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It is a wonder, Fenris thinks, as he sits resolutely still, that he is where he is today. He still does not know exactly how it happened. There was Danarius, and then there was ‘freedom’; there was Kirkwall, and then there was Hawke. And suddenly, somehow, Fenris is sitting stock still as the burly mage in questions draws paint across the bridge of his nose.
How he has fallen to this point, he does not know. Hawke chastises him as he shifts uncomfortably, the tiny hairs of the brush tickling his nose. Fenris stills, and does not roll his eyes even if he desires to, and he has to mask the way that warmth blossoms into his chest as Hawke smiles and hums and contemplates the red swipe on Fenris's nose.
Hawke's smile is decidedly worth this.
"There," Hawke announces, leaning back. The brush flourishes through the air and Fenris winces as red paint scatters across the stained tabletop. "We match!"
He says it like it is the most obvious and beautiful thing in the world, and, no, Fenris does not know how he got here, per se, but he is truly and wholly happy that he is.
The paint is more wet than dry at this point, but he can feel it across the bridge of his nose like a foreign object on his skin. It feels strange, and he goes cross-eyed to look at Hawke's handiwork, nose crinkling in concentration as he tries to see. There's a mirror across the room, but Hawke is across from him, and Fenris has no immediate plans on moving.
"Evidently," he says out loud, looking away from the project and to the artist in question. Hawke's is much more sloppy, large fingers dipped in the paint and smeared over his nose, but he had said he wanted Fenris's to be perfect. "Only perfection for the perfect!" he had boasted, and before Fenris could even open his mouth to refute the statement, Hawke had pushed ahead to remind him that he was perfect and no, Fenris was not going to tell him otherwise.
Asinine.
Fenris has to splay his hands on the table to lean across it and kiss Hawke, but it gets the job done. The sentiment may all be asinine, but did it feel nice to be told he was perfect, that he was loved?
Hawke's lips curve into a smile beneath Fenris's, and maybe after all this time Fenris's knees still go to jelly beneath the table, but he doesn't admit it, and he will not.
The swipe on his nose does match Hawke's, Fenris realises later, when they're washing up at the end of the day. Of course it does; it is only a swipe of colour against skin.
It is so much more.
It is calm and chaos; it is loss and love. It is running away and being found, and it is Hawke's arms looping around his shoulders as Fenris contemplates themselves in the mirror. Fenris is not a man of undue sentimentality. Many of the things he thinks about regarding their relationship will stay private, if only because it is too embarrassing to say such things out loud. (Never-mind if Hawke puts on that goofy grin and never lets Fenris forget he said something romantic.) With Hawke, however, Fenris finds that he never needs the words, exactly. Now is one of those times, as Hawke peppers kisses against his hair and smiles at him and reaches for the cloth in the bowl of water sitting nearby.
Fenris catches his wrist. "Leave it." Hawke looks at him questioningly, and Fenris touches the mark on his own nose.
It is a swipe of colour against skin, but is it a tie to Hawke. A connecting factor, a symbol; Hawke is his and he is Hawke's. That is new, that is strange, that is terrifying. Even today.
"I like it," he says softly, and leans his head against Hawke's chest.