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“So you’re into elves, huh?” Gamlen slurred from the stool to Hawke’s right.
The last of the Amells swayed conspiratorially closer as he spoke. As if invading his nephew’s personal space would magically preclude the tapered-eared man seated on Hawke’s left from overhearing. Gamlen wasn’t properly soused. Not yet, but he was well on his way. His breath alone made it clear that the tankard in front of him wasn’t his first.
Lip curling at the odour, Hawke indulged his uncle with a warning look before turning his focus to the whisky Corff had set down before him. The glass was midway to his lips when Gamlen went on. “Guess I don’t have to ask which one of you’s the girl.”
Hawke froze.
There was an instant wherein he doubted whether he’d heard correctly. Drunk or no, surely Gamlen’s sense of self-preservation was stronger than that?
He was still trawling for a non-murderous rebuttal (in deference his mother’s memory, if nothing else) when he felt the shift in his lover’s posture, gauntleted forearm clanking down on the bar top as Fenris leaned forward. “Would you like to see my sword?” the elf growled, free hand reaching for the hilt of the sizable, magic-infused blade Hawke had gifted him with a few days prior. Phallic entendre aside, it was a weapon feared both for its reach and the skill demanded of its wielder, making the message clear: Fenris was no doe-eyed plaything in need of a champion to rise to his defence.
Gamlen had the grace to instantly subside, shrinking in his seat and making a good effort of hiding behind his ale, marginally appeasing Hawke’s affront on his companion’s behalf.
It was not the first time someone had commented, of course.
What with Fenris’ looks and lupine name and Hawke being Fereldan, they’d weathered a round or two of jokes about the dog lord’s newest…female at the onset of their acquaintance, in the days when he was just another lowbrow from Lowtown and their association, a pact born of indenture and safety in numbers, rather than fancy. A steady return of unsubtle impalement puns, delivered with a blunt enough air of intimidation to add credence, had nipped the trend in the bud. Though, not as thoroughly as Hawke had hoped, it would seem.
Fenris sat back as well, meeting his eyes with a roll of his own. Inclusive, though; not accusatory, and Hawke spared him a wink as he grinned into his whisky.
After six years of fighting, and bleeding, and drinking, and mourning, and occasionally even laughing together, their bond was strong. The foundations of trust and regard had been set long before sex first featured in their rapport, and endured throughout its protracted hiatus. Neither would sit idle while an outsider made light of what they held private and dear, but the opinions of others were ultimately irrelevant. When it was just them, together in whatever bed they chose to share, it was only themselves they had to please, after all.
“…do understand that bedding me as you might a woman, does not in fact oblige you to compliment me as such?” asked wryly, one green eye peering up through the fall of silver-blonde hair as a deceptively finely-boned hand drew patterns in the curls on Hawke’s chest.
It was early days in their rekindled romance, with the magister – Danarius’ – corpse barely cold, and the shadow of his spectre not quite gone from Fenris’ eyes.
The question might have disturbed Hawke, had he not known where it hailed from. In his former life, Fenris was taken to his master’s bed as much for what he was not, as for what he was. And indeed, his passion was a sight to behold, but in Minrathous, he hadn’t been free, and he hadn’t been female. Bizarre as it seemed, from what knowledge Hawke had amassed about Tevinter custom, it appeared that, between magisters, only unions of men and women were acknowledged, while trysts between men of the same station were considered scandalous and taboo.
A male slave, however, was a thing to be used without risk of bastard offspring dividing a house and, with any cause for shame, resting solely on the shoulders of those who had no choice in partaking. In his homeland, the cock between Fenris’ legs had rendered the giving of his intimate self ‘lesser’ in the eyes of the man who’d ruled him. And so, while Hawke’s concerns over Fenris’ want of him had been laid to rest, compliments and affirmations that seemed self-evident yet proved the stuff of revelation to the elf.
“And have you considered that those who find their lovers beautiful tell them so on occasion, and that being a woman has no bearing on the matter?”
“Hmh,” Fenris hummed. He feigned nonchalance, but there was pleasure in his smile. “Does that mean I ought to be composing sonnets about your ‘raven’s wing hair’ and ‘storm cloud eyes’?” Punctuated with a tug on a lock of the strands trailing across Hawke’s shoulder.
A chuckle rumbled in his chest as he caught the hand in his, raising it to his lips. “It’s not about ‘should,’ love. It’s about ‘want to…’”
~*~
The flames lurched in the grate as another gust of rainy wind blasted through the gap between the ceiling and the wall.
The Mabari on the hearthrug growled a drowsy protest, hindquarters inching closer to the fire’s warmth. The hole had been a piece of loose skirting two days prior, but then, his…lover (he was still acclimatising to the odd combination of words, and applying it to the sturdy human tending a sword in the dilapidated wingback beside his) had tried his hand at renovation. With slightly contrary results.
Evidently, force magic did not translate well to such mundane applications as roof repair.
The mansion’s deteriorating state notwithstanding, their time was divided fairly evenly between it and Hawke’s estate. Hawke claimed that he appreciated the chance to escape from Bodahn’s politely incessant reminders about unanswered correspondence, interspersed with ‘random’ templar raids on his property and the succession of nobles demanding that he ‘do something’ about the Knight Commander’s de facto coup. While Fenris didn’t doubt the veracity of this, he also knew that the manor’s crumbling walls housed no memories of loss for the mage.
The partial demolition of his drawing room should have vexed him more than it had perhaps, but seeing the red-faced, wide-eyed consternation on the typically brusque Fereldan’s features had made up for every brick. The Dalish witch had accused him of ‘puppy eyes’ once, but she’d yet to see the Champion of Kirkwall in full contrite-eyed glory.
A corner of Fenris’ mouth ticked up, even as he wrapped himself tighter around the book in his lap to ward off the cold: ‘The Fifth Blight and the Shaping of Contemporary Thedas,’ by Brother Genitivi. He’d heard snippets of first-hand accounts. Of the sacking of Lothering from Hawke’s point of view, of the betrayal at Ostagar from Aveline’s, and of Anders and Isabela’s dealings with the Wardens who’d put an end to it all. Those tellings were distorted, cut short with remembered anguish or embellished with the jollity of adventure, lending an odd comfort to the detached, bird’s-eye objectivity of the Chantry scholar’s appraisal.
To Fenris, it was a reminder that even the most devastating of events did not stop the march of time, nor preclude the realisation of hope, but then, the appeal of this type of narrative was far from universal. His frequently ‘staid’ choice of reading material had become something of a running joke between Varric and Isabela. However, as a former slave who’d spent half the life he remembered fearing to look upon the written word, lest he forfeit an eye, the sating of curiosity at the turn of a page was still wondrous enough to elicit a thrill of the forbidden.
A cough interrupted the howling of the wind and the crackle of the hearth. “If you ever wish to—” A pause and the sound of a throat clearing, carried on the scrape of stone against steel. “–do the taking, when we…You should know, it isn’t…not in the cards.”
Fenris blinked, brows knitting and (because some topics were indeed more provocative than others) he glanced up from the page. “There’s a degree of…concession involved,” he hedged. “I’ve never known you to derive fulfilment from that.”
Hawke scowled and looked down at the blade in his lap, following the path of the whetstone with his eyes. Incidentally, the posture also caused a shock of black hair to draw forward, concealing his face. “If anything between us was…lacking. You’d tell me?”
Fenris set his book aside and rose, taking the three steps to Hawke’s chair. He inserted a couple of fingers beneath the stubble-shadowed chin and coaxed the other man’s gaze up with gentle, if insistent pressure. For him, meeting a human’s stare dead-on remained a minor challenge at times. The etiquette of averting his eyes had proven deeply ingrained, even when he felt not a shred of timidity, but right then, it was Hawke’s gaze that strove to evade.
“This is not because of your fool uncle, is it?” Fenris questioned.
The mage swallowed thickly. His sword was laid carefully across the wingback’s armrests and Fenris’ hand fell away. “I don’t begrudge my father the choices he made,” Hawke said, staring at the blade that once belonged to the man. “But, I cannot say with certainty that he would’ve made those same decisions if he’d known how much my mother – and Carver would’ve had to give up.”
The grey eyes flicked to Fenris.’ “I have seen the sacrifices required of those bold – or, as some would say, foolish – enough to love an apostate. Ignorance has never been a luxury afforded to me.”
Extending a finger, Fenris traced the braid above Hawke’s ear. “You’re the Champion of Kirkwall, Wreath,” he pointed out. “There are many who would eagerly resign themselves to such folly.”
Hawke huffed a laugh, hand settling gently on Fenris’ hip. “Not as you have. I have plenty of detractors in this city, as you know. And as for those who pledge affection,” he drew a breath. “As you say, it is for the ‘Champion of Kirkwall,’ not the bastard-Wilder sellsword, with bounties on his head and—” Another gust of cold howled through the gap in the wall, provoking a wince from the mage. “—and a proven ineptitude for architecture.”
Fenris offered a smile, which Hawke returned, albeit wanly. “I was an apostate for twenty years before they made me Champion. The only way I expected my status to change was by my death. Most likely under a templar’s blade, because as you’ve deduced, compromise does not come easily to me. It might yet come to that.” Said lowly, almost as an afterthought, and Fenris frowned, lips parting to argue, but Hawke shook his head. “An apostate’s burden,” he shrugged. “My mother bore it gracefully enough, but it is not something I could have asked another to assume.”
Understanding dawned and Fenris’ scowl turned pensive: had he not volunteered for a second attempt at courtship, they would not be where they were.
“Home to me,” Hawke went on, voice roughening with candour. “It was never a building, or a village, or a country. It was my family, and the sense of belonging I felt only with them. When I lost my mother, I feared I had lost that as well, but then you did the impossible and gave it back to me. You’ve allowed me to come home again, Wolf. There is nothing I would withhold from you if it were within my power to grant it.”
For a long moment, Fenris peered into the roiling blue-grey gaze. Then he bent, pressing a hard kiss against Hawke’s lips.
“Very well,” he assured, pulling back far enough to have a clear view of the mage’s—of his lover’s face. “If the desire to mount you ever stirs within me, Wreath, I shan’t hesitate to voice it. As for tonight, I think I’d prefer having your hand fisted in my hair as I ride to climax astride you.”
He watched, satisfied, as Hawke’s eyes lit with stormy fire, pupils exploding outward.
It was some time until they spoke again.