Chapter Text
As if they didn’t have enough to worry about back in the city, here they were traipsing through the wilderness once again on another of Hawke’s ridiculous errands. Why Fenris let her drag him along on these foolish outings, he would never understand.
No.
Rather, he understood better than he would allow himself to admit.
He sighed softly, trusting the sound would be swallowed by the seabreeze, the crunch of earth underfoot, and their companions’ voices a short distance ahead. The witch knew the way to the clearing they sought, so she had volunteered to guide them. That alone should herald their doom, but at least Aveline had insisted on sharing the lead.
Perhaps they wouldn’t die in a conflagration of blood and demons after all.
Fenris glanced sidelong at Hawke, who had fallen into step beside him. She was much quieter than usual, and he could tell by the subtle twitch of her chin that she was worrying the inside of her bottom lip. The staff she typically kept slung across her back - blatantly contradicting her assertion in mixed company that it was a walking stick, thank you - was in her hand. To anyone else, it might seem that she was putting the thing to its oft-stated purpose, but Fenris saw more than most, including the whiteness of her knuckles as she gripped the shaft.
The rest of her body was just as tense. He saw it in the line of her shoulders, the straightness of her spine. Despite the fact that Hawke’s swagger (as the witch called it) was nowhere near as pronounced as Isabela’s, the swing of her hips could still occasionally lead Fenris to distraction, but there was no swing in them now; her pelvis was simply an anchor for her torso, a hinge for her legs. Even her hair, usually an unruly mop that fell to the back of her neck, was pulled up, held fast by the red kerchief she always carried.
And her magic— Well.
The lyrium in his skin gave him an advantage not even the most perceptive templar could boast.
His markings—often aching, forever hateful—behaved like a separate creature when she was casting, the way they had around his former master. They needled Fenris incessantly, a furious burn down every line, in every whorl across his body, an intolerable itch Danarius had reveled in scratching raw—a scratch that Danarius had reveled even more in withholding.
Hawke was not Danarius. It would have been easier if she were. Then Fenris could have killed her, crushed her heart like he had so many others, and run again. But Hawke was— Hawke. She was kind in a way he could barely comprehend. Generous for no reason other than she could, even when she couldn’t afford to be. A font of sarcasm that nevertheless managed terrifying, naked sincerity. Playfully self-aggrandizing to cover her insecurities. Assembling their band of castoffs and insisting with infuriating optimism that they could work together. Her belief—unfathomable—that she wasn’t anyone special, that somehow they were. That he was.
So, Fenris had stayed. Stayed and suffered—suffered her power, suffered his flesh clawing itself from within. He could feel the other mages, too, of course - such illustrious company she kept, the witch and the abomination - but Hawke was a beacon. His markings wanted to roll around in her magic like a cat, and it had almost almost been impossible at first. He had kept his distance, always at the edge of their cohort, as far from Hawke and the other mages as he could manage during a fight. Over the eight months of their acquaintance, though, he had mercifully learned to cage the lyrium’s craving—enough now, at least, to have her back, to stand by her side in combat and not burn to death.
A hard lesson.
She had learned it, too. The first time she had touched him - concerned after a battle weeks after meeting - it was too much. Her hand had only rested on his gauntlet, the faintest edge of light beginning to trace her fingertips, and even through the metal and leather, the lyrium leapt to life. Closer. Closer. More, more, more.
He had raged, more beast than man, snarling and scrabbling away from the siren call of her magic, away from her. He didn’t remember what he had said, only that he was cruel. Only that she remained where she had knelt beside him, head bowed, staring at her hands where they lay useless in her lap, a thin tremor in her shoulders. Once his wrath had bled itself out, she had finally lifted her gaze to his. In the Darktown torchlight, he could see tears caught on the fringe of her lashes. She blinked and they were gone, the hurt in her eyes replaced by something that made him think absurdly of spider silk—harder than steel and incomprehensibly gentle. That terrifying, naked sincerity.
A trap.
“Then I won’t heal you.”
No anger. No indignation. No blame. Her voice was matter-of-fact, clear and even. And though her brother and the abomination had rounded on Fenris then, demanding an apology, she silenced them both with a look.
Hawke had given him a wide berth after that. It was weeks before she visited the mansion again, sat farther away when she did, kept another person between them at The Hanged Man. She asked him to accompany her only on jobs she knew wouldn’t require her magic, of which there were precious few.
Fenris wondered if his markings called to her magic the way her magic called to them, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. What he did know is that he had hurt her—badly, however much she seemed to have forgiven him. That she seemed to forgive him at all was a torture itself, a kindness that made him feel small. Hawke deserved better.
So, by way of the apology he would never voice, Fenris tried to do better.
The first night, he had forced himself to The Hanged Man early, when he knew Hawke and Varric would be there before anyone else. The dwarf had raised an eyebrow as Fenris nodded in greeting and resolutely took the chair on Hawke’s right.
Hawke had blinked at him dumbly at first. Then she frowned, lips half-parted, forming around a wordless question. But when Fenris had shrugged, offering a small smile—sheepish, however reassuring he meant it—the furrow in her brow smoothed, replaced by crow’s feet and soft, deep curves framing her mouth.
She was radiant. Beaming. As if the sun had come out just for him.
The months following that moment showed Fenris just how precise Hawke could be with her power. It wasn’t long before she had begun inviting him again on her excursions - dragons terrorizing the Bone Pit, a slavers den on the Wounded Coast, a missing templar - and Fenris marveled at her skill, shaping her spells around him so he was (almost) never caught in a stray waft of her magic when he didn’t expect it.
This impossible mage.
He had never asked it of her, but he was grateful, so he answered her caution with boldness. He stopped skirting battles, stopped automatically targeting ranged foes, and trended deeper into the fray to cut down anyone foolish enough to attack Hawke directly. And as the space grew smaller between them, Fenris slowly learned to control the lyrium in his skin, to hush its cry of closer closer, to ignore the sizzle of more more more.
Until today.
As they traveled the path away from Sundermount, his markings had begun to prickle—only a little at first but getting worse with every footfall, a colony of Seheron fire ants marching under his skin.
Fenris had seen Hawke on edge plenty of times, but this was new. She wasn’t talking about it, either, which was worse. Hawke didn’t bemoan every stray misfortune like her brother did, but she liked to complain, and she didn’t hide anything.
Something was very, very wrong.
Fenris tried to ignore it at first, but Hawke was a coiled spring, her magic practically vibrating with the effort to hold herself so tightly. It was peeling off in tendrils now, seeking out his branded flesh, sinking into his skin. He could barely breathe through the sensation, let alone speak.
“Hawke.”
He could only manage a graveled whisper, and she didn’t seem to hear him.
He tried again, but the marks along his throat scalded, making speech impossible. The colony was frenzied now, buzzing and skittering through his limbs, over his feet, across the lines striping his palms.
For the first time since he had known her, the lyrium was trying to run away.
He couldn’t breathe. He was going to suffocate. He was going to— He had to do something. He had to—
Nearly blind with pain, he groped for her, closed his hand triumphantly around the scored wood of her staff, and yanked.
He could only register the shock on her face before the spring uncoiled, her magic snapping out in a wide arc that lit him up and left him gasping. Air—sweet air—filled his lungs, and he braced himself against her staff while he tried to ease his frantic heart, panting as the lyrium eventually dimmed and grew quiet.
“Fenris?”
He couldn’t look at her. Her voice was so stunned, he wanted to shriek. He was furious, agonied. His skin burned. She had nearly killed him with her recklessness. No one should have power like that. No one.
But in her bewilderment, tenderness. Hesitation. Concern. Hawke had been so careful before now. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t risk hurting her the way he had the first time. He couldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
Fenris finally lifted his head and looked around. Aveline and the witch had stopped and were doubling back to where he and Hawke stood. He lifted a hand to wave them off, and they halted. At last he forced himself to look at Hawke.
She met his gaze tentatively, eyes darting past his face, to the horizon, to the staff in his hand, to the ground, back again. He knew that expression. He had worn that expression. A slave expecting to be punished.
He wouldn’t.
Fenris held the staff out to her. “You shouldn’t carry your weapon so tightly, Hawke.”
It was cowardly, he knew. If it had been anyone else, Fenris would have demanded an explanation. He was unfailingly blunt with the others. But Hawke was different. She was patient, gave him room to maneuver around her questions, offered him the freedom to deflect, which is why he so often didn’t, why he told her things that surprised even himself. Hawke deserved the same patience, the same room.
He was also, at this precise moment, abjectly terrified of her.
She stared at the staff in his hand, bottom lip tucked between her teeth. At last she reached out, slowly, almost reverently, and closed her hand around the shaft. He released it.
They continued staring at each other for the span of a few heartbeats. Then one dark eyebrow arched as a smirk tugged the corner of her mouth.
“You’re advising a mage on how to carry a staff? Really?”
Fenris managed to keep his nostrils from flaring, tried to hide his sigh and failed. “The stiffer your grip, the quicker your hands will tire. And the easier you will be to disarm. As just happened.”
And now he was becoming pedantic. Perfect.
For a moment Hawke didn’t say anything, only transferred her staff to the left hand and flexed the fingers of her right. “They are tired.”
She offered the admission with a wan smile and said no more.
They caught up with their companions and continued their journey, Hawke’s walking stick scraping the ground in a gentle rhythm that reminded Fenris of the dwarven metronome in Varric’s suite. The late morning sun stretched its fingers through the trees, casting shadows and warming the spaces between.
Something was still wrong, and Hawke obviously didn’t want to talk about it. Fenris wouldn’t force the issue, though it worried him terribly.
For now, though, her magic was back under control, and he could breathe again. With her staff held more loosely and the faintest roll back in her hips, Fenris shushed the lyrium in his skin almost fondly, unspeakably grateful for their muted, practiced ache.
For now, it was enough.