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"Enjoy yourself?"
Hawke whirled and pulled his daggers out from their hidden sheathes, then recognized the speaker and bit back a curse. "Fenris. What are you doing out here?" He returned his blades and looked up at the pitch black sky. "It must be after midnight now." They were in the heart of Hightown, just around the corner from Hawke's mansion. The lamps at the edges of the courtyard flickered but did not reach the bench on which Fenris sat, adjacent to a carefully manicured square of trees and flowers.
"It's after 3."
Hawke quirked a smile at the elf's disapproving tone. "Really? Hmmm. I didn't notice. Sereh Hollen's daughters were particularly beguiling tonight, and the household cook is a master of culinary delights. They're also new to Hightown, so they aren't easily horrified by tales of Darkspawn slaying and slaver slaughtering. They seem to enjoy it, even, shrieking in delight at my every intrepid exploit."
"So the more tiresome you are, the better?"
Hawke grinned. "That sounds about right, yes." He sat next to Fenris, and lifted an eyebrow as his companion shifted to the edge of the bench. "My scent offending you? I've been told I smell quite nice this evening."
"You smell like a bath in the Blooming Rose."
"Been to the Blooming Rose a lot lately, then?" Fenris didn't say anything, instead snorting contemptuously, and Hawke furrowed his brow. Him and the escaped slave had become comfortable friends over the last three years, only clashing occasionally over mage-related disagreements. Or he thought they had been friends, at least. Something had changed over the last few months. The elf had become even broodier than usual, and had stopped coming to the Diamondback games Hawke hosted in his mansion each week or to his casual reading lessons. He was trying not to take it personally, but the attitude was wearing thin. "You never answered my question."
"Which one? I thought you were talking about yourself. As you are wont to do." Hawke grit his teeth, and thought not for the first time that Fenris was lucky he was damn pretty when he glowered, because if he wasn't the rogue would have been tempted to slap him silly. Of course, he didn't want to linger on that. Thinking about how pretty Fenris was could lead his tired and inebriated brain down dangerous pathways, hallways of possibility he decided to close not long after they met when Hawke saw how damaged the elf obviously was.
"I asked you what you were doing out here. But forget it, you don't have to answer." He shrugged and stood. "I didn't mean to interrupt your solitude."
"You didn't interrupt." Fenris sounded affronted he would even suggest it. "Hawke..." his voice was significantly softer, and Hawke stopped. "What are you doing?"
"Doing? I am enjoying myself, taking advantage of my new social status, making new friends. Wearing clothes that don't stink of darkspawn guts and dirty dog. Don't get me wrong, I love my dog, but I'd gotten awfully sick of smelling of him. Why?"
"And looking for a wife?"
"Perhaps." Hawke smiled and gathered his short beard at his chin thoughtfully. "If I find one who interests me enough. I don't think any of the Hollen's women will do; they maker didn't exactly bless them with much in the way of brains. Why?" he asked again. "You seem bothered by my new social life. You have been avoiding me. Does my new status offend you?"
There was a bitter laugh. "Offend me? Yes, Hawke, it offends me. It annoys me. Your new life is vapid, empty, and the people with whom you are spending your time are pampered fools. I do not know how you stand it."
"How do I stand it?" Hawke was angry now, his usual sarcastic humor gone. "When you spend most of your time killing and destroying things, Fenris, it can be rather enjoyable to spend time in rooms with pretty people talking about the weather. When your greatest skill is stabbing someone in the back, it can be pleasurable to consider the possibility of surviving long enough to create life, to continue my family's legacy. Is that so difficult to understand?"
Fenris stood, and Hawke tensed, wondering if he had enraged the elf. But when Fenris lifted his face he saw agony, not anger. Andraste those eyes....
"Of course I understand. Do you think as a homeless elf, without memories, I can't understand wanting escape, to want to be part of these rich, gilded people and their beautiful, empty lives?" he tilted his head to look up at a frosted, high window in the mansion next to them, glowing with warm inviting light. "I have served the rich and pampered, never been one. Never will be one. And thus I have lost you." He put his head down, and started to stalk away.
Hawke reached out with his lightening reflexes and snagged Fenris by his arm. He ignored the answering snarl. "Lost me? Bloody balls, what are you talking about?"
"Let go of me," Fenris ripped his arm away; he was smaller than Hawke, but his strength was considerable. "it means nothing. Go on, enjoy your nobles' daughters. I am going home."
"Is that why you've been such a damn bastard lately? You're jealous of this?" Hawke picked at his doublet, at the fine silks. "Is that all it takes to end our friendship?"
"I'm not jealous, you arrogant ass, and to ashes with our friendship. You will never understand."
It was the anguish that made Hawke open his eyes, wide. A note to Fenris' deep voice, something that cracked before finding itself. He stepped forward, and gently touched Fenris' back. A note of possibility sounded in his mind. "Perhaps you should try to explain it to me."
"It does not matter," Fenris moved his shoulders, but did not step away from Hawke's touch. Actually, if the rogue wasn't mistaken, he minutely leaned into it. "I am being silly."
"You are not silly enough, my friend." Hawke opened his hand so his fingers spread wide on the leather of Fenris' vest. Feeling the lean, muscular body underneath made his blood rush. "What are you saying?"
"What are you hearing?" Fenris challenged, turning his face in profile. The tips of his long ears glowed in the lamplight, and Hawke saw the faint flush of his cheeks.
"Do you know, Fenris," Hawke said almost conversationally, and moved his fingers' up the elf's back. He felt a satisfying shiver underneath his touch. He kept moving. "I like to flirt. I think you've noticed this."
"Who couldn't?" Fenris said with infinite dryness. Hawke ignored him.
"I like having money, and dressing well, and flirting. I like thinking about making my mother happy and marrying some fool's even more foolish and pretty daughter. I flirt with these daughters, and they like it. People often do. These are flirtations that mean nothing. Once, however, I flirted with a pretty elf, and I meant it. Unfortunately, he didn't like it." He had reached Fenris' neck, something he had been endlessly fascinated with. Months had passed of their acquintance before Hawke was able tos top starring at it. "Or, to be more exactly, he didn't know what to do with a flirty Rogue. So that rogue stopped flirting."
He took a step closer, and leaned forward, his lips mere inches from Fenris' olive skin. "He never, ever forgot, however, how much more he wanted," he breathed, and Fenris' body shuddered.
"I am not pretty," Fenris said, but Hawke could hear the smile in his voice. "There is no place for me in your new, beguiling life, Hawke. I have no place in lovely clothes."
Hawke wrapped his arms around Fenris. "And I wouldn't want you to. And I will not stop going to my balls, and flirting with these daughters, and smelling like a bath in the Blooming Rose. But perhaps I'd like to flirt with someone I like." his fingers drifted down to touch those brief, precious bits of lyrium kissed flesh, and he was pleased when Fenris stepped back enough for him to press his groin into the small of that lovely back. "Someone I like a great deal."
"I hate you," Fenris said, his voice deep, then swore something in Tevinter that Hawke was sure was particularly insulting. Then those long, elven hands lifted and settled on Hawke's tan, broad ones. "I hate you so much."
"I can tell," Hawke laughed, and kissed the edge of Fenris' right ear. "If I take a bath and remove this stink, will you let us discuss this further?"
Fenris let out a sound not unlike a groan. "You don't really smell like a Blooming Rose bath," he admitted. He turned his head, and his lips were mere inches away from Hawkes.
The rogue savoured the distance. "I should hope not," he growled, "this is the most expensive Orlesian cologne, formulated to attract even the most stubborn of brooding elves."
"I do not-" Fenris' words were interrupted by a very forceful kiss, and he didn't have much to say for a good while after that.