Archive of Our Own ^beta

When he wakes, he cannot help but think how terribly unfair everything is.

He had gone to sleep in languid satisfaction, Hawke's sleepy murmur the last sound gracing his ears, her bed's soft mattress dipping down with their weight for a shallow embrace and for once— for once— her skin on his  i s no bother. The lyrium in his skin tingles but it is muted, overwhe lm ed by the sheer contentment he has found here, in Hawke's room, in her bed, with her.

But no sooner had his world gone dark did the memories rise, sharp and vivid, a surprising eagerness before being ripped away by the threat of wakefulness. And he wakes— he wakes with short breaths, heart pounding in his chest as if he had ran miles upon miles, muscles tense for fight or flight, his mind still lost in memories he's desperately trying to hold on to. It takes several seconds before the memories fade away from his vision— he does not want them to but they leave anyway, too far away for him to reach, and when he finally resettles to reality, he realizes where he is— not his house, not in his worn bed— and panic suddenly claws at him. His head whips to the side, dreading what he'll see but he releases a breath when he sees Hawke's face still in peaceful slumber. 

She is on her side, the blanket pulled up just to her chest where the shadows cover what the cloth cannot; her right arm is out and stretched across the slight space between them, her hand resting on his ribs, fingers partially curled. Her palm is warm against his skin but the tips of her fingers are cold, much like her mabari's nose without being wet.

In the soft lighting, he looks at her, cataloguing everything he can see— the gentle curves of her shoulders, the fragile dips of her collarbone, the slight movement of the blanket as she be breathes. It has no purpose, it will not aid him in survival, but he does not care. He wants to remember her face for nothing more than the mere pleasure of it. His gaze settles on her face, still in sleep.

There is a light smattering of freckles from cheek to cheek that she complains about occasionally when work is slow and times seem peaceful, when there is nothing to do and no place to be except where their friends are. She never bothers hiding them though, "too much work", she would say airily, grinning with that endearing irreverence that she never seems to lose no matter the dangers and disappointments life has thrown her way. Fenris never says it but he is glad that for all her complaints, half-hearted they may be, that she never cover s  them up. He likes them and it is a surprise when he realizes that he likes them. It is even more of a surprise when he realizes that he likes them so much because it is a part of her.

He closes his eyes for a moment, committing to his memory what he can see of her freckles in the lights and shadows playing on her face. When he opens them again, he looks at her lashes, long and fanned out against her cheeks when her eyes are closed. They are a darker shade than her hair, even more so than her eyebrows and when she is sleeping like this, they make such a stark contrast to her fair skin, like wispy spikes spread out.

Her nose, small and pert— sometimes it wrinkled when she laughed too much or was feeling very mulish. Or when they were arguing. Fenris often saw it  scrunched up , not with disdain as most of the people from his past had but with a screwed up expression of stubbornness, unwilling to discard her principles and unwilling for him to not understand her viewpoint because they  a re equals and both their points needed to be aired out and considered before making a decision, the right decision.

He has an urge to flick at her nose, sudden and silly, so out of place with the myriad of emotions choking him that it only confuses him further. His gaze moves to her lips, slightly open, the lower lip plumper than the upper, usually curved into a ready smile. Her smiles are often kind but sometimes it turns a touch bit wicked, teasing, slips into a grin, much like the one she gave him earlier before kissing him, before starting this.

Fenris feels another surge of growing panic and this time he gets out of bed, mindful enough not to wake her. He dons his armor because he does not want to be so naked, not with the turmoil he is feeling, the sense of helplessness he despises grabbing at him, some part of him whispering how, "he can't do this, he's not ready for this, he doesn't know what the hell he's doing". 

He moves towards the door, feeling like the dirtiest of cowards before his foot steps on something. He looks down and sees a piece of cloth under his foot. He has it in his hands before he recognizes it as the scarf that Hawke uses to hold her hair back into a ponytail.

It's red and often enough it blends in with the color of her hair that it  i s easy to forget its existence, but this is about Hawke and when it comes to Hawke, Fenris never forgets.

He closes his hand over the scrap of red and tucks it in a concealed pocket, swallowing hard. He looks back to the bed and notices that Hawke has shifted in position, now on her back, strands of her unbound hair veiling parts of her face.

He needs to leave but his feet do not move, as if by some blasted magic they're rooted to the floor. He looks away from her because it hurts; he had been happy just hours before, a rush of belonging fitting into him like a long awaited puzzle piece but his is not a life that is worth being happy for long. He knows this, has known nothing but this. Over the years he had accepted that he could laugh again, smile, drink with actual friends but at the same time he knows that these things could not last, not with him.

And while the injustice of this tears at him, nothing could have have felt worse than knowing that her happiness is also a price of his rotten life. He could not give her what she deserves— nothing to give her that she doesn't already have or cannot get for herself.

H e stares at the flames in the fireplace ;  the burning light, crackling and dancing, reminds him of her hair when she is awake, always in motion, strands catching the sunlight and appearing almost fire-gold. 

"Was it that bad?"

He startles, a mild surprise in itself, before turning to her. Her eyes are open; one hand rubs the sleep away and she blinks twice before she looks fully awake. She is smiling but it is tentative and the worry in her eyes is unmistakable.  He shakes his head because of all things he wishes to use to describe their encounter, bad is not one of them— never going to be one of them. "I'm sorry." He blurts out, trips over the next words, awkward and stilted. "It's not... it was fine."

No, that's... not precisely wrong but it's not enough. And not just because she looks disappointed even when she keeps her face straight but because fine is too lacking a word. All the words are too lacking for what happened, it had been everything; too much, too good, too confusing. Still he will be running soon enough, a coward in retreat, but at least in this he can tell her. 

So he turns to face her, does not fidget even with his restless energy and says, "No, that is insufficient." Because it was. "It was better than anything I could've dreamed." Better than he could have hoped for, better than what he could have wanted, what he had dreamed that first time he let himself think of what he would do when he is really, truly free.

There is a pause where they just stare at each other . "Your markings...they hurt, don't they?" She asks, her concern is palpable and he doesn't deserve it. 

"It's not that." Then he tells her, about the dreams and the memories and she tries to calm him down but he thinks she doesn't understand and immediately he hates himself for thinking so because if anyone understands, if anyone had tried so hard to understand him it is her.

When he finishes speaking, he sees in her eyes that she understands what he can't bring himself to say.

"You're going to leave." A statement, not a question but her voice sounds impossibly young, tinged with sadness. There is no anger though, no hatred, no bitterness at that realization just a disappointed acceptance and it drives the pain in him like a stake twisted in his gut.

He apologizes and leaves,  not looking  back because he cannot bear to see the expression that accompanied that tone of voice.