Work Text:
Fenris runs a hand along the backs of books, fingers dipping and curving over hard leather and embossed words, until he runs into the ladder—the wood not nearly as polished as the rest of Hawke's library. Or her estate, for that matter. Still, its roughness is comforting and reliable, and he grips it and steps on with practiced ease.
The movement is so smooth it startles even him. He stills, mind quickly calculating the days, weeks, months it has been since he first opened a book of his own accord. How many times he visits Hawke's library, how many times he hops onto ladders to reach for books at the top. How many pages turned, how many words read.
And yet, from the mental list he runs through, a simple illustrated book sticks out to him the most. Fenris recalls a picture of a girl sitting on a ladder, nose buried in books. He recalls a monster, a beast, a poor attempt at grotesque. ("This is for children," Hawke said. "Only you would suggest making children's content more graphic.") Sketches of prison cells, of minor characters, of dances, of kisses, of transformations and happy endings.
He steps carefully and turns around, gently sitting down on a rung of the ladder. His hands rest on his lap, open, like the pages of a book. The lines of his palms are dark words against the canvas of his skin, as if each one was carved deep, deep, all the way to his bones—the opposite of the pristine white tattoos curling over veins on the backs of his hands. Each mark is a scar, and there is no space left where he is unmarked.
He feels silly, suddenly, sitting on the ladder. Fenris is no girl in the cusp of maturity, escaping to her books with her wild imagination. He tsks, lips curled and nose crinkled; it is a comparison he hopes to never make of himself ever again. Hawke, if anything, is the curiosity-driven girl. Kind, clever, and brimming with baseless determination. A natural protagonist.
And if Hawke is the heroine, Fenris is the beast. Unwelcoming, vicious, crude, hunched over in both predatory anticipation and cornered paranoia.
But he remains seated, clasping and unclasping his hands as if turning the pages of a book.
"Fenris?"
He hears her voice before he hears footfalls and the door creaking open, but he does not look up even when she stands in front of him, her own hands proffered in a reflection of his. Slightly cupped, palms up. An invitation.
"And what are you doing here?” she asks, a lilt in her voice. “There are chairs to sit on over there. They're safe; I checked. Even bought them, too."
"I was…reading."
She glances at his empty hands, and they fist reflexively.
"I...see. Must be quite a dense read. Lots of things you're learning, I take it?"
He forces his fingers to unfurl as naturally as possible. "Indeed.”
Hawke stares, but whatever thoughts spun around in her head, she does not voice them. Instead, she keeps her hands parallel to his, a permanent distance between her fingers and his. He sees the dirt underneath her nails, the paper cut she received while shuffling through letters last week, her thumb self-consciously swiping at dried blood below her pinky. He wonders how small of a bridge could be built between his fingertip and hers, but makes no attempt to bridge the gap himself. The thought never occurs to him.
“My arms are falling asleep, Fenris. I have bags I’d like to put down soon.”
“Nothing is holding you back from doing so.”
Fenris hears the pout no doubt contorting her face, and he jerks his head up to see it before he can stop himself.
He catches her off guard, and for a split second surprise flits over her features, fading away into the shadows of faint wrinkles and circles under her searching eyes. It is how he notices a wary edge running along the corners of her mouth and the line of her jaw even as her expression warps into a smile—a strange hint of joy against the hesitant frame of her face.
“So that’s where your eyes were hiding! Hello there.”
The noise from the back of his throat is more of a conditioned response than an annoyed one, and Fenris averts his eyes back down to her hands. Yet now, he detects a faint tremble of desire, expectation, of something foreign and needy and childish all at once.
Fenris manages to suppress the chuckle threatening to bubble from his chest—he is not sure Hawke would forgive him if he laughed now, not when she has been standing for several minutes too long. Still, he allows himself a crooked smile as his dry palms slide over her own, and her fingers wrap around his with relief.
He was wrong. Hawke was no girl. She was no brave heroine swooping in at the right time, throwing magic kisses at dire moments.
“Now, princess, down from your castle you go,” she says, tugging gently at his hands as he leapt to the ground. She purposely averts her gaze when his eyes narrow at her, but doesn’t let go of her grip, even after seconds, minutes, of simply standing in the middle of the library.
“What happened to the bags you had to put down?” Fenris finally asks. He feels sweat forming in miniscule beads along the crevices of her hands.
She smiles at him. “They can wait.”