Romance Fan Fiction / Other Fan Fiction ❯ Friends With Benefits ❯ Part Three ( Chapter 3 )

Hawke glanced at him over her shoulder, a riot of emotions playing across her features until they settled into a look of chagrin. “Remember how I promised I wouldn't get jealous?” she asked. His features remained impassive. “Well, I guess I lied because when you smelled like Isabela and had bites that weren't mine…well, it was kinda hard not to be so I avoided you while I sorted through that.”

His feet scuffed lightly against the stone flooring before he was standing behind her in the flickering firelight. “Are you…still jealous?” he asked.

The look that she gave him was rather flat. “I'll live,” she shrugged.

Fenris smirked, leaned down, planted a kiss on her neck, and whispered, “I am yours. Isabela was a onetime fling I have no interest in returning to so long as you are willing to have me.”

Her heart skipped a beat and she turned entirely to face him. His closeness made it even harder to breath, but she had to say it, had to make it known. “I am not Danarius. You are your own person and I w-mmph!”

He silenced her with a kiss that she relaxed into after a moment, sliding her hands up to rest on his shoulders. When he drew back to breath, he leaned his forehead against hers and said, “I know. I've always known this. You are unlike *anyone* I have ever known. This last week, knowing that I had earned your ire somehow, was uncomfortable.” He kissed her again, softer this time, and when he drew back his eyes were searching. “I quite enjoy your company in any form and I appreciate your friendship. To have your ire in some way is…unsettling as it could mean that you no longer wish my friendship.”

The mere thought of shutting him out of her life the way he was implying made her heart wrench and she kissed him, hard and fierce. Later, lying there with her ensconced in his arms, running his fingers over her arm, and simply holding her sleeping form, he realized he could be content with any life if only she were a part of it.

They continued on with a semi-peaceful existence for another few weeks until Aveline asked her to look into Emeric's investigation and the result was that her mother wound up as part of a blood mage's sick, demented attempt to recreate his wife. After killing everything in their path and ultimately slaughtering the blood mage, Hawke cradled her mother while the life drained slowly from her mangled body. Her companions stood back and allowed her the privacy of last, quietly spoken words with her mother.

Hawke sat there for a few moments longer, before she gently tugged a cloak around her mother's body, gathered her into her arms and stood. Her friends followed her to Hightown and then left her to her business to arrange the funeral and tell Gamlen. It wasn't until a week later that they began to worry about her, when neither Fenris nor the rest of the group had seen her. When they tried to check on her, they were rebuffed by a frazzled Bodhan that told them, “She's well, but not wishing to see any visitors today, messeres.”

Fenris ignored the dwarf and made his way up the stairs, to her room, and entered without knocking. She was simply sitting and staring into the fire and barely twitched when he said, “I don't know what to say, but I am here.”

When she offered only silence in return, he approached her and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his, and studying her face for some flicker of recognition. All he found was dead despair, but she leaned her forehead against his, tightened her hands around his, and closed her eyes while tears began to fall, one-by-one.

He pushed her back onto the bed and stripped her of her boots before curling protectively around her so that she could cling to him with all her remaining strength and sob her heart out. He held her like that the rest of the night and in the morning, she slept without dreaming.

After that, their relationship took a turn that wasn't quite a romantic relationship but also wasn't quite friendship any longer. They spent most of their days together, either reading or simply lying together. Most of the time, Hawke wasn't interested in sex and Fenris wasn't interested in pushing her, so they laid there with the fingers of one hand entwined and the other wrapped around each other. Sometimes, Hawke spoke of the family she had lost-the little brother to the ogre, the little sister to darkspawn taint, the father to a wasting illness, and the mother to the mad blood mage-and other times she simply curled up next to him and wept until she fell asleep. The times when she simply stared into the fire, unmoving and unreachable, were the worst, but little-by-little she began to recover her old personality.

She wasn't the same, exactly. There was a sharpness to her tongue after that that sent most people running, and a new rage that was only seen in battle that sharpened her focus and made her more deadly than ever. Hawke still retained, however, her odd humor, bad jokes, and half-heartedly began making attempts to spend time with her friends after that. Aveline, she helped to build a relationship with Donnic. Merrill, she grudgingly helped with her mirror. Anders, she helped with his odd project. Isabela, she engaged in witty banter with. Varric, she helped to track down and kill his brother. And Fenris, she helped to fight Hadrianna when the ambush came.

It was after Hadrianna was dead that their relationship took another turn.

When Fenris came to her that night to try and apologize, she approached him and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. He looked at her with an unreadable expression as she said, “I understand and it's alright, Fenris.”

“You are…generous, more so than most people,” he murmured, taken aback.

Closing the distance between them, Hawke kissed him and then drew back with a small smile. “You've been gracious with me these last few weeks since…” she almost choked on the words and decided to bypass them. “You've been gracious with me these last few weeks while I've been less than charitable. It's only fair that I return the favor.”

Memories of Hardrianna and Danarius and everything that had ever been done to him welled up and bled over and he tugged her into his chest, wrapped his arms tight around her, and buried his nose in her hair, trying to banish the painful memories with better, more pleasant memories of her. She was, he realized, the rock on which he had begun to build a new life, the very center of the freedom he was trying to capture, and the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

And when he took her that night, with their hands entwined and their breaths coming together, it was gentle and it wasn't slow. It was hard, hungry, and just a touch desperate as they both tried to find some sort of purchase in a world bent on destroying them. After wasn't peaceful, either, as memories of her collided with memories of his life with Danarius and paved a path for older, forgotten, repressed, erased memories to be seen again and, just for a moment, all be within his grasp before the darkness of his mind snapped closed on them again and dragged them back into the guarded depths to leave him more broken and hurting than before and, for the first time in memory, he wept.

In the morning, Hawke reached for him, smiling sleepily, but that smile vanished when her hand met only cold sheets and she snapped upright into a sitting position. Fenris was standing beside the fireplace, fully armored, and with his weapon secured to his back. “Was it that bad?” she asked nervously.

He looked at her, startled out of his thoughts. “No, it was fine,” he said and cursed himself when her gaze slid from his. “No, that is insufficient. It was better than anything I could have dreamed of.”

Her gaze turned back to his, eyes searching. “But something has changed,” she said with a sinking heart. “You're…done with this, then?” She had promised that they would remain friends, but so much had happened and her life had become so entwined with this warrior that she wasn't sure she *wanted* to be “just friends” after everything they had gone through together.

Fenris shook his head and looked down. “Last night, I began to remember. Faces…voices…people…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I cannot…do this. It is too fast, too…much.” He began to back away, trying not to register the despair and panic that flashed across her face. Not facing her made it easier. “This should never have happened. I just wanted to be happy, for a little while. Forgive me.”

The bed creaked and then her light footsteps sounded before her smaller form crashed into his back and her arms wrapped tight around him. He halted, sudden fear gripping him, but she was careful and she did not make skin to skin contact even with her forehead pressed to his back. “No,” she said fiercely. “Do not ask forgiveness where there is none required. You will do what you have to do and there is nothing to forgive for that. All I ask is that you answer one thing for me, Fenris.”

He could have broken away, could have continued running, but…she was Hawke and she deserved what little he could give her and more. He nodded briefly and he felt her exhale.

“When I told you that I was jealous of Isabela, do you remember your reply? That's not my question, but I need to know if you remember first,” she added quickly and he couldn't help the half smile of amusement that curved his lips before he nodded. *I am yours.* Oh, how those words and the promise behind them twisted his heart now. Would she call him out on them when he could not deliver? Would she demand that he make good on his promises? But she only asked, “Do you feel as strongly now as you did then?”

It was like he had reached into his own chest, crushed his heart, and ripped the organ out himself. Anything else would have been easier to answer, but… “No. It is stronger.”

She exhaled and her arms loosened. “Then, go and figure out what you need to and I will still be here if you want me then. Until then-” she swallowed thickly. “Until then, we can be just friends, like it was before. Nothing need have changed.”

And then she released him, turned away, and walked back into her room. Fenris looked at her over his shoulder as she picked up her armor and began tending to it. She would wait for him, until he was ready to admit that he wanted her in his life as more than a friend. He walked away and, in leaving, neither found happiness but neither were they heartbroken.