Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time Fenris left had been to flee from the magister with an ego as grand as the hand he used to abuse his servants and slaves. Hunters hot on his heels, the foreign feeling of fresh air rushing through his hair - his escape seemed somehow liberating at the time, a romantic tale of the runaway elf free from his former master. Though it came with pain, the scars seemed only physical, cuts and bruises that seared the skin but not the skull or the soul or the spirit. No, not those, for they had been lost long ago.

The second escape stole more than a sliver of skin. He hadn't debated staying or leaving, staying or leaving, Maker should I stay or should I leave, for an hour at least before breaking the news to his slaveholder. He hadn't needed to hold Danarius' heartbreaking stare as he told him of his departure. He hadn't desired to swallow every word he'd spoken so that no sound had stolen the light once still shining within his lover's eyes. Danarius was simple - run faster and farther than he could ever catch you, and never once look back. Hawke...Hawke created complexity, craved it even. It had cursed Fenris into crawling out from the reaches of Hawke's estate, every second spent still staring back at walls that hushed his whispered sobs and stood watch over once-filled, now-emptied beds. This escape scarred the soul, or at least, whatever remained of Leto inside the shell of Fenris.

The third desertion he did nothing to initiate. Four years flew swiftly past, his prior departure remaining only at the corners of their minds where neither Hawke nor Fenris dared to enter. The Champion of Kirkwall had risen against the uprising, his swordbearer at his side to shield the innocent from the slaughter of rebels and soldiers. It seemed as though their escape from the horrors of Kirkwall harkened back to that first taste of freedom Fenris still savored. No responsibilities, only open possibilities. Or so he had assumed. Yet here he sat, alone in their shared hovel of a home with the dog in tow, and not a word from his Hawke in months. All his hope he had placed in the last note his lover had left - "I'll be home before the holidays. Don't follow - only trust. I love you, Leto."

The first time someone slipped from his grasp had been his dad, the dearly departed Serah Hawke. Or, at least, such came the claim of the Chantry nuns in Lothering that had about as much compassion as a Qunari quartermaster. "Dear" wasn't exactly an adjective one would use to describe an apostate, not by the clergy anyways, but departed? That word still rang true. His father had left them all, left him, hurting and hollowed in Lothering without a guide. The Blight broke more than the backs of men - it tore apart the trust of the Amells. Malcolm might have lain in the coffin, but Leandra was the one to die that day, and her children stood as corpses as she sobbed inside a silent cemetery.

The second (third? fourth? Maker, he couldn't keep count anymore) came amidst the chaos of Kirkwall, without any warning. In the midst of the madness, memories melded together into one, leaving Hawke incapable of discerning where Bethany bit the dust and when Carver had crumbled and how Leandra had lived a life beyond death in a body not entirely her own. Even still, one stood out amidst the rest, a lingering remnant emblazoned in his brain of a burn that had yet to heal. The ghostly white of lyrium tattooing tanned skin, the haunting hue of emerald radiating from behind half-lidded eyes, the supernatural loss of life seeping out of him as the touch of his one and only slipped from his hand and into the night. Of all of those whom he had lost, oh how Fenris still hurt him the most.

Then again, he supposed he understood. If he did not deign to relate to Fenris' departure, then his own escape seemed all too hypocritical. He knew what he had to do - hunt down the Wardens, crucify Corypheus, and until his last breath, keep Fenris from getting involved. Should he have discovered Hawke's destination, Fenris would have walked all the way to Skyhold if he needed to. Hawke could not allow that, could not allow another to leave his life and lose their own because he placed them in danger - again. This time, he would let his loved one live on...with or without him.

Now, standing amidst the swirling mayhem of the Fade, he wonders whether he made the right choice. No, he should not dwell on Fenris; on the thought of how his eyes would crinkle with rage when reading the note upon awakening alone, or the wine he would use to waste away each night awaiting his arrival, or the memories of intimacy that made him feel as though Fenris still stood next to him. Memories held a magic here all their own, and they threatened to smother him. Hawke preferred to have Fenris do so when he made it home at last.

"Thinking about Broody?" Varric questions, all too knowing of a smile slithering across his face. Hawke had missed the humor, but not the meaning. He supposed Fenris would not have missed the humor, its meaning, or the demeaning nickname. Then again, such was why Varric continued to use it.

"Perhaps," he starts, grip tightening around the scarlet thread of his scarf - the favor he and Fenris shared to wear - "but at least Broody wants me thinking of him - unlike Bianca." Ever the dramatist, Varric feigns offense with a hand to the heart. Neither of them need him to answer truthfully, for they both know - every spirit, every shadow, every tombstone sunk in gravel has Fenris' name scrawled across it. For the Fade knew his heart, more so than even Hawke could himself comprehend.

He supposed he saw the irony in that when the demon of nightmares manifested itself as a spider. Maker, always spiders. Try as they may, the Inquisition stood unequipped to face such a foe. Stroud shouted at the Herald for a solution, the Inquisitor scrambling about for some form of defense or escape or...or distraction. With eyes that shone with a hope he knew he would have to sacrifice all to appease, the Inquisitor begged in but a whisper, "Hawke..." Had he not seen Fenris with such a similar shine in his eyes?

Without another word, Hawke nodded his head. He now understands the cost of coming here. Twirling his staff so that it sat perfectly in his palms, Hawke approached the spider with a gait in his step seen only at the gore-strewn Gallows. "Go," he demanded, with not a second to spare for debate, "GO!" The party departed, fleeing the Fade, all but Varric who stole one last glance at the hero he knew would spare one last word for the one he loved. "Varric, tell Fenris...tell Leto not to wait for me to come home to him." Without watching whether Varric departed or remained, Hawke returned to the imminent threat at hand.

Power thrums through his veins, empowering his spells with a hunger he had never known before. Feed us, the magic screams, feed the Fade with your rage. Each fireball burns away the flesh of this beast, every strike of lightning singing an eye, a claw, a leg, until every last limb had fallen - and so, too, had Hawke. Man and demon fell together as one to the floor of the Fade, life fleeing from them before they found the will to force it within once again. Death, he realizes, has come calling for him.

As the sound of an ending nightmare lulls him into eternal slumber, the Fade forms the sweetest fantasy to send him off to sleep with - the warmth of his homestead during the holidays, the pounding of puppy paws against the wooden floorboards as the dog discovers his master returning home, the face of Fenris smiling the way he only did for him when he saw his beloved coming back for him. Home...yes, he was going home after all...home, sweet home....to Leto.