Giving Light.

Fenris/Hawke, originally posted for a kmeme prompt.

Trigger Warning: Attempted Suicide

It started as a drunken impulse.

He was staring at his arms. In a fit of rage, he had stripped down to his leggings, proving that he could finally walk without his armor on and feel safe. Fenris realized it had been a long time since he had actually looked at his body, aside from when he stitched it up. It was as tightly muscled and controlled as ever—but those scrolling marks. It was easy to forget how his lyrium coated his entire body when he couldn't see it.

Another thought: he destroyed. Destroying was what he did. He'd destroyed the Fog Warriors, destroyed his happiness with Hawke, lived in a destroyed mansion without ever attempting to fix the hole in his maker-forsaken bedroom roof. He'd finally destroyed his ex-master. Without that, he didn't know what to do. He solved problems with a blade.

Cue the drunken impulse.

After Fenris was done cutting a section of lyrium out of his arm, the blade dropped. He'd barely registered his own actions, but through the alcoholic haze he suddenly felt pain.

In a vague horror, he bandaged himself up. In the morning, when he went to change the wrap, the area was healed over. Beneath mottled scar tissue, the lyrium pulsed. It had regrown overnight.

Without his previous guiding force, Fenris' life stopped. He looked around and saw the squalor he'd been living in for seven years, finally reflected on many regrets. Were things any better now, really? Was this the life of a free man?

The exaltation of killing Danarius faded as Fenris realized he was still afraid. He was afraid of what his sister might do while she could walk about free. He still awoke in the night with a blade already drawn, awoken by his own nightmares. His throat still constricted when Hawke took him through the Gallows to pick up more potions, despite an army of Templars between them and the mages. Could he ever really be free, when fear still plagued him thus?

Fenris tried tantrums, but throwing wine bottles no longer offered more pleasure than emptying them. He could not leave this decaying mansion. The alienage was unthinkable. And Hawke's…he did not deserve even to think that.

Even now, his master caged him.

Once that thought entered his mind, it wouldn't leave. It was evident in the drafty mansion he stayed in because he had no place to go. Even in his own skin, he was surrounded always by the touch of Denarius. The weight of that thought—and its anger, its panic—followed him everywhere.

One by one, different things were no longer worth the effort. Why visit the Hanged Man, when he would just rack up debts he couldn't repay? All the alcohol he needed was here, anyways. Why venture out in the city at all? His friends—his friends, who all acted of their own free will—couldn't understand. Surely they could see? Surely they associated with him only out of pity. Besides, their squabbling and their noise was too much. How could he deal with them, and they with him, when he knew now that everything he'd worked for was for naught?

He stopped appearing at Hawke's for their reading lessons. She came by, upset, wondering why he'd stood her up twice in a row. He couldn't remember what he'd said. He knew he'd barely bothered to respond. He couldn't bear to hurt her anymore. Explaining why he'd stopped would be impossible. The reasons themselves were exhausting; trying to explain them was even more so, and he already had to look so idiotic and cowardly in Hawke's eyes.

The sun was too bright, the nights too cold. He rarely got hungry. Nightmares still haunted a sleep that came less and less. The last thing to leave was his need to practice. Once, he had spent hours a day on swordcraft. Continuing now seemed pure vanity. He reviled his weakness.

Whole days passed when he didn't move.

He couldn't pinpoint a time when the idea had formed in his head, but its whispers had increased in volume until they were nearly all he could hear. He could never be free of this fear and weakness and the all-encompassing dark. No salve would fix him, but there was one way to end the pain.

The next day, Fenris dragged himself out of the mansion. The light felt too sharp, the air too open; maybe this was how the dwarves felt when they feared falling into the sky. He crossed Hightown as if he were fording a river. At the market he purchased some high-quality vellum and a new pot of ink.

Hawke, he know, was out on the Wounded Coast. She had asked him to come yesterday, and her eyes were so full of pity Fenris couldn't stand himself. She couldn't feel bad for him. He had no right to her good will—didn't she know that? He had pushed her out angrily. It was less cruel than letting her see him wallow. But either way, she was gone today, so he broke into her bedroom window with no fear.

Fenris meant to slide in and out quickly, but with his rummaging and theft completed, he spent a long moment staring at her bed.

Almost unable to help himself, he came to kneel at the edge he knew she slept on. He reached—hesitated—trembled—and drew her pillow to his face.

"I am sorry."

Inhaling her scent, Fenris released a choked sound that, from anyone else, might have been called a sob.

Fenris was glad to have bought more than one sheet of paper, because they kept ending up ripped to pieces in his fire. A misspelled word here, an inadequate phrase here, a line too uneven to be really legible—none were acceptable. This one thing, he would get right.

Finally, he managed an adequate letter.

Marian,

I hope I have not lost the right to use your name. I am sorry. I wanted a part of you with me at the end. Do not mourn me, please. I wish you only happiness.

Yours,

Fenris.

Folding it crisply and leaving the page on the desk, Fenris took a deep draught of wine. On second thought, he untied the ribbon from his wrist and sealed the letter with it. Lifting the dagger stolen from Hawke's room, he considered it in the firelight. It shined silver like the tattoos scrolling over his body. Stripped to the waist, he could clearly compare it to the thick curls of lyrium branded onto his abdomen.

On that spot, he began his bloody work.

He was unsure if the screams were real, or merely dreams.

Everything ached.

His stomach demanded food. The pounding of his head signaled thirst. A weary, bored sort of pain touched every limb.

Fenris opened his eyes and tried to move. The ache sharpened to radiating pain. He didn't know where he was. What had he last been doing?

Oh.

Oh.

This was bad.

Panicked glances suggested the impossible. This looked like Hawke's room. How could he be…?

The jolt came when he noticed the other side of the bed. There lay Hawke, curled into herself and facing him. Her even breathing indicated sleep, but her face was caught in a look of worry.

Fenris didn't register his own gasp until Hawke's eyes cracked, and she jumped.

"Fenris!" She leaned closer and trailed her fingers over his cheeks.

He watched in mute panic.

"Fenris, thank the Maker. Fenris. Fenris."

Her eyes closed and she sank into his shoulder. At the feeling of her hot tears on his skin, he began shaking. This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to be here. He'd ruined another thing.

"Shhhhh, love. I'm so glad you're here. I'm glad you made it. Fenris, I was so scared you wouldn't wake up."

His mind was filled with too many questions he didn't want the answer to.

Finally, he settled on one that seemed less harmful.

"You let Anders…"

"Between that and letting you bleed out on the floor? Yes, Anders helped. You'll still need rest, though."

Hawke resituated to see him. He couldn't bear to break her gaze.

"I won't ask you why now, Fenris. That will come when you're ready. But I wish…I wish I'd known. I would have done anything to keep you from hurting like that."

Fenris bit through the pain and struck, crushing her against his chest. Hawke understood—she always did, how could he doubt?—and softly stroked his hair without looking up to see his tears.

Hawke was an important woman, and half the city was generally calling for her any given day, but for those days she barely left Fenris' side. She helped him sit to eat, insisting on at least three meals per day. When she wasn't actively helping, Hawke would just sit in the room, reading or softly singing to him. When he didn't flinch too hard, she would rub circles on his hair or hands.

At first he wouldn't speak, and she didn't push it. For hours he'd listen to her and stare at the fireplace. She had to try doubly hard to make him comfortable because he wouldn't ask for anything, and wouldn't allow fussing, either.

Hawke loathed leaving him even for the privy. She felt hypersensitive to everything about and around him. A few days into his stay, while catching up in her journal, she heard more shuffling than usual. She looked up and he was twisting, stretching, trying to get comfortable.

"Anders says your wounds could stand up to a bath, now. It might ease the ache."

"Thank you, but it's not worth the—trouble."

She was leaning out the door and calling for Orana before he could finish the sentence. A bath was drawn up in short order. Fenris stripped, determined not to be coddled or make himself a burden.

The steaming tub was full by the time he managed to get out of bed and shirtless. He was struggling with some of the bandages when Hawke put her hands over his. As she unwrapped his torso, he could feel her everywhere. She continually pulled close to pass the bandages behind his back. Fenris forgot to stop looking at her so intently before she finished, and so when she backed up, she got to see every emotion on his face.

Hawke's eyes searched his for a moment, broke, and looked away—then back.

"Um…I was…May I wash your hair?"

"My…hair?"

"Yes."

With the quirk of an eyebrow, he nodded. She strolled to her wardrobe to find her soaps and towels while he finished stripping and gingerly sank into the water.

Fenris hadn't much time to examine himself between Anders' bandage changes, but now he could see the full extent of his damage. Gaping scars and still-stitched wounds mottled his stomach, legs, and arms. He couldn't even remember making some of the numerous scars across his tattoos. A deep breath.

Hawke knelt behind him. "Ready?"

"Yes."

"Tilt your head back."

He complied, and she cupped water to pour over his head. After several rounds of this, she opened a bottle of some sort—he could hear the rubbing of her hands—and then she began to gently massage his scalp. A soft moan sprang from a repressed corner of his soul.

Hawke lathered every corner of his head, then rinsed and did it again. Caresses eased the pain of untangling the mats. Muscles in his stomach clenched as she rubbed against his ears. When the second rinse was done, she moved her fingers down his neck, keeping up her ministrations.

Much as he wanted to give in, he turned to barely see her and murmured, "You do not have to be so kind, Hawke."

"No, I don't."

With all deliberate slowness, she leaned forward and kissed his neck.

"But I already gave you room to doubt how much I cherish you once."

His hands gripped the rim of the tub.

"So just so we're clear," she nuzzled the lobe of his ear and his breath hitched, "I can't bear the thought of living without you." Her arms slowly came to wrap over his shoulders. "If you don't want me, that's okay, you left for a reason. But just know that there is someone who needs you like she needs air."

Hawke could practically hear his internal argument, but smiled when he finally relaxed and let his head drop back on her shoulder.

"You deserve more," he said, sounding more resigned than argumentative.

"This isn't about deserving. It never is. Only giving."

They remained that way, his head leaning into her heartbeat, until the water turned cold.

On the Ides, the halfway point through the month, Hawke paid her bills. This was usually Bodhan's business, but it was a small errand, and Hawke had used it to coax Fenris from the house for a bit.

They strolled in the lull-hours, staying out past their last stop. Without much warning, Hawke bought an impromptu breakfast: a sweetroll for herself and an apple for Fenris (he never could stand sweets). Together they walked nowhere, until Hawke found a view of the docks she liked and plopped down on the wide railings. She patted the spot beside her for Fenris, but he only leaned. In contented silence, they ate.

She caught his gaze on accident, breath catching at the heat. Her tongue was still wrapped around a sugar-coated finger. Eyes widened as she realized what she was doing—a blush—a giggle—and then Fenris was caressing her fingertips with his mouth. Surely he could feel her tremble.

When he pulled back, he had on the hungry smile she remembered from years ago. Thank the Maker he looked away, because Hawke would never have been able to. Even as they idly watched the ships, he still held her hand.

That night, for the first time, Fenris lay awake thinking of Marion Hawke on the other side of the bed.

Weeks passed. Fenris went out with Hawke a little more, but when she felt him begin to withdraw, she always led them home. This was a lesson hard learned—he snapped and escaped otherwise. By degrees it became easier to recognize that empty haunting in his expression. She was afraid to leave but unable to ignore her other friends and duties much longer.

Fenris appreciated the time alone. He was just getting beyond living to survive the moment and needed room to think. He did not want to live off Hawke's money but couldn't even consider returning to his mansion, not alone, not with what had happened. He needed to be useful, to do something. Sitting still with his hate had landed him here.

One day she returned and found him practicing letters. Fenris cursed at a blotch, noticing her presence only after her laughter.

He smiled. "G's involve an unnecessary amount of swooping." She laughed again.

They spent the afternoon writing.

Somehow days with Isabela never…drifted. They might surge and roil and crash and crest, but they never flowed smoothly.

Hawke was cursing this particular truth on her way home. No one listened but the night, and it did no good but to aggravate her swollen lip. She knew better than to plan just a few hours for a "small favor" to Isabela. Maker's holy prepuce, she'd left at dawn!

"Like I need another enemy in the docks…"

Hawke divested as she walked into the house, dropping weapons, gauntlets, wrappings as she went. Orana gasped at the bloody flurry and Hawke stood still long enough to be dabbed with a wet rag, too tired to brush off the insistent servility.

Wobbling up the stairs, Hawke managed to get to her room. She more collapsed on the door more than opened it.

A few blinks passed before she comprehended the scene inside.

Before the fire, Fenris knelt, head downcast. Her desk behind him sprawled haphazardly. A gleam near him—her knife, the firelight. Sheer panic. No blood. Thank the Maker. She rushed to him.

Under the knife was the note she had kept, a last piece of him in case he didn't make it. His focus was in his fingers, at a threadbare red ribbon. He didn't acknowledge her.

All of these, she'd collected after Anders banished her from the room to concentrate. The knife shined now free of bloodstains—her last one surviving from Lothering, a memento more than a weapon. The letter, for all Fenris' meticulous penmanship, was nearly illegible with folds and tearstains.

Hawke gasped for words to blanket this, make light and move on like she always did, but there were none. She knew he was reliving every moment. She knew he was thinking he'd made himself a burden. An animal terror combined with despair on his face and she couldn't stand it.

Fenris met her eyes with blank bewilderment as she cupped his face.

"It's still yours, if you want it."

His brow wrinkled. Hawke slid the cloth from his fingers and bound it to his wrist as he stared. She fiddled without looking up.

"You could kill yourself with guilt over this, but I think we've both decided we want you here, so it would be kind of silly."

"I deserve nothing but shame."

"No!"

Disaffected silence.

"You should be proud. You survived! You survived Danarius, and living on the run, the lyrium, and now this. None of those was any small feat, Fenris. Freedom isn't easy. We all fuck it up. We muddle through because we need each other, and we hang on because everything always changes. Even the worst things."

Looking up tipped the emotional overflow. His eyes, unguarded, were a force. A beat, and then, he lunged.

Hardly a moment passed between when she hit the stone floor and when his lips crashed, desperate and painful, against hers. He swallowed her squeak of surprise, flared against her grinding body. Raking fingers expressed all his frustration, all her fear.

"I never apologized for three years ago," he panted.

"No need. Kiss me."

He complied.

They caught their breath in a tangle. Hawke wasn't precisely sure how they'd managed to get in this position or adequately naked, but it took a few tries to separate. In the moment, they hadn't really cared about comfort or pleasure or anything but reconnecting again as hard and fast as possible.

When the glow began to fade, Fenris rose. He ripped the letter and tossed it in the flames. He replaced her dagger in her chest of keepsakes. He turned to her, and at last he helped her up and guided them to bed.

Hawke felt in his breathing that he could not sleep that night, that thoughts and nightmares kept him up. The restlessness wasn't new, but the hand caressing her spine was. On a whim she hummed a steady lullaby, happy merely to be curled onto him, for this moment they were alive and together.

In that endless dark, she glowed as he quietly sang along.

Fin.

Author's note: As a person who's struggled with suicidal feelings all my life, this was hard to write. I wanted to portray how you can't get over it overnight; I was especially worried that he would seem too dependent on Hawke, because I've learned the hard way that no one can rely on someone else for their happiness—hope her support came through while still seeming a balanced relationship. I chose to end here because it's the small notes of hope that get me through life. Sorry those of you who wanted sexy times! I can hardly write Fenris without multiple orgasms, but I didn't find it to suit this story's purpose.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed.