Small Things

[miri1984]

 

 

Title: Small Things
Words: 1500
Characters: Isabela/Fenris
Summary: Set three years after the events of DA2. Fenris is having difficulties.
 

 

It can be hard to tell when the elf is in a less than stellar mood. His demeanor is stony, save for a few moments only she seems to see amongst the crew, a gentle smile here, a small chuckle there, the quiet languidness of post-coital relaxation, when his fingers curl in her hair or on her breast, sweat cooling on their skins, the gentle rocking of the ship’s movement the only thing reminding them of where they are.

It starts with small things.

“I fail to see why you continue to run errands for the mage,” he snaps at her one morning, as they leave port at Diarsmuid - a city that he despises for many reasons, not the least of which the Rivaini seer who looks too much like her mother who had tried to palm his tattoos and tell his fortune.

“I’m not running them for Anders, sweet thing,” she says. “I’m doing it for Hawke. And you didn’t complain about it when we started.”

“When we started I didn’t believe we’d regularly have a hold full of apostates. It is not safe.”

She tosses her head and laughs at him. “You hate safe.”

His lips twitch, but his pained expression continues on and off for the rest of the day.

He thinks she doesn’t notice, but she spent too many years watching him not to realise that there’s something else bothering him.

“Isabela!” he does not raise his voice often, but when he does she feels it tingle through her, straight to her stomach, lower, and she smirks, lowering the sextant as he stalks towards her across the deck.

“Fenris, I do wish you’d call me captain…”

“We need to make port immediately. These imbeciles will kill us all if we keep them on board any longer.”

“What have they done now?”

“One of them was attempting to keep the hold warm with fire.”

She sighs. “I’m going to assume you convinced them it was a bad idea,” she says.

“He will not be doing so again.”

She reaches a hand out, but he flinches back and she narrows her eyes. “Fine,” she says. “Just don’t kill any of them. That’s not the agreement and you know it.”

“Vishante kaffas… they test my patience,” he says, although his voice softens. “Always.”

“I know they do sweet thing,” she throws up her hands. “But just think! If Anders succeeds soon they’ll all be free and…”

He growls and she reaches forward to tweak his nose, laughing. He pulls away, but it’s habit, not the flinch she saw before and she notices his hand twitch towards her. Later he is smiling when he falls asleep next to her and she slips out of their bunk to her table, but the course she needs to chart stays uncharted and she rests her chin on her hand and watches him sleep.

He twitches occasionally. Once he softly cries out a name. 

The dreams are getting worse.

He sleeps in her cabin. He’s not sure why that happened. They’d certainly never said anything… or fixed anything as permanent in their time in Kirkwall. Perhaps permanency is something neither of them wants. 

She thinks sometimes that perhaps it’s something both of them need.

At night sometimes he smooths sweaty hair from her brow and kisses the freckles near her temple while she sleeps.

In the morning she wakes him with a gentle finger along the ridge of one ear - a place he has never let anyone else touch without harm. 

The crew respect and fear him. He is a natural sailor, nimble, fast, strong. Able to solve problems between crew members with a quick word and a gentle reminder of the power he wields. He has not had cause to hurt any of them, but a flash of blue light is enough to frighten the biggest of them into submission. Discipline has never been tighter.

The mages they transport are terrified of him. She sometimes thinks their fear pleases him more than it should, but then she remembers how much fear he has tasted from their kind, and cannot find it in her heart to begrudge it to him. He is free now, and he is helping them achieve their freedom in return. He doesn’t have to like them.

In her cabin (and she still thinks of it as hers and not theirs, despite that he is there with her, nearly always) she moves to touch him a way she has touched him countless times before, yet he hisses and draws back.

“What? What is it?”

“It is nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing, Fenris.” She doesn’t use his name often. She has many pet names for her crew and for him - almost as many as Varric - and mostly he is “sweet thing” or “lanky” or “bright eyes”. When she calls him Fenris she is being serious. 

She asked him once, if he wanted to be called Leto.

He said no.

“Do not concern yourself, Isabela.”

She props herself up on one elbow and looks at him, sitting on the side of their bunk (while it is her cabin, it is their bunk and she doesn’t let herself examine that too closely for fear of what it might mean). He ducks his head, in that way he has, self effacing, trying to avoid punishment. It’s a habit - a leftover from his time as a slave, and it makes a part of her ache. “Fenris. If something is wrong you should tell me.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Why?”

She purses her lips. “You’re impossible,” she reaches forward and he flinches… 

…flinches.

She frowns. “Have I… hurt you somehow? Has one of the crew? I swear that bastard Lewis has it in for you, I should never have…”

“No, Isabela. No one has hurt me.”

She looks at him for a long, long moment.

“There, now, sweet thing, is a lie and a half. And I should know.”

He narrows his eyes at her, but she doesn’t back down. She didn’t get where she was by backing down, didn’t get him to come with her on this fool voyage just to have him shut off and be… more brooding than normal. 

“My markings,” he says finally. “They… are behaving oddly.”

She leans back, considering. “Painful?” 

He gives one short nod, mouth pressed tightly together. “I… do not know what to do.” He glances at her, head still dipped low. “I suspect I may be dangerous.” She smiles. He shakes his head closing his eyes. “Not like that. Not… the way you think.” He holds up his hand and makes a fist, watching the play of white lines, then with a brief burst of concentration she sees the power flare and…

…splutter out. Like a candle. “Sometimes it does this. Sometimes it refuses to obey my commands at all. And sometimes…” grits his teeth. “Sometimes it flares without warning.” He looks back to her, pained. “I am dangerous. I should sleep in the hold, away from you. If this happens when I am sleeping…”

She shakes her head. “I can look after myself. And you keep me warm at night.”

“You’re not worried I might accidentally punch my fist through your chest?”

“Sweetheart, it’s not your fist I want in me. Although I wouldn’t say no if nothing else was on offer.”

He barks out a laugh. “I do not wish to harm you, Isabela.”

“Then don’t.”

He frowned. “I… think I need to ask one of the…” he curls his lip “mages… if they know what is wrong.” She could feel how much those words cost him. “Danarius… used to make me do things. He always said he was maintaining the lyrium, whatever that meant. I thought it was just an excuse for him to hurt me. But… perhaps I…” he swallows, obviously not liking the train of his own thoughts, “perhaps I needed it?”

She winced at the mention of his former master. Few things had given her greater pleasure than watching Fenris snap the magister’s neck. “These are circle mages, Fenris,” she says, sitting up and resting her elbows on her knees. “I doubt they’d know much about Tevinter rituals. And didn’t you say Danarius was the only one who had ever done this?”

“Well, I can’t ask him, can I?” Fenris snarls.

She leans back and laughs - forcing the sound light. “Naturally not, since you very convincingly killed him. And I’m not willing to take the ship to Tevinter to ask any of his… colleagues, unless you think that’s the only option?”

He looks at his hands and takes a deep breath. “I can go by myself, if I have to. I got away once.”

The idea she has will probably be about as popular as going to Tevinter with him, but she has to voice it. “Anders might know.”

The temper explosion isn’t quite as bad as she was expecting.

But it is bad.