Chapter Text
Fenris’ life is small and insular. He has a set routine, a small collection of friends, and his tiny two room apartment, and that is all he needs, thank you very much. It is more than he had Before, and he’s proud of what he has Now. He is organized. He is safe. He is free, and that is the most important part. He guards his freedoms with a protective zeal, and he is not keen to venture far outside the strict borders of the life he has carefully crafted for himself.
He works as a translator on weekdays from nine in the morning to six in the evening. He works from his coffee table in the winter and on his balcony in the summer, and at the local library when he needs a change of scenery. He will pick up the odd shift bartending at Isabela’s place, Drunken Pearl, when she is short on hands and he’s in need of some controlled excitement, but otherwise his days are much the same. He spends his Saturdays with one or more of his friends- Hawke, Varric, Isabela, or Sebastian- and he calls his sister and mother every Sunday at three o’clock Sundermount Time, five o’clock Imperium Time. He heads to bed at a reasonable hour and rises early on Monday to begin the cycle anew.
Perhaps it is a dull routine to some, but Fenris is proud of what he has crafted for himself. When he first came to Kirkwall he could barely care for himself. He had been isolated, frightened, and he had only a few hundred gold to his name. And now? Now he could cook, he could balance a checkbook, he had a steady job, he found his family, he had friends, and he didn’t need to balance on the knife’s edge of another’s whims and desires in order to survive. As far as Fenris was concerned, he did not need anything or anyone else.
“Guard Captain Vallen,” Fenris said politely as the stern faced woman came up to the bar. She set a growler on the polished dark oak, worn smooth from use over the years. The thick glass jar made a dull thud when she firmly placed it down in front of Fenris.
“It’s clean, washed it up before I came in. I’ll take the red ale,” she stated. Guard Captain Aveline Vallen tended to come in when Fenris worked at Isabela’s, usually Wednesdays at six. While Fenris was a professional, he had grown to know the woman during their brief exchanges at the bar- married, no children, her husband was also in the guard, and she tended to be serious, even dour at times. She also had a preference for Ferelden Pale Ales and the like.
“Two silvers,” Fenris said promptly. “ID?”
“I do appreciate your adherence to legal code,” she said warmly as she pulled out her wallet from her pocket and flashed him the square of plastic before paying. “Where on Thedas did Isabela find you? She’s always been fast and loose with these matters.” Aveline said the last part with distaste, wrinkling her nose in disgust. Fenris couldn’t argue with her. Isabela was his friend (friend, saving grace, cheerleader, pain in the ass), but she was never one for regulations- and her usual bartenders were a good deal more casual than he was.
“I found him at a grocery store,” Isabela’s voice boomed in his ear as she wound one muscular arm over his shoulder. “And I decided that I couldn’t leave a beautiful man like him alone.”
Fenris was grateful that Isabela never expanded beyond that comment when people asked how they met. She never told anyone how she spotted him hyperventilating in the jam and jellies section because there were ten different types of apricot jam and he had never had to think about jam before. He didn’t even know if he liked apricot, damn it! That was when Isabela sidled up and slyly suggested he raid the entire shelf.
“If you’re planning to spoil yourself, darling, do it,” she had suggested. “Your brooding is going to make everyone in the grocery store faint.” With those two sentences Isabela pushed her way into Fenris’ life and simultaneously created chaos and established order, and that was how he ended up here in the Drunken Pearl, tending bar and listening to the world.
His world was small and contained, Fenris thought, but good.
“Good evening to you, Captain Vallen,” Fenris said politely as he handed the ID and keg back to the woman.
“And you, Fenris,” she replied, and then she was gone.
“Staying in until closing?” Isabela asked, her arm still wrapped over his shoulders.
“I’m up for it,” Fenris said, and Isabela’s loud laugh rang in his ears. She squeezed his shoulders briefly before returning to the back room. Fenris returned his attention to the bar and customers: check ID, take orders, keep an eye on limits. He lost himself in the simple pleasures of a set routine and the buzz of the crowd. He greeted the regulars: Hawke walked by with her girlfriend, Varric came by to chat, and Carver, Hawke’s brother, picked up a keg of beer before leaving. It was a slow, quiet night. A normal night.
And then he walked in.
Fenris didn’t notice him at first. He was busy pouring a pint for Hawke and had his back to the door. But when he handed the pint to Hawke and looked over the main room, he saw him: golden-red hair, tall, skinny, wearing patched jeans and an olive green shirt that hung loose on his frame. He was a man made of angles and bones, and when he looked around the crowded room he locked eyes with Fenris.
Fenris’ heart stuttered in his chest.
Those golden brown eyes should have been warm and comfortable, but there was a spark in them that was devious. Dangerous. And when those eyes were combined with an attractive face- thin, expressive, almost-handsome in a way that made Fenris want to take a second look- yes, this was a dangerous man. A dangerous man who was walking towards him with that gleam in his eyes and a thin smile on his face, and Fenris, who avoided danger, who took pride in his staid and solitary life, who didn’t take unnecessary risks, wanted this man closer.
“Hello, bartender,” the man said crisply when he reached the counter. “What d’you recommend?”
Fenris’ life was small and insular. He liked it that way. He had Structure. He had Rules. And all it took was a pair of honey brown eyes and a teasing smirk to make him want to tear himself away from his carefully crafted habits and dive into the unknown.