Archive of Our Own ^beta

“It’s not that I don’t love you, Fenris,” Hawke says, her eyes wide and genuine as she sits across from him. Fenris knows this look well. It’s the same one she gives to every lost and pathetic soul that crosses their path, promising to help, promising them she truly cares. He also knows what she does after they leave, the way her expression shutters into something bored or actively disdainful. He knows how many of those same people Hawke’s forgotten about entirely, moving from one town to the next without a thought for those she’d sworn her aid to.

He can’t say that he cares for being on this side of it.

“Fenris,” Hawke repeats, frowning. He hates to see her sad, of course, but he can’t help but find the look on her face…cute, strange as it is to say for such a formidable mage. The furrow between her brows is so pronounced, but it doesn’t make her any less baby-faced, any less beautiful. “I don’t think that silence is what anyone hopes to hear in response to that statement.”

Right. “I was…taken aback.”

He is fond of her frown, but he’s far more fond of the way it smooths into a brilliant smile, the look she seems to reserve for him alone. “I don’t blame you. But I do want to know your thoughts, my love.”

The naked affection in her voice is enough to soothe him, which in turn is enough for him to consider it. I’d like it if we could each see more than just each other, Hawke had said, right when he walked into the inn they were staying in, as though he would be startled into acquiescence. She does that when she’s nervous, words coming out in a rush rather than the careful diplomacy she’s used to.

“And you do not wish to leave entirely?” he asks, carefully. If Hawke no longer wants his place in her bed, he will live. He has lived through worse. But he does not know that he will be the same man he is now.

Hawke rushes to reassure him, leaving her chair to half-kneel in front of him and cradle his face in her hands. The question’s upset her, because her magic sparks against his face, ice-cold, making his brands burn. “Sorry! Sorry. No, Fenris, of course I don’t, I love you. I love you more than words can say.”

Fenris nods, ignoring the muscle in his neck he can feel spasming from the magic. She’s pulled her hands back anyway, entwining the fingers of each hand together like it’ll keep her from reaching out. “You merely want others in our bed.”

Hawke stares at him for a moment before she nods. “Yes. There’s so many people in the world, Fenris. I want a chance to enjoy them. And I want you to get the same! Have you ever even…I mean, you weren’t a virgin when we got together.” It’s not a question, but it’s not quite a statement either.

Danarius was not the type to allow any of his slaves to languish in only one duty. Fenris may have been his bodyguard, but…

“No,” he says, not wishing to think on it further.

Hawke nods, though she still looks uncertain. “Okay. But you can’t have had a wealth of partners. And I haven’t either! You should have seen the men in Lothering. Maker, it was dire.” She’s trying to make him laugh. He makes the corner of his mouth quirk up, just to see her smile. (He’d done that with Danarius, too, schooling his reactions to avoid upsetting the man. When had he noticed doing the same with her?) “And then in Kirkwall, I was so busy keeping Carver and Mother alive, and then…” She takes his hand, careful of her mana this time, and smile at him, soft and loving. “There was you. How could there be anyone else after that?”

Fenris squeezes her hand. “But I am no longer enough?”

Hawke’s smile goes brittle. “I think that’s an uncharitable way to read that.” She doesn’t drop his hand, but the squeeze she gives back is vicious, enough to make the bones of his hand grind together. He bears it; again, he’s been through worse.

“I merely wish to understand,” he tells her. “I had thought only to lie with you.”

“Oh,” Hawke says, sounding less flattered than he might have hoped for. “That’s sweet, Fenris.”

“If there is something you wish for, you know I would be happy to provide,” he says, using their interlaced fingers to tug her into his lap. She goes easily, straddling his lap, though she still has that look on her face. “I do love to satisfy you.”

He thinks that will be that. They have gotten into something of a routine lately. He hadn’t minded, not in the slightest, but then, she is a remarkable woman. If he wishes her to be rougher, to deal out pain, to bear it, he will do so gladly. She beams down at him, bad mood entirely forgotten.

“I love you, Fenris,” she says, pressing the sweetest of kisses to his mouth. He returns it, just as gentle. “Thank you. I know this isn’t easy for you, but it will be good for us, I just know it.”

Fenris frowns. “Hawke.”

But she’s on a roll now, ignoring him entirely, pushing herself off her lap. “And we can talk about it, too! If you enjoy something you do with someone, I’m happy to help you try it, and of course I’ll keep you updated. Do you have anyone in mind? I always thought you and Isabela had…” She wiggles her eyebrows, playful. “But she told me you hadn’t, just that she’d wanted to, so maybe now’s the time!”

“Hawke,” he repeats.

“Not Isabela?” she asks.

“I do not wish to share you,” he says instead. “That is not what I meant.”

“Oh,” Hawke says again, speaking more coldly than she has all day. “So you don’t wish to satisfy me, then.”

Fenris sighs. “You must know I had intended that as flirtation, Hawke, not as agreement with this.”

“No, Fenris, it’s fine,” Hawke says with a sigh. “I misunderstood. I’m sorry. I just…you said if there was something I wish for, and I wished for this. That’s all.” She looks genuinely devastated. If he were to pull her in for a hug now, her magic on his brands would be enough to make him collapse in agony.

Fenris swallows. “You truly wish for this? There is nothing I can do for you alone?”

She looks at him, pouting like a child, and says, “Only this.”

Now that Danarius is dead, he cannot think of a prospect more horrifying than upsetting her. Losing her to another’s arms is a not-quite-distant second, but… “I still do not wish to hear about it.”

Hawke beams at him, the look picture-perfect. He hates himself for his first reaction to it being doubt. She may be a capricious woman, his Hawke, but she loves him, and he loves her, and if this is what she wants, then he can live with it.

Fenris knew it would take some time to get used to the idea, just as he'd known it would take Hawke no time at all to...explore. Still, he hadn’t expected it to be that very same night she’d asked. Of course he’d known that Anders was in the town they were staying in, on the run from the long arm of the Chantry just as he and Hawke were. They’d stocked up on potions, Anders still as talented an herbalist as ever, and Fenris had pretended he did not still loathe the mage at his very core, had ignored the way Anders had held Hawke with the same desperate longing he always had.

Hawke was Fenris’s, after all, just as Hawke was hers.

He’d left the tavern again to go get food. Or supplies, perhaps. He hardly remembers now. It doesn’t matter now, because he walks into his room expecting to see Hawke in the bed that they’d shared and instead sees her head thrown back in ecstasy as she rides the reason they’re on the run, Anders staring at her body like this will be the only chance he has to see it, greedy and covetous.

Fenris watches for longer a moment than he truly needs to. Perhaps more than a moment. Enough time for him to see Anders tug Hawke down right as he thrusts up. Her mouth drops it open like it always does when she comes, moaning loud enough that they must be able to hear her in the tavern below.

Anders never lets his fingers stray far from Hawke’s cunt, rubbing at her clit to help her through the aftershocks, her hips grinding against his like she doesn’t want to be apart from him for even a moment.

Fenris’s gut churns with jealousy. He hasn’t seen her do that for him in months. He’s harder than he’s been in as long a time.

Hawke doesn’t notice him as she comes back to herself, giving Anders a brilliant smile and pulling off despite his whine of protest. “Oh, trust me, you’ll like this,” she reassures him, pressing a quick, sweet kiss to his mouth just as she had to Fenris earlier. She makes her way down Anders’ body, settling herself between his legs and bending down to take his cock into her mouth.

Anders shouts at the first brush of her tongue, hand tangling in her hair and yanking her further down until he’s fully in her throat. Fenris intends to storm forward and pull Hawke away, whether to demand he treat her more kindly or to have a clearer shot to rip out Anders’s heart, he isn’t sure, but he freezes after taking only half a step at the loud moan that Hawke lets out at the move, looking up at Anders with eyes so wide and loving that Fenris…

He hates her for it. He hates himself for hating her. She had asked for only this from him; how can he struggle to give it to her?

When Hawke pulls back to breathe, she lets her head rest on Anders’s thigh. “Where do you want me?” she asks, voice ragged and rough with the strain. “I’ll let you come down my throat. I’ll let you come inside me.” Anders’s hips jerk at that, the head of his cock smearing precum and spit over Hawke’s cheek. She laughs, delighted. “That’s a clear answer. The one I hoped for, too.”

She notices Fenris when she readjusts her position, but instead of guilt or a come-hither look (and he doesn’t know which he’s hoping for), she just gives him a quick smile like she used to when she first spotted him waiting at their table in Hanged Man, as though nothing more remarkable is happening than that, even as she gets her hand on Anders to ease him back into her, even as she comes again on Anders, even as Anders spills deep inside her with a deep, satisfied groan.

“I thought you said he was okay with this,” Anders says, eyes closed as his head rests against the wall next to the bed. It does not escape Fenris’s notice that he asks this after he is done.

“He is,” Hawke says easily, pulling herself off of Anders and flopping next to him on the bed. There’s a dazed, fuckstruck look on her face as her eyes meet Fenris, her legs falling open. He can see Anders’s cum leaking out of her. She makes this small noise, almost a whine, and puts her hand between her own thighs, curling to push the cum deeper inside herself.

Maker, Fenris hopes it doesn’t take. The idea of raising a mage child, of Anders’s child, of having to remember this very moment every time he saw it…he could not bear it. But it’s not as though he could leave Hawke, either.

“You do, right?” Hawke asks him, still fingering herself. Anders has turned to watch her doing so, dick twitching with interest, even as it’s still soft. “You wouldn’t have lied to me, would you? I couldn’t bear that, Fenris. I never want to hurt you.” Her eyes flutter closed as her free hand traces down to touch her clit, still swollen and needy even after having come twice. Insatiable, Fenris thinks, disgusted and desirous in equal measure. “Fenris? Fenris, love, tell me you’re okay with this —” She moans. Anders nudges her legs further apart so he can get a better view.

This is what she wants, and he only ever wants her to be happy. He must be okay with it. The words still don’t come out.

Hawke’s bottom lip wobbles. She looks perfectly pathetic, the same practiced look she gave any Templar who might be sympathetic enough to a sweet, pretty mage girl, knowing it would work on them, laughing about it after to hide the way her shoulders still shook with fright. Is that how she thinks of him? Does she truly think him so pathetic? Or, alternately, is she scared of what he might do? He hopes neither is true. He's unsure which horrifies him more.

“It is as I told you,” Fenris starts.

Hawke sighs before he can finish, say that while he isn’t happy he can bear it if she needs this, all the tension in her shoulders dropping as she gives him a lazy, hungry smile. “Good. See, Anders? I told you.”

Anders doesn’t look convinced, but then, he doesn’t look at Fenris much at all, his attention focused entirely on the woman at his side.

“Love you,” Hawke says as she comes. Fenris pretends he's saying it to him. “Come on, Fenris, I'll take care of you.” She spreads her legs even wider. He can't see the spend spilling out of her anymore, it's true, but he knows that when he fucks her, Anders' cum will be alongside his own. Discomfitingly, the very idea of it makes Fenris impossibly harder, even as his heart sinks.

“As you wish,” he tells her, knowing he could deny her nothing, and begins shedding her armor to better serve her.