Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Author's Note: Gift fic for jediserenity82, who asked for some FenHawke fluff.

Tell Me a Story

"'Tell me something true.'" - Hawke and Fenris. The art of storytelling.

"Oh, sod this bleeding sand and this bleeding sun and this whole bleeding place!" Hawke groans as she plops down on a rock ledge along their current path of the Wounded Coast.

Isabela flips her hair off her sweat-soaked neck and plants her hands on her hips. "Your choice, if I may point out, love."

Hawke only narrows her eyes at the pirate.

Isabela laughs and changes her weight to the other hip. "Though I will say I've gained my fair share of coin from this little adventure so cheers on that one."

Hawke rolls her eyes and reaches down to rub at her swollen ankle, careful not to touch the gash along her calf through her leathers. She winces at the pain even still and retracts her hand immediately. "And all I've gained is this bloody sprained ankle and a ruined pair of trousers."

Merrill steps up to her, hands wringing before her. "Is the poultice working any, Hawke?"

The warrior in question shrugs one shoulder and makes a grimace. "Not…particularly."

Merrill lets out a soft groan of anxiety and turns back around, eyes scanning the coast.

Hawke's pride is at least somewhat soothed by the fact that the injury was made by an ambushing Tal-Vashoth rather than your everyday raider, because she's miffed enough as it is and doesn't think she could survive the embarrassment if the enemy had been anyone of lesser skill. It's already bad enough that she's stumbling around the coast on the shoulders of her companions. Maker, if Varric were here…

She'd never hear the end of it.

Fenris clears his throat and scratches at his cheek, his gaze turned from her. "I could…carry you, if it will make it easier."

The three women blink at Fenris and he finally looks their way, lips tightening into a thin line. His throat flexes as he swallows silently, chin raised.

Hawke tries to hold back the smirk at his offer but fails miserably. "Thanks but, by the look on your face, I'd say you're none too keen on the offer yourself."

He sighs, a half-grumble. "The offer is there nonetheless," he mumbles, arms folding stiffly over his chest.

"Such the gentleman," Isabela coos.

He only tightens his jaw.

Hawke waves it off. "Besides, I'd only slow you down. I don't want to be a hindrance."

Isabela plants a hand on the warrior's shoulder and smiles teasingly down at her. "Love, you're already a hindrance as it is. Just let the poor man bundle you up in his strong arms and carry you down the mountain, hmm?"

"Would you stop –"

"That is hardly –"

"What if we went for Anders?" Merrill interrupts, clapping her hands together once, swift and loud, to catch the other three's attention.

Hawke stops with her hands reaching for Isabela's throat and looks at the lithe elf. "What, just leave me here and hope that no one comes upon my pathetic, crippled self?"

Isabela smacks her shoulder and laughs. "Now you're thinking like a champion."

Hawke opens her mouth to retort when Fenris speaks. "One of us should stay with her."

Hawke looks at him with words at the tip of her tongue but nothing comes.

"My thoughts precisely," Merrill says. "Stay in pairs. Safer that way."

"I choose Kitten," Isabela says, smiling, crooking an arm around the mage's neck.

"I agree." Fenris nods once, sure and tight.

"What?" Hawke asks, head jerking between Fenris and Isabela. "Wait, I haven't even agreed to stay behind in the ass end of nowhere and you just –"

"Would you rather I carried you?" Fenris cuts in, an inscrutable look on his face.

Hawke squirms uncomfortably on the rock, her hands moving to inch beneath her thighs as she looks at him, brows narrowed down petulantly. "No," she finally grumbles.

Fenris sighs, one hand moving to pinch the bridge of his nose. "At our current pace, we will not make it back to Kirkwall before dark, and our chances of running into any…unwanted…company is exceedingly higher. Carrying you would also slow us down and hinder my readiness for battle. It is the most logical solution to look for a defendable position and bunker down until the others can arrive with Anders."

Isabela leans an elbow along Fenris' shoulder as she says, "Like the man says, it's easiest this way. Don't fight it, love. We're looking out for you." She ends her words on a suspicious wink that has Hawke narrowing her eyes at the pirate.

Fenris lightly shrugs Isabela's arm from his shoulder. "Isabela and Merrill are faster, and I am most capable of defending you by myself, should the need arise."

"Defending?" Hawke splutters, her back going rigid.

Fenris tempers his gaze somewhat, his voice going softer. "It is not a comment on your skill, Hawke, only on your unfortunate disadvantage."

"Smooth," Isabela chirps beside him.

He shoots her an unamused look.

Hawke folds her arms over her chest, cheeks burning at the current situation and her lack of usefulness. "Fine," she nearly spits. And then she sighs, shoulders sagging a bit, her own ire going slack. "Fine, just hurry up."

Merrill offers her a reassuring smile. "We'll be back before you know it."

Hawke glances to Fenris beside her and sighs. "I doubt it."

"Come on," Isabela urges, waving them on. "There's a cave not far along the path. You can hide out there until we're back."

Hawke nods, arms going out instinctively to wrap around Isabela and Fenris' shoulders as they hobble along toward their destination. When the cave – after a painful trek downhill through brush and rock – comes into view, Hawke pulls up short and starts tapping Isabela's shoulder anxiously. "Check for spiders. Check for spiders." Her other hand tightens over Fenris' shoulder guard.

Isabela laughs and slips from under Hawke's arm, waving Merrill over to follow her through the cave, and Hawke slumps just a bit more against Fenris.

A handful of minutes pass where Hawke is acutely aware of his hand along her waist, firm and anchoring. She glances up at him and finds him watching her quietly. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks back to the cave entrance. "I hate the blighted things," she offers in explanation, though she isn't too sure he knows she's still talking about the spiders and she's too hesitant to bother saying more. So she clears her throat and shifts against him, eyes blinking furiously into the cave.

Isabela and Merrill emerge not long after, Merrill's smile brilliant. "All clear," the elf says cheerfully, motioning toward the cave. It's a long and awkward shuffle, punctured by Hawke's occasional protests and choked-off yelps of pain, but they somehow make into a darkened, cramped alcove of the cave. It smells like moss and saltrock. But Hawke is able to position herself back against one of the rock walls, facing the narrow entranceway where Fenris squats just a couple feet away, his profile to her. Isabela and Merrill wave their farewells, Isabela with an encouraging wink and a too-obvious thumb chucked in Fenris' direction. Hawke scowls at her and crosses her arms, eyes narrowing.

And then they are alone.

Hawke's eyes trail along the grey stone beneath her, and she reaches one finger out to flick a pebble out from beneath her thigh, sighing at the slight relief. She looks up and finds Fenris still looking out the alcove's entrance, his muscles still and taut in anticipation. He keeps his jaw locked tight and his eyes sharp.

Hawke sighs in exhaustion at just the sight of him. He makes no indication that he notices. Rolling her eyes, Hawke stretches out her good leg and nudges him with the toe of her boot. She receives a disinterested glance in response.

"Tell me a story," she says.

She can't be sure, but she thinks she sees the end of his lip curl upward slightly.

"I should keep watch," he answers instead, face turning back to the entrance.

Huffing, Hawke nudges him again, and this time she can see the flex of annoyance in his jaw. She smiles to herself at the sight. "Come on, Isabela's traps will let us know if anyone's coming."

"Even still."

"Maker, you're so boring."

A single brow shoots up into his hairline as he looks back at her.

Hawke leans her head back against the rock and accidentally knocks the hilt of her sword. "Ow." She rubs at the back of her head and shifts against the wall to slide the sword from behind her back.

"Give it here," Fenris offers, hand outstretched toward her.

She grumbles, but she gives it to him, settling back along the stone wall with a bit more ease. "We finally get some alone time and you don't even want to talk to me." She looks away, her lip caught between her teeth. It's not quite petulance and not quite hurt that crosses her features. All the same, her fingers wind around themselves in her lap and she wonders just how she's supposed to go about this.

This…thing…between them.

This something and nothing.

She doesn't know what one does in a relationship with someone like Fenris. And she doesn't know if it even is a relationship. And she doesn't know if he's afraid of the same things that she is or if he asks the same questions that she does or if this means as much to him but Maker, sometimes it kills her to be wondering these things.

Because all she knows is that she thinks far too much about him than is appropriate. And yeah, maybe there's a small part of her – the prideful part she would never admit aloud is still very much present – that resents having to always be the one that lays down their cards first. She's never met such an unreadable man before. And she's never been so uncertain about her place in the world, her place in someone else's world.

Once – just once – she'd like to hold his heart in the palm of her hand.

But maybe – she realizes guiltily – it's selfish to want such a thing.

Even still, she hates being the only vulnerable one between the two.

"You want me to tell you a story."

She looks up at his voice, but he's still watching out the cave entrance, shadow half shrouding his face.

She purses her lips and then sighs, shrugging her shoulders in defeat. "It'd be nice, yeah. Help pass the time."

"But you do not like my stories," he says simply, like a fact.

She splutters a moment. "What? Whatever gave you that idea?"

He levels her with an indifferent look. "You told me."

Scoffing, Hawke uncrosses her arms. "When did I ever say that?"

"Two weeks ago, you told me my stories were 'entirely too depressing and populated with an unrealistic number of severed limbs'."

She pauses, thinking hard. "Okay, wait, you took that one way out of context."

"It still stands."

"Now you're cherry-picking my words."

"You are the one who says them."

"And you should know by now not to give much credence to most of the things I say."

A soft smile, barely visible in the dim light, flickers at the edges of his mouth. "I shall remember you said that."

She groans at that one. "I swear, it's never easy with you."

He grows somber a moment and Hawke wonders if maybe those weren't the right words. She bites her lip. "Not that I like easy, mind you. 'Mysterious' has its charms. So does 'evasive'. And 'distant'."

Yeah, because those were infinitely better words to use.

Fenris frowns.

Hands coming up to wave in what might be surrender or might be crazed panic, Hawke laughs awkwardly. "This would be a perfect time to cherry-pick my words, by the way. Because they are coming out all wrong right now."

He allows himself a slight smile at that, though Hawke thinks it might be a sad one. He doesn't hold it long. Instead, he looks back out the cave entrance and keeps his mouth clamped tight.

Many moments go by when Hawke holds her arms around herself and watches him. Finally, sighing with boredom and guilt and exhaustion, and just a bit of need, she nudges him once more with her uninjured foot.

He catches her ankle so quickly she barely has time to finish her yelp of surprise before she sucks in a breath at his quickness. He looks at her with slightly narrowed eyes and a teasing frown. "If you kick me one more time, Hawke…" He purposely leaves his warning open-ended.

Hawke closes her gaping mouth and tries not to laugh at his look. She starts to pull her leg back but he doesn't release her. "I didn't kick you, really," she mumbles, her lip caught between her teeth so he doesn't see the blinding grin trying to break free.

He rolls his eyes at her, but there is tenderness to the way he slowly lowers her leg back to the ground, his fingers lingering on her ankle for just a moment before he pulls back. He finally moves from his squatting position, settling back along the cave wall so that he is fully facing her now.

"Tell me a story," she says again, and this time, when her whisper hits the air, Fenris only furrows his brow and looks at the ground.

"I do not know what kind of story will satisfy you."

"Tell me something true."

He thinks a moment, slowly sliding his blade across his lap to rest along his knees. "I can only say what is true to my own experience."

"Then tell me something true about you."

Fenris looks up at her. She offers him an encouraging look, her arms crossing in anticipation. "About me?"

She nods vigorously.

He looks back down at the blade in his hands, one gauntleted finger sliding along the smooth hilt. He sighs, settling on a memory, and he rolls his shoulders before beginning. "Once, there was an elf."

"Let me guess: his name was Fenris."

"Correct."

"I love it already."

He chuckles at that, and she finds herself smiling unabashedly.

"Yes, well, this elf – Fenris – he found himself in the midst of a rather eccentric group of Kirkwallers one day."

"I'm not really a Kirkwaller, though," Hawke corrects.

Fenris huffs slightly. "A group of miscreants who reside in Kirkwall, then."

"I mean, I guess."

"Do you want to tell this story?"

"No, no, you can go ahead."

"Because you are welcome to tell it."

"But you do it with such flare!" Hawke encourages, arms opening up as though to showcase him.

He answers with a low grunt, shifting along the dusty stone floor. "Your praise is both untrue and unnecessary."

"I like listening to you, is all," she answers simply, brushing her auburn curls from her face.

Fenris' voice stills in his throat at that. He clears it roughly, eyes not meeting hers. "You must forgive me if I find such a statement…uncomfortable."

"Why?"

"No one has ever thought me valuable enough to consider my words worth listening to."

Hawke frowns at his admission, at the way his gaze lingers on the wall, the way he swallows thickly. She taps a finger against her lips and then answers. "'Valuable' is such a…I don't know. Not the right word, really. Makes me think of money and numbers and that's…not it, you see."

He chances a glance her way.

"Rather, I'd say 'important'. You're important, Fenris."

He blinks at her, and she tries to smile but something has already shifted in the space between them and she can't find the air she needs to say more. So she laughs haltingly, her voice already cracking, and she rubs at her nose a moment, shaking her head with the silliness of it. "I just…you know, in case no one's ever told you."

He keeps looking at her.

She tries to pull her legs up to bring her knees to her chest in a position that has always eased her discomfort, but she belatedly remembers her wounded calf and swollen ankle and she hisses at the pain of it.

Fenris shoots forward instantly to hold her leg as she eases it back down. "Are you alright?"

She grunts her answer, nodding with her lip between her teeth. "Yeah, yeah, just…agh, just amazed at my own stupidity."

"You should not be moving it."

"I know that." She shoos his touch away.

He eases back into his sitting position reluctantly.

Sighing and cracking her neck, Hawke motions him to continue. "Anyway, go on."

"Hmm?"

"I want to hear the rest of it. The story. I want to hear about the adventures of the disgruntled elf, Fenris."

He narrows his eyes at her again. "'Disgruntled'?"

"Okay, are there any adjectives I use that you approve of?"

"Predominantly, no."

She rolls her eyes and chuffs a broken laugh. "Of course not."

His slow smile is hidden behind a gauntleted hand as he moves to rub his chin.

"Just…finish it already. I want to hear the end."

Lowering his hand from his mouth, Fenris takes a moment to look at her, at her playful pout, her mussed and tangled curls, her broad shoulders and warrior's build, the anxious tapping of her fingers along the dirt, the way her eyes tell him everything and nothing that he has always wanted to ask her.

The way he finally realizes the one true thing he has always known, even when he thought the world devoid of truth.

This one, simple, immutable fact.

Clearing his throat, Fenris looks down to the discarded sword at his side that he had tossed to the dirt when he moved to her so suddenly moments before. "This elf, I suppose you could say he made friends."

Hawke beams silently before him.

Fenris shifts along the stone floor and clears his throat once more, his words laced with a quiet confidence now that hadn't been there before. "And this band of ruffians-"

Hawke giggles at the term.

"- they take him to all kinds of places. To dark and haunted ruins, to the dregs of Lowtown, to the salt-spattered sands of the Coast, to the unexpected warmth of hearth and home."

"Oh, this is getting good."

Fenris smiles but continues. "And one day, they decide to traverse the Wounded Coast in search of a renegade band of Tal Vashoth. They meet the grey giants by the light of midday, and battle ensues."

Hawke's eyes are gleaming now, her fingers curling under her thighs as she watches him, remembering the fight earlier that afternoon.

"Blows were traded, and spells were cast, and foe after foe fell before the ragtag group of fighters."

"We need a name," she interrupts suddenly.

Fenris raises his brows in question. "Excuse me?"

"We need a name," she repeats.

Fenris opens his mouth, and then closes it. He brings a hand to rub against his chin in thought.

Hawke takes a deep breath and looks up at the ceiling in contemplation. "Something snazzy."

"Something snazzy…" he parrots in a dead-pan.

She nods vigorously.

"I am afraid I have no suggestions for you, Hawke."

She waves him off. "I got it, I got it. What about…" She pauses dramatically, hands splayed apart for effect. "'The Kirkwall Killers'! Eh?" She waggles her eyebrows with the name, her crooked grin far more endearing than she could have ever known.

Fenris chuckles behind a gauntleted hand. "Are you going for something menacing or are you just a fan of alliteration?"

Hawke pouts but doesn't answer.

"Regardless, I thought you were opposed to being known as a 'Kirkwaller'."

Frowning slightly, Hawke's hands slowly return to her lap and she narrows her eyes in thought a moment. "Okay. Okay, so…maybe…?" With a sudden amused twist to her lips, and a mischievous glint to her eye, she whispers devilishly, "I know. We're the 'Bad News Crew'."

Fenris purses his lips in consideration, glancing to the wall as he slowly nods, his own smile hesitant and barely-there. "Alright. Seems apt."

"Oh it is."

Another chuckle, and he begins to wonder when it was that mirth silently snuck back into his life. When was it that his smile and his humor began to come so easily? When was it that he began to associate Hawke with ease and comfort and merriment? When was it that he began to feel so safe with her that he had discarded his perpetual frown and vigilant temperament?

When was it that he learned to laugh again?

And how had she made it seem so easy when nothing in this world ever was?

"Alright," he agrees. "The Bad News Crew. Shall I continue?"

She motions him on. "Please do."

"So, the Bad News Crew fought on, braving the mighty Tal Vashoth. They were many and they were powerful. But our heroes were undaunted, especially their boisterous, reckless leader."

"Whoever could you mean, good sir?" Hawke asks innocently, hand braced to her chest in mock surprise.

Fenris only raises a single unamused brow.

Hawke mutters something under breath and turns her pout to the wall.

"This leader, known as Hawke to some, and a nuisance to others, had – "

"Hey!"

"A simple point of contention, Hawke, but you agreed to let me tell the story."

She rolls her eyes and throws her hands up in exasperation. "Fine. Fine, tell the story, Maker damn it. Just…tell the story."

She is far more beautiful in this quiet moment than he thinks anything in this world has a right to be. The soft curl of his lips is a secret, tender smile he is still learning to wear.

"This 'Hawke', she is a reckless sort. Rushing into hordes of enemies with a complete disregard for strategy, or stealth, or even common sense at times."

Hawke crosses her arms staunchly, biting her lip to keep the words from spilling forth.

Fenris smirks at her vexation. "But this recklessness, this eagerness in battle, is often misconstrued."

A furrow appears between her brows but she doesn't say anything.

Fenris slides two fingers along the smooth edge of his blade, watching the motion with a passiveness that belies the bundle of nerves in his stomach. "Others who witness this fury in battle seem to take it as a base and heedless bloodlust, or a naïve heroism. But it is neither. When one looks close enough, it becomes clear. Hawke is a protector at her very core. It is apparent in her words, in her actions, and most especially, in her blade – in the way she has always put others before herself, even in the heat of battle." His eyes land on her wounded leg and his throat tightens. "It is not a careless disregard that urges her forward but a fierce loyalty. And Fenris knows this because he watches her. Because he has watched her for years. And he knows, perhaps better than anyone, how far Hawke will go to protect that which she loves."

Hawke's lips part at the words but her voice has silenced in her throat. She glances to the wall, licking her lips, rubbing at her arms. And then a hesitant smile pulls at her mouth. She laughs, soft and short. "So," she begins, clearing her throat, "how did the fight turn out?" She finally looks back to him.

His eyes have returned to the blade in his lap. "As all the others have – victoriously for our heroes."

Hawke beams at that.

"Although, the valiant Hawke suffered an injury in the course of the battle. Her companions – "

"The Bad News Crew."

Fenris glances up and then smiles indulgently. "The Bad News Crew assisted her in coming down the coast, but were unable to continue once the severity of her injury was understood. Two members went forth in search of their healer, while Fenris the elf offered to watch over the wounded Hawke."

Bunching her shoulders up with her appreciative grin, Hawke whistles low. "So valiant."

"He rather thought so."

She rolls her eyes then.

Fenris chuckles, and then stops, sighing softly, his gaze raking over the stone floor. Shadows shift throughout the small cave and suddenly, nothing has ever seemed so easy. The words settle along his tongue as though they always belonged there. His eyes find hers easily, and the breath that fills his chest feels like the first gasp of air he has ever truly tasted. "Hawke asks for a story. Fenris tells one. And sometime between the telling, he falls in love with her."

Hawke blinks at him. A steady beat of silence fills the air and the long stretch of revelation is like a chasm between them, wide and daunting.

They stand at the edge, the cliff dropping sharp and abrupt at their feet.

His hand is just across the way. If she could only reach it, she knows…she knows…

The plunge is a sharp drop and a hard fall. And he is all the courage she needs. He is all she ever needs.

She steps from the ledge.

"And this is a true story?" she manages, her breath catching. Her eyes are riveted on his.

He does not hesitate. "It is the truest thing I know."

She purses her lips to keep the blinding smile from creeping forth. "Loving me?"

"Loving you," he affirms.

It is a slow bloom of longing that begins in her chest, unfurling its tender touch until it has seeped into her pores and saturated her skin – until it has crept along her bones and anchored deep in her marrow – until the tips of her fingers are bursting with it.

Until she tastes it along her tongue like his wine-stained lips on that night many years ago.

Until she has learned to tell her own story of love.

It begins with an elf.

"That can't be the end of it," she says, her smile widening, eyes glistening already.

Fenris sighs, but it is a happy sound, a sound that makes her heart clench in her chest, a sound she has never heard from him before. "No," he answers, swallowing tightly, his hesitant laugh more a shaky breath than anything – more a terrified exhale than any real notion of confidence.

That cliffside.

That chasm.

The freefall is just the start.

"It's only a beginning," he breathes, eyes lifting to hers.

His heart in her palm is far more fragile than she ever imagined.

She curls her fingers softly and lovingly around the edges.

She holds it tight to her chest and doesn't let go.

"Do you want to know how it ends?" she whispers in the space between them.

His brows lift in question, a curious sort of frown adorning his face.

Stiffly and awkwardly, Hawke bends her uninjured leg beneath her until she can push up on one knee and shuffle toward him. His hands go out to steady her automatically, finding purchase on her waist as her own hands brace along his shoulders.

Her face stops just before his, her warm breath puffing soft and excited against his lips. Her mouth curls into a promise.

Fenris blinks up at her, breath stilled in his chest.

"I can show you," she finishes, and then leans in.

Hawke thinks that maybe, in the end, she rather likes his stories after all.