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If he had to deal with one more spider crawling across his face while he was asleep, he was going to...
He had already stormed out of the house - if you wanted to call it that - after he had woken to the tickle on his face and found it was a spider. Not his hair. He had only just kept it together enough not to shout in surprise, fear, disgust; take your pick. And instead he had stormed out of the house - quietly, as not to wake Mother, Carver, or Maker forbid Gamlen - in his pajamas, in the middle of the night, into a deserted Lowtown. Maker, he wanted to yell. Scream, rage, complain.
He couldn't do any of that.
They were making the best of it, but... it felt like nothing sometimes.
He was just going to go for a walk.
The work that he had done for the past year had gotten them into Kirkwall, permanently like, so it wasn't all for naught. But when every day was spent counting your coin and looking over your shoulder, it did start to feel like nothing. They weren't penniless, but it wasn't like Hawke didn't worry. He had to take care of Mother. That responsibility had fallen to him. And as for the templars, well, even if he did come off that nothing could touch him, even if he had used magic in broad daylight before - sneakily! - it wasn't like he could forget their presence. If someone got suspicious...
He had to take care of his family, simple as that.
"Hawke?"
The voice in the darkness startled him, and he grabbed instinctively for the staff he wore strapped to his back. Except he wasn't in armor, only pajamas, and that wasn't an enemy, only the elf he had met a few days ago.
"I apologize," Fenris muttered, padding over to him. "I did not intend to startle you."
Hawke sighed, slumping back against the empty keg outside the building. "Fenris," he breathed. It seemed like it was just one of those nights. He doubted that he'd go back home and sleep at all for the rest of the night, the way the press of his nerves was pushing down on his mind.
Fenris looked surprised. "You remembered."
"Well, I only met you three days ago, it's still kind of fresh in the memory." Any other time, Hawke would have asked why that surprised Fenris, but he didn't think to ask it just then. He straightened up and dragged his hands through his hair, looking to the elf. "I didn't expect to see anyone, well, anyone I knew. It's dark out." He waved his hand vaguely towards the sky. "Shouldn't you be asleep?"
"Shouldn't you?" The response was just enough guarded that meant Fenris didn't trust him with all of his secrets, whether or not it was something as simple as the reason for walking Lowtown at night. Then again, he had only met him three days ago.
"I was."
"I can tell."
Met him three days ago, and flirted with him, the words slipping out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He was good at shooting off at the mouth. Carver had scowled and Varric had only grinned, while Fenris had gone embarrassed at the display. From the way that the warrior's eyebrow was hitched, just ever so slightly in query as he looked at Hawke, Hawke was beginning to suspect this was payback on the embarrassment front. He tugged at the sleeves on his shirt. Maker, why hadn't he put on something less worn and pathetic before he'd gone out? He knew about the bandits and still he had completely forgone anything better than one (1) cotton long sleeve shirt and one (1) pair of cotton sleep pants that did not match the cotton long sleeve shirt.
He cleared his throat. "I woke up."
Fenris nodded once. Whatever he may have been wondering, he evidently wasn't going to ask. He looked one way, and then the other. Bare feet shuffled on the cool ground. "Were you going to the Hanged Man?"
"The... oh, no. It's the middle of the night. I just... needed some air." That sounded nicer than saying he wanted to throttle his uncle, and maybe set fire to the pathetic slums if only that didn't mean he and others just as unlucky would have no place to stay.
Fenris nodded again. "I see."
Yeah... wow, this was awkward. What was happening? Hawke looked up at the star dotted sky, silent save for his breathing. He was all too aware of Fenris's presence and the elf seemed just at a loss for words as much as he was. Strange. Usually Hawke had words for everything, even if they were ill-advised and with bad timing and innuendo.
"You don't look like you were asleep," he tried, just to break the uncomfortable silence. He wondered if flirting with him had made him uncomfortable. To each their own, of course, but Hawke had to admit he would be a tiny bit disappointed if someone that gorgeous was taken. Or uninterested. Being hit on by another guy could maybe potentially freak a guy out? He wondered if he should apologize. He hoped not, he wasn't good at those.
"No," Fenris replied. "I am less conspicuous at night, and there are less people in the streets. It is pleasing to walk, if nothing else."
"Okay." Hawke regarded the Bazaar for a moment and sucked in a sharp breath to push ahead. "Do you want to walk? Or, continue walking, I guess?"
That seemed to work for Fenris, who thawed a little at the suggestion. "If you don't mind the company."
"Why would I? I asked. Umm, which way?"
"It does not matter."
"Okay, the further from Gamlen's, the better," Hawke muttered, and shoved off from his resting spot. "This way, then?"
"That's fine."
Fenris was the silent type. It wasn't something Hawke was very good at dealing with, because he loathed long, awkward silences. Or even silence, when it wasn't awkward, because it inevitably started to feel awkward if you weren't talking. But something about walking Lowtown with Fenris was somehow not awkward, and it wasn't before passing the armor merchant near the stairs that Hawke felt compelled to speak. And even then, Fenris beat him to it. For the better. Hawke hadn't decided what to talk about yet, anyway.
"I take it you do not like your uncle's lodging."
Hawke snorted, and cleared his throat a little when a passerby glanced at them oddly. "It's the slums. And my uncle isn't exactly the most welcoming sort."
"I... have met him before," Fenris admitted. "He is at the Hanged Man regularly."
"The Hanged Man, and the Blooming Rose, and Darktown's gambling houses, and just about any other shady place you can think of," Hawke supplied. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful. He basically got us into Kirkwall. Even if Carver and I did all the work..." he muttered. "It's just..."
"Not what you expected?"
Hawke shrugged. "I didn't expect anything, really. I didn't know much about Kirkwall before we had to come here. But probably not what I... well, it's just not a wine and dine kind of place. It's less wine and more rain puddles in the corners, and less dine and more ‘try not to be dined on by the insects and wildlife that gets in’. But that does sound ungrateful."
Fenris hummed, keeping pace with him. "The dwarf mentioned to me that you were from Lothering."
"Yeah." Home. His real home, although it wasn't anything any longer. Who knew what was left there. Probably nothing that they could ever go back to.
"I am sorry that you had to leave your home in such a way," Fenris said slowly. "I cannot imagine how hard it must have been."
"It wasn't fun." Those days still gave him nightmares, running from the burning city, running from the darkspawn, running from danger and unknowingly into danger, and now here they were. The Witch of the Wilds, a ship, and miles upon miles of putting his back into it for the money's sake, and here he was.
Fenris seemed to be hesitating, and a glance towards the elf's face spoke that he was putting words together in his mind.
"Whatever you're thinking, you can ask. I don't care," Hawke allowed, and smiled a little when Fenris looked up at him. "I'm pretty much an open book here, Fenris."
"Varric told me about your sister as well," Fenris said. "I believe I would have liked to meet her."
Bethany. Hawke took a deep breath, and slapped on a sarcastic grin. "Are you sure? She is, she was a mage, just like me. I thought you didn't like those kind of people."
"Your kind seems fine."
"My kind?"
"Yes." Fenris lifted his chin. "Most mages fall victim to their desires and wish for nothing except power. You... have proven otherwise in helping Anso, and therefore me. I am not certain where your magic will take you," he said slowly, "but you have done nothing to dissuade my initial trust of you. Yet," he added. Very bluntly.
Hawke couldn't help but laugh. "Do you expect me to? My ambitions are pretty low. Get out of my uncle's, and keep Mother safe. Probably not be noticed by the templars, either." He shrugged. "Find a nice house and someone to spend the rest of my life with." He side-eyed the elf, who was looking in the direction of the alienage. "Of course, that's assuming I can actually ever manage to scrape together enough to get into the Deep Roads to begin with..."
"Do you ever rest?" Fenris asked curiously, and Hawke snickered again at the pure honesty of the question.
"Well, you've seen what happens when I try." He gestured to both of them, there now, walking back into the slums. "I wish I could," he added, after a thought. "The less I'm conscious, the less I have all of this stuff to think about. You think I'd be allowed some good dreams now and then, but instead I'm right back at Lothering and then I wake up to find Gamlen passed out in the doorway or a spider on my face." He shivered.
"I could say it would get better," Fenris remarked thoughtfully, "but the truth is that I do not know."
"You are a literal ray of sunshine, you know that?"
Fenris opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again when he found that Hawke was joking. He cracked a smile. ‘Cracked’ was generous, it was the most itty bitty smile Hawke had ever seen but a smile on Fenris was... definitely worth it, no matter the circumstance. "The lyrium does glow," the elf replied, all matter-of-fact but taunting a little, too.
"I've noticed."
"Do you wish to sit?" They were outside Gamlen's home, and Fenris motioned towards the stairs opposite. "Or if you would prefer to go back in..." he trailed off uncertainly, but Hawke shook his head, already heading for the stairs.
"No, I'd rather sit out here than sit in there." Hawke sat, and Fenris sat a step below him. "Can I ask something about you, then?"
The switch had flipped. Fenris was instantly on guard again - not that he had ever really not been - but the simple press of a question that was going to be personal and he was sitting up straight, chin up slightly, and a wary look in his gaze. "... Yes," he said, after a pause.
He couldn't ask anything too personal after that. But everything seemed too personal. Hell with it. Fenris wouldn't answer if he didn't want to, Hawke was certain. "What made you finally get away from Danarius?"
Fenris blinked like he hadn't expected the question. Hawke watched him curiously. There was a multitude of emotion on the elf's face, and Hawke was disgruntled to find that he couldn't really distinguish any of it in particular. Fenris opened his mouth, and then closed it. The cogs seemed to be working in his mind again, but he seemed like he was coming up at a loss, not just thinking it through, like before.
"You don't have to answer if you don't want. Or can't," Hawke added. "I've got plenty of time to get to know you, right?"
Fenris had this look that made Hawke feel like he was staring into his soul. It was unsettling, although not necessarily in a bad way. Just a... you're being analyzed, Hawke sort of way. "Okay," Fenris said softly, and turned his head away, and that, evidently, was that.
Hawke was curious. But that was okay. He really did hope he got the chance to get to know Fenris better. If Fenris needed that time to be able to open up to him, that was fine. Maker only knew what Fenris had gone through before this - oh. Rethinking some of Fenris's actions even tonight, some of the things he said or did, they suddenly made sense. Like Fenris sitting on the step below him instead of next to him.
Hawke scooted down, and pretended he didn't notice Fenris's confused look. "I just think it's pretty admirable. The kind of strength it had to have taken."
"Strength," Fenris repeated, but the word came out twisted, sardonic and irritated. "Strength is not what I would have called it."
Hawke was now even more curious. Part of him wanted to reassure Fenris that it had to have been strength that had gotten him out, but truthfully? He had no idea, and he wasn't going to say the wrong thing this time. He was hoping... well, best not to get ahead of himself. Like he said, he'd only known Fenris for three days.
(Love at first sight?) (Shut up!)
Hawke leaned his elbows on his knees, and looked wearily at Gamlen's house. He was tired. And also afraid to sleep, whether because of nightmares or the spiders. Which, the latter was the former to begin with, but that wasn't important.
"Strength has many types," Fenris remarked eventually. "Dealing with the loss of a loved one, for instance. Or fighting when you no longer feel like fighting. Those are of equal importance."
Hawke blinked. "Fenris, are you trying to cheer-"
The door to Gamlen's home flung open and out marched Carver, in all of his armor. Hawke's heart dropped. He jumped to his feet and cleared the distance to Gamlen's stairs. "Carver! What's wrong? Is Mother okay?"
Carver stopped, looking at him. "Brother, you- You weren't here only a moment ago!"
"No, I've been over there." He gestured to the stairs where they'd been sitting, where Carver could have seen them if he had bothered to look longer than a half second, but that wasn't the point. "What's going on?"
"You were gone! I woke up and we couldn't find you, Mother's half out of her head with worry!"
"Oh." Hawke relaxed. He suddenly felt on the brink of collapse, the exhaustion of the night crashing against his skull. He reached out to steady himself against the wall. "I just went for a walk. I couldn't sleep. I ran into Fenris." He glanced over his shoulder to where Fenris was standing a few feet away, having evidently gotten up the same time Hawke had. "I didn't mean to worry you." He intended it to be sarcastic. It came out tired.
Carver looked between Hawke and Fenris, and back again. And then he groaned, turning back to the door. "I can't- are you serious? You whip everyone into a frenzy while you're out on a date! Unbelievable!"
"It wasn't a date."
"What if the templars had gotten you!"
"I was with Fenris, not performing a blood ritual."
Carver made a noise of discontent and marched back inside, slamming the door behind him.
"Maker help me," Hawke muttered, rubbing his eyes. "This'll be fun." He looked back at Fenris. "Sorry. That's my night. Maybe we can do something else next time?" He smiled tiredly, hoping it seemed genuine. It was. He was just suddenly so tired, and so not wanting to go get chastised by his mother.
"I would enjoy that," Fenris said quietly.
Hawke nodded and gave a little wave, putting his hand against the heavy wooden door. "Night."
"Hawke?"
"Yeah?" He looked back.
"Loyalty."
"What?"
"A form of strength." Fenris looked so intense. Hawke may have beamed at him. Or at least grinned goofily. He wasn't sure. "Good night, Hawke."
(It is love at first sight, you giant idiot!) (Shut UP!)
"Night," Hawke repeated, and was still grinning like that giant idiot as he let himself back into the house.