Dragon Age One Shots

Fireflies, Hawke/Fenris

Hawke stumbled through the doors to the Hanged Man prepared to drink himself under the table. He caught the bartender's eye, Corff already tugging out the man's favorite tankard while Hawke quickly scaled the stairs up to Varric's private suite. So private he never closed the door, not even when sleeping.

While he expected to find Isabela at the table, her boots up as she tore through Varric's latest pages, it was the other presence that made Hawke pause. Grumbling into his chest, Fenris stood near the dwarf's favorite chair while sighing, "You had plans tonight."

"Yep," Varric placed down his own mug, which was going to see many refills through the night, "we were gonna...hey, Hawke!" His boots hit the ground, Varric waving his arms in greeting, "You're just in time. Rivaini was marking up the newest chapter."

"I don't know how they let you get away with half of this," Isabela muttered, her fingernail picking at a section in Varric's latest Hard in Hightown that she had underlined...a lot.

"I should go," Fenris said in his usual stoic, dragon-about-to-breath-fire-in-your-face voice. The elf was always drifting in and out of their sight. Appearing when he wanted something, then disappearing for a few days when not. Lot like a cat, come to think of it.

But something in how his eyes drifted to the edge, how his head hung lower to match a stoop in his shoulders, caused Hawke to speak up, "Why not stay? We're just reading sections of Varric's latest before it hits the presses."

Giant green eyes blinked slowly, Fenris' lips parting as if he was about to agree, when the scowl took control. Glaring at nothing, he stomped past Hawke and down the stairs. Not even a goodbye, which was typical. Still...

"Is something up with Fenris?" Hawke asked Varric but Isabela answered.

"You want to know as much as I do what he keeps hidden under all that armor."

Hawke sighed and turned his attention upon the dwarf Fenris had been pressing upon. "Seemed like something was bothering him."

"Who? The elf?" Varric scoffed, "The only thing that bothers him are rainbows, kittens, and smiles."

"Still..."

"If he's in any trouble, he can just stab it with those pointy spikes all over his body."

Bouncing his knee in thought, Hawke twisted to follow the trail Fenris left back out into the darkened night of Kirkwall. It was probably nothing, Hawke overreacting again, and it'd end in the man either throwing him out of his mansion or not answering the door at all.

"Hold my spot, Isabela," Hawke called, turning to dash back down the stair.

"Where are you going?" Varric tried to shout to him, but Hawke was already out the door and into the piss-scented night. Ah Kirkwall. He'd often navigate by that smell, the western walls proving a favorite to be urinated on. Hawke didn't make it far from the Hanged Man when he bumped into a nest of feathers upon a shoulder.

"Anders? Any chance you spotted Fenris?"

The mage sneered, as he always did when the elf was named. "Yes, growled at me like a rabid dog and stomped off towards Hightown. Why? What'd he do now? Eviscerate someone for laughs?"

"Not..." Hawke rubbed his ear, the feeling in his gut growing more fuzzy with each second. It was probably nothing. He was wasting his time even thinking about worrying.

"You coming in for the reading?" Anders lifted his eyebrows higher, reminding Hawke that there was light and drink inside, and slightly less piss on the walls.