Chapter Text
The mage was tired.
An inattentive mage was a danger to himself and everyone around him.
These two things Fenris knew. Alone, they were simply facts. Together, they were a problem.
Fenris had a liking for problems. A good problem could occupy his mind during hours of guard duty; or, lately, hours of following Hawke around on whichever of his mad tasks called for a great number of dead bodies. This seemed to be most of them.
Fenris did not mind following Hawke—not that he found himself following Hawke in the strictest sense. Unless he traveled with Aveline, who had earned the greater measure of Hawke's trust, or Carver, who was eager to showcase his aggression, Fenris was often the first to enter a new area. Occasionally the lighter-footed members of their party would scout ahead or clear traps, but Fenris found it easier to keep hostile attention focused on him when he and his large maul were the first thing they saw.
It was a strategy that proved successful in many instances, and one that Hawke gladly encouraged. As a mage, he was not keen to lead from the front, though he led nonetheless.
Fenris did not mind following Hawke. He simply found it... tiresome, at times. Within Kirkwall, there was plenty of killing to break up the long stretches of Hawke's tirades and Isabela's flirting. Hiking along the Wounded Coast, however, was a test of his patience.
And so. He found himself thinking of problems.
Anders himself was a problem, but not one that Fenris could solve. This did not stop him from thinking about the demon Anders played host to, or repeating to himself for the hundredth time exactly why the mage was an utter fool who should be put down for all their sakes. This Varric called 'brooding,' but it was not what Fenris was doing.
...He was not currently brooding. Not that he ever did. The dwarf knew nothing of his affairs.
Fenris had cautioned Hawke about relying on the volatile mage on multiple occasions, but as this had a tendency to earn Hawke's ire, he did not do it often. He would continue trying to solve this problem, but in the meantime, it was useful to focus on problems that he could solve.
How might he encourage Anders to sleep? Simply asking the man to do so was out of the question—Anders would likely stay awake out of spite. Besides, Fenris did not need to ask the mage anything. He merely needed to find a way to turn the suggestion into an insult. But what caliber of insult?
Fenris could imply that the mage was weak and needed rest in order to keep up with them. This might do no more than drive Anders to prove him wrong by overexerting himself, and thus, was not ideal. Perhaps Fenris could make a jibe at the mage's appearance, playing on his arrogance. It was a tad petty by his standards, and it suggested that Fenris had taken note of Anders' appearance for purposes other than to distinguish him from (more) hostile targets.
Fenris had, in fact, taken note of the mage's appearance, but this was not something he intended to make Anders aware of. Certainly not where Isabela might overhear.
He was momentarily distracted from this problem when a high-pitched scream cut through the air. He looked to Hawke, whose expression had immediately grown serious. Fenris would have known without checking that their party was going to chase after the noise and attempt to rescue whomever made it, but he made a point to watch Hawke's expression in these moments. Ever since Hawke had repurchased his family estate, Fenris had been seeing something strange in his face. And he was beginning to think it was excitement.
“I'll scope it out, sweet thing,” said Isabela, ready to take off ahead of them. “You know how I love being sneaky.”
Hawke gave her a closed-mouth grin and said, “Not a chance. Fenris?”
Fenris did not reply but stalked off in the direction of the noise as quietly and quickly as he was able.
“Rushing in to save the day, are we?” Isabela drawled. “Well, that's not like us at all.”
Tuning out his companions, ears perked for a tone change that would indicate orders rather than banter, Fenris led them along the coast. He focused on his task, attuned to the hunt. He found it satisfying to use the skills he had learned tracking down runaway slaves and turn them on slavers instead. If there was some cosmic score to settle—and despite his conversations with the priest, he was not convinced of any such concept—he imagined this would contribute to resolving his debts.
The camp was indeed full of slavers, and as soon as they happened upon it, Fenris found himself wishing that Hawke would've allowed Isabela to scout first. It was useless to wish about such things, of course, but he couldn't help thinking it when he realized very quickly that saving the captured men and women was going to be impossible. There were simply too many slavers, and the hostages were inaccessible from their position.
Some of them might have been saved, if Hawke had bothered to strategize. As it was, the slavers would be able to kill every last one of them before their party could get close enough to do anything about it. Such was the Tevinter-style practice of scorched earth. Fenris pursed his lips against the loss and focused on the fight.
Both Isabela and Fenris were better with strategy than Hawke, and fortunately, they communicated well on the battlefield. For all her faults, the pirate was clever and quick. She was never close enough to get in his way, yet always seemed to be there to prevent the worst blows before they landed on him. She updated him frequently on the state of the fight, alerting him to flanking enemies and notifying him when she disappeared to aid their more fragile companions. This allowed him to focus on his task of keeping hostile attention without taking too many hits.
“Fenris, sweetheart!” called Isabela from somewhere to his left. “I've got some new playthings for you. Yours are getting bloody.”
Isabela, Fenris thought, was very good at getting people to do what she wanted without ever actually telling them to. This was necessary around Hawke, who tended to bristle at the suggestion that he was anything other than entirely in charge. This was the struggle with Hawke, as with all leaders: to prove oneself competent enough to be valuable without surpassing the man in power.
The pirate was quite skilled in appearing nonthreatening, when Fenris knew she was anything but.
Fenris converged on the slavers that had come up from a lower camp. He thought, again, that Isabela would have seen them had she been permitted to scout first. This may have been at the expense of the screaming woman, but there was no point in dying for the slaves because they had charged into battle unprepared.
The fight was not going well. Isabela was taking too many hits, and the slavers gave her no opening to down a healing potion. Anders kept her standing; but the more mana he used to heal Isabela, the less he had to take out the slavers that attacked her.
A wide swing of his maul provided a brief opening that allowed him to check on their mages. Hawke was occupied with a few enemies that had broken away from the main group, and Anders was downing a lyrium potion. A moment later, Fenris felt a rejuvenating energy seep into his sinews and shouted to the mage, “Heal Isabela!”
As the fight wore on, the pirate pulled a disappearing act. Fenris was relieved; she would reappear at the edge of the battle, throwing current enemies off her back and surprising new ones. It would focus more attention on Fenris, but that was what Fenris was for. He'd taken several hits already, and he was flagging a bit now without Anders' attentions, but he'd be fine. Activating his lyrium would let the blows pass through him, which would surprise the slavers and give the others time to dispatch them.
He pulled on his brands, ready to activate them, and that was when he heard Isabela's scream. One of the slavers had swung his sword wide, catching Isabela in the stomach. He must've done so blindly, but the attack had been successful. He hardly had time to relish his victory before he was forced to halt in place courtesy of a frost spell from Anders, who rushed to Isabela's side.
Fenris was not religious, but the thought suddenly struck him to offer up a plea to whatever gods may be listening. He didn't know any prayers, however, so instead he bashed a slaver's head in. And then he did it again.
***
It was stupidly hot outside, Hawke and Isabela were flirting heavily, and Anders was tired.
There was a plague sweeping through Darktown. It was not a particularly strange disease or one that was very difficult to treat, but it spread fast. Anders hadn't slept in... oh, two days? He couldn't remember. It didn't matter anyway because he was going to collapse in bed as soon as he got back and sleep for a week.
He could not actually do this with the patients that needed his attention, with Hawke and his charming smile asking for help with this or that (and it never did matter what he was asking because Anders was incapable of denying the man), and especially with the lingering feeling that no matter how much he had accomplished on any given day, he had not done enough. He was almost certain this was Justice's influence, and he was convinced that he deserved it after wasting so much of his life with selfishness.
Anders would likely manage a couple of hours' sleep and then get right back to work. But it was nice to pretend otherwise.
The slaver fight, at least, had given him a boost of adrenaline. It was just difficult enough to require every ounce of his focus, which was a welcome reprieve from worrying about the clinic and Hawke and the Kirkwall mages and all mages across the entirety of Thedas who were unjustly imprisoned...
Anders kept his attention on Isabela for most of the fight, healing her wounds and flinging bolts of spirit magic from his staff at the enemies who took swipes at her. He was actually doing rather well, keeping ahead of her injuries, though it was costing more mana than he had at his disposal after a solid month of inadequate sleep.
He sucked down some lyrium and threw an aura on Fenris, the ungrateful bastard, who shouted at him to heal Isabela instead. Anders was keeping up with Isabela just fine while Fenris was starting to look a bit ragged, but if the elf hated the mere touch of magic enough to suffer through the slavers' hits, then that was his business.
Isabela vanished, and Anders had only just turned his attention back to Fenris when her scream alerted him. It was a lucky hit by one of the slavers, but he wouldn't get another one. Anders froze him with a snap of his fingers and ran for Isabela.
Hawke, being Hawke, chose this inopportune moment to start channeling a firestorm. Hawke was a good leader, honestly, but he did not understand combat strategy. At all. Anders couldn't exactly blame him. Those few mages who were trained in combat were often led by non-mages and rarely had the occasion to do something as scandalous as think for themselves. As an apostate, Hawke was better off than any Circle mage would've been, but he simply did not have a mind for tactics.
Anders used to be like that. Then he'd met the Hero of Ferelden, and she had quite literally beaten it into him. In fact, he wished Surana were around right about now, because he had no idea how to go about beating anything into Hawke; though if he had, he probably would not have used the talent to convey the importance of battle tactics.
“Hawke,” shouted Anders, “keep close, and watch our flank!”
Hawke was not a man who liked being told to do things, but this was not the time to appease Hawke's ego. Isabela's insides were on her outside, and Anders was out of mana. Again. He swallowed more lyrium and got to work.
Anders really should not have been surprised when Hawke did not listen to his advice. The man remained exactly where he was, and while his fire was very effective in dispatching a large number of enemies, it also obstructed the battlefield. Hawke did not notice when two slavers, who had apparently been off doing Maker knew what while their fellows attacked, came up behind Anders and Isabela.
Anders did not notice either, but Fenris did, which was fortunate because otherwise Anders would have been very dead.
Once Isabela's condition had stabilized, Anders rejoined the fight to take care of the rest of the slavers. He froze several of them, and Fenris smashed their icy flesh to bits, which was rather messy. Anders would be washing chunks of slaver out of his hair tonight. Which may have been partly his fault, but he was blaming Fenris for being so violent.
Trusting Fenris and Hawke (well, maybe not Hawke) to search out any stragglers and give the all-clear, Anders turned his attention to Isabela again. She was unconscious but breathing steadily. He checked her wounds and began to dress and bandage them. Meanwhile, Hawke was shouting. Anders only half-listened to his tirade. It included a lot of swearing. And rightly so, Anders thought, when all the hostages he'd wanted to save had been killed. Though perhaps Hawke ought to be directing some of that anger at himself.
Anders was surprised when he turned it on Fenris. “You didn't save them!” shouted Hawke. “What's the point of killing these bastards if all the slaves die too?”
“They were not slaves yet,” said Fenris, and Anders didn't think that was an especially important distinction, but Fenris was very particular about what did and did not constitute slavery. “Isabela may have been able to save some of them if she'd been permitted to scout first.”
Coming from Fenris, who seemed to choose his every word carefully, this was an accusation. Hawke certainly took it that way. But then, Hawke had been known to take a sideways look as an accusation when he was in the mood for a fight. Clearly the last fight had not been enough for him.
“If you'd gotten here faster, I could have saved them, but I can't start until you pull everyone in or they'll come after me!”
“Isabela would have gotten here quickest,” said Fenris pointedly.
“Isabela is bleeding out because you couldn't keep the slavers focused on you. That's your job.”
Anders felt the need to pipe in with, “She'll be fine. Just needs a bit of rest.”
“And Anders!” said Hawke suddenly, and for a moment Anders thought Hawke was going to yell at him, but his anger was still directed at Fenris. “You nearly let him get his head taken off! You have one job, Fenris, and that is to convince people to hit you instead of our healer.”
“If you've noticed, Hawke,” said Fenris, and he sounded bored despite his scathing words, “Anders was not hit, so I must have performed my one job adequately.”
Hawke laughed cruelly. “Adequately?” he repeated. “Is that what you call it when Isabela is lying on the ground?”
Isabela really was going to be absolutely fine. Hawke was being purposefully dramatic, and Anders had learned there was no reasoning him out of it when he got like this.
“Isabela's injuries are due to your negligence, not mine.” Oh. Oh. Fenris was going for the kill now. “You ought to leave the strategizing to those who possess skill and experience in that area.”
“It just bothers you, doesn't it, to take orders from a filthy mage.”
Heat flared up in Anders' chest because Hawke was certainly right about that. It was unjust of Fenris to blame all mages for the cruelties he had suffered, and he had no right to take that hatred out on Hawke. It was strange that Anders had found himself agreeing with Fenris up until that point in the conversation, until he was reminded that Fenris was just a bitter elf who would leap on the opportunity to blame the nearest mage for all the ills in Thedas.
Isabela regained consciousness then, and Anders felt all the anger rush out of him at the sound of her pained groan. He stopped rolling her bandage to place a hand on her cheek. “Try not to move, love. I'll give you something for the pain.”
“Pain?” she repeated throatily. “What pain? I live for pain.”
“That's my girl,” he said fondly.
Hawke and Fenris had halted their argument and did not speak a word to each other as the party cleared up the camp and hunted for a less blood-stained bit of coast to make their own camp. At first Hawke was insistent on finding another band of slavers and actually saving some slaves this time so that the entire trip wasn't a waste, but Anders managed to talk him into settling down for the night. He was worried Hawke would be angry with him, but it seemed all of Hawke's ire for the moment was reserved for Fenris.
Anders ought to have been just fine with that, but he felt a bit guilty about it considering that Fenris had saved his life. He argued with himself for a bit and came to the conclusion that Fenris had only saved him so that he could save Isabela, who Fenris seemed to be tolerant if not downright fond of, and that he would've certainly let Anders die if he'd been alone. So really, he had nothing to feel guilty about. After all, he wasn't the one who'd yelled at Fenris.
He just... hadn't stopped it. Even if he thought Fenris may have had a point. Regarding strategy. And nothing else. But he didn't have to be so rude to Hawke about it just because he was a mage.
Fenris offered to take first watch, and of course Hawke took last. That left Anders with mid, and as the party's healer, he would not let Isabela take watch at all. Hawke seemed annoyed about that, but he was probably just angry at Fenris still.
Anders fell asleep quickly and found himself in the Fade, in a mirror of Vigil's Keep of all places. For all the darkspawn and templars and scheming nobles, there was something he'd liked about being a Grey Warden. It wasn't until he left that he realized Vigil's Keep was the closest thing he'd ever had to a home. It was actually a rather nice thing to dream of, which was a surprise, as his dreams were not usually pleasant.
When Fenris woke him, Anders left the Fade reluctantly, preparing for another sleepless night. Only to find that it was morning.
“You and Hawke cut me out of watch duty?” asked Anders indignantly. Really, that was sweet of Hawke, but he didn't need to be coddled.
Fenris blinked at him as he fastened his armor. “I took your watch,” he said, tightening a buckle.
Anders gaped, then narrowed his eyes as he inspected Fenris. There were bags beneath his eyes, and he grimaced as he stretched his neck. The elf was telling the truth. He thought Anders was too weak to handle himself because he was a mage and had stolen his watch!
“I'm perfectly capable of taking my own watch,” said Anders grumpily, scrambling to pull on his boots. He could get dressed faster than that stupid thieving elf.
“You were tired,” said Fenris dismissively before wandering off to pack up supplies.
Of course Fenris had noticed he was tired. Fenris was always watching mages to make sure they didn't spontaneously sprout into abominations and kill everyone. Fenris was a paranoid sod who had to assert his strength by staying awake longer than the rest of them. Pathetic.
They set out for Kirkwall, and Hawke was back to chatting with Isabela, whose recovery was coming along nicely. He had an arm around her, which was not actually necessary, but they both seemed very pleased about it so that was fine. Hawke was into women, and that was fine. Everything was fine and dandy, and Anders really didn't care how many pirates Hawke put his dick into, and that was that.
Anders tried not think about Hawke, and that left thinking about Fenris. Anders stewed about mage-hating elves for a good amount of time, and then he saw Fenris yawn. He smirked.
“Need to slow down, Fenris?” he asked. “You look a bit tired.”
“I am fine,” said Fenris.
“You sure? Because there's an injured woman and a mage that are both moving faster than you.”
Fenris glanced at Hawke and Isabela ahead of them and said, “Hawke feels his leadership has been challenged. He needs to be reassured.”
Anders blinked. “Well.” He really didn't have anything snarky to say to that. Not that he'd let it stop him. “That's actually... insulting! Hawke's ego isn't that big.”
“Really?” asked Fenris, sounding utterly unconvinced.
“Yes, really. He's a good man, and you have no right to disparage him just because he's a mage and you think all mages are arrogant sods.”
“Are you suggesting that Hawke is not arrogant?”
Well... “Yes! I mean, he's not.”
With a skeptical look, Fenris said, “Alright, then. Inform him that his hair is sticking up at the back.” He gestured to the stubborn cowlick at the back of Hawke's messy head. “See what he does.”
Anders shot Fenris an incredulous look. “Did you just...? Was that a joke?”
“I do have a sense of humor,” said Fenris, apparently annoyed at the suggestion that he did not. Which. He didn't.
“You've never told me a joke,” said Anders. He was still trying to find some way to be offended about this.
But then Fenris did something even stranger: he smiled. At Anders. It was a small gesture, barely noticeable; but combined with the mirth in his eyes, it transformed his face. Anders' heart stuttered, and he found that he remembered nothing he'd ever wanted to say.
“I just did,” said Fenris, still smiling. Smiling at Anders. “If you would prefer to walk in silence, that is fine by me.”
They did just that for several moments while Anders attempted to figure out what in the Void was going on with his traitorous body, which appeared to be having some sort of nonsensical reaction to Fenris' smile. He felt nervous and a bit warm (it was hot outside, it was just this Maker-damned heat, that's all) and all he knew for certain was that it was very, very bad, because it couldn't be anything else.
And then Anders, because Maker knew how his mouth ran away with him, said, “I'd rather hear another joke. I'm not convinced you know more than one.”
“Well, then,” said Fenris dryly, “I suppose I will have to convince you.”
And to Anders' surprise, he did.