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If Hawke had gone to school she would have read literature. Medicine was Bethany’s thing and Maker only knew what Carver’s thing was, but Hawke’s was literature. Then the darkspawn had come, and even though they’d always been too poor to consider Hawke leaving the farm to go read books any chance she’d ever had was gone entirely.
A person with a sword was a person presumed to be stupid, and if they proved otherwise their sense was meant to be in battle, in decision-making. Not in reciting poetry over and over again, reading the lines until the pages were ragged and she was in need of another job to buy another book.
Never one for soft beauty she paid no mind to how her mansion was decorated, allowed her mother to do whatever she liked and barely grunted at the results. She hit things hard and drank amongst the best of them, and where she stepped the paid mercenaries shied away from her. And she lived, and she was happy, and then she fell in love.
*
Fenris paid attention to a lot of things, and did not often move far from Hawke’s side. This, he told himself, was due to his debt. She had rescued him and so he could not allow any harm to befall her. It was an argument that did not withstand much questioning, not when he accompanied her about Hightown, or sat at her elbow in the Hanged Man.
And when, in answer to something Varric said, about his empire or about the state of Kirkwall or perhaps about the nature of the beer - Fenris did not pay attention to everyone as much as he paid attention to Hawke - Hawke said, almost to herself, ‘Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have gone so deep.’ Then Varric looked at Fenris so piercingly that he thought perhaps he should have been paying attention, but he was lost in the words and bewildered about where they’d come from; Hawke, who spoke in anger or jokes or commands, but never lengthy sentences.
He decided she was drunk, and let it remain at that.
*
Trips up Sondermount had long ceased to be exciting. It took only a hundred or so metres of walking before Fenris forgot the cloying feeling of the city and began to long for it, the claustrophobic walls remembered as comforting protection, and worse with the knowledge that it would be at least a full day before they returned.
They killed what they came across and picked a few flowers, some that Aveline bundled with more care than sense, murmuring something about Donnic. He did not understand them. He did not understand romance .
A live-theatre production in one of the courtyards of Hightown a few weeks before had gathered something of a crowd, enough that Fenris, on his way out to find dinner, found himself curious enough to stand and watch. The play had been about love, or love lost, or love lost and then found again but somewhere else; Fenris had not much followed. There had been tears in the crowd which Fenris had not understood, just as he did not understand Aveline picking flowers for a man she had only been on one awkward patrol with. But then he saw that Hawke was some uncomfortable metres ahead, and he hurried to catch up.
‘Camp?’ Hawke asked. Varric looked around, dropped his bag, and refused to assist in setting up tents until Aveline kicked him in the thigh and threatened to throw Bianca into the dirt. Offended, he grumpily did more to hinder Fenris as he tried to set up their tent, and Aveline and Hawke got theirs up and the fire going before theirs was even pegged.
‘Time for scary stories?’ Varric asked, oil out to tend to what ails Bianca may have developed during their most recent skirmish.
‘No,’ said Aveline. ‘Time for Fenris to tell me what to put into the stew.’
He wasn’t a very interested cook, but the kitchen had been one of the safer spaces back in Tevinter and he’d learned by accident, osmosis. Times like these, he oversaw the cooking but did not ever hold the ladle except to serve himself.
‘Hawke?’ Varric asked, but Hawke had found a bottle of whiskey in her pack and was staring at the first flickering stars with it at her lips. ‘Oh, if that’s how it’s going to be,’ Varric said, and without getting up managed to stretch and roll enough to get his own bottle from his own bag.
‘Are we the only two with sense?’ Fenris asked drily.
‘At least this is a protected spot,’ Aveline agreed. Cliff on all sides, either down or up, and enough in the way of shrubbery to hide their fire from prying eyes. Even with the roll of bread Aveline had brought along Varric and Hawke each got prettily drunk, not quite slurring but enough that they were loud, and ignorant of when others were speaking.
When Varric finally allowed himself to be coaxed into his tent Aveline and Fenris had a small argument about who would take first watch. Aveline won, and Fenris was left sitting by the fire, stew in its pot to the side and water heating over the low flames.
Hawke had gone to find a private bush for use as privy, and since he’d almost forgotten she’d not gone to bed he jumped when she sat down beside him.
‘It’s a pretty night,’ she said.
Fenris supposed so, but didn’t think he was much of an expert on the topic and didn’t reply.
‘Too much moon for the stars. Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.’
That startled Fenris enough that he looked away from the sky dressed in the haze of smoke from the fire, and looked at Hawke. ‘Hm?’
‘It’s a line. From a poem, or a book.’ She took another sip of whiskey. ‘Yours is the light by which my spirit's born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars. I always think of that one when I think of you.’
‘What?’ The word was a startled breath of air.
‘You. The moon.’ She looked up at it, and unable to fathom what she was thinking by studying her face in the shadows Fenris looked up at it, too. It was nearly full but not quite there, a bright halo about it, silvery cold and a very long way away. ‘A side to you I will never know. To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon,’ she said, and let her voice drift away.
Fenris couldn’t figure out what answer would make sense or what question to ask.
‘There’s a line, I cannot remember it. Too far from me and yet I love -’
‘What?’ Fenris blurted, again, and wished he hadn’t, he’d wanted to know the rest of that, misremembered or not.
‘The moon it guides me through the night,’ Hawke said, and then shook her head, and took another drink. ‘Usually I can remember them perfectly. Can’t recite the canticles but I can recite a poem. Usually. I think it’s you. You make me nervous.’
‘I think you’re drunk,’ said Fenris, who was feeling far more nervous than Hawke looked.
‘I think of the moon whenever I see you. Silver, maybe,’ Hawke said, inelegantly. ‘With light shining out of its soul - beautiful and delightful sight.’ She looked at the whiskey, and pressed the bottle into Fenris’ hand. ‘I think I ought to bed.’
‘Hawke,’ he said, urgently. He didn’t want her to leave.
‘If moon were words, could talk against your skin, I’d say look up, and hear my love for you.’
And in the firelight, though dim, Fenris could see her blush, and this time he let her leave.
*
He did not fight well the next day, which was not noticed by anyone else, who fought as well as they ever did and unconsciously picked up whatever slack he let droop. And though Fenris gave Hawke a few questioning glances she didn’t look at him more than normal, which was fairly often, and he couldn’t figure anything out.
He was neither precious nor beautiful nor anything else worthy, and Hawke’s odd lapse into poetic turns of phrases notwithstanding, she had directed them at him.
He couldn’t figure it out.
And Hawke, she was so far above him, if anyone were to be called moon and stars and everything else visible and invisible above, it would be her. Not him, unclean and impure, and shattered in ways even he could not determine.
‘Alright, Broody?’ Varric asked. The question was gentle, which meant the dwarf was actually concerned.
‘Fine,’ he said, automatically, and they walked home, and he slept a very poor sleep before he decided that Hawke had been drunk, and didn’t know what she was saying or who she was saying it to, and so it should be dismissed.
Several days passed, and he went to play cards with Donnic. He ummed and ahhed about asking, but he saw the flowers on the sideboard and found the words tumbling from his lips.
‘Have you ever called Aveline the moon?’
It was not the question he had wanted to ask, and his face must have been stricken enough that whatever joke Donnic wanted to answer with died before it met the air.
‘I call her my sun, sometimes.’ He fingered a card, changed his mind and laid a different one out. ‘Why?’
‘Have you ever heard Hawke recite poetry?’
‘I’d be worried if I had,’ Donnic said, and this time with a laugh. This was a joke, their broad-shouldered warrior quoting literature.
‘I think she was drunk,’ Fenris said, mostly to himself, and Donnic let the round end before he spoke again.
‘She looks at you like you hung all her stars. If you get my meaning.’
‘But I don’t,’ said Fenris, in earnest. ‘I don’t deserve that.’ Donnic didn’t seem to know how to answer that, which only proved Fenris right.
*
When he got home that night, there was an envelope taped to the door. Inside was a note, which was spectacularly unhelpful. He put it in the same box he put everything he wanted to keep but didn’t know what to do with, and went to sleep.
The next day started late and with breakfast at the Amell mansion, and Hawke kept giving Fenris looks that he didn’t understand.
He curled in on himself, and wondered if maybe he should leave Kirkwall. He wouldn’t, but maybe he should. The attention he was getting here was almost too much to weather, and more, he didn’t know what it meant.
*
‘I want to apologise.’
Fenris, bleeding, looked up from his morbid examination of the wound in his arm.
‘This is hardly your fault,’ he said. He was already berating himself for being too slow, for thinking that Merrill had the qunari handled, that he had been, yet again, not enough.
‘The letter.’
Several weeks had passed, and Fenris had no idea what letter she was talking about. Their work had involved several letters and love notes and other things written on paper that were beyond his understanding.
He looked blankly at her. She looked around to see that they were blessed with some amount of privacy.
‘The one I gave you.’
He had thought the letter left on his door had been some eviction notice. He’d made mention to Aveline that his presence was noticed, and she’d done whatever she’d done in the past to make him invisible again.
‘You are the whole of my heart. You are the choke on my beer, you are the last voice before I shuffle off this mortal shitshow. The constellations whispering to me there will never be another like you. I want it written on my tombstone.’
The recitation died as Fenris stared, and stared.
‘Are you drunk?’
She blushed with embarrassment. ‘No!’
‘Then what is - ‘
‘Everyone alright?’ called Anders. Fenris really did need some healing on his arm, but he wanted this conversation with Hawke more.
‘Fine,’ he called. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed, to Hawke.
‘I wanted to apologise because of that. The letter I left you.’ He looked at her blankly. ‘I didn’t mean any harm - you could have said something!’
‘I didn’t get it,’ he said, rather than admit he hadn’t read it.
She deflated. ‘Oh.’
‘What do you want?’ he asked, because he didn’t understand.
‘You.’
He flushed. ‘Why?’
‘You’re, like, perfect.’
‘I’m - Fuck off!’ he yelled, and Anders hastily backed away. Fenris pressed down on the wound bleeding freely on his arm and hissed at the pain. ‘I’m nothing.’
‘Not to me. I want - ’
‘Me,’ Fenris finished for her, when she didn’t seem to be able to.
‘Yes. I want to court you.’
It was a conversation so far out of his world of expertise that he could only stare in shock.
‘I’m sorry, I really am. I’ll - I’ll try to forget, alright? I leave you alone.’
She started to move away and Fenris automatically made to move with her.
‘No, I’ll leave you alone,’ she said.
‘For what purpose?’
‘So that my feelings don’t bother you.’
‘Your - ’ He suddenly understood what they were talking about. ‘You have feelings, for me?’
‘I told you. You’re like the moon to me.’ She blushed again but boldly met his eye.
‘You didn’t say.’
‘I did,’ she insisted.
‘You were drunk.’
‘Which is why I left the note - Maker’s breath, Fenris. I like you. Can you - are you willing to - I just, I really like you,’ she finished.
‘I’m not used to this,’ he admitted slowly. ‘I hardly know what you’re asking me, and cannot determine the correct response. Love is -’ he was blushing, now, he knew, and hated it, ‘not something slaves are used to, in any capacity. I know you are my friend,’ he stumbled only a little on the word, ‘but you’re asking for something else. Aren’t you?’ He had to check.
She nodded.
‘I don’t know why. I’m not good enough. You know - I’m not,’ he sighed. ‘You know my story. You know what I’ve done.’
‘I still want to try.’
He looked at her with horror. ‘Why? You can have anyone, there’s dozens of proper people - better people.’
‘Fenris, please,’ she looked over her shoulder at their companions impatiently waiting, but thankfully doing so at a distance where they probably couldn’t overhear. ‘I’ll show you why. Will you give me that much?’
He didn’t know what good would come of it. A waste of her time, and he had no right to that. And she would figure out who he properly was, and leave in disgust. He was not certain how well he would handle that - if he could handle that. And when Hawke rejected him no doubt the rest of them would, and he did not like depending on people but he knew enough of himself to know that he hated being lonely.
‘You do like me, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, because he didn’t know how anyone could not.
‘Please,’ she said, and he had never denied her before and would not deny her now. But then she asked, ‘Do you want this?’
Of course he did - her full attention on him? Only a fool would be uninterested, she was more worthy of worship than the Maker himself, brighter and purer than any star, she was what he dreamed, what he breathed.
‘Of course,’ he said.
And there was her smile, so bright he could not help but smile in return.