t dislike it. She had a way of speaking that even when the meaning flew over his head, he could get the heart of it.
Even more oddly, Hawke came with others. One day he came to his locker to find a dwarf tapping away at a cell phone. He actually held up a hand to stop Fenris from talking as he finished writing some text then gave Fenris a thorough once over.
“Tevinter, huh?”
“Is there a problem, dwarf?”
And he had laughed. Actually laughed.
“No, no. Just checking out the goods. Don’t break her heart. I got contacts all over the city.” He slapped Fenris on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward, then walked off. And Fenris overheard whispers from humans that he was apparently “off limits” for bullies by order of Varric Tethras.
Then he was studying in the library one day when a hand slammed down on the desk. He looked up to see a bright swath of red hair and fierce green eyes.
“You don’t have a single record on you, do you know that?” Aveline Vallen glared down at Fenris.
“Yes.” He moved his book (cover down) over his notes, so Aveline couldn’t see the awkward block letters. “They promised me that.”
“Well, I don’t like it. Who are you?”
“None of your business.”
“It’s Hawke’s business which makes it my business.”
“I am not Hawke’s business.” Anger sparked against hay in his gut. He didn’t belong to any mage in any way.
Aveline snorted. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared down at him.
“If you hurt her—”
“How would I hurt her? She is…” He trailed off and waved his hands to indicate magic. Aveline shrugged.
“There’s wounds magic can’t help with. Treat her right. Or else.”
“I am terrified.” Fenris muttered, but under his breath. Aveline wasn’t not scary.
She glared at him for a moment longer then nodded once.
“Okay. If anyone bullies you, let me know.” Then she was gone
I helped. It’s what I do.
Apparently it’s what her friends did too. Without really understanding how, Fenris became one of Hawke’s group, and it was a powerful spot.
It happened on a hard day. Sometimes Hawke felt like a rechargeable battery. Most of the time, she could run for hours, with food substituting sleep and laughter replacing food. If she just kept going she could do all the things she needed to do everyday.
But it came at a cost. Sometimes, eventually, she’d crash. Maybe she heard a demon in her dreams again. Or maybe Carver hit just the right notes to send her into a spiral. Maybe Varric was shutting her out again, or she caught Aveline crying in the girl’s bathroom about her lost love..
Maybe she turned around to tell Bethany something and she wasn’t there. Maybe she thought of a joke her father would have loved only to remember.
Maybe she missed her dog so much it felt like an open wound in her chest.
She didn’t know, always, what caused the spiral. But they happened and it happened today.
Hawke went to school, because it was easier to go to school and hide in the library all day than be at home. She sat in a forgotten corner, pinching herself to stop falling asleep. There was a demon lurking around the Fade and she didn’t want it in her head, not today.
She leaned back against a stack of books and stared determinedly at the novel in her hand. The words fuzzed before her eyes. She just needed to blink for one moment...Just a…
“Hawke?”
She jumped at the familiar deep voice. Her head shot up to find Fenris standing over her with an annoyed frown.
“Oh.” She cursed her own voice for sounding small. She took a deep breath, trying to inflate herself back into her proper form. But the air escaped as fast as it came and she was still curled up on the floor of the economics section of the library. “H-hey, Fenris.”
“Why you here? It is class time.”
She could ask him the same thing but instead she held up her book.
“Reading.”
“Sleeping more like.” His frown grew deeper and he bent down to grab her arm. “You hurt yourself.”
Hawke pulled her arm back and ran a healing hand over the minor wounds. Fenris didn’t rise from his crouch.
“Why?” he asked.
“I’m...trying not to sleep.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Something in the Fade caught my scent. It’s better if I...don’t.”
Fenris’ big black brows shot up to his messy white hair. She wondered about that. She wondered about a lot of things, but she didn’t ask. Hawke was an expert at not asking.
“I heard something yelping. I investigated. Not smart to keep doing that.” He nodded to her arm. A weak smile spread over her lips.
“I’ll remember that.”
Fenris didn’t move. His glass green eyes dug into her own with an uncanny sight. She squirmed back against the bookcase and remembered why she always loved that Varric was on his phone. Varric had those eyes, dig deep into you eyes, but he was aware of it. He kept them to himself.
Fenris stared until he found what he wanted and rose.
“You said you would help me.”
“What?”
“If I ask.”
“Oh.” She gave two dying chuckles. Today was the worst day in the world to ask her for a favor. She ached with exhaustion. Carver was getting bullied in school. Her mother didn’t eat yesterday or this morning. Gamlen gambled away his paycheck again and she should probably get a job. “What do you need?”
Fenris extended a wide palmed hand. Hawke took it and was shocked when he lifted her to her feet. She had two inches on him. But those muscles in his arms she first fell for just tensed with the effort.
“Wow. You’re strong.”
Fenris shrugged and walked away. She followed after him, ending up at a group of tables with five other students. They broke into two tables, three at one, two at the other, but Fenris took a seat at his own table. A young man—teacher’s assistant age—straightened from helping the pair.
“Fenris, what are you—?” The man was handsome, with gleaming brown hair and striking blue eyes. He paused when he saw Hawke. “Hello, Miss Hawke.”
Hawke smiled, recognizing him from the Chantry her mother visited.
“Sebastian. My condolences.”
The man gave a familiar pained smile and nodded. His eyes turned back to Fenris who just pointed to Hawke.
“She is my tutor. You said I needed one.”
“Oh.” Sebastian’s smile warmed. “That’s perfect Fenris, Miss Hawke would be a lovely tutor I’m sure.”
“Uhhh, yes!” Unsure the subject, Hawke just smiled and took a seat next to Fenris. She leaned over his work and blinked. It was children's books and large print paper with blocky letters written in a shaking hand. Fenris took his pen and started where he left off, copying the alphabet with the same poor handwriting. “Oh.” She thought about the flashcards. He said he knew how to speak common. “Oh!” She looked to Fenris who scowled fiercely at his paper, shoulders nearly to his ears. “Ooooooh.” She hit herself on the forehead.
That’s why she never got a response.
“What?” Fenris growled the word.
“Nothing, nothing. I’m a moron. It’s not new information.” She leaned over his work. This close she could smell his cheap soap and overly fragrant laundry detergent. It wasn’t bad on him. “You need help learning to read?”
“Slaves are not taught letters.”
Hawke opened her mouth then shut it again. It wasn’t random slavers. She looked at his arm and remembered his trick with the heart. Fenris ached with a story, as Varric would put it. But she could wait until he told her in his own time.
“Well lucky for you I taught two younger siblings how to read.” She made a show of cracking her knuckles. “So I’m an expert at this.”
It was an hour later, when Fenris read about a cat putting on a hat that Hawke realized she wasn’t upset anymore.
Was this for her?
Fenris’ lessons raced forward with Hawke’s help. He hadn’t expected it. She had been a mage on the edge when he made the offer. He’d seen it before and so had fallen on old instincts. Protect a mage even at personal cost.
But Hawke hadn’t lied. She was patient, and quick to offer new ways to think of things. She sang songs that were embarrassing to hear and yet he found himself repeating them latter as he tried to remember.
Without knowing how it started, he ate lunch with her and the dwarf. Aveline often came over. It was supposed to be for studying, but the topic never stayed in one place with Varric and Hawke together.
One day he ended up going to Darktown to find a secret entrance to Hawke’s family old home. They killed slavers and found some will for Carver and her mother. During the long weekend, Hawke demanded they all go to the Wounded Coast and they met her honest to Maker pirate, who just seemed to Fenris to be a woman not wearing pants, but whatever made Hawke happy.
In fact, he found himself thinking that a lot. Hawke burned so bright, laughed so much, and yet she always seemed to be running from something. She mentioned two siblings but there was only Carver at her home. She and Varric were close but there was a wall separating them. Aveline and Hawke talked about Fereldan like old friends but Aveline didn’t even know Hawke’s first name. He didn’t know if it was an old habit, a slave’s itch to make sure the mage was happy, but he wanted it. So finally, he asked.
“What does Hawke like?” It took him three weeks to find a time with Varric without Hawke. It took him ten minutes to build up the courage to finally ask. The damn dwarf tapped at his phone as they waited together at a bus stop to out of town. Hawke “totally forgot this thing she needed to do in the nearby mountains and can you super please come with?”
No one said no. Only Fenris and Varric arrived early.
“You.”
“I’m being serious, dwarf.” Heat crept into his cheeks.
“So am I.”
“Don’t play games.”
Varric looked up from his phone. His pale brown eyes gleamed as they caught Fenris’.
“Did you even read those letters?”
Fenris opened his mouth to ask, when it snapped closed again. For weeks, letters appeared in his locker, or slipped into his backpack. They’d taunted him with messy handwriting he couldn’t decipher and words he couldn’t read. In a rage, he’d thrown them all away.
“Those were from Hawke?”
“Hawke’s shy when she really wants something.” The eyes went back to his phone. “Has no idea how to ask for it because she’s sure she doesn’t deserve it.”
Fenris opened his mouth again then shut it. How could Hawke think she didn’t deserve anything?
He thought of her in the library, so small and arm red with pinches. He’d never seen her like that again, ragged with something Fenris didn’t understand. He was secretly relieved but he also was worried.
Was that what she was running away from?
Aveline arrived soon after. Fenris and her fell into an easy conversation about law enforcement across the world. Hawke arrived ten minutes after their bus and apologized between panted breaths before offering everyone a bag of store bought cookies.
It wasn’t a bad time. It was an hour until the next bus and the sun sank low in the sky as they waited. But Varric had an eternal charge on his cell phone and played funny videos any time the conversation lulled.
When the bus did arrive, everyone walked to the back. With an ease Fenris envied, Varric got Aveline to sit next to him by offering up an article she’d want to read, and Hawke rushed straight to the very back seat to spread out. Fenris tentatively sat next to her.
“I love empty buses. It feels decedent.”
“How long is this ride?”
“Long. We’re trying to find a Dalish clan. You know how they are.”
“I don’t.”
“Really?” Hawke perked up. He took a chance and moved closer to her, disguising it as a leg stretch. She didn’t move away. “But you’re…”
“An ex-slave.” He didn’t bite the words with as much bitterness as he would have a month ago. “I met a Dalish once, but he called me a flat ear when I did not recognize his elven greeting.” Fenris rolled his eyes and settled back in his seat.
“Dad traded with some Dalish once. He seemed to know the clan leader. They weren’t nice to us, but we’re a bunch of dirty shems so.” She laughed at it all. Fenris cleared his throat.
“I don’t think you’re dirty.”
Hawke’s laugh died. She looked forward as Varric and Aveline hunched over his phone. At some point the dwarf got headphones out. They were, effectively, alone.
“What, uh, do you think of me, Fenris?”
He didn’t know. She was Hawke. Someone too big to be broken down into a simple opinion. She wielded magic with the ease of a Tevinter magister, and yet she had none of their arrogance, certainly none of their cruelty. She helped him because “that’s what she did.” She made his life easier, even when he tried to help her. She liked him, genuinely liked him, when he wasn’t even sure he liked himself.
“I think you are Hawke.” It was the best word for her.
“Oh.” She couldn’t stifle the disappointment. Fenris chuckled and reached for her hand. The palm hurt against his bare markings, but her fingers laced with his was an odd sort of comfort. He was here. He was okay. She was here. She was okay.
“Is this fine?” he asked.
She nodded mutely in her seat, crouching down as if that’d hide the bright red in her cheeks.
“You don’t really know me that well, you know.”
“You don’t know me that well either.” There was so much he hadn’t said, so much story he wasn’t ready to put into words. Danarius was out there and more people would come. Hawke was running from something and some day she wouldn’t be able to escape. Maybe the discoveries would tear them apart.
