Chapter Text
---Prologue---
“Here, let me take a look.” Hawke snatched up the elf’s gauntleted hand without thinking, a healing spell prepped on her lips.
“I’m fine!” Fenris snarled, violently wrenching his arm away as if burned.
Insert heavy, awkward pause.
“M-maybe we should head back to the city!” Merrill chirped like an excitable bird to break the tense silence.
Fenris lead the way for the party, leaving a path of bright red blood droplets in his wake for Hawke to tread upon all the way back to Kirkwall.
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A heavy yet staccato knocking came later that evening and, when Hawke tugged the front door open, there stood a quite surprised-looking Fenris.
“Hawke, I— it—" The elf blurted.
His eyes skittered across her face like a wild rabbit caught in a snare, as if he hadn’t expected her to respond to his summons, let alone open the door. He was struggling to convey something but the words weren’t coming out. Either the phrases couldn’t fully form in his head or there was a disruption in transit from his mind to his mouth.
Hawke shushed him, “Come in, come in.” Ushering him through the threshold, she was only mildly astonished when he didn’t protest and shuffled inside with a measure of reluctance. She shut the door and turned to face him, “What is it?”
There was a beat of silence during which Fenris looked a bit awkward before he spoke again.
“The injury from earlier,” he took a breath, most likely to dispel all traces of worry from his tone, “It won’t stop bleeding.”
Hawke felt a pang of concern but it was overcome by sense of genuine curiosity. She narrowed her eyes, gaining a shrewd feline quality in doing so.
“Why not go to Anders?” Hawke tossed the words out with an air of flippancy.
At her question, Fenris scowled, features darkening.
“I would rather die than ask for help from that abomination and it’s filthy magic,” the elf spat venomously. Being a mage herself, the words were like a slap across the face, but Hawke had become well accustomed to the sting.
“Then why me?”
His menacing expression promptly evaporated and Fenris blinked dumbly, as if she’d just spoken a foreign language.
“Because you’re…”
Fenris trailed off as comprehension dawned across his face, realizing what he’s just implied. The proverbial corner he’d backed himself into.
“…different?” Hawke finished the sentence for him while quirking her eyebrow, trying not to be pleased with herself for poking at his hypocrisy.
Fenris visibly winced and looked away, “This was a mistake. I should leave.” He feinted to the left in an effort to slip past her on the way to the door.
Hawke deliberately sidestepped to block his path, standing firmly in place, arms crossed. The white-haired elf froze, wide-eyed, looking like an arctic fox caught in a trap and she suddenly had a distinct impression that Fenris may very well be feral enough to chew off his own limb just to escape.
“Out of my way, Hawke.”
There was a lethal edge to his voice, but the caginess in the depths of his eyes undermined the mask of imminent violence covering his face.
The mage did not budge, even daring to lift her chin in a wordless go-ahead-and-try-me gesture. At that, Fenris straightened to his full height in an attempt to loom over her. One of his clawed gauntlets began a menacing clenching and unclenching motion.
Hawke couldn’t help the grin that tugged at the corner of her lips at his obvious intimidation display. It would have most assuredly elicited an immediate fear response in other more sensible and self-preserving people, but not her. She was accustomed to his mercurial temper and emotional defense mechanisms. Besides, she thought, he hadn’t even lit his markings.
Her sudden smile seemed to have a strange disarming effect on the elf. His scowl eased by a fraction and the murderous fire in his eyes promptly snuffed itself out.
Deciding to turn the proverbial tables, Hawke reached out and firmly grasped the top lip of his chest plate in one hand. She used it as leverage to yank him closer, bringing them eye-to-eye. Fenris’ haughty mask fractured then, falling away to reveal his genuine shock at the domineering gesture.
“Need I remind you,” she hissed darkly, “That you were the one who came to me.” With a level stare into his widened eyes, Hawke dared him to open his mouth.
The elf appeared temporarily dazed at the current turn of events. Hawke heard his breath catch as his glanced down at her lips and back up again. Something swirled in those green eyes for a fraction of a second.
Their faces were so close that Hawke could catch a faint whiff of the lyrium embedded in Fenris’ skin. Earthy and prickling. Gravitational. Maddening. Someone already so alluring in shape and form, made nigh irresistible by the substance branded onto his body.
As quickly as she’d pulled him in, and before he had a chance to notice the tiniest heat that flooded her cheeks from being so close, Hawke shoved Fenris away.
“Now show me,” Hawke commanded, holding out her hand.
Shaking his head to dispel the shock and cursing in Tevene under his breath, Fenris presented her with the arm that had been injured and bleeding earlier that day. The hardened warrior tried to disguise the way he subtly shrank away from her when she reached out to draw his hand closer for inspection. Hawke noticed it regardless.
Peering at the damage, it seemed that he had hastily wiped at the blood that continued to ooze from the large gash across his palm shortly before he’d arrived at her doorstep. Right in the center of the vulnerable part of his hand, not covered by his metal gauntlets.
Hawke blinked; something glimmered at the center of the wound. She squinted but the light was too dim in the foyer to see what exactly it was.
“Sweet Andraste, elf. Why didn’t you let me mend this earlier?” Hawke fussed, knowing full well that the admonishment would fall upon deaf, pointed ears.
Fenris remained silent, expression unreadable.
Now it was her turn to heave a sigh before motioning to the room to their right: “Come.”
Hawke half expected him to just leave. Turn on his heel and stride right out the door, deciding that the festering wound was preferrable to the awkward humiliation of admitting defeat. On the contrary, he shuffled obediently behind her into the well-lit room like a chastised puppy. When she gestured toward a chair at the dining table, he walked over and sank down into it with a quiet huff.
Fenris sat with his eyes averted, lips thinned into a mulish line, defiant. Like a petulant child who’d gotten a splinter while out playing and had no choice but to return home for his mother’s help in removing it. Hawke’s mind conjured an image of what that might have looked like: a little, lanky Fenris with a mop of disheveled white hair, dirt smudged across the bridge of his nose, snarling like a wild animal while his mother tended to the injury. The mage might have chuckled at the thought if it wouldn’t have chased away the already skittish adult elf.
“Well?” She prodded.
Hawke arched her eyebrow at him again, feigning impatience. In response, the warrior eyed her through the snow-white fall of his hair, calculating the level of danger before committing to any action.
After a beat of silence, Fenris slid his arm onto the table, palm up, metal claws unfurling as he opened his hand.
This close, Hawke couldn’t help but admire the craftsmanship of the armor that adorned his well-muscled arm. An adornment meant for defense, yet such an elegant instrument of ruthless brutality. She’d witnessed these claws drenched and dripping with blood as they clutched still-beating hearts freshly torn from chests. An act so gruesome and terrible, yet so achingly beautiful.
Hawke waved away her meandering thoughts, leaning over his hand to get a better look. Sure enough, she spotted something embedded in the savage wound, keeping the injury open and bleeding and unable to heal properly.
“I tried to get it out myself. Used everything I could think of, even a knife—” Fenris paused mid-sentence, seeming to catch himself in the act of offering up an explanation for no particular reason. The elf shifted uncomfortably and finished on a quiet exhale, “--but only managed to make it worse.”
The faintest dusting of pink spread across his cheeks. An expression so charming that it took an incredible amount of Hawke’s willpower not to fall off her chair and simply die right there on the floor.
Hawke gathered her wits and assumed the best clinical demeanor she could muster.
“I’ll have to take whatever it is out before I go about anything else,” she observed cooly. Without a pause to observe Fenris’ reaction, Hawke clucked her tongue and took a mental inventory of the supplies she’d need then rose from the chair and bustled about gathering the required items.
Fenris appeared restless when she returned to the table with arms full of supplies. As she set everything out, he fidgeted nervously, stealing glances at her several times through his dark lashes when he thought she wasn’t looking.
Settling back in her chair, Hawke reached out to unfasten his gauntlet. Feris flinched away again. Getting exasperated, she made an impatient sound and looked up at him.
His green eyes seemed to plead, Can’t you do it without removing the gauntlet?
Hawke closed her eyes and took a deep breath, consciously softening her tone. Now was not the time to be overly snarky, she thought. He was finally placing a tiny fraction of his trust in her and she wasn’t about to squander the opportunity to get closer to him.
“I can’t properly clean the wound with it on,” she stated matter-of-factly.
Fenris’ nostrils flared, still as a statue. He looked like a startled deer, frozen and ready to bolt at the slightest movement or sound. Truly a wild and untamable creature under the veneer of a man.
Hawke made a calming gesture with her hands. “I’ll go slow. And I won’t touch you any more than I need to. You have my word.”
Fenris narrowed his eyes at her and looked at her for a long moment, searching for something in her expression. The intense scrutiny elicited a small squeeze of self-consciousness in Hawke but she was determined not to show it.
Just when she was sure Fenris would indeed bolt like the aforementioned deer, a look of resignation passed over his face and he offered the smallest nod of acquiescence. And although his face remained impassive, his sharp eyes followed her every miniscule movement like a predatory bird tracking a field mouse. The gravity of his perusal unsettled Hawke and had her fumbling in spite of herself.
In the process of unfastening the clawed glove, her thumb accidentally drug across the pulse point at his wrist. The contact caused Fenris to jump, sucking a breath through his teeth in a strained sort of hiss.
Startled, Hawke immediately let go and drew her hands away with a hasty apology. The armor clattered loudly to the floor. Both of them frozen in place. The only sound to penetrate the silence was the crackling of the hearth. She could see that Fenris was trying to control his breathing, trying to regain control of himself, so she patiently waited..
When the sharpest edge of panic left his body, Hawke sincerely implored, “Does it hurt you--when someone touches your skin? Your markings?”
It appeared to take him several moments to comprehend her words, then a few more to formulate an answer. The tension that wracked his frame eased but Fenris would not meet her eyes when he spoke.
“The touch does not,” his voice was low and haunted, “The memories they conjure do.”
The words made Hawke’s heart twist painfully.
What terrors he must have endured to injure his soul so deeply, she thought. Even the death of his former master could not fully heal the emotional wounds. A past that still held so much sway over the present. She resolved to make every effort in keeping it from influencing his future.
Hawke didn’t press Fenris any further on the subject. Instead, she placed a length of cloth in the bowl of clean water next to her on the table and spread out a fresh linen towel beneath his hand. He appeared to have returned to his normal self but she could still she the tiniest tremble in his fingers.
Observing this unconscious display of vulnerability, an incredible urge swept over her to mend him. To mend not only his physical injuries, but to try and heal the emotional wounds that festered inside him as well. Help him gather up the broken pieces of himself and be the glue that bonded them all back together. A small, shattered thing made whole again, albeit different in form and shape. If only Fenris would let her in, she lamented.
“Would it help if I told you what I’m doing so you know what to expect?” Hawke looked up to gauge his expression but the warrior was looking away again, placid.
“Do whatever you like,” Fenris huffed.
Taking that as an affirmative signal, Hawke retrieved the dampened cloth from the water bowl and regained a medical demeanor, “I’m going to clean the wound a little so I can see whatever is lodged in there.”
Fenris kept his eyes on the opposite wall, not even acknowledging that she’d spoken, nor that he’d even heard her.
Dilute crimson began to soak the linen beneath his hand as Hawke squeezed water over the wound, droplets of pink and red splotched against a white canvas like a macabre painting. She switched to softly dabbing and wiping around the gash, cleaning away some of the dried blood. Trying all the while to limit their touching as much as possible.
“The cut isn’t terribly deep. And it looks like--” Hawke murmured to herself, pausing to squint and lean in closer for a better view, “--a fragment of some kind is stuck inside. Like a shard of metal or…” Her sentence trailed off as she scrutinized and pondered said object, lost in her thoughts.
When she glanced up at Fenris from her hunched position over his hand, looking very much like some shoddy back-alley fortune teller, he was peering at her from the corner of his eye. Not the stare of a predator, nor a fearful creature. Something softer, warmer. Inquisitive.
Noticing the way Fenris didn’t seem to disguise his curious regard of her, Hawke was struck by the odd, flustered feeling. Like seeing something she shouldn’t have. Suddenly disconcerted, she looked away first and awkwardly cleared her throat.
“I’m going to use these forceps to try and pull it out.” Hawke retrieved and brandished said tool. It was somewhat rudimentary but would serve its purpose just fine. “It’ll hurt quite a bit. But I’ll go as fast as I can so try not to move too much.”
“I’ve endured much worse,” was his rapid-fire response. No hesitation, no reservations. To him, just a stated fact.
She could tell Fenris was trying to sound snide and unaffected, but the frown that creased his brow betrayed the dark reality behind his words. Her heart ached at the ease with which he spoke of his past. Almost dismissive about the abuse he suffered.
Hawke hesitated, “I might have to touch your palm for a moment if whatever it is proves to be stubborn.” The muscles in Fenris’ jaw tensed as he ground his teeth. Hawke couldn’t be sure if the action was fueled by real irritation or hidden anxiety.
“Get on with it,” he ground out.
Maneuvering the forceps into the wound, Hawke gained a solid grasp on the object and tugged gently but, though it gave a little, the thing remained steadfast. With a small sound of dismay, she placed her fingers along Fenris’ wrist for leverage and wriggled the instrument slightly. One final yank and the object slipped free, causing a bright trickle of fresh blood to start anew.
Hawke apologized under her breath.
Fenris remained completely motionless during the whole ordeal, as if Hawke had only batted an insect away instead of digging around in his bloody, open wound to rip out a jagged metal shard. She was struck again by how stoic he remained in the face of physical pain. Pain that would very likely make any other man faint.
No, Hawke thought, it was the memories and the trauma that truly tore at him.
Having removed the offending item, healing the injury would be quick and simple work for Hawke from here. A short, familiar incantation and Fenris would be good as new, ready to fight a vicious battle again another day.
Hawke closed her eyes and easily brought the healing spell to the forefront of her mind and focused her magic. Hovering her hand over his, so close but not quite touching. The familiar swell; ignition at her fingertips like static. She took a deep breath in and--
The mage smelled burning lyrium for a split second before a hand clamped down on her wrist so hard that she yelped in pained surprise, the spell dying on her lips.
“No magic,” Fenris barked, a severe edge to his voice that made Hawke’s eyes fly open.
Light glittered along the tracks in his skin like afternoon sun reflecting off a blanket of snow crystals. The marks weren’t the usual white-hot color of battle, but more of a cerulean murmur that ebbed and flowed. She would have been entranced had it not been for the hard lines of his face.
Hawke opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off with a savagery that made her shrink away the smallest bit.
“No. Magic.” Fenris punctuated each word with seething menace, tinged with frantic desperation.
Hawke’s heart sank as she realized what she’d been about to do without even thinking; temporarily forgetting his fear and using magic on him against his will.
“I should have asked permission before I—” Hawke faltered then, dejected. “I’m sorry.”
The elf remained silent, the terror on his face thinly-veiled.
A strange sensation brought her focus back down to where they were still connected and it was then that Hawke noticed Fenris had used his wounded hand to grab her and silence the spell. His blood felt molten against her skin, tickling as it lazily dripped down her hand. Long fingers so easily encircled her wrist in a crushing grip, so strong in his panic that the fine bones captured within it creaked in protest.
Fenris seemed far away even though he was sitting right in front of her. His sight turned inward, languishing somewhere in his mind. That urge inside Hawke to mend rushed back in, stifling any guilt or shame at what she’d done. I can still fix this, she thought, I can reel him back in. Contrary to her usual fiery personality, she could be calm and patient. For him.
In order to coax the warrior back to the present, Hawke softly called his name while tenderly brushing the fingertips of her free hand along his knuckles.
The effervescent glow of the lyrium markings slowly faded and he relinquished his bloody hold on her. Then he just sat there, shaking his head absently as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened. Couldn’t fathom how he’d ended up with her wrist nearly crushed in his injured hand. Fenris looked so unbearably lost and unmoored in that moment and she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and give him something solid to cling to amidst the tempest of his memories.
Taking advantage of his stunned bewilderment, Hawke turned Fenris’ hand over and pressed a clean cloth into his palm. She curled his fingers into a fist with her own, urging him to apply pressure. When he did not pull away or express discomfort, she let her touch gently linger.
They sat in silence for several minutes. Minutes that felt like an eternity to Hawke: willing her heart to stop hammering against her ribcage, remaining as still as possible, keeping her eyes averted. Serene on the outside, but tumultuous everywhere inside. In the silence, shame threatened to creep back in.
Fenris’ breathing evened out and the tendon that stood out along his wrist slowly released. The tension that had coiled through his entire body began to ease. She could feel his hand relax as it rested between her own.
After he was sufficiently calm, Hawke gingerly pried his fingers back to check the linen. Verifying that the pressure had staunched the active bleeding, she curled his fingers back around the cloth and rose from the table to retrieve a jar of salve from a nearby cupboard.
Now free of her hold, she fully expected Fenris to bolt from the room this time. But, to her surprise, again he remained.
When she returned to the table, Fenris was slumped forward in the chair. His head was bowed with the heel of his still-gauntleted hand pressed against his eye socket, metal claws raked into his white hair. There seemed to be a different kind of tension emanating from him now, but she couldn’t place it.
Hawke once again opened his injured hand. Removing the crimson stained linen, she folded it and used it to make quick work of the blood on her own wrist. Then, she began to clean and dress the wound with surgical efficiency. Losing herself in the work because she simply didn’t want to agonize over how badly she’d fucked up her one golden opportunity to get closer to the man she’d fallen so hard for.
However, when she applied the salve with the lightest caress her fingertips, Hawke could feel Fenris shudder with what she assumed was revulsion. Unbidden, a lump formed in her throat. She grabbed a roll of bandage and swiftly wrapped it around his palm, not wanting to continue the intimate contact that so obviously disgusted him. Fenris’ rejection was wordless, but it crushed her all the same.
Quite suddenly, it became difficult for Hawke to breathe.
“Well,” she said with forced optimism, “everything is patched up. Don’t do anything strenuous that might reopen it.” Hawke realized that she was babbling, picking at a loose thread on one of the linens. “You can take the salve with you, too. Use clean water and redress the wound at least once a day.”
“Hawke.”
She barreled on without pause. Terrified that if her mouth stopped moving, she might start hyperventilating under the weight of her immense humiliation. The only way she could think to salvage her relationship with him was to press on and do her best to pretend all of this never happened.
“Luckily, it wasn’t deep enough to need stitches. And knowing you, it should be mostly healed in a couple days. I’m a little rusty with first aid, so it’s a bit of a shoddy job.” Hawke retrieved the forgotten gauntlet from the floor where it had fallen earlier and placed it on the table. Still refusing to make eye contact, she darted to her feet and busied herself cleaning up the bloody mess she’d made of the table with jerky movements. “Just don’t let on to Anders that it was me who dressed your hand--”
Fenris’ voice was more insistent, trying to get her to snap out of the runaway merchant cart of her anxious yammering, “Hawke.”
“—he’ll never let me hear the end of it. Nor you, for that matter.” Hawke inserted a pause in her diatribe for a burst of fake laughter. “And I’d hate for anyone to give the dwarf any ideas. Maker forbid he start writing some lascivious tale about—"
Hawke heard a low growl, a scrape of chair legs across the floor, saw movement of bright white at the corner of her vision. Then felt the fleeting sensation of lips brushing against her cheek, soft and warm. She could only gasp in surprise, all thoughts and movements screeching to a halt.
The sound of quiet footfalls out of the room and into the foyer. A door being wrenched open and then slammed shut. Then silence. Hawke stood frozen in place for several long movements while the gears of her mind lurched and stuttered back into motion.
Comprehension dawned: Fenris had kissed her. Spontaneously. As thanks? No, not possible. Then why?
A violent blush colored her cheeks, burning all the way to the tips of her ears. No longer able to keep herself upright, legs suddenly shaky and weak, she sank down into one of the dining chairs. She brushed her fingertips across the spot on her cheek where the tingle of his lips still lingered. She looked down at the table in a daze.
His armor and the pot of salve were gone.