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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.
Hawke woke abruptly, jerking upright. Her entire back ached from sleeping hunched over, and her eyes felt as gritty as if she'd been dragged face down across half the Wounded Coast, but otherwise she felt much better. She blinked a few times and looked around. There were two lumps of blankets that she assumed must be Isabela and Clarice on the far side of the fire. To her left, Sebastian's armor was neatly piled next to another blanket lump of the approximate right size to be her companion. Her armor and boots were in a neat heap next to her; she thought she remembered Isabela helping her out of them.
To her right, Fenris was seated on another rock, watching her in the dim glow of the banked fire.
"How long?" she asked, and winced. Her voice was rough and speaking hurt.
"Six hours," he answered. "I would have gotten you to a more comfortable position, but--" He shook his head. "You lashed out when I tried to move you."
She knew she was imagining the censure. Of everyone she knew, Fenris was the least likely to judge her for flinching away. Hawke nodded and focused on taking inventory of her injuries. Bumps and bruises from the fight, nothing too impressive there, and a general sense of unwellness in her belly, as if she'd been sunburned from the inside out. Well, healing magic worked as well on damage from poisons as it did that from knives, if the poison itself was gone. She reached through the Veil into the Fade and pulled magic into herself. Then she was wide awake and alert, energy thrumming through her.
Enough to tend her companions, if a little late.
"Did you take anything more than bruises?" she asked Fenris.
"No." He paused. "You may look."
From anyone else, it was a scrap of trust, like leaving one's infant in the bassinet with a little-known guest while visiting the privy.
From Fenris....
She stood and walked quietly to him, circling the large flat-topped rock that served as his seat with one hand resting on his shoulder so that he would know where she was. She brought her other hand to the opposite shoulder and sent her magic questing into him. He had a shallow scrape on the back of his shoulder, but it was clear of poison. Beyond that, he'd taken worse injury from a scuffle on the docks. Still, she breathed in magic and breathed out healing, letting it flow through her palms into his body, curling around the lines of lyrium to soothe all the little aches.
He touched her hand lightly, and then wrapped his hand around hers. She wanted to perch on the rock with him, curl into his side and cling, but...
"I'll tend Sebastian," she said, and even kept her voice steady.
"You should rest," Fenris said.
"I'll rest again after." She squeezed his shoulder lightly and skirted the fire. Sebastian slept uneasily, sweat dotting his brow. A cloth was crumpled beneath his cheek, where it had likely fallen when he turned. She rested a hand on his--she didn't need touch to heal, but it made it feel easier--and sought. She could feel the tough, ropy flesh of scars she'd knit too fast, and older ones, their pain mostly faded. Too many rough edges and the internal equivalent of scrapes from the poison. She followed the damage up his arm and felt an icy chill slide down her spine when she realized how close it had come to his heart. The antidote, too, had done its share of harm.
Healing it slowly, the kindest for him, took most of the false strength she'd drawn from the Fade when she healed herself, but when she was done, he rested easier, his face relaxed in true sleep, not tight with discomfort. She stayed kneeling by his side a few breaths longer, until she was sure she could get to her feet without falling. Isabela and Clarice appeared firmly asleep.
Fenris shifted on his rock to make room for her beside him. When she sat, he rested his hand on hers. He kept his eyes on the fire, and even in the dim light his face was drawn and exhausted.
Her heart ached. She didn't want to say goodbye to him, didn't want to smile and be joyful for him when his needs left her behind, but she knew her place. So she took two deep breaths to shrink the lump in her throat. "Rough day for you," she said, intentionally light.
She felt the weight of his glance cut sideways to her. "I am not the one who was injured," he said.
She had to make this light, make it funny. If she let him see that it hurt--she didn't want his kindness, not when it couldn't last. "You didn't like seeing us hurt," she said, and then shoved him very gently with the point of her shoulder. "Especially Sebastian." Thank the Maker, she'd pulled it off, soft and threaded with laughter and warmth.
"Hawke!" Even scandalized, he kept his voice low.
"As if I can't see how you look at him," she teased him.
"You know I would never--Hawke, I chose you."
She could have let it stop there. She wanted to let it stop there--but all their close proximity on this trip had shown her that they were easy with each other, and she wasn't blind to how Sebastian looked at Fenris, either. She choked down the words for I love you, and I chose you, and I will choose you every time that tangled in her throat, and instead said, "I still think you should ask him." Don't make me say it, she prayed.
He was staring at her, his face shadowed so she could not see anything. On her other side, away from him, she found she'd clenched her hand into a fist so tight that her nails had cut her palm.
Warm strong fingers closed around her wrist. He stood, tugging her to her feet with him, and led the way into the passage by which they'd come on silent bare feet. The faint light of the fire faded behind them. HIs steps slowed, but remained sure until the shifting of air against her face told her they'd moved into a different cavern--far enough away that she couldn't hear the crackling of the fire.
She could have lit their path, but she didn't.
"Do you mean that?" Fenris asked her, so softly. She heard the yearning in his voice, and that steeled her resolve.
She could allow herself this much of a confession. "I want you to be happy," she told him. "I--"
She got no farther, because his hands were in her hair and his mouth was crushed against hers, pressing her into the stone wall behind her. His body pressed to hers as though he couldn't tolerate even the slightest bit of space between them. Her arms twined around him, pulling him into her, without her conscious direction. She caught his lower lip between her teeth, gently, and ran her tongue along it. He cursed--she thought it was a curse, she didn't speak Tevene--and his hands flexed in her hair, pulling her head back to let him bite along the line of her throat.
She wanted.
It was uncanny to do this in near-perfect darkness; before, there had always been the fire or candlelight. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn't see her, or maybe it was knowing that this was the last time, but she felt bold in a way she never had. She fumbled with the laces of his shirt, grateful she didn't have to navigate armor blind, and slid her hands under the cloth, finding the shape of his muscles with the tips of her fingers. Then he closed his mouth on the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and whatever plan she'd had fizzled into nothingness, like the whimper in her throat. She flexed her hands on his chest, feeling the contrast of chill lines of lyrium and heated skin and the ridges of scars, a constellation of textures beneath her palms. She wanted to spend all night memorizing him.
She pulled his tunic up and he let her go long enough to help her remove it, tossing it aside. She had the half-thought we'll need a torch to find that later and then she deliberately forgot all concept of later, shoved it aside into the box that held all the things she never wanted to think about again, and pulled him in close, her hands pressing flat against his shoulder blades to bring him closer to her. She leaned forward for a kiss and bumped against his shoulder. Good enough. From there she could kiss his collarbones and into the hollow of his throat, nibble along the tendons in his neck to the back of his jaw. When she touched his ear with the tip of her tongue, he groaned, and she wanted to hear him make that sound again.
When she bit, very carefully, the long edge of his pointed ear, the way he said her name sent heat racing from the back of her neck all the way to her toes. She did it again, just a bit harder, and abruptly he stepped back, catching the hem of her tunic and yanking it upward. Neither of them had untied the laces, so there was a moment of confusion--and panic, quickly swallowed--when her arms tangled in the fabric and trapped her. He paused, his hips pressed against hers, his breath warm and soft against her shoulder, just long enough to make her wonder, with desire and dread mixed, if he meant to leave her tangled like this, at his mercy.
A moment later, his fingers trailed lightly along her collarbone until he found the laces and unknotted them more efficiently than she would have. How were his hands so steady? She was not going to think about that. She was not going to think at all. The tension of the fabric slackened and he pulled it the rest of the way off, with her help. The cave air was cool on her skin, enough to raise a hint of goosebumps, but she wasn't cold at all.
She reached out and her hands bumped into his. She couldn't help a little giggle. His hands moved up her arms, across her collarbones and down, cupping her breasts gently in his hands. She felt as though every nerve had gone on high alert, tense and focused, and when his calloused thumbs rubbed across her nipples, she had to concentrate to keep her knees from buckling. "Fenris," she whispered, keenly aware that she had to be quiet unless she wanted Isabela's color commentary for this.
He murmured her name, and then something else she didn't understand, but the way his voice rolled over her was like a caress all on its own. His hands moved over her like his voice, and she could drown in this. She had to consciously slow her own hands; she wanted to touch all of him, wanted to know and feel him before she had to stand back and smile--she wasn't thinking about that. She focused on the feel of his skin under her lips and hands, the taste of him (salt and leather and him), the sharp prickle of lyrium and the way he shivered when she held a swell of muscle with her teeth and traced patterns with her tongue. She felt his hands tangle in the laces of her trousers and wished, briefly, that he would slow down--that this could last.
Then his hand slid between her legs, and she stopped thinking at all. Her hands flexed hard on his shoulders and she felt the cold, rough stone against her back as he pressed her against the cave wall. She fought one foot free of the fabric tangling her feet--and Fenris caught her leg on his hand, sinking to his knees--she felt his body slide along hers--and hooking her leg over his shoulder.
She had a moment to take a deep breath, to bring one hand up to press against her mouth--and it was a good thing she had, because she nearly screamed at the first touch of his tongue. He gripped her hips, holding her still for him, and she felt like she was dissolving into fire under that mouth. She clutched at his shoulder, desperate for an anchor as she felt the tension twist into an unbearable peak. She muffled her own scream, but not enough, and then she was shaking, nearly boneless, held up by his hands and the wall.
She meant to say his name, but it came out as a low moan.
He made a low, pleased sound, his thumbs moving in soothing circles on her hips. She took a shaky breath and squeezed his shoulder in return, feeling how tremors ran through her arms and hands. She started to step aside, to sink down with him, and his hands tightened, pinning her to the wall, and even as slow and gentle as his tongue was, her body jerked in response. She wasn't sure if it was toward him or away. Her hand fluttered in the air, then sank into his hair, holding on tight, as he continued the light caresses that made her whimper with every touch.
"Let me," she whispered, and he shook his head, his hair tickling the sensitive inside of her thigh.
"Later," he said, and then it seemed he was done with being patient. She lost all sense of anything that wasn't his mouth, his hands, taking her apart piece by piece. She didn't know how long he held her there, only that she came back to herself slowly, curled in his arms on the cave floor.
She shifted slightly to avoid a rock that was prodding her hip uncomfortably. Her hand had been resting on his chest, and she trailed it lower, only to find her wrist caught in the warm and unmoving circle of his fingers.
"Please," she whispered. Her voice caught on all the reasons she couldn't say, and she was terribly afraid he could hear her speaking past tears. "Fenris. Please."
"I do not have a convenient source of witherstalk," he said mildly.
It took her a moment to realize why that would matter. It took her several more to make sure her tone wouldn't be bitter when she spoke. "We don't need witherstalk," she said. "I can take care of it."
He released her hand, albeit reluctantly, and she closed her hand gently around his cock. He shuddered when she traced him with her fingertips, endlessly fascinated by the softness of his skin there and the contrasts of texture. When she shifted to use her tongue as well, he arched up into her hand, a sharp wordless sound. "Hawke, please," he said, an echo of her earlier words, hoarse and longing.
"You don't like this?" she asked. He reached out, his hand fumbling against her knee before he gripped her thigh tightly.
"Rather too much," he said. Whatever he'd had to say next was lost in a gorgeously shattered noise when she took him into her mouth. "Hawke. Please."
She'd meant to tease him a little before she rode him, but now that she was here, she didn't want to spoil this last time with magic in lieu of witherstalk. Instead, she braced her hands on either side of his hips, and took her time, using her hands and her mouth until he cursed her in what she was fairly sure was at least three languages. She could feel the moment he gave himself over to her, his hands warm and rough on her shoulders when he gasped her name and bitter salt coated her tongue.
She was shaking, too, when she curled against him again.
He smoothed her hair and murmured something she didn't catch. They lay like that for a few minutes, Hawke drowsing against his shoulder, but the floor was hard and she was cold.
She sat up and summoned a tiny tongue of flame to help her find her clothes. Fenris's eyes were slitted narrow like a cat's, but he said nothing, only helped her get her clothing back on and then walked silently with her back to the campsite, where Hawke fervently hoped everyone else had slept through....all of that.
She tucked herself into her bedroll, and didn't even cry much before sheer exhaustion pulled her into a deep sleep.
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.
Hawke woke abruptly, jerking upright. Her entire back ached from sleeping hunched over, and her eyes felt as gritty as if she'd been dragged face down across half the Wounded Coast, but otherwise she felt much better. She blinked a few times and looked around. There were two lumps of blankets that she assumed must be Isabela and Clarice on the far side of the fire. To her left, Sebastian's armor was neatly piled next to another blanket lump of the approximate right size to be her companion. Her armor and boots were in a neat heap next to her; she thought she remembered Isabela helping her out of them.
To her right, Fenris was seated on another rock, watching her in the dim glow of the banked fire.
"How long?" she asked, and winced. Her voice was rough and speaking hurt.
"Six hours," he answered. "I would have gotten you to a more comfortable position, but--" He shook his head. "You lashed out when I tried to move you."
She knew she was imagining the censure. Of everyone she knew, Fenris was the least likely to judge her for flinching away. Hawke nodded and focused on taking inventory of her injuries. Bumps and bruises from the fight, nothing too impressive there, and a general sense of unwellness in her belly, as if she'd been sunburned from the inside out. Well, healing magic worked as well on damage from poisons as it did that from knives, if the poison itself was gone. She reached through the Veil into the Fade and pulled magic into herself. Then she was wide awake and alert, energy thrumming through her.
Enough to tend her companions, if a little late.
"Did you take anything more than bruises?" she asked Fenris.
"No." He paused. "You may look."
From anyone else, it was a scrap of trust, like leaving one's infant in the bassinet with a little-known guest while visiting the privy.
From Fenris....
She stood and walked quietly to him, circling the large flat-topped rock that served as his seat with one hand resting on his shoulder so that he would know where she was. She brought her other hand to the opposite shoulder and sent her magic questing into him. He had a shallow scrape on the back of his shoulder, but it was clear of poison. Beyond that, he'd taken worse injury from a scuffle on the docks. Still, she breathed in magic and breathed out healing, letting it flow through her palms into his body, curling around the lines of lyrium to soothe all the little aches.
He touched her hand lightly, and then wrapped his hand around hers. She wanted to perch on the rock with him, curl into his side and cling, but...
"I'll tend Sebastian," she said, and even kept her voice steady.
"You should rest," Fenris said.
"I'll rest again after." She squeezed his shoulder lightly and skirted the fire. Sebastian slept uneasily, sweat dotting his brow. A cloth was crumpled beneath his cheek, where it had likely fallen when he turned. She rested a hand on his--she didn't need touch to heal, but it made it feel easier--and sought. She could feel the tough, ropy flesh of scars she'd knit too fast, and older ones, their pain mostly faded. Too many rough edges and the internal equivalent of scrapes from the poison. She followed the damage up his arm and felt an icy chill slide down her spine when she realized how close it had come to his heart. The antidote, too, had done its share of harm.
Healing it slowly, the kindest for him, took most of the false strength she'd drawn from the Fade when she healed herself, but when she was done, he rested easier, his face relaxed in true sleep, not tight with discomfort. She stayed kneeling by his side a few breaths longer, until she was sure she could get to her feet without falling. Isabela and Clarice appeared firmly asleep.
Fenris shifted on his rock to make room for her beside him. When she sat, he rested his hand on hers. He kept his eyes on the fire, and even in the dim light his face was drawn and exhausted.
Her heart ached. She didn't want to say goodbye to him, didn't want to smile and be joyful for him when his needs left her behind, but she knew her place. So she took two deep breaths to shrink the lump in her throat. "Rough day for you," she said, intentionally light.
She felt the weight of his glance cut sideways to her. "I am not the one who was injured," he said.
She had to make this light, make it funny. If she let him see that it hurt--she didn't want his kindness, not when it couldn't last. "You didn't like seeing us hurt," she said, and then shoved him very gently with the point of her shoulder. "Especially Sebastian." Thank the Maker, she'd pulled it off, soft and threaded with laughter and warmth.
"Hawke!" Even scandalized, he kept his voice low.
"As if I can't see how you look at him," she teased him.
"You know I would never--Hawke, I chose you."
She could have let it stop there. She wanted to let it stop there--but all their close proximity on this trip had shown her that they were easy with each other, and she wasn't blind to how Sebastian looked at Fenris, either. She choked down the words for I love you, and I chose you, and I will choose you every time that tangled in her throat, and instead said, "I still think you should ask him." Don't make me say it, she prayed.
He was staring at her, his face shadowed so she could not see anything. On her other side, away from him, she found she'd clenched her hand into a fist so tight that her nails had cut her palm.
Warm strong fingers closed around her wrist. He stood, tugging her to her feet with him, and led the way into the passage by which they'd come on silent bare feet. The faint light of the fire faded behind them. HIs steps slowed, but remained sure until the shifting of air against her face told her they'd moved into a different cavern--far enough away that she couldn't hear the crackling of the fire.
She could have lit their path, but she didn't.
"Do you mean that?" Fenris asked her, so softly. She heard the yearning in his voice, and that steeled her resolve.
She could allow herself this much of a confession. "I want you to be happy," she told him. "I--"
She got no farther, because his hands were in her hair and his mouth was crushed against hers, pressing her into the stone wall behind her. His body pressed to hers as though he couldn't tolerate even the slightest bit of space between them. Her arms twined around him, pulling him into her, without her conscious direction. She caught his lower lip between her teeth, gently, and ran her tongue along it. He cursed--she thought it was a curse, she didn't speak Tevene--and his hands flexed in her hair, pulling her head back to let him bite along the line of her throat.
She wanted.
It was uncanny to do this in near-perfect darkness; before, there had always been the fire or candlelight. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn't see her, or maybe it was knowing that this was the last time, but she felt bold in a way she never had. She fumbled with the laces of his shirt, grateful she didn't have to navigate armor blind, and slid her hands under the cloth, finding the shape of his muscles with the tips of her fingers. Then he closed his mouth on the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and whatever plan she'd had fizzled into nothingness, like the whimper in her throat. She flexed her hands on his chest, feeling the contrast of chill lines of lyrium and heated skin and the ridges of scars, a constellation of textures beneath her palms. She wanted to spend all night memorizing him.
She pulled his tunic up and he let her go long enough to help her remove it, tossing it aside. She had the half-thought we'll need a torch to find that later and then she deliberately forgot all concept of later, shoved it aside into the box that held all the things she never wanted to think about again, and pulled him in close, her hands pressing flat against his shoulder blades to bring him closer to her. She leaned forward for a kiss and bumped against his shoulder. Good enough. From there she could kiss his collarbones and into the hollow of his throat, nibble along the tendons in his neck to the back of his jaw. When she touched his ear with the tip of her tongue, he groaned, and she wanted to hear him make that sound again.
When she bit, very carefully, the long edge of his pointed ear, the way he said her name sent heat racing from the back of her neck all the way to her toes. She did it again, just a bit harder, and abruptly he stepped back, catching the hem of her tunic and yanking it upward. Neither of them had untied the laces, so there was a moment of confusion--and panic, quickly swallowed--when her arms tangled in the fabric and trapped her. He paused, his hips pressed against hers, his breath warm and soft against her shoulder, just long enough to make her wonder, with desire and dread mixed, if he meant to leave her tangled like this, at his mercy.
A moment later, his fingers trailed lightly along her collarbone until he found the laces and unknotted them more efficiently than she would have. How were his hands so steady? She was not going to think about that. She was not going to think at all. The tension of the fabric slackened and he pulled it the rest of the way off, with her help. The cave air was cool on her skin, enough to raise a hint of goosebumps, but she wasn't cold at all.
She reached out and her hands bumped into his. She couldn't help a little giggle. His hands moved up her arms, across her collarbones and down, cupping her breasts gently in his hands. She felt as though every nerve had gone on high alert, tense and focused, and when his calloused thumbs rubbed across her nipples, she had to concentrate to keep her knees from buckling. "Fenris," she whispered, keenly aware that she had to be quiet unless she wanted Isabela's color commentary for this.
He murmured her name, and then something else she didn't understand, but the way his voice rolled over her was like a caress all on its own. His hands moved over her like his voice, and she could drown in this. She had to consciously slow her own hands; she wanted to touch all of him, wanted to know and feel him before she had to stand back and smile--she wasn't thinking about that. She focused on the feel of his skin under her lips and hands, the taste of him (salt and leather and him), the sharp prickle of lyrium and the way he shivered when she held a swell of muscle with her teeth and traced patterns with her tongue. She felt his hands tangle in the laces of her trousers and wished, briefly, that he would slow down--that this could last.
Then his hand slid between her legs, and she stopped thinking at all. Her hands flexed hard on his shoulders and she felt the cold, rough stone against her back as he pressed her against the cave wall. She fought one foot free of the fabric tangling her feet--and Fenris caught her leg on his hand, sinking to his knees--she felt his body slide along hers--and hooking her leg over his shoulder.
She had a moment to take a deep breath, to bring one hand up to press against her mouth--and it was a good thing she had, because she nearly screamed at the first touch of his tongue. He gripped her hips, holding her still for him, and she felt like she was dissolving into fire under that mouth. She clutched at his shoulder, desperate for an anchor as she felt the tension twist into an unbearable peak. She muffled her own scream, but not enough, and then she was shaking, nearly boneless, held up by his hands and the wall.
She meant to say his name, but it came out as a low moan.
He made a low, pleased sound, his thumbs moving in soothing circles on her hips. She took a shaky breath and squeezed his shoulder in return, feeling how tremors ran through her arms and hands. She started to step aside, to sink down with him, and his hands tightened, pinning her to the wall, and even as slow and gentle as his tongue was, her body jerked in response. She wasn't sure if it was toward him or away. Her hand fluttered in the air, then sank into his hair, holding on tight, as he continued the light caresses that made her whimper with every touch.
"Let me," she whispered, and he shook his head, his hair tickling the sensitive inside of her thigh.
"Later," he said, and then it seemed he was done with being patient. She lost all sense of anything that wasn't his mouth, his hands, taking her apart piece by piece. She didn't know how long he held her there, only that she came back to herself slowly, curled in his arms on the cave floor.
She shifted slightly to avoid a rock that was prodding her hip uncomfortably. Her hand had been resting on his chest, and she trailed it lower, only to find her wrist caught in the warm and unmoving circle of his fingers.
"Please," she whispered. Her voice caught on all the reasons she couldn't say, and she was terribly afraid he could hear her speaking past tears. "Fenris. Please."
"I do not have a convenient source of witherstalk," he said mildly.
It took her a moment to realize why that would matter. It took her several more to make sure her tone wouldn't be bitter when she spoke. "We don't need witherstalk," she said. "I can take care of it."
He released her hand, albeit reluctantly, and she closed her hand gently around his cock. He shuddered when she traced him with her fingertips, endlessly fascinated by the softness of his skin there and the contrasts of texture. When she shifted to use her tongue as well, he arched up into her hand, a sharp wordless sound. "Hawke, please," he said, an echo of her earlier words, hoarse and longing.
"You don't like this?" she asked. He reached out, his hand fumbling against her knee before he gripped her thigh tightly.
"Rather too much," he said. Whatever he'd had to say next was lost in a gorgeously shattered noise when she took him into her mouth. "Hawke. Please."
She'd meant to tease him a little before she rode him, but now that she was here, she didn't want to spoil this last time with magic in lieu of witherstalk. Instead, she braced her hands on either side of his hips, and took her time, using her hands and her mouth until he cursed her in what she was fairly sure was at least three languages. She could feel the moment he gave himself over to her, his hands warm and rough on her shoulders when he gasped her name and bitter salt coated her tongue.
She was shaking, too, when she curled against him again.
He smoothed her hair and murmured something she didn't catch. They lay like that for a few minutes, Hawke drowsing against his shoulder, but the floor was hard and she was cold.
She sat up and summoned a tiny tongue of flame to help her find her clothes. Fenris's eyes were slitted narrow like a cat's, but he said nothing, only helped her get her clothing back on and then walked silently with her back to the campsite, where Hawke fervently hoped everyone else had slept through....all of that.
She tucked herself into her bedroll, and didn't even cry much before sheer exhaustion pulled her into a deep sleep.