Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Any news from Kirkwall?" Fenris asked, fingers pressing against Hawke's forearm. He rest his chin against his shoulder to peer at the paper in Hawke's fingers. "Is that from Varric?"

Hawke glanced over his shoulder, frowning slightly. "Yeah. You'd better read it. Or I'll read it to you."

"I can read it." Fenris plucked the paper from between his fingers. "All of the practice was not for nothing." He leaned against Hawke's shoulder, and Hawke wrapped his arms around him instinctively, although it didn't chase away the frown as he continued to look at the parchment.

Corypheus... but how... he'd been dead. Hawke knew what dead looked like, and Corypheus wasn't going to be any more than dead than he had been when they had left him.

"Corypheus?" Fenris hissed, dragging Hawke out of his head. Hawke tightened his grip around him. He could feel the increase of tension building in his partner's shoulders as Fenris continued to read and could say that he felt no different. Corypheus had been their problem, and because they hadn't been able to finish the job... "Corypheus was dead," Fenris spat, wriggling free of Hawke's arms to turn and face him. "We were certain."

"Death doesn't seem to be particularly final, does it?"

Fenris's nose wrinkled with distaste, dropping the parchment onto the table. "This is not funny."

"No," Hawke agreed. "It's not." But such was his lot to diffuse situations with humor, and sitting here thinking about it was going to get them nowhere.

Fenris gazed at him for a moment, speculatively, before jade eyes narrowed and he turned away. "How could this happen?"

"I don't know. You know all that I do."

"That was rhetorical."

"Even still."

And even though it was going to be another mess that they were getting caught up in, there was no true way that Hawke could tell Varric he wasn't coming. There was no way that he couldn't go. This had been their problem to put to rest, and Varric was right: Hawke wanted to be there. He had to finish this.

"Hawke."

Fenris was looking at him. Too intently, even, and Hawke knew that Fenris was figuring him out even as they looked at each other.

"You're going," Fenris said, after that moment's pause where Hawke could swear that the elf was staring straight into his soul. "Of course you're going."

Hawke smiled. Fake and put-upon. It had been years and yet? Not long enough, not long enough to put distance between him and Kirkwall, himself and the people who wanted the Champion, needed the Champion. It wasn't that he was bitter. He wasn't. Not really. He didn't regret helping out everyone who had needed help - save the one decision he had made with Anders, not knowing the outcome. But being relied on like that... was exhausting. There was no other word for it. It was exhausting, and at times he had wanted nothing more than to bar his door and stop his post and stay home, with Fenris at his side, and have wine and fancy Orlesian cheese in front of the firelight.

Fancy Orlesian cheese nonwithstanding, they had, more or less, had that the past few years. Hawke was grateful for that, too, but his nature? Would always get the better of him.

So, yes, of course he was going. He couldn't leave people to die. Not like this.

Fenris sighed softly. The tendrils of hair falling into his face ruffled with the breath. "Naturally." He pushed those stray hairs out of his face and turned for the hall. "I'll gather our things, then. You should send the bird back with a message. Varric will want to know."

Wait, what? What was Fenris talking about? He couldn't- this was dangerous. Potentially even more dangerous than they could guess at right now, because of Corypheus having been dead but apparently not dead. And not even taking the magister himself into account, there were demons pouring from the Fade rifts that only the Inquisition's newest recruit could evidently close. There was the Venatori cult, a cult of which Hawke only knew as much about as he could glean from Varric's hastily scrawled letters over the months. Even those letters had stopped for awhile; when Hawke had learned Haven had been destroyed, it had felt like ice had crashed into his lungs, freezing solid, threatening to choke him with its vice-like grip around his throat, a crushing weight that had gotten worse when Varric hadn't written. No, please no, please not another one of my friends.

What if they went, and that sentiment came up again? What if, instead of worrying that Varric had been trapped in Haven's downfall, what if something happened to Fenris? The very thought clenched Hawke's stomach, pressed the black weight of anxiety down on his chest. For a moment, he could envision coming home without Fenris, with just the red favor and his own memories. For a moment, he couldn't breathe. His hand came down a little too heavily on the tabletop as he reached for something to steady himself with, seeing as how Fenris was out of the room and unable to ground him himself.

Hawke couldn't count on both hands how many times over the past years that Fenris had shaken him awake in the middle of the night, and the concerned, quietly panicked way that he looked at him each time. Fenris once confessed that he worried that Hawke would be tempted by the demons in the dreams, and on the nights that he did not wake up without a sharp slap from lyrium fingers that shook afterwards, that he would lose him forever. Those were the nights that Hawke pulled Fenris into his arms and said it was fine and held the elf while he still trembled a little, and Hawke pretended that he wasn't shaking himself.

He couldn't count how many times those dreams had come close to doing that. How many dreams he didn't think he'd wake up from. How many times he'd had to hold himself together just so that Fenris could relax and go back to sleep, and he'd lay there with the images of a burning Kirkwall, of a Chantry exploding, of the blood of mages and templars alike spilled on the ground, the bodies of victims, innocent victims, piled into heaps as he charged through the city, companions hot on his heels as they collected their things and fled.

If Fenris had been one of those bodies... the thought that Fenris could be one of those bodies, even now...

The breath he took wheezed through a too-tight throat as he lifted his chin, staggering a step towards their bedroom. "Fenris."

"Yes?" Fenris did not look up from rifling through their small collection of clothing.

This would not go over well. They would fight. But Hawke couldn't- "You have to stay here."

Now the elf did look up, directly ahead at the grimy wall with its peeling paper. He was silent. The wheels were turning. Hawke waited to say anything else, waited to see what Fenris would say, knowing that nothing he could say could make this right, make it better, make it easier.

But then Fenris turned his attention back to their trunk. "We'll need furs if we're to trek through the snow. And you your boots. They're over there." He gestured away, and said nothing more. As if he hadn't heard. As if he had chosen to disregard Hawke's words.

Hawke closed his eyes. "Fenris..."

"You are not going alone," Fenris interrupted.

"You can't-"

"I can judge what I can and cannot do, Hawke," Fenris said, flatly, pleasantly, even, but with a hardness to his voice that made Hawke want to reach out and hold him. He did not. Fenris turned, the bundle of furs in his arms. "You have been an advocate of my choosing my own path. Do not take those words back now."

"I'm not taking that back, you should make your own decisions," Hawke countered, "but now really isn't the time for a debate on-"

Fenris was shaking his head already. "It is not a debate. It is not up for debate. You are not going alone," he repeated, and shoved the furs into Hawke's arms.

Then Hawke stepped forward, thrusting his arms forward to catch Fenris around his torso instead of catching the furs. He pulled him in close, tucking him into his body in the way that the smaller elf seemed to fit. He wanted to kiss him, but Fenris's head found its place tucked under his neck and Hawke couldn't move, couldn't bear to move from the embrace. I just need him here in my arms. I just need him to be safe. He had sent up the prayer once before, before the final battle in the Gallows, and they had walked away unscathed. It had been a miracle, and Hawke did not have many of those. It couldn't be wise to press his luck a second time. It couldn't...

Fenris's arms snuck up around Hawke's back slowly, hands resting between his shoulderblades. His shoulders heaving with an almighty sigh before he slumped over, tension giving way into exhaustion as the small body leaned against Hawke's larger one. "You cannot ask me to stay behind."

"I don't want to."

"Then, don't."

Hawke laughed wryly. "As if it's that simple."

Fenris pulled away, stretched up to press his lips against Hawke's. "It is."

Hawke groaned, sliding his hand up beneath the messy braid at the back of Fenris's hair, tangling his fingers into it. He pulled him in for another kiss, crushing their lips together, a stark contrast to Fenris's gentle peck because he needed this, he needed him, oh, Maker, he couldn't do this, he couldn't put him in danger, and he couldn't leave him. Fenris's skin beneath him, deep voice rumbling out his name in the throes of ecstasy or idle conversation, hot breath against his lips, against the nape of his neck as they slept, throwing his arms around him during breakfast, holding onto him through the nightmares and the daydreams.

Maker, he needed.

"Fenris." He shoved his hand against the elf's shoulder, feeling the exhale of breath as he pushed Fenris back against their bedroom wall. "Fenris." Sliding his hands under the collar of Fenris's too-low shirt, pushing it aside to roam the expanse of smooth skin on his shoulders. He kissed him hard, deep, injecting the kiss with every emotion he had, what he needed, slipping his knee between Fenris's thighs to rub at him through his breeches. "Fenris."

Fenris kissed him back with as much fervor, but turned away too quickly. Hawke's lips were chilled, bereft, leaving him to latch onto something else like the marked skin on his neck, sucking at the lyrium swirls and lines, intricate patterns he had traced with his fingers and tongue and memorized with his mind.

"Hawke..."

His voice, his touch. He'd had years of this, years and years and it was never going to be enough. He would never have enough days waking up next to the man held beneath his fingers and even the mere thought of losing that was enough to drive him to hysterics if he let himself go enough. He had to hold himself together. Or allow Fenris to hold him together, like this, in each other's arms.

"Garrett."

Hawke stopped. Fingers tenuous on Fenris's body. Lips still pressed against his neck. He had to resist the urge to kiss him again, distract him from this, but - no. Fenris would not allow himself to be distracted. Not now. Not with the impending separation weighing on their minds and suddenly, Hawke was so tired.

His forehead landed against Fenris's collarbone. This time, Fenris held him up instead of simply holding him. And even when they folded to the floor, Fenris was still holding him, holding his head tucked against his chest, fingers knitted into his hair, stroking absent patterns against his back.

"I cannot lose you," he managed eventually. When he was certain that his voice wouldn't break.

"That is why we're going together," Fenris said patiently.

"But-"

"I'm not losing you, either," Fenris interrupted. "We have reached a stalemate, it seems."

Hawke barked a laugh, pulling himself away from the elf. "Yes, so it seems."

"Either we do not go, or we go together."

He was so calm. So calm as though it were a simple decision. Maybe he had been following him for the past ten years, through Kirkwall, away from Kirkwall, in and out of Kirkwall as their life took them from place to place now, but this? This was more than going after a band of slavers, and Corypheus had been enough trouble the first time, nevermind the second. And the Venatori that Varric had only mentioned in passing, and the red lyrium growing from nowhere, and-

"Wherever you go, I will follow," Fenris said, promised, and Hawke knew. Knew it intimately, knew that if he went without Fenris agreeing to it (which wasn't happening), Fenris would follow him. Fenris would be alone in battle, and Hawke couldn't keep an eye on him. Couldn't protect him. And if Fenris died trying to follow him into battle...

It was so frustrating. He couldn't fault him because, deep down? Everyone knew Hawke would do the same exact thing if Fenris took off on his own; he had, once, on one particularly dangerous group of slavers. Fenris hadn't been in any danger by the time Hawke had showed up, but he had dragged him back, all the same, even if Fenris had protested along the way. It was one time Hawke had been right and truly angry. So, it wasn't fair for him to think he could go it alone, either, and still?

He breathed in slowly and held it. Counting in his head. One, two, three. Steeling himself for what he was entertaining, allowing. Blew the breath out through his teeth and looked back at Fenris. "Fine. But no being reckless for me," he ordered. "No matter the situation, promise me, Fenris."

Fenris smiled. Smirked, really. Traced his fingers up Hawke's shoulder and neck to curve around his jawline. "Reckless," he said, as though the word were foreign on his tongue. "I think you're mistaking me for you."

Hawke rolled his eyes. "I am not reckless."

Fenris raised a brow. "Need I remind you what happened last week at the tavern?"

"That wasn't recklessness! I was just drunk."

"Completely different things. Right." Fenris patted Hawke's cheek and pushed himself to his feet, holding his hand to Hawke. "Do you want to write a letter back to Varric, or should I?"

"I will... Your penmanship is hideous."

Fenris smacked at the back of Hawke's head before he could duck out of the way. "I learned that from the one who taught me."

"That is so not fair." It wasn't fair, but it wasn't unfair, it was nothing and everything as they fell back into casual conversation, absent-minded things that Hawke could grasp onto before they started out on this journey that would affect both of them all over again. He could hang onto these moments of peace before they were thrown back into the kind of lifestyle that Hawke had hoped to avoid after Kirkwall. For these moments, he and Fenris were still safe, tucked away from the dangers of the world, and Hawke could pretend that nothing would touch them again.

Just a few moments was better than nothing at all.