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They were in the middle of a children's tale when the knock came. "Excuse me, messere," Bodahn said apologetically, "but the Guard-Captain's here to speak with you urgently."
"Urgently?" Hawke asked, and Fenris could hear the raised eyebrow in the man's voice. He told himself not to look for it, and instead concentrated on the words Hawke's finger was still pointing at. "How urgently?"
"She's standing on the doorstep in full armor, messere, if that's any indication."
"Damn." The finger lifted, and Fenris had to grab the book to prevent it from closing and losing his place forever. Hawke gave an apologetic grin as he headed for the door. "Sorry, my friend. Give me a moment, hopefully this won't take long."
"Very well." He glanced up briefly to nod acknowledgement as Hawke closed the door, then immediately turned back to the page. He could do this. Before Hawke returned, Fenris would read the whole sentence himself. "The girl wal-ked along the cliff." Two ff's. "The hot sun made her hair s-shu—" sh, the sound of quiet "—shine gold." He formed the words one by one in his mouth, trying not to speak their syllables too loudly. The trick of reading in his head, which everyone seemed to do as easily as breathing, was still far beyond him. "The water was blue and cold and full of do...dolp-dolpuh—"
Spell it out what you can't read, Hawke had said when they started on words, infinitely patient. Break it down one letter at a time.
"Dee. Oh. El. Pee. Haych. Eye. En. Es." S on the end, that usually meant a plural. PH, one of those two-letter combinations which sounded like fuh, not what it actually looked like. Sometimes Fenris hated the alphabet almost as much as mages. "Dolfuh-ins, dolphins—"
The door opened again. Fenris looked up to find Hawke scowling and putting on bits of armor. "I have to go," Hawke grumbled. "One of the nobles is speechifying in the middle of Hightown Market about Meredith, and gathered a loud crowd. Aveline's on her way to break it up, and since that meant passing here she thought it'd be useful to have the Champion on hand to keep the peace." He pulled on his gauntlets with a huff. "Looks like the reading lesson is off."
Fenris blinked, disappointment pricking at both the lesson's end and the loss of Hawke's company. "Do you want me to come?" he asked.
Hawke shook his head. "I'll be with Aveline, I'll take the dog, and hopefully I'm just turning up for show, so no need for you to risk exposure. Although, if you do hear trouble break out, feel free to join the party. In the meantime—" Suddenly Hawke's face lit up, something that was quickly followed by a mischievous grin Fenris usually associated with Hawke being asked to bash in Coterie or slaver heads. "Wait here."
He disappeared again, armor clanking despite the heavy woollen rug. Fenris heard Hawke's footsteps disappear up the mansion's staircase, and wondered what was going on even as he repeated the word dolphins several times to burn it to memory. Then he heard the Hawke's footsteps return. This time, they weren't alone.
"—can't be serious!"
"Just for a little while, love, while I'm out."
"A little while with him and you may come back to a bloodbath—"
Fenris froze. Maker, no, Hawke couldn't really be—
"Please, Anders." Hawke's voice was earnest, and there was a jangle of armor that implied hands clasping shoulders. "If not for him, do it for me?"
Fenris wondered if he could sneak out the kitchen door.
"... fine." The word was dragged out like a petulant child. "For you, love."
"Thank you." The words were a smile, and the soft sound that followed was a kiss. "I appreciate this. Who knows, you may even realise you like each other."
"Fat chance of that," Anders grumbled, and then there he was, following Hawke through the library door like a tall, exotic bird. Fenris felt his lip curl, and saw the apostate's face do the same.
A sigh made them both stop. "I know this isn't preferable," Hawke said, seemingly lightly, "but there's no need for the lesson to end just because I need to step out. Anders, it would mean a lot to me if you could help Fenris with his reading, and, Fenris, it would mean a lot to me if you let Anders help." Firmly, Hawke pulled Anders forward and gestured to the chair beside Fenris. "I know the two of you can play nice."
With obvious reluctance, Anders took the chair. He bumped Fenris's arm as he did so, probably by accident, but the touch on the lyrium marks, from Anders of all people, made Fenris hiss and jerk away. Immediately Anders's eyes narrowed, though thankfully they did not turn blue. "Play nice with the elf," Anders muttered. "This is going to end so well."
"Play nice with the abomination," Fenris retorted, imitating Anders's tone with added sarcasm. "This is going to end so well."
A heavy hand came down on both their shoulders, and then Hawke's head was leaning between them, eyes piercing into their faces one by one. "Play. Nice," he repeated, silverite in his tone even as he smiled. Then he patted their shoulders, stood up, and left.
Fenris and Anders stared at each other. The fire behind them popped loudly.
The first to look away was Anders. He got out the chair and walked away to the fireplace, where he leaned on the mantle and began to morosely kick the glowing coals. Fenris rolled his eyes and said, "There's no need for you to stay. In fact, you're more than welcome to leave."
"Why should I do that?" Kick, kick. The fire flared, momentarily making Anders's silhouette look like a rage demon. "I'm the one who lives here."
"Aren't you usually in your clinic at this hour?"
"I'm taking a day off. Garrett's orders, said if I didn't he'd knock me out and tie me to the bed. Which actually sounded rather rather fun, except Garrett didn't mean it the fun way." With a huff, Anders turned back to Fenris with arms crossed. "I was having a perfectly relaxing afternoon until now."
"Really." He could do this, Fenris told himself, he could spend time with the abomination and be mostly civil, and had in fact done so scores of times in the past, whether it be on quests or rounds of Wicked Grace. Except, quests and card games had always been in a group, with Hawke or Varric or Isabela or any of the others, all of whom were well-practiced at deflecting and defusing whatever barbs Fenris and Anders flung at each other. Being alone with Anders was something Fenris avoided like the plague, yet as much as Fenris wanted to get away from the possessed mage now, he refused to be the one to disappoint Hawke. Unfortunately, Anders seemed to be thinking the same. "You still look like a dead bird his dog dragged in."
"What can I say, Garrett likes the tortured look. Got to maintain that." The feathered pauldrons fluttered with Anders's shrug.
"By working on that damned manifesto of yours, no doubt," Fenris muttered. Pages of that rag littered the mansion, and although Fenris couldn't read it, he could now recognise the words mage, magic and freedom on sight, plus he'd been putting up with Ander's demented rantings for Maker knew how long. Envy of Anders's ability to churn out pages of writing was extra infuriation.
"Of course." The renegade mage smirked. "Want to read some?"
"Get lost."
"Again, elf, I live here, if you want out, there's the door." Anders thumbed at the doorway with an exasperated breath. "Why Garrett keeps you around, I don't know."
Fenris glared. Of all the people Hawke had chosen to be with ... "I could say the same to you."
"I'm charming. And pretty. You, on the other hand, were an idiot to leave him."
"And you were fast enough to replace me," Fenris shot back.
"I love him." Anders's eyes glittered. "You can't even imagine what that is."
In a flash Fenris was out of his chair, lyrium markings ablaze as he shoved up into Anders's face. "Do not bare your heart to me, mage," he hissed, and had the pleasure of seeing Anders flinch, "unless you would have me rip it out."
"You could try." A bass note resonated in Anders's voice, his brown eyes flashed blue, and for all that Fenris had seen this before, he couldn't help the instinctive stab of terror that shot down his spine in the face of such twisted magic. Twisted magic that was about to be turned on him. Snarling, Fenris readied a war cry that would smother the terror with rage and hate as he prepared to defend— "Try and you would … you would …"
The bass note wavered, as did the blue light. As Fenris watched, Anders's suddenly rigid posture diminished until he was curled over himself, breathing hard, regaining control. Not that it encouraged Fenris to lower his hand, which was already ghostly and pointed towards Anders's chest, even as Anders stood properly. "And you would not be able to touch it," Anders said stubbornly, pale but in his normal voice. "Because our – my heart is held by Garrett."
It took a moment before Fenris realised he was breathing again. When he did, he stared at Anders's glare which, although infuriating, was steady and unlit. Fenris lowered his hand and tried to make his pulse calm. "That—" He fumbled for the first thing that came into his head. "That is the stupidest line I've ever heard. Did you get it from Varric?"
"Actually I thought of it on the spot." Unexpectedly Anders gave an awkward smile, his face flushed. "It's true, though."
"You're making me sick," growled Fenris, and stalked back to his chair and book. It let him hide his face as he remembered how the thing that called itself a healer roared over the young, terrified runaway mage they had just saved, and how horror and disgust turned to painful relief as he watched Hawke bring Anders back to himself. That hadn't been long after Fenris had told Hawke that he was in no position to be with anyone, an agonising realisation Fenris still held to, and as fervently as Fenris believed Anders to be bad for Hawke, there was no question that Hawke was not only good for Anders, but cared for him. Damned mage. Damn Hawke too, for that matter. "Maybe I should pass that line to Isabela for her friend-fiction."
Anders winced. "Please, please don't."
"I will if you keep being an idiot." He sighed through gritted teeth. "Look, if neither of us are going to leave, then just help me read through this story, then when Hawke returns we can go back to not-strangling each other, all right?"
* * *
"Tevinter."
"Tee. Ee. Vee. Eye. En. Tee. Ee. Ahr."
"Good. Heart."
"Haych. Ehye—"
"No, wrong, try again—"
Tiredly, Hawke shrugged the last of his armor into Bodahn's hands and wondered at the conversation coming from the library. It was calm, even cordial although not exactly warm, but more importantly it was conversation, not the clash of a broadsword or lightning bursts. This he had to see to believe, and he pushed the library door open without knocking. "How in the Maker—"
Seated together at the desk, Fenris and Anders looked up. The former slave was grimacing, not that that was anything new, and Anders seemed to be in the middle of his umpteenth eye-roll, which immediately switched to a relieved smile when he saw who it was. "You're back," the mage said. "You've been gone for hours."
"Only one and a bit." Eyebrows in his hair, Hawke made his way into the library still trying to take in the sight of Fenris and Anders sitting quietly next to each other. The desk before them was covered in paper, most filled with words written in Fenris's large, scrawling script, while others had corrections marked in Anders's fluid hand. "You two have been making good progress, I see."
Fenris shrugged. "It's less effort than shouting."
"How did the crowd control go?" asked Anders.
"Peacefully, mostly, I'll give you the details later." Briefly Hawke folded Anders against his chest before moving to clasp Fenris's shoulder. "How many new words today, then?" he asked.
"Twenty-six," Fenris's growl had a note of pride. "But it would be nearly forty if your pet abomination had been less annoying."
"What did I say about not throwing around big words unless you can spell them?" Anders shot back. "Abomination, then. Hint: it starts with 'A'."
"Will you turn into one if I spell it wrong?"
"Will your face break if you smiled for once?"
Hawke laughed. "It's so nice to see you two getting along. Perhaps Anders should take over Fenris's lessons permanently?" Fenris and Anders shot him identical glares. "... Never mind."
~end~