Hawke isn't used to wanting.

Not for herself alone, at least. She wanted safety, and templar eyes to look past her family - but if she had to give herself up to whatever tender mercies the templars had at their disposal, well, she would have done so. And then her father died, and Bethany died, and what good did all Hawke's wanting do them?

She wants peace for her mother, and peace for Carver, but her mother can barely look at her and Carver never believes her laughter is with him, not at him.

What good does wanting do? Hawke knows now how to content herself with bread and cold pork, ale if she has the coin for it, and with a pallet to sleep on. If she wants anything, it's for tomorrow to offer nothing new. The same boring, bloody jobs, the same tiptoe dance around the templars, the same smile pasted on her face to fool everyone into thinking she's just this: a mad, pretty fool, not worth a second look.

So: she doesn't want; she doesn't covet. When Aveline sighs her name, Hawke smiles and shrugs. She has no plans, no great ambition. After all, she barely has a brain in her head. It's safer this way.

When you want something, it can be taken from you. She wanted Bethany to live, and now Bethany is ash on a mountain. Hawke won't be caught like that again.

For a year and some weeks, it works. Then - then she meets the elf.

He smells like blood when she meets him. Hawke supposes that's fair; she smells much the same, with a side of sweat and grime. The introductions are made - Carver snarking in the background while Varric stomps on his feet, the elf bowing, too solemn - and she savors the shape his name takes in her mouth.

Fenris.

The markings beg a dozen questions, a hundred, but Hawke doesn't ask. She's gotten so good at not wanting that she nearly doesn't want to ask. Instead, she makes a joke, ignoring Carver's sighs, and finds herself flushing when he - Fenris - laughs.

It's a good laugh, and she wants to hear it again.

No, Hawke, she tells herself, schooling away her smiles. None of that.

She follows Fenris to Hightown regardless, Carver complaining all the way. Varric gives her a piercing look - but she hasn't known the dwarf that long, and he can't possibly read her so well, so quickly.

Can he?

Hawke flirts with him. Shamelessly, openly. She credits it to adrenaline, to the snatched sips of wine she and Fenris share before he shatters the bottle against the wall.

It is not for Fenris' laugh, or his eyes, or the way he apologized for insulting her.

You had good reason, I think, she muses, eyes following his markings.

She probes, too; a few questions, lightly asked, about his past, his home, and she doesn't press when his answers grow short and his eyes slide away from hers.

Do not want.

She flirts again, teases him, heart rising with every smile she wrests from him, and the evening ends with him teasing her back. With him inviting her back, and an implied intention to stay.

Hightown is a world away from the slum waiting for her back in Lowtown, but Hawke will see him again. She feels this, deep in her bones, a faint ringing like distant Chantry bells. Tonight will not be the last time Fenris' name fills her mouth, or she makes him smile.

Do not want.

Hawke walks home alone in the cool, limpid night air. Her breath steams before her, and her bare arms are chilled, but her steps are light, and almost silent on the stones.

She looks back at the mansion once, and sees the moon reflected white as bone in a high window. But when she reaches Lowtown, she realizes there is no moon tonight, and the reflection must have been something else.

He was not watching you. Do not want.

Fenris hates mages. He doesn't hate Hawke. She knows this, sees ample enough proof of it whenever she takes him along on her journeys, and yet it still surprises her. He's not too fond of her magic, and stays well away from her whenever she works a spell — but that could be because of the fireballs, Hawke thinks.

He seems to like her well enough. Well enough to stay, well enough to allow her into his home, which is thankfully now free of corpses. She visits him once a fortnight, always at sunset, and she stays until they've drunk a bottle from Danarius' extensive — and expensive — cellars. Then she walks home, always alone, and she doesn't look back.

It's enough. It's almost enough. She's so careful not to touch him that her hands cramp from the effort.

But she wants to.

There's no hiding it. Varric and Isabela watch her, smirking behind their cards, but they don't say a word. And — thank the Maker — Fenris doesn't see anything past friendship in her visits. They drink wine, they discuss their friends, and they never touch. Once, his armored fingers brush hers as she passes him the bottle, and Hawke savors the touch the way she still savors his name.

"You know, Hawke," Varric says, late one night, after they met on her way home from Fenris' mansion. The taste of the blackberries she brought to share still lingers in the corners of her mouth. "About Broody —"

He cuts a sharp look at her, sidelong, then shakes his head. "Just be careful," is all he says.

"Too late for that," Hawke says, staring at her juice-stained fingers.

Varric sighs, and walks her home in silence.

That night, she dreams of Fenris' hands, picking over the fruit, and wakes up to her mother coughing and Gamlen arguing in whispers with Carver. She closes her eyes, clinging to her dream, but it flees from her.

Wanting means loss, eventually. Hawke knows this. And yet. And yet.

The first time Fenris touches Hawke is less than ideal. They're on the Wounded Coast, it's nighttime, and while the slavers are dying, they aren't doing it without some collateral damage.

"There's an arrow in my back," Hawke wheezes, and collapses. The pain is fascinating: a pinch and a burn all at once, and it seems to be interfering with her breathing in the worst possible way. "It hurts," she adds, her voice tapering to a whisper. She can see Anders, not too far away, but he can't seem to hear her.

It's quite possible she'll die here, sand in her smalls and ash all over her face. A fitting end, she supposes, and closes her eyes. The pain leaks out of the tight knot in her back to fill the rest of her body, and she doesn't have any more room to be fascinated. She simply hurts, without end.

"Hawke! No!"

Warm hands cover her neck, strong fingers search for her pulse.

"I'm still alive," she murmurs, without opening her eyes. "Not for long, I think, so if you have anything important to say, please hurry."

The owner of the warm hands — so warm, and so much kinder on her skin than the sand — swears in a language she doesn't recognize. "You will not die, Hawke," they say. After a pause, they add, "I will not allow it."

She opens her eyes at that. Fenris peers down at her, brows drawn low, eyes furious. "Why, Fenris," she says, trying to smile. "I didn't know you cared."

Something strange happens to his face; he recoils as if she struck him — which is ridiculous, she can hardly move, much less hit him — and he —

He glows.

"Oh," says Hawke, spots dancing before her eyes. "Fenris, that's lovely."

He doesn't reply, though his hands linger on her throat. The last Hawke hears before slipping into darkness is Fenris calling Anders — by name, for a wonder.

Hawke heals, with barely a scar to show for all the trouble. Varric threatens to change her nickname to Pincushion if it happens again, and Anders makes soft eyes at her for a week or two, but little else changes.

She's grateful to Anders — but not that grateful, and he realizes this more or less gracefully. But he does ask her to come see the clinic cat's new litter of kittens, so she takes that as a good sign.

A week after the arrow, she walks to the markets and buys more blackberries, along with fresh bread and butter. Carver made all sorts of noise about her taking money from what they've saved for the expedition, but a few silver won't hurt — and she has thanks to give.

At the Chantry, she lights a candle, gives thanks for her life, and prays for freedom from want. Let her be clean again. Let her be whole and inviolate, as solid as a statue and as untouchable. Let this desire fade into memory and never return.

She feels light and sweet as a lemon cake as she walks to Hightown. This will be the last visit. This must be the last visit. Fenris is — Fenris does not —

Fenris is watching her from the high window, his hair as bright as the moon.

He's built up the fire in his room. There's the wine, and cheese on a flat board, and he even brings out half a cold chicken, smiling slyly when she laughs and claps her hands.

"Tonight, we feast," he says. And so they do, taking turns to toast the bread and cheese in the fire, peeling meat from the chicken bones with their fingers and licking the juices away. Hawke tries not to watch how the fire lights the strong bones beneath his skin, but then she drops her slice of bread into the flames, and knows not even prayer can save her now.

And they drink two bottles of wine.

Fenris' cheeks are as flushed as Hawke's when the food is gone, and he offers up a third bottle, shaking it at her when she tries to refuse.

"We're feasting, Hawke," he says, smiling a crooked smile, eyes gleaming bottle-green in the firelight. "To your health."

She bursts out laughing. "Fenris, if we drink another bottle of wine, my health will be in tatters."

"Nonsense," he says, pulling out the cork. "You're good Ferelden stock. A hangover won't kill you."

"You've never seen me hungover."

"I'm sure it's highly entertaining." He takes a swallow, then holds the bottle out to her. "Drink, Hawke."

She takes the bottle, and drinks, her whole body alive with the knowledge that the glass under her lips was warmed by his own. It's almost a kiss. Almost.

"I want," she says, once she's swallowed. Then, she rethinks her words. "I came to thank you, Fenris. Without you —"

"You don't owe me any thanks," Fenris interrupts. "You were fighting those slavers on my behalf, on nothing more than my word. I could not —" That strange flicker passes over his features again. "I could not let you fall," he says.

"Oh," Hawke says, turning the bottle in her hands. "Well. I. Thank you, regardless. You're a good friend, Fenris." She takes another swallow, longer by half than her first, and hands the bottle back to him.

"A friend," he says, staring at the bottle, not at her.

Her name might be an implicit threat in Kirkwall's darker streets, but there's always someone willing to test their steel against her staff, so Hawke decides to stay the night at Fenris' mansion.

Well, Hawke doesn't so much decide as Fenris takes one look at her, and drags her to a room down the hall from his own. They stumble over each other, her giggling whenever his feet tangle with hers, him sighing. He brings her a basin of water for washing, spills half of it on her, and then stalks out to her helpless laughter, slamming the door to his room behind him. But it's not unfriendly — it's a happy slam, if such a thing is possible.

Hawke washes quickly, her hair tied back, and only realizes as she dries herself that she's singing. A love song, to be precise, all golden summer afternoons and kisses in copses, and she tries to stop herself, but something lighter than a prayer buoys her up, and she can't stop singing until she tumbles into bed.

Fenris doesn't mention that night, and neither does Hawke. She still visits him, but they restrict themselves to one bottle, and she does not make excuses to spend the night.

Isabel whispers to her about making her move, about giving Fenris something to really smile about, but Hawke maintains her careful distance. She's been careless, and now her heart is lost.

Anders tries again, more out of habit, Hawke thinks, than any real intention of wooing her. He tries with honeycombs and violets this time, and shrugs helplessly when Hawke trails down to his clinic, her arms full of his gifts.

"Can't blame me for trying," he says cheerfully. "Still, Hawke, are you really —"

She already has one boot out the door. "Eat your honey, Anders."

In the dead of winter, when no one with half a brain goes outside once the sun has set, Hawke finds herself knocking on Fenris' door, stamping her feet and shivering. It seemed so important, an hour ago, to get out of her house, but now — now she wonders.

"You have no sense," he says as he opens the door. "Come inside before I have to explain why you have frostbite to Leandra."

"I'm so glad I know that you express concern through insults, otherwise I would be quite hurt right now." She toes out of her boots once she's inside, and shakes the snow from her cloak. "Besides, I had to get out of the house, I couldn't stand another moment, and —"

She stops herself mid-sentence, suddenly very aware of Fenris' gaze, and how real concern lies over his features. "Well," she hedges. "Four people in one tiny house, we're bound to get on each other's nerves. You know how it is."

"Actually," he drawls, nodding at the empty foyer around them.

"Ah, yes. Of course. Silly me." Hawke folds her cloak over her arm. "I didn't bring anything," she says, abashed. "And — I'm sorry. I just barged over here, like always, and didn't even think, you might have had someone else." She pauses, eyes on the darned toes of her socks.

Never once has she assumed she might be less than welcome here. Fenris seems glad enough of her company, but would he tell her if he wanted to be alone? Would he ask her to leave, if better company would be arriving soon?

"I can go," she says, bending for her boots. "I'm sorry." Her ears throb already, both from the cold and from the thought of going back home, to Carver shouting at Gamlen and her mother sighing in the corner, while wind and snow whistle through the gaps in the walls. "I just —"

Fenris catches her arm as her fingers brush her boots. "Hawke." A fleeting shadow, there and gone before Hawke can understand it, darkens the lines of his face. But his eyes are gentle, and his hand is warm, as he says, "Stay."

She sleeps in the same room as before, and sleeps poorly: starting awake at every small sound, listening in the dark for her mother's breathing. When the first milky light streams in through the windows, she wraps herself in a blanket and pads out into the hall.

The mansion is frigid; Fenris insisted on a fire in her room, but he doesn't see the point, he says, in heating rooms he doesn't use. Her socks are no armor against the cold floors, and she sighs with happy relief when she finally reaches the thick rugs at the top of the balcony. From here, she can see the wide sweep of the foyer, the dust dancing in the faint rays of sunlight, and Fenris, moving slowly across the marble tiles below her.

He moves with such purpose, no gesture wasted. Bare to the waist, hair pushed back from his forehead, frowning and coated in a light sheen of sweat: there has been no one, ever, in all Thedas, as beautiful as Fenris is, in this silent, dawn-blessed moment.

She's spying on him. This routine belongs to him, not her hungry eyes and desiring heart, and Fenris himself belongs to no one. Hawke turns back to her room, but the rustle of her blanket is loud as a gasp in the empty foyer. Fenris pauses, his hair falling across his forehead once more as he tilts his head up to look at her.

Hawke knows everything is written on her face, clear as fresh ink on parchment. It's a wonder, really, that she's been able to keep it hidden for so long. But it's obvious now, all these months of watching and and wanting him, and she sees the realization strike Fenris, like flint to steel, and blow his eyes wide.

His hands close into fists.

Without a word, Hawke goes back into her room, and closes the door. When she comes out a half-hour later, Fenris is washed and dressed, and that morning becomes one more thing they don't talk about.

When Hawke comes back from the Deep Roads, she's fifteen pounds lighter, and several thousand times richer. There's a new litter of kittens in the clinic, Merrill's favorite sweet seller has saved the sugar ice for her, and Carver has joined the templars.

I never wanted this, she tries to tell him, squinting against the polished steel that covers her brother from toes to chin, but she can't reach him, can never reach him now.

Want, she reminds herself, means loss. Maybe not right away, but eventually everything she wants will curdle and break, and she'll be left with one more hole in her heart that can't be filled. She'll never be seaworthy.

It's been over two months since she saw Fenris, but he's watching for her when she enters the square in front of his mansion, and he has the wine waiting.

"You sang, once," Fenris says, without preamble. They've worked their way through half Danarius' cellar together by now, and even Isabela has stopped her whispers. What Hawke wants will never be; there have been no more moments like that frosty, silent dawn, when Fenris saw her, truly saw her, and said nothing.

What is there to say?

"You have an excellent memory," Hawke tells him, and steals the bottle from his loose hand. Fenris frowns, and flicks water from the jug at her. "Don't worry, I won't finish it. I know it's your favorite. I just want a little more."

"A very little." He leans back on his elbows, his legs stretched toward the fireplace. It's summer, the stones hot enough to cook eggs by midday, and Hawke is wearing a only thin muslin shift over her smalls, with her hair tied in a knot at the nape of her neck. Fenris grudgingly allowed her to fill the fireplace with ice, but still she sweats, and envies Fenris his ease in the heat.

Of course, that envy always fills her with fresh guilt — Tevinter left him with far more scars than gifts, and it's small of her to envy him this one unshared comfort.

"It was…beautiful," Fenris adds.

Hawke pauses, her lips on the mouth of the bottle. It's been months since she thought of this as a kiss. "What was?" she asks, handing the bottle back to him, untasted.

He sets it aside, tosses his hair out of his eyes to peer at her. "Your voice," he tells her. "I — you have a gift, Hawke. If I may ask —"

"You know better than to stand on ceremony with me, Fenris," she says, tugging a loose lock of hair past her cheek to hide her blush. "Ask away."

"Why don't you sing?"

She shrugs. "Where would I sing? At the Hanged Man? At home?" That gets a rueful smile out of him; her estate echoes almost as much as his mansion, despite her mother's best efforts to fill it. "There aren't that many opportunities, I'm afraid. Not much interest, either. Though I do like it, now that you mention it." She picks at a loose thread in her shift. "I suppose I get my fill at Chantry services."

"You could sing here," Fenris says, in a voice she's never heard before: soft, almost a murmur. "If you wanted to," he adds, when she looks up. "I…enjoyed it, a great deal."

"Oh," says Hawke. "That's — thank you, Fenris."

She's rarely meant something more, but her thanks seem so paltry, another small offering in the face of his generosity, and she gropes for something more, something better.

"Do you have any requests?" she asks. "I know quite a few songs, after all."

Fenris smiles, and an entirely different kind of heat flares in Hawke's palms and throat. "Whatever you want to sing," he says.

Halfway through her third song, Fenris' hand finds hers. Hawke falters, losing the tune for a heartbeat as heat races over her skin, but she finds the notes again as his fingers weave through hers.

She only stops singing when his hand falls loose in hers. He's asleep, his muscles, for once, not poised for flight.

It stuns her, this trust; she's known for years that Fenris has no fear of her or of harm by her hands, but knowing that he feels safe with her, enough to close his eyes and rest - that is a rare gift, and one she never expected.

Hawke listens to Fenris breathe, steady and sure, until moonlight fills the foyer. Then she untangles her hand from his, sweeps away the ice in the fireplace, and leaves the room on tiptoes.

Lingering would destroy this precious thing between them, this first fresh shoot pushing through the soil. But summer is kind to growing things, for all its heat, and Hawke finds that wanting is the last thing on her mind as she makes her quiet way home.

Tonight, she hopes.