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rose_in_winter2024-04-30 12:06 pm
lassarina) wrote in rose_in_winter2024-04-30 12:06 pm
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[Dragon Age 2] When Love with Unconfinéd Wings, Chapter 5
Characters: 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.
The Chantry at night was quiet. Most of the sisters and mothers had gone to sleep, though a few would stay awake through the night in case of any needy souls. Sebastian ought himself to be asleep, but restlessness had driven him from the simple bed in his cell, and now he lingered in the main Chantry, replacing burnt-out candles and checking on incense burners. It was not his assigned turn for such tasks, but Sister Alais was unwell, and besides, he was substantially taller than she and it was easier for him to reach the censers.
He finished his rounds and wandered to the front hall of the chantry, where a silver glint in the shadows alerted him to the presence of another. He paused. "Maker bless you, Fenris."
Metal and leather creaked. A moment later, Fenris stepped forward. "I can go."
"There is no need. All are welcome here." Sebastian studied him. His armor was freshly cleaned and polished. "Does something trouble you?"
Fenris rolled his shoulder in a half-shrug. "A pointless question."
Sebastian nodded. "Is there something you wished to speak of, then?"
Fenris gave a quiet huff that, Sebastian suspected, covered an unwilling chuckle. "Do you greet everyone who comes to the Chantry with this offer?"
Sebastian let silence spin between them for a long moment. "While it is my place as a brother of the Chantry to give aid to all the Maker's children where I may," he said eventually, "I ask because we are friends."
A frown drew sharp vertical lines in the center of Fenris's forehead. Were he still his younger self, Sebastian might have tried to smooth it away with the pressure of his thumb, or perhaps dare to kiss it away. He clasped his hands before him instead.
"Friends," Fenris said at last. He shook his head sharply. "I do not think it wise, to call me such."
"No?" Sebastian considered him thoughtfully. "But you have guarded my back, many times. We have shared bread, and beer. We have spoken of things that matter to us. Does this not make us friends?"
"I didn't say that we were not friends," Fenris said, "only that it may not be wise to think of me as one."
Sebastian let his raised eyebrows ask the question.
Fenris turned away. "The last people who called me friends...." He hesitated. "I did not honor their friendship with the safety I owed them." His mouth twisted. "I killed them, because Danarius commanded it." He turned sharply toward the door. "I should--"
Sebastian touched his shoulder, lightly, and light flared from the lyrium markings as Fenris spun back toward him, but the elf made no move to draw his sword--not, Sebastian knew, that he needed it. Fenris kept his right hand by his side, albeit clenched in a fist.
Sebastian waited.
"Do not put your trust in me," Fenris said after a moment. "I do not deserve it."
"Because of your actions before?" Sebastian asked. When Fenris nodded, he nodded back. "We do not have to remain the men we have been. If you do not trust yourself now, you could work to become a man you could trust again. In the meantime...." He gave a half-smile. "My trust is mine to give or withhold, as I see fit."
Fenris stared past him, eyes fixed on--what? Sebastian didn't turn to see; he held still, as he might with any half-wild creature unsure if he represented threat or safety.
"I will not sway you," Fenris said after a long silence.
"No," Sebastian agreed.
Fenris grunted, and leaned against the wall. Sebastian held back and gave him his space. Beyond them, someone was singing the Chant. The candles overhead cast flickering light over them as a draft stirred the flames.
"There was a Grey Warden prison beneath the mountain," Fenris said abruptly.
Sebastian frowned. "I thought you went to the mountains to deal with the Carta."
"That's what we thought." Fenris slid down the wall to sit on the floor, and Sebastian joined him. He listened, fascinated, as Fenris described the ruins of the Grey Warden prison and the battle with an ancient Tevinter--god? Magister? Something in between? He was unsure. He was horrified to learn that the commander of the prison had imprisoned Leandra to force Hawke's father into compliance.
"The Grey Warden Commander seemed to become better abruptly after we killed it," Fenris concluded, "and Hawke signaled us to attack him." He paused. "She said she suspected that the magister had possessed him, and I don't think she was wrong. Better safe, when it comes to that."
Sebastian reminded himself to pray for the souls of the Warden and this Corypheus, and an extra prayer for Hawke. "I can understand her logic," he said.
Fenris glanced sideways at him. "You disapprove."
"Not exactly. I should disapprove, I know." He sighed. "Life is not always a clean line. If this Warden was truly healed by the defeat of the magister, then killing him is an unwarranted act of violence--and yet the idea of something running free that was so dangerous that Grey Wardens chose blood magic to imprison it beneath the mountains, and renewed it regularly by blackmailing men--I may not approve of their choices devoid of context, but I cannot say I would not make the same ones, given the same context." He paused. "I do not disapprove."
"Hm." Fenris leaned his head back against the wall. Sebastian caught himself staring at the line of his throat, and turned his gaze away.
He swallowed. "Did you want me to disapprove?"
Fenris looked up at the candles burning overhead. "She could do that too," he said eventually. "All of it. Summon a spirit of that degree of power, or bind it, or banish it."
Sebastian found himself at a loss for what to say. Of course Hawke had that power; she was a mage, and a powerful one. Yet he could not picture her wanting that--even after Leandra's death, she had not called that which was forbidden. She lived outside the Circle, true, but so far, that seemed to make her less likely than the rest of Kirkwall's mages to turn to blood magic. He put that thought aside for consideration and prayer later.
Fenris held his silence, so Sebastian picked through his options carefully. "Do you fear that she will?"
There was a hesitation. "I do not know," Fenris said at last. "I would like to say no, but she is a mage."
There were undercurrents to the statement that Sebastian knew he was not qualified to navigate, but he owed it to his friend to try. "Have you asked her?"
"A mage's words are meaningless." Fenris's rejoinder was quick and sure.
"What of Hawke's words?"
Fenris opened his mouth, then closed it.
Sebastian's heart ached, both for Fenris and for Hawke. He told himself it was because he did not like to see his friends hurt, but he knew it for a lie, or at least much less than the full truth. But he was a brother of the Chantry, not a man free to pursue either or both of them, and so he did his best to think only of what they would need. "It is true that there are men and women in the world who abuse their magic and use it to harm others," Sebastian said slowly, "but it is also true that some use it to do good." He noted Fenris's scowl, but chose to let it go. He did discreetly check for any listeners before he continued. "The Chantry teaches us that the Circle protects mages from themselves and us from them," he said. "Perhaps someday, she would go to it--but we--" He caught himself too late. "You would lose her, then."
The scowl deepened.
Sebastian privately admitted that he could not see Hawke willingly joining the Circle, but the alternatives were situations he did not want to consider in any depth at all, so he stopped himself there.
Fenris's face went through a series of expressions, but he did not speak. At last he shoved himself to his feet. Sebastian rose as well, and turned to face him.
"Thank you for your advice," Fenris said carefully. "You have given me....much to think on."
"The Chantry is ever open to hear you," Sebastian replied. "Walk in the light of the Maker, Fenris."
He watched the elf go and hoped he had given the right counsel.
He had cleaned and refilled three more censers when he sensed eyes upon him. When he turned, he saw Hawke lingering in the same shadows Fenris had chosen. He wondered if she knew. She made a half-gesture with her right hand, a go-ahead that he knew she meant to indicate that he should finish his task, not interrupt it for her. Though he was perishing of curiosity--he had always been that way, and admitted to himself that he might not have gotten into half as much trouble in Starkhaven if not for following that curiosity--he continued his work. There were only four censers left to tend.
He could not help being aware of Hawke as he worked. She lit candles--her usual three for her parents and sister, and then a fourth. He guessed it was for the Warden Commander. She lingered there with her head bent, for longer than she usually did.
By the time he finished his chore and approached her, she stood beneath the statue of Andraste, her head tilted back. Her gaze was somewhere far beyond the confines of the building. Sebastian scuffed his foot along the floor deliberately to avoid startling her.
She blinked and shook her head, then turned to him with a smile. "Sebastian."
The way his name rolled off her tongue was something he treasured. "Hawke." He gave her a polite half-bow. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
She blushed faintly, and he deliberately looked away from the warm color spreading across her skin. "I...." She paused, and stared at a wall behind him. "I wanted to ask you something. It might be awkward--it's already awkward--but Fenris--" She stopped, squeezed her eyes shut, and took a deep breath. "Well, I have certainly made it awkward," she muttered.
He swallowed the laugh that wanted to bubble up. "Perhaps you'd like to speak somewhere more private?" In another life, these phrases would have been part of a carefully choreographed flirtation. He had to remember that he was no longer that man. It hadn't been so hard to remember before Hawke and Fenris.
She nodded.
Sebastian led her to a small side room, one used for discussions such as these. It was sparsely furnished, with a few chairs and a shielded lantern for light. Hawke paced, as she often did when she was unsure of her words.
She paused at the far side of the room, her face turned away from him. "Fenris and I were kissing--among other things--and he stopped because I couldn't tell him if I liked something. Or what I wanted."
Sebastian waited, but she said nothing else. "And that bothers you?"
She made a half-gesture that turned into rubbing her palms against her sides. "It bothers me that I don't know."
Sebastian considered that for a long moment. "Do you mean you can't tell if you like something when it's happening?"
Hawke made an exasperated noise. "Lothering is--was--not really a place of great opportunities. Besides the fact that there just aren't that many people there, when you're an apostate trying not to draw the wrong kind of attention, you don't want to bruise anyone's ego." She had turned half toward him, and now she directed a scowl at the wall. "It's not that I don't have experience," she continued, "it's just..."
"Your experience hasn't involved someone asking you what you wanted?" Sebastian suggested when she trailed off.
"Right." Hawke shrugged. "I went to the Rose a few times, to observe, I mean. Mostly to observe." Her blush darkened. "And people do plenty of things in the main room, so I wasn't sneaking around or anything. There were some, well, common things that seemed--"
"Hawke," Sebastian interrupted her before the laughter clawing at his throat could win, "the Rose is not the best place to gain that sort of education."
She turned and directed the full force of her scowl at him. "They're professionals."
"Yes," he said, "and they are being paid to do what their client wants. That doesn't mean every client wants the same thing--or that you would want the same things." When she said nothing, he continued with great care. "I can tell you from experience that sex is much more fun when everyone is enjoying it," he said. "I don't imagine Fenris asked you for a detailed list?"
She dropped into the chair as though all of her bones had suddenly decided to soften. "No. He said I was to tell him what I liked and didn't like."
"If it worries you," Sebastian said, "there's a third option. 'I don't know, let's try again.'" He was not, absolutely not, thinking about things he would very much like to try with her.
She bit her lip thoughtfully. He looked away.
"I don't want him to think less of me," she murmured, so soft he almost didn't hear.
"Hawke, given the opportunity to find out exactly what my lover wanted by trying everything I could think of, I would be delighted," Sebastian said, and hoped she didn't notice how strained his voice was.
She gave him a slightly lopsided smile. "Thank you," she said quietly, with feeling. "Sorry for ambushing you with awkward questions."
"I am here for you, Hawke," he said. He almost used her given name, then decided it was too intimate.
She left, and he heard the clink of coins in the box outside as she went. He closed the door behind her and sighed a short prayer to the Maker that they would manage to talk it out instead of circling around each other--and firmly put aside a tantalizing fantasy in which they both asked him for more hands-on help.
Chapter Six
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.
The Chantry at night was quiet. Most of the sisters and mothers had gone to sleep, though a few would stay awake through the night in case of any needy souls. Sebastian ought himself to be asleep, but restlessness had driven him from the simple bed in his cell, and now he lingered in the main Chantry, replacing burnt-out candles and checking on incense burners. It was not his assigned turn for such tasks, but Sister Alais was unwell, and besides, he was substantially taller than she and it was easier for him to reach the censers.
He finished his rounds and wandered to the front hall of the chantry, where a silver glint in the shadows alerted him to the presence of another. He paused. "Maker bless you, Fenris."
Metal and leather creaked. A moment later, Fenris stepped forward. "I can go."
"There is no need. All are welcome here." Sebastian studied him. His armor was freshly cleaned and polished. "Does something trouble you?"
Fenris rolled his shoulder in a half-shrug. "A pointless question."
Sebastian nodded. "Is there something you wished to speak of, then?"
Fenris gave a quiet huff that, Sebastian suspected, covered an unwilling chuckle. "Do you greet everyone who comes to the Chantry with this offer?"
Sebastian let silence spin between them for a long moment. "While it is my place as a brother of the Chantry to give aid to all the Maker's children where I may," he said eventually, "I ask because we are friends."
A frown drew sharp vertical lines in the center of Fenris's forehead. Were he still his younger self, Sebastian might have tried to smooth it away with the pressure of his thumb, or perhaps dare to kiss it away. He clasped his hands before him instead.
"Friends," Fenris said at last. He shook his head sharply. "I do not think it wise, to call me such."
"No?" Sebastian considered him thoughtfully. "But you have guarded my back, many times. We have shared bread, and beer. We have spoken of things that matter to us. Does this not make us friends?"
"I didn't say that we were not friends," Fenris said, "only that it may not be wise to think of me as one."
Sebastian let his raised eyebrows ask the question.
Fenris turned away. "The last people who called me friends...." He hesitated. "I did not honor their friendship with the safety I owed them." His mouth twisted. "I killed them, because Danarius commanded it." He turned sharply toward the door. "I should--"
Sebastian touched his shoulder, lightly, and light flared from the lyrium markings as Fenris spun back toward him, but the elf made no move to draw his sword--not, Sebastian knew, that he needed it. Fenris kept his right hand by his side, albeit clenched in a fist.
Sebastian waited.
"Do not put your trust in me," Fenris said after a moment. "I do not deserve it."
"Because of your actions before?" Sebastian asked. When Fenris nodded, he nodded back. "We do not have to remain the men we have been. If you do not trust yourself now, you could work to become a man you could trust again. In the meantime...." He gave a half-smile. "My trust is mine to give or withhold, as I see fit."
Fenris stared past him, eyes fixed on--what? Sebastian didn't turn to see; he held still, as he might with any half-wild creature unsure if he represented threat or safety.
"I will not sway you," Fenris said after a long silence.
"No," Sebastian agreed.
Fenris grunted, and leaned against the wall. Sebastian held back and gave him his space. Beyond them, someone was singing the Chant. The candles overhead cast flickering light over them as a draft stirred the flames.
"There was a Grey Warden prison beneath the mountain," Fenris said abruptly.
Sebastian frowned. "I thought you went to the mountains to deal with the Carta."
"That's what we thought." Fenris slid down the wall to sit on the floor, and Sebastian joined him. He listened, fascinated, as Fenris described the ruins of the Grey Warden prison and the battle with an ancient Tevinter--god? Magister? Something in between? He was unsure. He was horrified to learn that the commander of the prison had imprisoned Leandra to force Hawke's father into compliance.
"The Grey Warden Commander seemed to become better abruptly after we killed it," Fenris concluded, "and Hawke signaled us to attack him." He paused. "She said she suspected that the magister had possessed him, and I don't think she was wrong. Better safe, when it comes to that."
Sebastian reminded himself to pray for the souls of the Warden and this Corypheus, and an extra prayer for Hawke. "I can understand her logic," he said.
Fenris glanced sideways at him. "You disapprove."
"Not exactly. I should disapprove, I know." He sighed. "Life is not always a clean line. If this Warden was truly healed by the defeat of the magister, then killing him is an unwarranted act of violence--and yet the idea of something running free that was so dangerous that Grey Wardens chose blood magic to imprison it beneath the mountains, and renewed it regularly by blackmailing men--I may not approve of their choices devoid of context, but I cannot say I would not make the same ones, given the same context." He paused. "I do not disapprove."
"Hm." Fenris leaned his head back against the wall. Sebastian caught himself staring at the line of his throat, and turned his gaze away.
He swallowed. "Did you want me to disapprove?"
Fenris looked up at the candles burning overhead. "She could do that too," he said eventually. "All of it. Summon a spirit of that degree of power, or bind it, or banish it."
Sebastian found himself at a loss for what to say. Of course Hawke had that power; she was a mage, and a powerful one. Yet he could not picture her wanting that--even after Leandra's death, she had not called that which was forbidden. She lived outside the Circle, true, but so far, that seemed to make her less likely than the rest of Kirkwall's mages to turn to blood magic. He put that thought aside for consideration and prayer later.
Fenris held his silence, so Sebastian picked through his options carefully. "Do you fear that she will?"
There was a hesitation. "I do not know," Fenris said at last. "I would like to say no, but she is a mage."
There were undercurrents to the statement that Sebastian knew he was not qualified to navigate, but he owed it to his friend to try. "Have you asked her?"
"A mage's words are meaningless." Fenris's rejoinder was quick and sure.
"What of Hawke's words?"
Fenris opened his mouth, then closed it.
Sebastian's heart ached, both for Fenris and for Hawke. He told himself it was because he did not like to see his friends hurt, but he knew it for a lie, or at least much less than the full truth. But he was a brother of the Chantry, not a man free to pursue either or both of them, and so he did his best to think only of what they would need. "It is true that there are men and women in the world who abuse their magic and use it to harm others," Sebastian said slowly, "but it is also true that some use it to do good." He noted Fenris's scowl, but chose to let it go. He did discreetly check for any listeners before he continued. "The Chantry teaches us that the Circle protects mages from themselves and us from them," he said. "Perhaps someday, she would go to it--but we--" He caught himself too late. "You would lose her, then."
The scowl deepened.
Sebastian privately admitted that he could not see Hawke willingly joining the Circle, but the alternatives were situations he did not want to consider in any depth at all, so he stopped himself there.
Fenris's face went through a series of expressions, but he did not speak. At last he shoved himself to his feet. Sebastian rose as well, and turned to face him.
"Thank you for your advice," Fenris said carefully. "You have given me....much to think on."
"The Chantry is ever open to hear you," Sebastian replied. "Walk in the light of the Maker, Fenris."
He watched the elf go and hoped he had given the right counsel.
He had cleaned and refilled three more censers when he sensed eyes upon him. When he turned, he saw Hawke lingering in the same shadows Fenris had chosen. He wondered if she knew. She made a half-gesture with her right hand, a go-ahead that he knew she meant to indicate that he should finish his task, not interrupt it for her. Though he was perishing of curiosity--he had always been that way, and admitted to himself that he might not have gotten into half as much trouble in Starkhaven if not for following that curiosity--he continued his work. There were only four censers left to tend.
He could not help being aware of Hawke as he worked. She lit candles--her usual three for her parents and sister, and then a fourth. He guessed it was for the Warden Commander. She lingered there with her head bent, for longer than she usually did.
By the time he finished his chore and approached her, she stood beneath the statue of Andraste, her head tilted back. Her gaze was somewhere far beyond the confines of the building. Sebastian scuffed his foot along the floor deliberately to avoid startling her.
She blinked and shook her head, then turned to him with a smile. "Sebastian."
The way his name rolled off her tongue was something he treasured. "Hawke." He gave her a polite half-bow. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
She blushed faintly, and he deliberately looked away from the warm color spreading across her skin. "I...." She paused, and stared at a wall behind him. "I wanted to ask you something. It might be awkward--it's already awkward--but Fenris--" She stopped, squeezed her eyes shut, and took a deep breath. "Well, I have certainly made it awkward," she muttered.
He swallowed the laugh that wanted to bubble up. "Perhaps you'd like to speak somewhere more private?" In another life, these phrases would have been part of a carefully choreographed flirtation. He had to remember that he was no longer that man. It hadn't been so hard to remember before Hawke and Fenris.
She nodded.
Sebastian led her to a small side room, one used for discussions such as these. It was sparsely furnished, with a few chairs and a shielded lantern for light. Hawke paced, as she often did when she was unsure of her words.
She paused at the far side of the room, her face turned away from him. "Fenris and I were kissing--among other things--and he stopped because I couldn't tell him if I liked something. Or what I wanted."
Sebastian waited, but she said nothing else. "And that bothers you?"
She made a half-gesture that turned into rubbing her palms against her sides. "It bothers me that I don't know."
Sebastian considered that for a long moment. "Do you mean you can't tell if you like something when it's happening?"
Hawke made an exasperated noise. "Lothering is--was--not really a place of great opportunities. Besides the fact that there just aren't that many people there, when you're an apostate trying not to draw the wrong kind of attention, you don't want to bruise anyone's ego." She had turned half toward him, and now she directed a scowl at the wall. "It's not that I don't have experience," she continued, "it's just..."
"Your experience hasn't involved someone asking you what you wanted?" Sebastian suggested when she trailed off.
"Right." Hawke shrugged. "I went to the Rose a few times, to observe, I mean. Mostly to observe." Her blush darkened. "And people do plenty of things in the main room, so I wasn't sneaking around or anything. There were some, well, common things that seemed--"
"Hawke," Sebastian interrupted her before the laughter clawing at his throat could win, "the Rose is not the best place to gain that sort of education."
She turned and directed the full force of her scowl at him. "They're professionals."
"Yes," he said, "and they are being paid to do what their client wants. That doesn't mean every client wants the same thing--or that you would want the same things." When she said nothing, he continued with great care. "I can tell you from experience that sex is much more fun when everyone is enjoying it," he said. "I don't imagine Fenris asked you for a detailed list?"
She dropped into the chair as though all of her bones had suddenly decided to soften. "No. He said I was to tell him what I liked and didn't like."
"If it worries you," Sebastian said, "there's a third option. 'I don't know, let's try again.'" He was not, absolutely not, thinking about things he would very much like to try with her.
She bit her lip thoughtfully. He looked away.
"I don't want him to think less of me," she murmured, so soft he almost didn't hear.
"Hawke, given the opportunity to find out exactly what my lover wanted by trying everything I could think of, I would be delighted," Sebastian said, and hoped she didn't notice how strained his voice was.
She gave him a slightly lopsided smile. "Thank you," she said quietly, with feeling. "Sorry for ambushing you with awkward questions."
"I am here for you, Hawke," he said. He almost used her given name, then decided it was too intimate.
She left, and he heard the clink of coins in the box outside as she went. He closed the door behind her and sighed a short prayer to the Maker that they would manage to talk it out instead of circling around each other--and firmly put aside a tantalizing fantasy in which they both asked him for more hands-on help.
Chapter Six