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rose_in_winterCharacters: Fenris, Mage Female Hawke, Sebastian Vael (Fenris/f!Hawke/Sebastian)
Rating: NC-17
Contains: Canon-typical violence, explicit sex
Fic Wordcount: 117,000
Chapter Wordcount:
Notes: Canon-divergent, ignoring most of Act 3. A thousand thanks tosenmut's Discord server for cheering and brainstorming and reactions and encouragement.
Beta: breadedsinner and MikWrites_InSpace
Summary: After the duel with the Arishok, Ariane Hawke looks around at the wreckage of her life in Kirkwall and asks herself: what is left for me here? As tensions increase between the Circle and the Templars, she turns to helping Sebastian retake Starkhaven. Meanwhile, she is trying to figure out how to love Fenris when he hates mages, and also definitely not looking at Sebastian's gorgeous eyes. Definitely not. Neither is Fenris. Sebastian is not looking back.
Definitely.
Canon divergence in which almost all of act 3 goes in the bin, and three damaged people try to find a way to live with each other and themselves, and maybe heal a bit.
Chapter index here.
It was a short walk to her bedchamber, but plenty long enough for a thousand doubts and insecurities to claw at her. They swarmed when she opened the door and was reminded that this morning she'd left half her wardrobe scattered across the floor and the bed, and books piled up from her frantic research efforts before their trip to Vimmark. "Sorry, about this," she stammered, the sweep of her hand encompassing the entire room.
"Hawke," he said with a half-laugh, "if we are comparing living situations, yours is far tidier than mine." He tilted his head, his eyes locked on hers. "What is it?"
She opened her mouth and closed it twice while she fumbled for words. "I usually try not to show the messy bits," she said. Her mother's admonitions echoed in her mind. Don't give anyone a reason to look too closely at you--or at your father or sister. Be a good girl. Stand up straight. Don't talk back.
He frowned, a faint vertical line forming between his brows. "You do not have to be perfect," he said.
She tried not to add the unspoken but it would be better if you weren't a mage.
"Is this what you want?" he asked her. HIs gaze was watchful, and she was unnervingly aware of how perceptive he could be. She swallowed hard and made herself nod. She could do nothing else, pinned by his too-sharp gaze.
When at last he looked away and released her, she let out a slow breath and carefully unclenched her hands, turning her attention to smoothing the blanket. She couldn't look at him again, not yet. When hatred of magic didn't blind him, he saw her too clearly, and she felt like that sight was a dagger to her throat.
She took a deep breath that didn't catch in her throat, and looked up. He had come two steps inside the room, but still kept his distance, his gaze turned aside to the cold fireplace. She crossed the room toward him. His cheek was warm beneath her hand when she turned his face to her, and leaned up to kiss him.
His hands slid into her hair, warm and bare of armor, and she sighed when she felt him loosening the pins, letting her hair fall free. Pins scattered across the floor with a soft ping. She'd find them in the morning. Right now she was more interested in unlacing the neck of his shirt and biting her way down the line of his neck, lyrium tingling icy against her tongue, to the hollow of his neck. She kissed and sucked hard enough to leave a bruise in the morning and he moaned, the sound vibrating against her lips. His arms tightened around her and he gripped her hair tightly enough to pull her head back, meeting her with a much harder kiss. She stepped back carefully, drawing him with her. One step, another, another, and then she turned and shoved him back, hoping she'd remembered their location right, and smiled sharply under his kiss when she felt him hit the solid wooden post at the corner of her bed. She followed, her body pressed tight to his, and the warmth of him soaked into her.
She misjudged the angle and bit his lip harder than she meant, but he only made a faint growling sound and then abruptly turned so they were reversed, her back pressed hard to the post and his hand cushioning her head from hitting it. He pinned her against the solid wood and released her mouth only to set his lips against her ear. Hot and cold shivers chased each other down her spine and settled into a low, intense heat. She tried to return the favor, but his hand was tangled tight in her hair, and she couldn't bend her neck the right way. She could only hold on tight, cursing breathlessly, as he scraped the rim of her ear with his teeth.
She slid her hands under his shirt and dragged her nails up the smooth line of his spine, tugging fabric out of her way as she went. It bunched near his shoulders and he leaned back with a faint laugh. "There's no rush," he said.
She couldn't figure out how to answer that, so instead she took advantage of the slight gap between them and pulled the shirt over his head. Candlelight washed over his skin, warm brown slashed by bright lines of lyrium, and for a moment she just stared. It wasn't their first time together, but some part of her still found it a miracle, that he would let her touch him despite the magic in her hands and her blood and her words, that he didn't flinch away.
Something must have shown on her face. He tipped her chin up so she had to meet his eyes, and held her like that until the weight of his attention wound tight around her chest, and made it hard to breathe. She dug deep for a smile, and rested her fingertips butterfly-soft on the concerned crinkle next to his eye, smoothing it gently. When she leaned in to kiss him, he slid his hand back into her hair, and it was a relief.
When she reached for the waist of his trousers, he caught her wrist carefully in his hand and held it pressed against her side, his grip light but firm. He placed light kisses along her jaw and down the side of her neck, pausing at the join of neck and shoulder to tease. She locked her knees in order to stay standing. "There's no rush," he said again, and damn it, his voice wasn't fair when it was deep and rough like that. "Unless you have somewhere to be?"
There was just enough of an edge of uncertainty to the question to make her shove her own awkwardness aside. "No," she said, and lost her grip on what she'd meant to say briefly as he teased his way along her collarbone. "I--" The hand he held closed into a fist, and the sting of her own nails against her palm made her shiver. "I just wanted to get my hands on you," she said in a rush.
It wasn't untrue, but it wasn't the whole truth. He didn't say anything to that, but he did let her hand go, and she rested both palms flat against his chest. She could feel the thin ridges of scars where flesh and magic met. When she leaned in to taste, to trace the swells of muscle, she kept clear of the lyrium lines, not wishing to bring any unhappy thoughts to mind.
When they had been together before, it had been a frantic rush of heat, caution flung to the wind, and she hadn't had to think about what she was doing. She didn't want to drive him away again, and she was sickeningly afraid that in her awkwardness she would do just that.
He kissed her, long and deep and sweet, and she wrapped her arms around him and clung. She would have pulled him with her into the blankets, but he kept her pressed against the bed post, as though he had nothing better to do than kiss her all night.
So she paid attention to how he reacted when she kissed him back, when she tugged gently on his hair or kissed her way down his arms. He kept his reactions muted, so she counted it an enormous victory when she heard his breath catch, or when he made a soft sound that he tried to keep pinned in his throat and couldn't. She could feel muscles flex under her hands and mouth, and she used it as her guide. The inner curve of his elbow, she discovered, was sensitive enough that he sank his hand deep into her hair and gripped it tight when she traced patterns with the tip of her tongue. When she carefully bit at the pulse in his throat, he actually moaned, and it sent a bright, sharp shiver through her.
She did it again, and then found herself lifted off her feet and tumbling onto the bed, his hands remarkably efficient at getting her out of the comfortable tunic and trousers she'd changed into after her bath. Her bedroom was cool, but he pressed against her, warm and strong, and she pressed up into him.
He drew his head back and studied her, his face shadowed enough that she couldn't see his expression clearly. She froze, unsure if she'd done something wrong or brushed against a memory he'd rather she didn't.
He shifted onto one elbow and slowly trailed his fingertips up her arm, so light he raised shivers and gooseflesh in his wake. She bit her lip and held herself still, so still, barely breathing, and let the heat run through her.
He traced a slow spiraling pattern across her collarbones and down, between her breasts, curving around one with the same ghostly not-quite touch. It felt pleasant enough, not as nice as the kisses along her ear and neck, but she'd seen enough people playing in the public rooms of the Blooming Rose to know it was supposed to interest her, so she made a soft sound of encouragement. He narrowed his eyes slightly and did it again; she closed her eyes and let the shivery sensation roll over and through her, and then pulled him down for a kiss. She liked having him pressed against her, warm and solid despite his lean build.
A moment later he broke the kiss and pressed himself back up onto his elbows. "Hawke," he said, "if you don't like something, tell me."
She flinched. "I didn't dislike it," she protested. Even in the shadow, she could see his frown.
"That is not the same thing," he said. He brushed the hair back from her face gently. HIs eyes fixed on some point past her as he seemed to think his way through what he wanted to say. "If this isn't what you want," he said, "just say so."
"That's not it." Damn it, she'd ruined a perfectly good time. She suspected she should not say that aloud. "You like it."
His frown deepened. "What I like," he said, "is for both of us to be enjoying ourselves."
"I am," she said.
He huffed out a sigh. "Hawke. I can tell when you're not being sincere." He smoothed her hair back absently. "Don't scowl at me. I mean, I would rather touch you the way you want to be touched."
She moved one shoulder uncomfortably. "I don't put that much thought into it," she admitted. The next words choked her. "It's easier that way." She wished she'd been better at pretending. She wished she was more normal since apparently normal people knew what they wanted. She had less idea of what she wanted than someone who couldn't remember most of his life, and that was humbling.
He kissed her very lightly. "Truly," he said wryly, that deep note back in his voice, "it would be a great hardship to try all the things I have imagined doing to you, and find out which you like. It might take weeks." He considered. "Or months."
Hawke swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry as dust, as those words rolled over her. "That sounds like a substantial undertaking."
"Hmmm." He smoothed back her hair again. "I would enjoy every moment," he said, "but only if you will tell me honestly what you do like, and what you don't."
At the moment she thought she might promise him anything, as long as he didn't stop talking like that, but still she hesitated. "And if I don't like something you like?"
"Then we find something else we both like." He leaned back. "Hawke, it's not that complicated."
She covered the uncertainty with a smile. "Then perhaps you'd better come back down here and kiss me."
"Promise me, Hawke." He laced his fingers through hers. "That you will tell me what you do and do not like."
She was going to drown in this, in the things he wanted from her, and yet she knew he asked for almost nothing.
"I promise," she whispered, the words catching in her throat.
He bent down to kiss her. "Good," he murmured--and then rolled away from her, flopped on his back across the bed. His arm curled around her shoulders and tugged her in close.
Hawke propped herself up on her elbow. "I thought you wanted--"
"This is what I want right now," he murmured, pulling her back down again.
She went, but she couldn't relax against him. This should be easier. She knew how to curl into him, to match her breath to his, to feel his arm around her. But it wasn't what they'd come upstairs for, and she wasn't certain why he had changed paths. If she asked him, she suspected she would get an answer that didn't make sense to her.
Who could she ask? Varric was out of the question. Anders too. She could not even imagine trying to ask Aveline, and she didn't think Merrill would know any better than she did. Maybe Sebastian had some knowledge from his life before the Chantry? She flinched at the idea of having to ask such a stupid question, but she couldn't ask anyone else.
Her eyelids were heavy. Fenris's hand on her arm was moving in slow, soothing strokes. She tried to stay awake, but sleep pulled her under, into restless dreams.
Chapter Five
Rating: NC-17
Contains: Canon-typical violence, explicit sex
Fic Wordcount: 117,000
Chapter Wordcount:
Notes: Canon-divergent, ignoring most of Act 3. A thousand thanks to
senmut's Discord server for cheering and brainstorming and reactions and encouragement.Beta: breadedsinner and MikWrites_InSpace
Summary: After the duel with the Arishok, Ariane Hawke looks around at the wreckage of her life in Kirkwall and asks herself: what is left for me here? As tensions increase between the Circle and the Templars, she turns to helping Sebastian retake Starkhaven. Meanwhile, she is trying to figure out how to love Fenris when he hates mages, and also definitely not looking at Sebastian's gorgeous eyes. Definitely not. Neither is Fenris. Sebastian is not looking back.
Definitely.
Canon divergence in which almost all of act 3 goes in the bin, and three damaged people try to find a way to live with each other and themselves, and maybe heal a bit.
Chapter index here.
It was a short walk to her bedchamber, but plenty long enough for a thousand doubts and insecurities to claw at her. They swarmed when she opened the door and was reminded that this morning she'd left half her wardrobe scattered across the floor and the bed, and books piled up from her frantic research efforts before their trip to Vimmark. "Sorry, about this," she stammered, the sweep of her hand encompassing the entire room.
"Hawke," he said with a half-laugh, "if we are comparing living situations, yours is far tidier than mine." He tilted his head, his eyes locked on hers. "What is it?"
She opened her mouth and closed it twice while she fumbled for words. "I usually try not to show the messy bits," she said. Her mother's admonitions echoed in her mind. Don't give anyone a reason to look too closely at you--or at your father or sister. Be a good girl. Stand up straight. Don't talk back.
He frowned, a faint vertical line forming between his brows. "You do not have to be perfect," he said.
She tried not to add the unspoken but it would be better if you weren't a mage.
"Is this what you want?" he asked her. HIs gaze was watchful, and she was unnervingly aware of how perceptive he could be. She swallowed hard and made herself nod. She could do nothing else, pinned by his too-sharp gaze.
When at last he looked away and released her, she let out a slow breath and carefully unclenched her hands, turning her attention to smoothing the blanket. She couldn't look at him again, not yet. When hatred of magic didn't blind him, he saw her too clearly, and she felt like that sight was a dagger to her throat.
She took a deep breath that didn't catch in her throat, and looked up. He had come two steps inside the room, but still kept his distance, his gaze turned aside to the cold fireplace. She crossed the room toward him. His cheek was warm beneath her hand when she turned his face to her, and leaned up to kiss him.
His hands slid into her hair, warm and bare of armor, and she sighed when she felt him loosening the pins, letting her hair fall free. Pins scattered across the floor with a soft ping. She'd find them in the morning. Right now she was more interested in unlacing the neck of his shirt and biting her way down the line of his neck, lyrium tingling icy against her tongue, to the hollow of his neck. She kissed and sucked hard enough to leave a bruise in the morning and he moaned, the sound vibrating against her lips. His arms tightened around her and he gripped her hair tightly enough to pull her head back, meeting her with a much harder kiss. She stepped back carefully, drawing him with her. One step, another, another, and then she turned and shoved him back, hoping she'd remembered their location right, and smiled sharply under his kiss when she felt him hit the solid wooden post at the corner of her bed. She followed, her body pressed tight to his, and the warmth of him soaked into her.
She misjudged the angle and bit his lip harder than she meant, but he only made a faint growling sound and then abruptly turned so they were reversed, her back pressed hard to the post and his hand cushioning her head from hitting it. He pinned her against the solid wood and released her mouth only to set his lips against her ear. Hot and cold shivers chased each other down her spine and settled into a low, intense heat. She tried to return the favor, but his hand was tangled tight in her hair, and she couldn't bend her neck the right way. She could only hold on tight, cursing breathlessly, as he scraped the rim of her ear with his teeth.
She slid her hands under his shirt and dragged her nails up the smooth line of his spine, tugging fabric out of her way as she went. It bunched near his shoulders and he leaned back with a faint laugh. "There's no rush," he said.
She couldn't figure out how to answer that, so instead she took advantage of the slight gap between them and pulled the shirt over his head. Candlelight washed over his skin, warm brown slashed by bright lines of lyrium, and for a moment she just stared. It wasn't their first time together, but some part of her still found it a miracle, that he would let her touch him despite the magic in her hands and her blood and her words, that he didn't flinch away.
Something must have shown on her face. He tipped her chin up so she had to meet his eyes, and held her like that until the weight of his attention wound tight around her chest, and made it hard to breathe. She dug deep for a smile, and rested her fingertips butterfly-soft on the concerned crinkle next to his eye, smoothing it gently. When she leaned in to kiss him, he slid his hand back into her hair, and it was a relief.
When she reached for the waist of his trousers, he caught her wrist carefully in his hand and held it pressed against her side, his grip light but firm. He placed light kisses along her jaw and down the side of her neck, pausing at the join of neck and shoulder to tease. She locked her knees in order to stay standing. "There's no rush," he said again, and damn it, his voice wasn't fair when it was deep and rough like that. "Unless you have somewhere to be?"
There was just enough of an edge of uncertainty to the question to make her shove her own awkwardness aside. "No," she said, and lost her grip on what she'd meant to say briefly as he teased his way along her collarbone. "I--" The hand he held closed into a fist, and the sting of her own nails against her palm made her shiver. "I just wanted to get my hands on you," she said in a rush.
It wasn't untrue, but it wasn't the whole truth. He didn't say anything to that, but he did let her hand go, and she rested both palms flat against his chest. She could feel the thin ridges of scars where flesh and magic met. When she leaned in to taste, to trace the swells of muscle, she kept clear of the lyrium lines, not wishing to bring any unhappy thoughts to mind.
When they had been together before, it had been a frantic rush of heat, caution flung to the wind, and she hadn't had to think about what she was doing. She didn't want to drive him away again, and she was sickeningly afraid that in her awkwardness she would do just that.
He kissed her, long and deep and sweet, and she wrapped her arms around him and clung. She would have pulled him with her into the blankets, but he kept her pressed against the bed post, as though he had nothing better to do than kiss her all night.
So she paid attention to how he reacted when she kissed him back, when she tugged gently on his hair or kissed her way down his arms. He kept his reactions muted, so she counted it an enormous victory when she heard his breath catch, or when he made a soft sound that he tried to keep pinned in his throat and couldn't. She could feel muscles flex under her hands and mouth, and she used it as her guide. The inner curve of his elbow, she discovered, was sensitive enough that he sank his hand deep into her hair and gripped it tight when she traced patterns with the tip of her tongue. When she carefully bit at the pulse in his throat, he actually moaned, and it sent a bright, sharp shiver through her.
She did it again, and then found herself lifted off her feet and tumbling onto the bed, his hands remarkably efficient at getting her out of the comfortable tunic and trousers she'd changed into after her bath. Her bedroom was cool, but he pressed against her, warm and strong, and she pressed up into him.
He drew his head back and studied her, his face shadowed enough that she couldn't see his expression clearly. She froze, unsure if she'd done something wrong or brushed against a memory he'd rather she didn't.
He shifted onto one elbow and slowly trailed his fingertips up her arm, so light he raised shivers and gooseflesh in his wake. She bit her lip and held herself still, so still, barely breathing, and let the heat run through her.
He traced a slow spiraling pattern across her collarbones and down, between her breasts, curving around one with the same ghostly not-quite touch. It felt pleasant enough, not as nice as the kisses along her ear and neck, but she'd seen enough people playing in the public rooms of the Blooming Rose to know it was supposed to interest her, so she made a soft sound of encouragement. He narrowed his eyes slightly and did it again; she closed her eyes and let the shivery sensation roll over and through her, and then pulled him down for a kiss. She liked having him pressed against her, warm and solid despite his lean build.
A moment later he broke the kiss and pressed himself back up onto his elbows. "Hawke," he said, "if you don't like something, tell me."
She flinched. "I didn't dislike it," she protested. Even in the shadow, she could see his frown.
"That is not the same thing," he said. He brushed the hair back from her face gently. HIs eyes fixed on some point past her as he seemed to think his way through what he wanted to say. "If this isn't what you want," he said, "just say so."
"That's not it." Damn it, she'd ruined a perfectly good time. She suspected she should not say that aloud. "You like it."
His frown deepened. "What I like," he said, "is for both of us to be enjoying ourselves."
"I am," she said.
He huffed out a sigh. "Hawke. I can tell when you're not being sincere." He smoothed her hair back absently. "Don't scowl at me. I mean, I would rather touch you the way you want to be touched."
She moved one shoulder uncomfortably. "I don't put that much thought into it," she admitted. The next words choked her. "It's easier that way." She wished she'd been better at pretending. She wished she was more normal since apparently normal people knew what they wanted. She had less idea of what she wanted than someone who couldn't remember most of his life, and that was humbling.
He kissed her very lightly. "Truly," he said wryly, that deep note back in his voice, "it would be a great hardship to try all the things I have imagined doing to you, and find out which you like. It might take weeks." He considered. "Or months."
Hawke swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry as dust, as those words rolled over her. "That sounds like a substantial undertaking."
"Hmmm." He smoothed back her hair again. "I would enjoy every moment," he said, "but only if you will tell me honestly what you do like, and what you don't."
At the moment she thought she might promise him anything, as long as he didn't stop talking like that, but still she hesitated. "And if I don't like something you like?"
"Then we find something else we both like." He leaned back. "Hawke, it's not that complicated."
She covered the uncertainty with a smile. "Then perhaps you'd better come back down here and kiss me."
"Promise me, Hawke." He laced his fingers through hers. "That you will tell me what you do and do not like."
She was going to drown in this, in the things he wanted from her, and yet she knew he asked for almost nothing.
"I promise," she whispered, the words catching in her throat.
He bent down to kiss her. "Good," he murmured--and then rolled away from her, flopped on his back across the bed. His arm curled around her shoulders and tugged her in close.
Hawke propped herself up on her elbow. "I thought you wanted--"
"This is what I want right now," he murmured, pulling her back down again.
She went, but she couldn't relax against him. This should be easier. She knew how to curl into him, to match her breath to his, to feel his arm around her. But it wasn't what they'd come upstairs for, and she wasn't certain why he had changed paths. If she asked him, she suspected she would get an answer that didn't make sense to her.
Who could she ask? Varric was out of the question. Anders too. She could not even imagine trying to ask Aveline, and she didn't think Merrill would know any better than she did. Maybe Sebastian had some knowledge from his life before the Chantry? She flinched at the idea of having to ask such a stupid question, but she couldn't ask anyone else.
Her eyelids were heavy. Fenris's hand on her arm was moving in slow, soothing strokes. She tried to stay awake, but sleep pulled her under, into restless dreams.
Chapter Five