Work Text:
He finds her the night before she leaves Kirkwall.
He didn’t have to look hard; she’s in her estate, her sister asleep in a side room. He passes it by; he comes not as a templar but as a man, a man about to lose forever a woman he knew he could never keep. Bethany Hawke is of no concern.
But Marian-
She’s sitting in her room, at the desk she must have dragged up the stairs by herself (the rest of the house is empty, deserted), writing. There’s parchment all around her and ink on her fingers and a spot on her lips, and he can’t make out the words for all the scratches.
But she stills when she hears his footsteps.
“Have you come to kill me?” she asks, carefully setting her quill down.
“No,” he whispers.
—
It’s a curious thing, trying to memorize and forget in the same moment, the same motion of dragging his lips along the column of her throat. She asks for him not to look at her while he takes her, and he complies, his fingers marking her hips with bruises, his teeth leaving half-moon marks on her shoulders. He grunts and she sighs and the bed creaks every so often.
He wants to hold this moment forever and forget it ever happened - she ever happened - come morning. He wants to be able to move on.
He wants to not have to.
When she cries out and ruts back against him, spasming and threatening to tip him over the edge, he pulls out. He catches his breath. And then he settles back, kneeling, and pulls her to him, back to chest. He fits himself into her again. And he kisses her - because he can. Because it’s all he has. The ink tastes sour in his mouth, but he ignores it.
—
In the morning, she’s gone.
He sits in her bed longer than he should, takes longer than he needs to bring himself together. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t grasp at the last threads that linger in the morning sunlight. He doesn’t breathe her scent.
He tries, anyway.
When he finally finds his feet, they catch on parchment, and he crouches down.
I’m sorry, one sheet says.
I didn’t think this would happen, says another.
I’ll miss you, says a third.
He places them all in the fireplace that may not burn for another year, another decade. The house is cursed, or should be reified, and he isn’t sure which.
The last piece is on the desk - folded carefully, sealed with the Amell crest and sealed with the Hawke crest. He moves to throw it in with the rest, then hesitates and lifts his thumb to break the wax.
I’m going to Ostwick. I trust you.