Chapter Text
Username or password incorrect. Please try again.
He narrows his eyes, double checks his username, and tries again, carefully typing in his password one letter at a time.
Username or password incorrect. Please try again.
Right. The security protocol dictated that they change their passwords again yesterday. For someone who’s used the same password for everything since elementary school, having to come up with a new one every 30 days has been an ordeal to put it lightly—a challenge he’s been failing to meet…every 30 days. Hawke lets out a groan and massages his temples, hoping to jog his memory.
Maybe he used the dog’s name—wait, no, that wouldn’t fit the password criteria. What was it again? In at least eight characters, the password had to contain upper case and lower case letters, number, symbols, and the blood sacrifice of a small, dappled goat while intoning an ancient chant backwards?
Groaning again, Hawke rests his head on his desk and looks over at the framed picture of his family and the dog. It’s already been a year, but he still misses his old work place where he was allowed to bring the dog to work. Honeypads looked so confused on his first day of work that it broke his heart. If only Ferelden Inc. didn’t nearly plummet into bankruptcy back then and laid off everyone except a core group of employees.
They’ve bounced back since then, with the help of a group of specialists called the Grey Wardens, but he never got around to reapplying for his old job. This is mostly because the person who took over his position is his cousin, one of the Grey Wardens sent to save the company, and he has no desire to compete against her for the job. She’s the one who saved the company—the Hero of Ferelden; she deserves the position. She’s also there with her boyfriend and fellow Grey Warden, Alistair, and the last thing he wants to do is get between that. What with all the blushing and stammering and puppy-like earnestness and—oh wait, that’s just Alistair.
Besides, it’s not that he’s dissatisfied with Kirkwall Ltd. or anything. He loves it here, in fact. Or, he loves the people. Most of the people. Here. On this floor. The upper management can go suck a lime for all he cares.
The CEO, Marlowe Dumar, has no power over the company. Majority of his time seems to be dedicated to keeping the CMO, Orsino, and the CFO, Meredith Stannard (aka: the actual boss of Kirkwall Ltd. and micromanagement queen extraordinaire), from throwing anyone out the window during their endless arguments. Dumar’s own son had left them for the law firm Par Vollen & Co., but they’re not supposed to talk about it at work anymore.
H0neypAds<333
He presses the enter button.
Username or password incorrect. Please try again.
Maybe he used his cousin’s dog’s name.
(Hawke really likes dogs.)
Tongue sticking out in concentration, he types out the potential password.
dA1syDuk3s<333
Username or password incorrect. Please try again.
Maybe it’s Alistair’s dog?
BarkSPawn<3
Username or password incorrect. Please try again.
“Damn it all,” he mutters with another sigh. He supposes they’re already lucky that the password resets are only monthly. If Meredith had her way, they’d be coming with new passwords weekly along with fingerprint and retina scans. She sees danger behind every corner and desk, but after what happened at Ferelden Inc. where the CFO nearly drove the company into the ground, he can kind of understand it.
Kind of.
Hawke would be more understanding if she’d stop cutting the Marketing Department’s budget. Even HR, her newest target, is starting to feel the squeeze.
Pulling out his post-it notes, he writes, ‘Password reset every 60 days, not 30’ and ‘Bring your pet to work day (every day)’ on two separate pieces and folds them in half. He pushes his chair back and leaves his desk to drop off his daily suggestions into the suggestion box.
On the way, he passes the marketing intern, Merrill. “Mornin’. Making copies already?” he greets easily.
She smiles, unnaturally peppy for someone who doesn’t drink coffee. “Good morning, Hawke! These are for the meeting later,” she replies, hugging a stack of files to her chest. “Forgot your password again? Oh, sorry, should I have asked that in a nicer way?”
“Don’t worry about it. I tried everything I could think of but no luck. This wouldn’t be such a problem if Meredith would just let us write it down,” he grouses.
“But didn’t Meredith make that rule because of you?” Merrill asks, her eyes round and earnest.
If it had been anyone else, the question would’ve come out as an accusation. It’d be an accurate accusation, but he’s more than happy to ignore that bit. “Technically, it’s because of Bran. You log on to the executive assistant’s account and send everyone a funny picture of a dog one time,” he mumbles. “It’s not like I like going to IT and getting Jeven to reset my password. That guy’s the worst.”
Merrill blinks. “Jeven? But he—”
She gets cut off when they pass Varric and Isabela from PR. Varric raises a hand in greeting. “Ah, Hawke, I was wondering when you’d give up on your password guessing. Well, would you look at that? Barely ten minutes. Looks like I win,” he says, holding out his hand.
Isabela rolls her eyes and hands him 50 silvers. But then suddenly cheering up, she wraps links arms with him and gives him a kiss on the cheek in greeting. “Off to IT then, Hawke?” she asks, pressing herself close.
After the first few months and several string-free, friendly tumbles with Isabela, Hawke doesn’t react to the feeling of her ample chest against his arm anymore. If anything, it just feels like any other greeting. Her blouse is mostly unbuttoned as usual and her thigh high stockings covers more skin than her skirt. He returns the kiss and holds up the post-its. “HR first then IT,” he tells her as they walk.
“Ah, yes, your daily suggestions,” Isabela says knowingly. “Where would this company be without them?”
“Well, for one thing, we wouldn’t have had to rename ‘Bring your Children to Work Day’ to ‘Bring your Human Children to Work Day’,” a new voice joins them.
Hawke looks up to see Aveline, the HR manager, who also used to work in Ferelden though their paths rarely crossed back then. Now he can’t imagine how he ever managed without her. “Hello, Aveline,” he greets easily. “I still think it’s discrimination against my poor canine child, just so you know.”
Aveline snorts and takes a drink of her coffee. “I’ll take that into consideration. But knowing you, if we ever did have a ‘Bring your Pet to Work Day’, you’d probably bring poor Carver instead.” He doesn’t deny it because it’s the irrefutable truth. Then she looks over at Isabela and frowns. “Completely disregarding the dress code as always, Isabela.”
“And prudish as always—wait,” Isabela gasps theatrically, pointing at the other woman’s legs where the hemline of her dress pants hang barely an inch above her heels, “are those bare ankles you’re showing? Maker, and wrists? Oh, my poor, delicate sensibilities! Quick, avert your eyes, boys! She’ll drive you wild with lust with her naked man hands!”
“Shut up, whore,” Aveline snaps, a faint tinge of red on her cheeks.
Isabela throws her head back, pretending to faint against Hawke. “And the cruel names she calls me! Maybe Anders is right and we really should form a union here.”
“I don’t appreciate you making light of unionization,” Anders says as he returns from his own trip to the suggestion box. There’s a messy stack of paper in his hands, all filled with highlighted words and scribbled notes on the side—probably his manifesto. For someone who worked at Ferelden in marketing and was inducted into the Grey Wardens for a brief time before coming over to Kirkwall, he is surprisingly unorganized. “They’re there for the benefit of the employees. Workers’ rights aren’t a joke.”
Tucking his own suggestions into the suggestion box, Hawke looks around to see everyone standing around him in the middle of the HR Department and chuckles, “Well, it looks like everyone’s here. I feel like we should be on our way to the Hanged Man now for a round of Wicked Grace.”
“Now there’s an idea I could get behind,” Varric says agreeably.
Aveline arches a brow. “It’s Monday morning, you two. Come on, it can’t be that bad.”
“You’re only saying that because you get to ogle that guardsman of yours,” Isabela teases, letting go of Hawke’s arm in favour of getting up into the other woman’s personal space. “Can’t blame you. Men in uniforms do have a certain appeal—especially when you’re the one taking it off.”
“Donnic? He’s quite a nice fellow, isn’t he?” Merrill contributes, oblivious to the tension in the air.
Isabela all but leers. “Yes, a nice fellow, indeed.”
“Oh, lay off it,” Aveline barks.
“I’m always up for a good lay off,” Isabela retorts with a wink.
“Hawke, you’re being uncharacteristically subdued,” Anders notes from next to him. He furrows his brows in concern. “Are you feeling ill or did you forget your coffee again?”
Hawke frowns in realization. “Oh, I did forget to buy coffee. I was just trying to figure out what in the earth my password could be.”
“It wasn’t your dog?” Varric asks.
“Or your cousin’s dog?” Anders suggests.
“Your cousin’s boyfriend’s dog?” Aveline says.
“Your childhood dog maybe?” Merrill helpfully adds.
“Maybe it was Dog<3333,” he mutters. His naming skills have improved considerably since then. “It still doesn’t ring a bell though.”
With a sympathetic pat on the arm, Varric offers, “Tell you what, why don’t you go to Bodahn’s and grab yourself a Boom, Maker knows you’re the only one who can drink it without getting a seizure, and I’ll get IT to reset your password. I’m on my way there anyway. Gotta look into something for Cullen and Finance.”
“Or Hawke could go to IT himself,” Isabela immediately chimes in, sidling up to him. “He’s a big boy, he can do things for himself. He’s perfectly good at…handling things.”
Instead of acknowledging and adding to the innuendos, Varric merely shrugs. “The poor guy’s clearly having a hard day. I just thought I’d help him a little before his meeting.”
Wiping an imaginary tear from his eye, Hawke turns to the man and wraps an arm around his shoulder. “Varric, you beautiful, thoughtful butterfly. You are an irreplaceable gem of a friend—and wholly suspect. What are you hiding?”
“Hiding? I offer to do something nice for you and all I get in return is suspicion? My friend, you wound me,” Varric protests unconvincingly.
Despite the easy grin on his lips, he narrows his eyes in thought. “Yes, I’m sure you’re crushed. C’mon, I know that face. That’s your betting face. Did Jeven do something again? I promise I won’t tackle him in the hallway this time. Or, I’ll try not to. I don’t really think I can make any promises when it comes to that one.”
It’s Merrill who breaks the silence. “I thought Jeven was fired and arrested for selling insider info a month ago? Was I wrong? Oh dear, maybe I read the headlines wrong. I should go apologize to him for getting the wrong idea.”
“No, you’re perfectly right, Kitten,” Isabela purrs. “Jeven’s gone for good.”
“Yeah, good riddance,” Anders says. Trying to organize the loose pages of his manifesto into a single stack, he leafs through the pages looking for stray first-aid forms that may have slipped in. “Did you really not hear about it, Hawke? I don’t know how you missed it. Aveline’s the one who caught him. It was all over the news, but I guess you never listen or watch the news. I would’ve paid good money to watch him get arrested.”
The news usually bums him out, and if it’s important enough, he figures he’s bound to hear it from one person or another eventually. He much prefers using his free time at work figuring out which sites are blocked and which aren’t. “Jeven’s gone for good,” he repeats slowly. “If he’s gone, then that must mean there’s someone new!”
Merrill helpfully points out, “But he’s not very new anymore, now, is he? He’s been here for a whole month already.”
“I don’t like him,” Anders says, nose wrinkling in distaste. He and the new guy must’ve started off on the wrong foot. Maybe the guy said something anti-union, or anti-cat, or anti-universal-healthcare. They all love their local healer and his caring nature and passion for justice, but his causes are numerous and sometimes controversial. “I’m glad he stays in that dark, little IT room most of the time.”
He doesn’t hear them. His eyes practically gleam. Hawke loves newcomers. Nothing makes his day quite like being extra welcoming to the new guy and making him feel, well, welcomed. And if a couple of people coincidentally quit soon after meeting him, then it’s not too big of a loss. Kirkwall is no place for the weak. If he’s enough to scare them off then they’d never stand a chance against everyone else.
With a goal in mind, he breaks away from the group and makes a run for the IT room. Behind him, he can hear Isabela and Varric running after him while Aveline shouts, “Stop running in here, you three!” Then more quietly, she says, “Seriously, how does that woman run in those heels?”
“Hawke sure is friendly, isn’t he? All these new employees sure are lucky to have him welcome them like this,” Merrill asks.
“He’d be more endearing if he ignored them and pushed their cups off their desks when he wanted attention,” he hears Anders say faintly.
When he reaches the door to the monitoring/IT room where IT and monitoring happen, and only those with a proper access card are allowed in, he raps on the door urgently and waves at the camera to be let in. Meredith had set up cameras all around the office because she’s Meredith, and he wouldn’t put it past her to actually watch the tapes every week, but she never mentions them so the rest of the employees are more than happy to let the sleeping dragon lie.
Behind him, Varric wheezes, “Hawke, you don’t want to do this.”
“Oh no, you definitely want to do this,” Isabela counters encouragingly.
Hawke doesn’t know what kind of bet they have between them, and he doesn’t care because there’s a soft click from the door. “C’mon, Varric, what could possibly go wrong? It’s just a new guy,” he says, pushing the door open, feeling a gust of air conditioned air blow past him.
“You know I hate it when you say that,” Varric replies.
“Let’s go already,” Isabela urges impatiently, pushing him forward.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this. You know I love new—” The three of them practically tumble into the room and Hawke’s chiding trails off into silence as he comes face to face with a lanky man with beautiful green eyes and tattoos running up his neck and down his hands. Suddenly, he becomes very conscious of his hands, unsure of what to do with them.
Poking her head out from behind him, Isabela asks, “What’s the matter, Hawke? Is there a crate blocking your path again?”
“That was one time!” he protests instinctively. Then he glances back at the new guy and tries to salvage a little of his dignity by adding, “And it was a huge crate! And I was drunk!”
Varric doesn’t even bother hiding his chuckles. “Nice save there, buddy. Real smooth like a fine Antivan brandy.”
The tattooed man clears his throat awkwardly, his shocking white hair contrasting his dark skin even more under the dim lighting of the room. Hawke’s eyes are glued to the tattoos on his neck, running down and disappearing into his shirt. He wonders if they go all the way down and then immediately tries to shake the thought out of his head.
“Isabela, Varric, is there a reason you three came barging into the room?” the man asks with a frown, and sweet Maker, his voice is deep and sonorous and Hawke can feel it resonating in his thighs. He’s going to be hearing it in his head for the rest of the day and in his dreams, he just knows it.
Collecting himself to the best of his ability, he says, “Several reasons, actually. First things first though, welcome to Kirkwall! I’m Garrett Hawke from Marketing.”
Shaking his hand with a firm grip, the man returns, “Fenris. It seems a little late to be welcoming me here, but I appreciate the gesture.”
Fenris. He repeats the name over and over again in his head and wills his knees to stay strong. “I would’ve come sooner if I had known Jeven had been replaced,” he says, shooting his friends a pointed look because traitors. “In fact, I would’ve invited you out to the Hanged Man with us to celebrate his tragic departure if I’d known sooner. Actually, that sounds like a great idea, why don’t you come out with us tonight?”
Arching a brow, Fenris points out, “It’s Monday.”
“It’s never stopped us before! But fine, have it your way. We’ll do something Friday then and you have to come now since we’re trying to accommodate you,” Hawke relents half-heartedly.
Varric lets out an impressed whistle. “Two minutes in and you’ve already got him wrapped around your finger. Nice work, IT.”
Looking a little lost, Fenris says, “He could’ve said no.”
“For handsome man like you? I’d be more than happy to bend over backwards every now and then,” Hawke says with an easy grin, subtly fist bumping Isabela.
Fenris chuckles but quickly cuts himself off by clearing his throat sheepishly. “Yes, well, was there another reason for you being here? I should probably get back to work.” Behind him, multiple monitors light up the back wall, each showing a different section of the office and the monotony of people working. Offhandedly, Hawke can’t help but notice that the cameras in the Marketing Department cut off right before his desk, and he doesn’t know if he’s pleased about that or insulted.
He nods. “I do have less personal reasons for being here—”
“It’s really more like a chronic problem he has,” Varric adds. “You’ll get used to it after the second month.”
Hawke frowns, affronted. “Hey! For someone in PR, you sure aren’t managing my public relations very well. I’ll have you know that I try very hard to keep this issue under control.”
Brow furrowed and looking more than a little wary, Fenris asks, “What issue?”
“An IT issue.”
“So I gathered,” Fenris returns smoothly.
“Our passwords expired and I can’t remember what I changed mine to,” Hawke finally admits. “It’s not as bad a problem as Varric makes it out to be, I promise. It normally only happens once a month, or maybe twice if it’s especially bad.”
Isabella snorts. “I think you almost drove Jeven mad that one time you went back every week?”
He shrugs helplessly. “That was an off month. I think that was a little after Daisydukes gave birth to another litter of pups and apparently my cousin brought them to work with her. All I could think about was puppies running around in Ferelden. If I still worked there or took a day off, I could’ve brought Honeypads to go see his parents and his new siblings!”
Varric wrinkles his nose, cutting him off with an offhanded wave, and Hawke knows exactly what’s coming next. “I love dogs as much as the next person, but I’ll never understand Ferelden. The whole place and all its people smell like dogs! How do you get any work done?”
“I hear there are actually many benefits to having dogs at work,” Fenris says, and Hawke wants nothing more than to kiss him. “But going back to your problem, Hawke.”
It sends a shiver down his spine and he wishes Fenris would say his name again—in all sorts of different settings, contexts, and positions.
Oblivious to his less than pure thoughts, Fenris continues, “I will reset your password, and if you’d like, feel free to email me a hint or a clue that I can give you as a prompt next time.”
Good looking and helpful, he’s not sure how much more he can handle before he swoons. “Fenris, you are most definitely my favourite person here,” Hawke declares, ignoring the affronted noises the other two make.
Rolling his eyes, Varric starts pushing the two back out the door. “If I’d known your love was so easy to come by, I would’ve just offered you a stick of gum instead of bothering to help you find a job here,” he mutters.
“Aww, are you jealous, Varric? Have you finally fallen for my dashing good looks and roguish charms?” Hawke teases, offering no resistance to the manhandling. “Need I remind you of how many times I’ve offered you my love before, only to have my poor, fragile heart broken and trampled on?”
Chuckling, Varric shakes his head. “I still maintain that you’re too high maintenance for me, Hawke. Besides, Bianca wouldn’t take it well.”
He clutches at his heart dramatically and sighs, “Shot down again! And for a phone no less! Please don’t start stroking it.” Then he glances back at the dim room and waves. “See you around, Fenris! I’ll email you about Friday!”
And just before the door closes behind them, Isabela calls out, “Red?”
Only to have Fenris yell back, “No!”
She laughs. “I’ll get it eventually!”
Back on his own feet and walking through the halls back towards his desk, Hawke is convinced that the day couldn’t possibly get any better. But then he quickly changes his mind when he walks past Anders’ desk and overhears him telling Bran, “This isn’t a first aid problem I can treat at work. You’re gonna have to go to a clinic for that.”