In which Fenris finds the balls to tell Hawke a little more about himself by getting drunk on the last few bottles of Aggregio. 

This is my heavy embellishment of the moment when Fenris tells Hawke about his escape from Danarius. More bad flirting, sexual tension, and the story of the Red Scarf™ (you all know the one). 

Read on AO3 instead; it’s a bit long (>3000 words). 

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When Fenris finally decided to open up to Hawke, he made sure that he was drunk.

He opened the door and smiled lazily at her. “You’re just in time. There’s one last bottle of the Aggregio. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.”

“You got started without me, I see?” Hawke complained as she followed him to the table. “I’m hurt. Don’t you know by now that it’s not a party until I walk through the door?”

“No party,” Fenris corrected as he uncorked the final precious bottle. He gallantly offered it to her. “It’s just the two of us.”

“Ooh. A private party with drunken Fenris? It’s like a dream come true.” She grinned as she sat at the table, then sipped from the bottle before handing it back to him. “What’s the special occasion?”

“The anniversary of my escape,” Fenris replied, then jauntily raised the bottle. “Astia valla femundis!” He sat and took a fortifying swig, and before he could lose his nerve, he planted his elbows on the table and smiled. “Care to hear the story?”

There, he thought. The hardest part was over, like ripping an arrowhead free from the flesh. Now that he’d put the offer out there, he couldn’t take it back.

Her amused little smirk slipped for a split second, replaced by a look of complete surprise. To her credit, she regrouped quickly; she sat beside him and kicked off her boots, then propped her feet up on the table as she always did. She reached for the bottle of wine and shot him a cheeky grin. “You can tell me anything you like. You know I could listen to that voice of yours all day,” she purred.

He smiled back just as flirtatiously. “There are few pleasures greater than speaking with a beautiful woman,” he drawled.

She gave a throaty little laugh, and Fenris was inordinately pleased by the rosy flush that spread across her cheeks. “All right, smooth talker, you’ve got me hooked. Tell me your story,” she said.

Tell me your story. It seemed so simple when framed in her playful voice, but in truth, this was a story Fenris hadn’t told anyone. In the years he’d spent in Hawke’s company, he’d never shared the details of how he’d come to be in Kirkwall.

It wasn’t for Hawke’s lack of interest. She’d asked him about his escape more than once during his first months here, but he’d always refused to tell her, too suspicious of her motives to risk the telling. And given her constant wisecracks, he’d figured she was hoping for an adventurous tale, but the story of Fenris’s escape was anything but entertaining.

Fenris knew Hawke better now. He’d seen past her incessant flirting, and he’d caught the occasional glimpse of sadness beneath her constant smile. Hawke’s heart held more melancholy than Fenris had originally thought, and after three years of working together – three years of battles and arguments and teasing – Fenris had decided that it was safe to let her see more than the malevolent marks on his skin.

Fuelled by booze-lubricated bravado, he’d finally decided to open the door and let her in a little bit.

And so it was that Fenris told her about Seheron. He told her about the fog warriors and how he’d murdered them all under Danarius’s command. He forced his way through the sordid tale, refusing to let the pain of it suck him in: how unworthy he was of their care, their strength and their pride and their fondness for each other and for him, the bodies he’d left broken and bloodied on the ground-

No, he told himself firmly. This was hard enough already. There was no point allowing himself to feel the agony of it. He took another deep drink from the mostly-empty bottle, then offered it to Hawke. “And now you know,” he drawled. Now that the words were free and floating in the air, Fenris was finding it hard to look at her.

She took the bottle silently, then drained the final few gulps of wine. She placed the empty bottle on the table, then slid her feet to the floor and leaned her elbows on the table. “That was worth waiting three years to hear,” she said softly.

Her words were kind but matter-of-fact, and he could feel his shoulders relaxing at her response. He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve never spoken about what happened to anyone,” he confessed. “I’ve never wanted to.” He eyed her contemplatively. “You and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but…”

“But what?” she asked.

He studied her for a moment. Her chin was resting on her fists, an innocent-looking pose for such a cheeky woman, but Hawke looked anything but impudent now. Her expression was curious and free of guile, and the wine was swimming nicely in his veins, making this moment feel just that little bit softer and safer.

“I have never allowed anyone too close,” he said. He reached automatically for the bottle of wine, remembering belatedly that it was empty.

Hawke unhooked a small flask from her pouch belt and offered it to him, and he nodded gratefully as he took it. She tilted her head as she watched him drink. “Shame,” she murmured. “Close to you must be a nice place to be. I bet that burning ball of rage in your chest would keep me nice and warm at night.”

He swallowed his mouthful of brandy and smirked at her. “Kaffas, Hawke. You are relentless.”

“Absolutely. I’m persistent to the point of stalkerish,” she quipped. “I’ll wear you down until you can’t resist, and then I’ll jump your bones. It’s a clever plan, no?”

Fenris chuckled and shook his head, then passed the flask back to her. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, Hawke sipping from her flask while Fenris simply enjoyed this moment of quiet. Eventually she propped her feet back up on the table, and Fenris inspected the lean length of her legs with a fuzzy kind of appreciation. Even her bare toes were attractive, fine-boned and narrow, and Fenris couldn’t be bothered to care if Hawke caught him staring.

Finally she spoke, her quiet voice breaking him from his slightly lascivious reverie. “When you say ‘close’, do you mean… uh…What do you mean, exactly?”

Her cheeks were slightly pink, but her coppery gaze was as bold as ever. Whether it was her bluntness or the brandy, Fenris wasn’t sure, but before he could slap up his defenses, the truth was spilling from his alcohol-lubricated lips.

He lifted one hand and inspected the veins of lyrium on his palm. “When these markings were created, the pain was… extraordinary. And the memory lingers.” He returned his gaze to her face. “But you are unlike any woman I have ever met. With you, it might be different.”

Her mouth dropped open slightly in surprise. “Wait. I must be dreaming. Are you… are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

An alarmed little part of his mind was just as disbelieving as she was. He genuinely hadn’t meant the conversation to go in this direction, but now that it was… “If there was someone before, I have no memory of it,” he said.

Her eyes were growing wider by the second. “Not even after you escaped?”

“No,” he said. He took the flask from her hand. “I stayed nowhere for long. Who would I trust?”

She gaped at him, her fingers rubbing absently at the slim red scarf around her neck. “You trust me,” she said slowly. A teasing smile lifted her cheeks, but her eyes remained wide. “That’s what you’re saying, right? I’m not hallucinating? Even with all our, er, disagreements, you trust me.”

He huffed and shot her a warning look. “Do not make me regret saying it,” he said, then swigged from her flask. “I never thought I needed anyone, or wanted anyone. Until now.”

Suddenly her hand was on his wrist. “Fenris,” she said.

Fenris went utterly still, his senses suddenly sharpened by her touch. His sleeves covered his forearms, and she wasn’t directly touching his skin, but the feel of her fingers on his arm sparked a nervous kind of warmth in his belly.

Fenris didn’t like being touched. Before he’d escaped Danarius, the only touch he could remember was with intent to hurt, or to heal his injuries enough that he could tolerate more. After he’d escaped his former master’s clutches, no one had tried to touch him except to strike him in combat, and Fenris preferred it that way.

And then Hawke had come along.

She didn’t touch him often; it was rarely more than a friendly punch to the arm or a flirtatious brushing of his chest. And she’d never touched his bare skin. But the occasional casual touch of her slender hands was the only contact that didn’t make his skin crawl.

His eyes snapped to her face. Her amber eyes were intense and hot, and he’d never seen her look so serious.

“I want this, too,” she said. “I mean, I said so years ago, I don’t know if you thought I was joking, and you’re so hard to read sometimes… I mean, I love flirting with everyone, but it’s different with you. I mean it with you. Maybe it was – maybe I should have been more obvious, but it’s hard to be more obvious than telling you I’d like to strip you with my teeth-”

He snorted at the reminder of one of her more recent so-called advances. “I thought that was a joke,” he said. “Or perhaps I hoped it was.”

She released his wrist and buried her face in her hands. “Maker’s balls. I know, I’m dreadful.” She pushed her hair back and gazed at him for a moment, then straightened up and lifted her chin.

“Fenris, I want you,” she said. “And I’m serious. For once.”

The corner of her lips twisted in a wry little smile, but her gaze was focused and steady on his face. A burst of heat and nerves exploded in his belly, followed closely by a wavering feeling of unreality. He hadn’t intended things to go this way so quickly. He’d only meant to tell her about his past, not that he wanted… that he felt…

But Hawke was here beside him. And she was so fucking beautiful, and he’d been thinking about this for years, and he was so close to her that he could kiss her crimson lips if he leaned in just a little bit, and…  

And Fenris was drunk. He couldn’t… He needed to think about this.  

With a deliberate casualness, he leaned away from her. “Another evening, perhaps,” he said.

For a long, breathless moment, she stared at him. Then she leaned away as well. “Right,” she said. She fussed with her scarf for a moment, then ran her fingers through her hair. “Right, right,” she said, then rose to her feet and reached for her boots. “Well, I’ll, er-”

Oh. Belatedly he realized how dismissive he sounded. “Hawke,” he blurted.

She paused, her fingers twisted in her scarf, and Fenris scrambled desperately for a way to fix his gaffe. Finally his eyes fell on her abandoned flask, and he waved a hand toward it. “You’re leaving a drink unfinished? That is not the Hawke I know,” he said.

She eyed him cautiously, and Fenris nodded at her abandoned chair. Slowly she sat, then reached for the flask. “You know me too well, then,” she said. “Either that, or I’m much more of a lush than I think I am.”

He smirked, relieved when she slung her legs back up on the table and sipped her brandy. She handed him the flask, and as he drank the harsh liquor, he eyed the slender scarlet scarf around her neck.

She was still rubbing the fabric between her fingers and thumb – a nervous habit she’d had for as long as he had known her. He wondered if the scarf she now wore was the same one she’d had when they first met. Somehow he didn’t think it was; despite the years that passed, the accessory always remained a bright unfaded red.

He jerked his chin toward her scarf. “I have never seen you without that,” he said. “Was it a gift?”

“What, this?” She tugged at the scarf. “No, no. I made it. Or, well, I cut the fabric and hemmed it. It’s nothing special, just a kerchief. When one gets all worn and manky, I just make another.” She untied the garment from her neck and held it out for his inspection.

He took the kerchief from her. It was some kind of soft and thin material, and as Fenris stroked it gently with his thumbs, he realized it was still warm from its proximity to her neck.

He raised his eyes to her face. “You say it’s nothing special, and yet you wear it every day. Even when you’re at home.”

She smiled and lifted her chin. “Look who’s talking, Mister I-Don’t-Like-To-Change-My-Armour.”

He frowned. “Armour can be upgraded. This scarf serves no function.”

“Sure it does!” she retorted. She took the scarf back from him and rolled into a triangle, then tied it around her head the way Isabela wore her headscarf. “See?”

Fenris raised one eyebrow. “You have never worn your hair like that.”

She laughed and pulled the scarf from her head. “Okay, fine, you’re right. I just like it, all right? Red is my favourite colour.”

Her smile was wide, but her eyes were on the slender strip of fabric as she rubbed it between her fingers, and Fenris studied her in silence until she spoke again.

“Red was my father’s favourite colour,” she said. She lifted her gaze to his face. “When we were children, he used to like it when we all wore matching red outfits. It made him laugh. And if Mother wore red as well, he’d call us the four chambers of his heart.”

Confused by the metaphor, Fenris frowned slightly, and Hawke lifted her eyebrows. “Oh,” she said blankly. “Er, you know how the heart has four… It’s not just one big pump, it’s like four little ones working together… Anyway,” she hurried on as his frown deepened, “that’s what he would call us. It was like a silly little thing he’d say. And when we got too old to wear matching clothes, whenever one of us would wear anything red, it would make him smile.”

Her own smile slipped as she looked back at the fabric in her hands. She was quiet for a moment, then she began to roll the kerchief into a slender band.

“After he died, Carver stopped wearing red,” she said. “Mother stopped too – said it made her too sad. Bethany wore a scarf like mine for a long time, but then she stopped as well. I think she just… moved on from the idea of it. But… I don’t know. I like it.” She shrugged and tied the scarf around her neck, her eyes determinedly on the table.

She nibbled the inside of her cheek for a moment, then finally lifted her gaze to his face. “Red is my favourite colour,” she said softly.

Fenris returned her serious gaze. “It is mine as well,” he told her.

She smiled slowly, then reached for her flask again. “Well well, what do you know? We have something in common after all.”

He grunted as she sipped the brandy, then took the flask from her outstretched hand. “It was bound to happen eventually,” he said.

“I don’t know, Fenris, sometimes I think you just enjoy disagreeing with me,” she teased. She propped one elbow on the table, then rested her chin delicately on her fist. “Maybe it turns you on to pick a fight with me. I, on the other hand, quite like the idea of making up with the likes of you.”

He shook his head, but he couldn’t suppress his smile as she slid her salacious gaze over his body. “You’re an idiot.”

“Only for you, Fenris,” she purred, just as he’d known she would. “Only for you.” She plucked the flask from his hand and swallowed the last gulp of brandy, then pushed her chair back. “Well, since you’ve no more wine to offer me, I suppose I’ll be on my way.”

“Hm. I see what my companionship is worth to you,” he drawled, and she chuckled as he followed her to the door.

With her hand on the doorknob, she turned and smiled at him. “Well, when you have something more tempting to offer me, you know where I’ll be.”

Her amber eyes burned with warmth, and Fenris admired the dimples at the corners of her mouth and the slender line of her neck as she tilted her head. He could brush his thumbs over those dimples if he wanted. He could press the tender skin of her neck with his teeth if he so desired. Hawke wanted him – she’d told him so in no uncertain terms – and he had no good reasons left to keep his distance from her, aside from the alcohol still moving sluggishly through his blood.

How odd it was to be thankful that he was drunk.

The silence stretched between them, dark and hot and expectant. Finally Fenris wet his lips, then bowed his head slightly and took a small step back.

“Goodnight, Hawke,” he murmured.

She studied him for a moment, her smile curling into something even hotter than before. Then she slowly lifted her hand toward his face.

He froze, forcing back the instinct to flinch away. It was just Hawke, it was all right-

Very gently, she stroked his chin with her thumb. Then her hand dropped away from his face.

“Goodnight, Fenris,” she whispered, and she left.

Fenris watched the swaying of her hips as she disappeared into the dark. He closed the door, then leaned back against it and exhaled a gusty sigh.

Fasta vass, he thought ruefully. This whole night had been… not what he expected. He’d thought he would tell Hawke about his escape, and she would make some childish joke to make it better, and that would be the end of it.

He hadn’t thought she would share more of herself in return. And he certainly hadn’t meant to admit that he wanted to sleep with her.

At least he’d only confessed to wanting sex. If he’d told her how deeply his longing for her truly ran…

Fenris groaned and dragged his fingers through his hair. He didn’t feel ready for this. He had hoped to end this evening feeling lighter, or purged somehow – hadn’t Sebastian said that’s how confessions were supposed to make you feel? – but instead, he just felt more tangled. Were things truly this complicated, or was he just making them so?

He closed his eyes and slid down to sit on the floor. His mind was a madly spinning loop of moments from this evening: Hawke’s fingers on his wrist, the throaty purr of her lascivious laugh, the openness in her face when he told her of his unforgivable massacre, the sadness in her smile as she smoothed her fingers over her scarf.

He rubbed his chin, remembering the gentle caress of her thumb. Despite the anxious rattling in his chest, he smiled.

He might be a muddled mess of wine and semi-formed regrets, but at least he could enjoy the touch of a beautiful woman.