Dragon Age Alone

The Hanged Man was pestilent as always, but the dirt (hopefully dirt, anyway) that smeared the floor and tables and the Hawke family crest that had been burned into the wall (by them or by Fereldans? It was difficult to remember) and even the giant black bloodstain on the floor where he had torn the withered fucking heart from Danarius' decrepit body was more like a home than he had ever known. Even the mansion, his slowly deteriorating and rumoured to be haunted home, couldn't quite compare to the cesspool where they occasionally got free drinks if the bartender was feeling benevolent. It wasn't the same without Varric at the end of the table like the patriarch of their filthy misfit family, or Rees fidgeting beside him as she became increasingly obvious in her attempts to out-cheat Isabela at cards.

He missed her. It was a strange sensation- he'd missed her before, during the three years he'd taken to fix his mess, but she had never been far away from him. Now, though, she was... somewhere. He didn't know where and he'd been specifically discouraged from seeking her out. _I'm going to be fine, Fen, I promise. I'm just doing a little investigating then coming straight home, _her letter had said. He'd raged about it for days, but had finally come to a blissful... acceptance. His anger had melted into loneliness, which games of Wicked Grace couldn't seem to permanently dismiss. He missed... everything about her, really, and it was upsetting to say the least.

"Fenris? It's your turn," Merrill said, tapping his arm. He shook himself out of his foul mood and proceeded to lose a few more sovereigns to Bela before calling it a night. He stood up and gathered his sword- no matter how safe Kirkwall felt, he'd never quite shaken the habit of hauling it around- and walked out into the cool night. It was almost winter and although Kirkwall remained largely mild (there could be snow, but Rees had always told him that it wasn't _real _snow, Fereldan snow) the air still bit at his face. _I suppose I should be grateful she didn't drag me to Fereldan, _he mused.

The Rift in the sky was distant, but incredibly unsettling. He had assumed that Rees had run off to investigate _that _mess, but she had told him in her letters that she was more interested in the Wardens. He knew little about what strangeness had befallen the Order, only rumours from tertiary sources, but in the letters Bethany wrote to him on occasion she had mentioned that she did not know either. It was a relief.

_"Fen! Come back inside before I keel haul your lanky ass!" _Bela was drunk and framed in the door of the bar. He'd been too mesmerized by the Rift to get far enough away that the Captain- or was it Admiral now?- wouldn't call him back. Merrill was behind her, her wide eyes caught between looking at him and anxiously watching the sky.

"You've cheated me out of enough money tonight, Bela, leave me be," he called back. She snorted.

"Don't be a sad-sack, Hawke's gotta come back soon. I imagine she's just as sullen without you there to magically fist her-,"

"Isabela." The pirate winked. Bela had been doing a wonderful job of keeping him company since Hawke had run off, and he worried his foul mood was beginning to frustrate her. He could feel himself pouting, but true to form could not convince himself to stop.

"Come on Fen, if she finds out you've been moping she might feel bad..." The Admiral sauntered over and hung her arms around his shoulders. Merrill scurried after them but wisely neglected to touch him. They all watched the sky for a moment in silence; it had been the same since it opened. Occasionally traffic in the streets would stop altogether as people just stood and stared at the jagged green wound in the sky in a daze. "Fucked up shit," Bela muttered. He opened his mouth to reply.

"M-Messere Fenris?" A young boy, probably around thirteen with greasy hair and knobby knees scurried up to them. He was the same height as Fenris, which was distantly aggravating, and clutching a piece of parchment. Fenris' chest lightened- it was the dwarf's stationary, a signature pale cream colour with the Tethras wax seal on it. Perhaps he had news of Rees- none of them had heard from the dwarf since the Seeker had taken him as a prisoner, which had _infuriated _Hawke, until the dwarf's assuring letter that he was exactly where he had to be. He either had news of her or was simply asking for her- either way, it would give him an opportunity to stew about how badly he wanted her to come home.

"That's me," he answered as it became apparent that the lad was unsure. Foolish, considering the whole of Kirkwall had become very interested in the tattooed elf that haunted Rees Hawke's shadow even before she became noble. The rumours ranged from slave to lover, servant to bodyguard, and he'd stopped taking it personally a long time ago.

"M-Message for you, sir, from Messere Tethras. Urgent, the bird said." The parchment was held out in a shaky, thick palm, and suddenly Fenris felt his throat close. He didn't want to take it but he couldn't place why. An unbearable pang of dread tore at his guts for a second, so sharp and sudden that if he were anyone else he may have doubled over from it. As it was, he simply took the letter with a deliberate slowness, his fingers clutching the paper so hard it crinkled in protest. Merrill handed the boy a sovereign and sent him on his way while Fenris stared down at the letter.

"You gunna read it or are you just gunna look at it until it tells you what it says?" Isabela asked, resting her chin on his shoulder. He broke the seal and swallowed again, scowling.

_Fenris,_

_ I'm so sorry. Shit... shit... shit I'm sorry I don't know how to say this. We- the Inquisition- were investigating Wardens doing some weird shit. Hawke was there, I asked her to help because she was already looking into it and the Rift- I'm getting ahead of myself._

The ink was oddly smeared and Fenris licked his lips, moving so that Bela or Merrill couldn't read over his shoulder. His heart pounded in his chest and he almost felt like he _knew _what the letter said, but the thought wouldn't enter his mind. He couldn't even think it, and he didn't want anyone to read it before him. He was still slow, but this was his news.

_Remember Corypheus? The Magister we killed? He didn't die. He tore that hole in the sky and now the Inquisition is fighting him. He's been using Wardens to build a demon army and we investigated it with Hawke. We got thrown into the Fade- just like old times, eh?_

The ink was so smeared it was difficult to read and impossible to understand why Varric of _all _people had sent such a poor letter. Varric loved words and he loved how words looked, so why was he telling this story so quickly and so poorly? What was he sorry about? Panic edged at Fenris consciousness but his mind firmly shoved it away.

_There was this big fucking... thing, I don't know what the fuck it was. But it was blocking our way out- six of us including her- and she stayed behind to fight the giant fucking demon thing in the stupid shit Fade. Hawke... Rees... she's gone, Fenris. I'm so sorry._

He was sitting against the wall that separated residential Lowtown from the bazaar. The letter slipped from his numb fingers and sailed across the ground like a leaf to Merrill's feet. She picked up and he stared forward, feeling his jaw go numb as well. Every part of his body felt like it was losing feeling, shutting down completely. It didn't take Merrill as long as it had taken him to read the letter, and she let out a wail that loosened an awful, groaning pain in his chest. Isabela grabbed the letter next and barely seemed to look at it before realizing what it was. What it said.

Merrill wept _("No, no, no, no, no, no, no...") _while Isabela stomped around vainly, shaking her head _("I'm going to kill her, I'm going to strangle that stupid blighted shit!"). _Fenris started taking in several deep breaths, then a thousand faster ones. He couldn't breathe. He pitched forward and felt his stomach jerk and his throat convulse, as if he were going to throw up. Nothing came, though- there was nothing for him to throw up because he hadn't eaten for hours. He always got distracted, reading, sparring, writing, Wicked Grace, and it was always her, always Rees who interrupted his focus for things like food and sleep.

He rested his head on the freezing cold stone, feeling himself break out into a cold sweat. _Rees, Rees, Rees, Rees. _Her laugh, her smile, the way she looked at him when she caught him trying to cheat at cards, the way she looked at him when he dismissed her from the kitchen for being too bothersome, laughing at him when he'd accidentally phased through something without noticing, he would never slip out of bed hours before her again and pile the blankets on top of her until he couldn't even see the outline of her anymore, never press kisses to the back of her neck while she swatted at him for waking her up too early, _he couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe he couldn't breathe..._

He didn't know how he'd gotten home but he could feel Isabela rubbing his back and urging him to take in air. "I can't," his voice cracked like it had in her bedroom so many years ago, when she had been close enough to reach out and touch after he had just finished touching her in the most thorough manner possible and she wouldn't bite down on his ear to tease him anymore and she wouldn't fuss about his lack of proper boots anymore and there was no one who would stay awake with him to ward off nightmares he didn't dare speak aloud anymore.

"You can," Isabela assured him. It sounded like she was crying too, and Merrill was latched onto her side whimpering uncontrollably.

"No I can't, I can't, she went without me. Why did she go without me, I would have kept her safe I would have stayed with her." The words were coming out faster than he could think him. Hawke, Rees, his Hawke, his rock, had died alone facing down a demon she must have known she couldn't beat, she was all alone and he hadn't even felt her die he hadn't felt a piece of his soul get torn away from him he hadn't felt his heart split in two and wither away until that fucking child and his thrice damned paper had staggered up to him as he moped around and waited for her return. He should have looked for her, he should have been more vigilant so she couldn't slip away without him in the first place. She had been trying to protect him, _he wasn't made of glass he could have helped her. _

"Then you'd be dead too," Isabela hissed, clutching at his forearm as if the mere suggestion would kill him on the spot.

"Good," he growled back. She punched his arm, _hard._

"Not now, not _fucking now _Fenris we've already lost Rees and I'm not sitting here and listening to you hate yourself for it!" she shouted. Merrill choked out a few more sobs, shaking her head. He did feel guilty- Isabela had lost more friends than he had ever had- but the guilt was swallowed whole by the knowledge that for the first time in years he was _alone. _The last time he had said as much Rees had raised an eyebrow and reminded him that she was right there but she _wasn't _anymore she was _gone _and he was _alone. _Bela and Merrill were there but they didn't understand. They were his friends, even the foolish blood witch, but neither of them had wrapped themselves around him to stop his shaking as he imagined the hands of magisters _endlessly touching him_ or kissed across his nose and told him that they loved his scowl or tried sneaking into his room without him noticing and failing terribly because she'd been given just one too many free drinks for simply being her...

They ended up laying down together, in an awkward shivering pile. Fenris hadn't cried yet and he hoped that would remain true until the others left. Isabela would go soon to tell Aveline and Merrill would go with her because Fenris had no warmth to offer. Everything warm and loving about him had died alone in the Fade, frightened and doomed. When they finally slipped out, he closed his eyes and let exhaustion take reality away for a while.

_She stood there, holding her daggers so tightly in her fists that her knuckles were pale, as if they would ward away the positively gargantuan spider with so many eyes embedded in its flesh, constantly moving and searching and seeking, that it made Fenris sick. She was shaking and he wanted to hold her, he wanted to pick her up and take her home and kiss her and kill the filthy spider for her. She hated spiders and she was so afraid and alone and he was at home in Kirkwall fucking _brooding _because he wanted her to come home._

_ "You're one ugly bastard, aren't you?" she asked, her voice shaking. Bravado, even with no one watching her. He wanted to take her hand to stop it trembling, stand beside her so her legs wouldn't need to support the full weight of her fear. "Shit," she whispered, then disappeared. He was used to it- they had worked together for hours to develop a rhythm where they could recognize and find one another on the battlefield so that he wouldn't cut her head off for being in stealth and she wouldn't slit his throat for being a tank. They'd laughed about it then, bruised and breathless and skirting around each other, with her waiting until his arms were fully raised to tell him that he had _fantastic _form and him snatching her right out of stealth mode and rumbling in his low voice that she had always professed to love, _I found you, Hawke.

_He watched her duck and dive around the legs, trying to take them out and screaming the entire time. She hated spiders and she was frightened and he knew that her dance would end soon and he couldn't stand to watch it but he _had to. _He owed it to her to watch what had happened as he scowled and sulked and festered in his mansion, complacent._

_ The fight wasn't going badly, persay, until one of the shorter legs shot out and tripped her. She'd been moving too quickly to catch it and it threw her off long enough to distract her- she righted herself, and one of the sharp legs went directly through her stomach. She screamed and he did as well. Silence fell for a moment- everything was still. She seemed to look directly at him, right in the eyes as if he were actually there. _Found you, _she said quietly, and dissolved into dust in front of him._

Fenris woke up clutching one of his sad, thin pillows. He stood up in a rush, tossing the pillow to the side and hauling his fist back to drive into the wall. He felt the skin on his knuckles burst and his tattoos _screamed _in pain, stinging and constant pain, and there was a hole in the wall that did nothing to improve the room, but it didn't stop him from doing it again and again and again until he left blood smears on the plaster and paint. He didn't remember beginning to cry but he brutalized the wall until he couldn't feel his arm and hit the ground on his knees, unable to breathe around his sobs.

She had promised him she'd come home.

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I've had this written for ages bc ingredientx is better at writing sads than I am so I keep killing hawke in the vague hopes that one day i will have my vengeance. anyway it's late enough at night now that I have no boundaries so I dont mind posting this. This hawke is not my hawke- there are absolutely zero universes where I would allow this to happen to Luca god- but belongs to ingredientx and SHE'S WRITING A REALLY FANTASTIC AU WHERE REES HAWKE IS A PRINCESS AND FENRIS IS A KNIGHT (SORT OF) and it is literally FANTASTIC like go read it it's called "Champion". there's dancing and sads involved and it's gr8 and her fenris is gr8 and hasnt cried ONCE yet.

(that wasnt an invitation btw)


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