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areyougameTitle: The Love of a Brother
Author: Lovingvambrace
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mature themes
Word Count: 4016
Prompt: Dragon Age 2, Sebastian/Fenris- Angst, a question of faith, July 2
Summary: Fenris struggles to find his way after attaining the freedom he so desperately wanted. Sebastian is determined that he doesn't have to take the journey alone.
A/N: I've always enjoyed exploring themes of faith. I hope this is an interesting take on it.
Fenris slipped through the doors of the Chantry with moments to spare before the beginning of the service. He preferred it this way, less likely to capture notice in the shoulder to shoulder throng standing in the cool shadow of Andraste's statue. For all of her vices, Kirkwall had a crowd of faithful and those invested in appearing so alike. What was one small elf among so many?
He found it ironic that for most of the life he could recall, people had a vested interest in making him feel small and insignificant, reminding him that were it not for the lyrium trapped within his flesh, he would be less than nothing, dust to grind beneath the heels of the magisters. Yet, here he stood with worn red carpet beneath his bare feet, his face turned up toward the golden benevolence of her countenance, and he felt comfort in the thought of his smallness, his insignificance in the lives of all but a treasured few. So very few.
Freedom was a rockier road than he had ever dared to dream.
*****
Sebastian stood near the stairs. He hoped that one day he might be seated again with his brothers or delivering his part in the service. He knew it would take more than lip service to persuade Grand Cleric Elthina that his change of heart was sincere. He was fully prepared to demonstrate by deed that he was not as she said, flotsam tossed upon the waves at the whim of the wind. White hair flashed in a stray beam from one of the high windows, and the former brother squinted. Was that Fenris?
He smiled to himself. Perhaps some of the talks they had as they accompanied Marian on her business in and around Kirkwall were having more of an effect than he realized. He sensed in the elf a strong seeking spirit, a need that ran as deep as the need for water in one dying of thirst. For a time, it had seemed that Marian might be the focus of that need, but Fenris had somehow moved beyond that. He seemed to know instinctively what so few managed to grasp after years of meditation, that the comforts of the flesh were but pale shadows of what a man's spirit truly needed to heal. He almost found himself envying the former slave at times. His life of privation had stripped away anything superficial or greedy, leaving him wounded, yes, but also a ready vessel for the love of the Maker if he could but release his doubts.
He found himself watching the man during the service. What was he taking from Justinia's sermons? Were the waters of wisdom falling on fertile ground somewhere beneath the elf's many brambles? His scowl was so habitual, Sebastian had come to realize it was but a mask and no true indication of what ran beneath the surface, a defense mechanism developed in a place where being easily readable or showing vulnerability invited intolerable abuse. He decided against approaching him in the Chantry lest he stop attending to avoid the possibly unwelcome intrusion. Better to catch him at a more private time.
*****
Fenris left the service unsettled of mind. He desperately wanted to believe the words of the Chanter, that the love and forgiveness of the Maker extended to all, that redemption was always a possibility as long as there was breath in the body and willingness in the spirit. His hatred ran so deeply. Every time he thought he was making progress in rooting it out, it would rear its head again, against Hadriana, Denarius, his own sister. Had Marian and Varric not been there to stay his hand, he knew he'd have grasped her fluttering heart and crushed it exactly as he had his former master's apprentice's. How could the Maker ever smile upon anyone so mired in his own darkness and filth, a life so tainted by magic that it marked his very skin?
He wasn't aware that he quickened his footsteps until he found himself all but running for Lowtown, the Hanged Man. It was a vile den of viler memory. It was the place he scourged his conscience when he could no longer bear his own company. Isabela or Varric were usually there, willing to help him drown himself in drink. He sensed the Rivaini bore her own wounds she chose to lick with cheap whiskey, both of them too cagey and proud to speak of such things openly. Varric was harder to read, as slippery as any Carta dwarf and charming enough that he could deflect the most stubborn of digging, not that Fenris himself had ever tried.
He slowed his steps as he neared the tavern, even his tough feet in danger from the jagged shards of broken bottles that littered the ground near the entrance. The familiar scent of stale piss and vomit curled to greet his nostrils and made itself so quickly at home he stopped noticing it almost as soon as he pushed open the door and crossed the threshold.
A flash of gold bangles and dark hand told him Isabela had spotted him from the bar and was in a social enough mood to welcome him. He tried to release the tension that seemed permanently settled between his shoulder blades as he made his way through the crowd. He swatted an inquisitive hand away from his belt in a move that was second nature after nearly seven years in the city, never breaking his stride until he reached the former pirate's side.
“I didn't think you were coming today,” she purred with a dark eyed look that was two parts too knowing and one part inquisitive.
“Oh? And why is that?” he grated, leaning an elbow on the bar top and catching Corff's eye.
“I thought you'd be at church. You know, praying and scraping to that big statue.” She leaned in close and made a show of sniffing his hair. “Just as I thought. I can smell the incense on you, polluting this perfectly disreputable tavern. Corff, be sure and pour him a double, extra rat.” The bar tender waved an irritable hand her way, and she laughed. “He hates when I mention the rat turds.”
“I wasn't at church,” he said defensively. “What would it matter if I were?”
She shot him an assessing side-long glance he didn't trust. “It doesn't matter,” she said unexpectedly. “I just like winding you up.”
Slowly, he felt the knots begin to unwind.
*****
Sebastian shifted yet again on the old crate he'd taken as perch across the street from the tavern. He knew he was conspicuous in his white enameled armor. He also knew he had been seen enough in the company of Marian that few but the very stupid or the very desperate would seek to target him here. Darkness fell much faster in Lowtown than in his more familiar haunts. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly the streets cleared, only a bold few remaining out to brave the night.
It occurred to him that Fenris might take offense at his presence and that if he wasn't very intoxicated indeed, he might also figure out that Sebastian had taken enough interest in his habits to know that no matter how intoxicated he was, he'd not spend the night at the Hanged Man. It didn't matter. The way he had all but fled the Chantry spoke of a troubled state of mind. It would be better to have that conversation sooner rather than later. The seeds of faith were tenuous things, easily crushed without proper nurturing.
By the time Fenris stumbled out of the tavern, the shadows were so deep that Sebastian's armor barely made a dent. “Hail, friend,” he called as he stepped toward him, well aware that startling the elf could be tantamount to suicide.
Pale blue flared along the lines of the Tevinter markings, limning the lean elf in a fell glow. Just as quickly, the light damped. “Sebastian,” he slurred, “what are you doing here?”
“I don't suppose you'd believe I had a sudden hankering for cheap whiskey,” he offered, moving to fall into step with him.
“Not—not for a moment,” Fenris said. “Is something wrong? Is it Hawke?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” he reassured him. He debated the merits of honesty with someone reeking so strongly of whiskey and barely able to keep his feet, ultimately deciding that anything less would defeat the purpose of having come and waited at all. “I saw you in the Chantry today.”
He sensed more than saw his companion stiffen beside him. “And?” There was a hard edge to his voice.
“And I saw you leave in a hurry. The sermon was a particularly uplifting one, so I know whatever had you in such a rush wasn't external,” he said carefully. He always felt as though he trod thin ice with the elf, as though one badly placed word could send the man tumbling back into cold despair. Why it mattered so much to him he wasn't entirely sure, other than he knew how difficult his own struggles toward real faith had been and how lost he'd now be without it.
“I didn't ask for your help,” Fenris said tersely, clearly struggling for coherent words. “I don't need—I don't need you following me. Aveline does enough of that.”
“Aveline's concerns are for the laws of man,” Sebastian said. “You know that's not why I'm here.”
The elf whirled on him so suddenly he barely had time to catch his footing before he found himself pressed against a wall in the narrow lane they navigated toward Hightown. “Why are you here?”
He drew a pained breath past the press of steel vambrace against his throat and wished that he could see more than just the shadow of his face and a faint glitter of narrowed eye. “The Maker isn't the only one concerned with your well being, Fenris,” he wheezed. “He acts through us more often than in any flashy ways.” He briefly wondered if he was about to meet a sudden end. It wouldn't be the first time he had seen Fenris act first only to regret later. Maker, forgive him, he thought, if he can't control himself.
*****
Sebastian Vael was infuriating and confusing, far worse than Hawke had ever been. He was difficult to handle sober. What had possessed him to approach when he had to know Fenris was pickled to the gills in whiskey? He released him suddenly, whirling and staggering. The entire alley seemed to swirl, and the stone lane rose to meet his hands and knees with sharp pain. His stomach rebelled. He realized belatedly that more than a little of the sour contents had splashed over pristine greaves and boots.
He pressed back on his heels and looked up, expecting to see the man withdrawing in disgust and cursing him in protest. Instead, he was bending down, reaching to help him up. “Can you walk?” he asked kindly.
I don't want your kindness, something in him snarled beyond his ability to articulate. It emerged as little more than a moan. He hadn't felt so ill in a very long time. He knew Isabela would never drug him—probably—but he wouldn't put it past someone at the tavern to do it. Toward the end both he and the Rivaini had been careless with their mugs.
He tried to protest again when he felt the man squat at his side and throw his arm over his shoulders, bearing him upright. “I don't want this,” he managed.
“Well, I'm not leaving you here,” Sebastian said reasonably. “So you tell me what you do want. I can take you back to the tavern, your place, or the Chantry.” Dark humor crept into his tone. “Or I could always drop you off at Anders' clinic.”
“Bastard.” He lifted his free hand to hook into the front of the smooth breastplate, determined to carry as much of his own weight as he could manage. The thought of the dank mansion in Hightown rotting around him was too much to bear. He knew he'd never live it down if Isabela or Varric saw him borne back into the tavern by the ex-priest. It left the only slightly most palatable option of the three. “The Chantry?” It came out a question. Would bearing a drunkard into the holy place land the man in trouble?
Sebastian mercifully didn't comment on his choice or question why. They took several unwanted stops along the way, Fenris well past the point of dry heaves by the time they reached the imposing double doors. What had been a welcoming sight by day with a voluntary approach was now daunting and shaming. He turned his face against the cool breastplate and squeezed his eyes shut. Sebastian's steps didn't falter.
*****
Sebastian wasn't disappointed in his sisters' discretion, the few who were up and about so late at night giving him little more than questioning glances as he walked Fenris past them. He knew well enough that some of them might gossip about what they had seen later. At least they had the decency not to accost an obviously ill and troubled man.
He didn't stop until he had him in the room he shared with Brother Thaddeus. Thaddeus was deeply asleep, not so much as stirring on his mattress when Sebastian brought Fenris into the room. Moonlight streamed through the window, providing enough illumination for him to settle the elf on his narrow bed. “Can you sit for a bit?” he whispered.
Bleary eyes met his gaze. He was about to repeat the question when Fenris nodded and propped his forearms atop his thighs, head hanging. “Good man.” He left the room to fetch a pitcher of water and a mug, hurrying through the darkened corridors with a familiarity born of years of life there. He half expected to find Fenris passed out when he returned, but he was still seated as he had left him, his breath labored through parted lips.
“You think you're going to be sick again?” he whispered. “Do you need the chamber pot?”
Fenris shook his head and swallowed thickly. “There's nothing left,” he murmured.
Nodding, he poured a few swallows of water into the mug. “Rinse your mouth first,” he said and made sure Fenris had it in both hands before releasing it. He drew the pot from under the bed so that he could spit, poured more for him, and told him to drink it slowly. When he was sure he was doing as he'd been told, he used what remained in the pitcher to wet a cloth and wrung it out in the wash basin. He carefully laid it across the back of the elf's neck, tucking it beneath his hair and armor.
“What are you doing?” The question came low, pained.
“I'm taking care of you,” he replied without hesitation. He continued over the expected protest. “I don't care if you don't need it. I want to.”
Fenris swallowed a bit more water, staring into the moonlit surface of the mug's contents as though it might have the answers he sought. “Why?” he asked bleakly.
Kneeling in front of him, the exiled prince took the mug and set it on his bedside table before reaching up toward the upper buckle of Fenris' right vambrace. “Don't you think it's a tragedy that more of us don't ask 'why not' instead?”
*****
It wasn't just the alcohol sickening him now, he knew. He sat perfectly still while Sebastian removed his vambraces and then his gauntlets. Fear and self loathing coiled low in his belly; pride and whiskey taint prevented him from fleeing. No one can be this good. Once the thought took hold, he couldn't let it go. It gnawed at him, feeding on deep seated resentment, eroding already battered self-control.
When Sebastian moved in closer to reach for the buckles of his breastplate, he acted on it, falling on him open mouthed and grasping, intent on dragging him down to his level, on forcing acceptance of the only coin he had for payment for the devastating kindness. When he had gone to Hawke three years before, it was out of desperation to feel something, anything, besides crippling hatred and rage. Now he was just as desperate not to feel. It hurt too much.
It was Sebastian's turn to still. He neither thrust him back nor responded, his mouth closed. Fenris felt the press of warm hands to his face, gentle pressure firm enough to stop him, and suddenly found himself pressed forehead to forehead. “No, Fenris.” The caress of the man's voice was more terribly intimate than any touch, only the pressure of hands preventing the elf from flinching away entirely and shrinking in on himself. “There's only one thing I want from you tonight, one thing I'm asking, that you accept the love of a brother, not a lover.”
He was grateful Sebastian couldn't see how his face contorted, although he suspected he could feel it, pressed as they were. Please, don't be this good to me. I don't know how to take it. He tried one last time to drive him away, a bruising kiss that would leave both of their lips swollen and tender.
Again, Sebastian stilled him with a press of hands, the pads of his thumbs resting against the cusps of his cheeks. “You're not a slave anymore,” he whispered without recrimination. “How long do you intend to act like one?”
“Nothing makes it stop,” he said, the words spilling from him as sharp as glass, cutting him from the inside. “I can't do this. You don't—” You don't understand what you're doing to me. I don't understand. He leaned in, forehead to forehead again, and caught the faint scent of incense on the other man's skin pore deep, the same scent Isabela accused him of carrying earlier. His mind seized on it, something clean, something real. “Maker, help me,” he cried, the first prayer he had felt from his core since he was a child. He knew it with a certainty that needed no bolster of memory.
Sebastian's hands were moving again, divesting him of the rest of his armor and the stale padding and undershirt beneath. He stood when he was drawn up, accepting the support of arm and shoulder while the man pulled back the blanket and sheet. He slid into the embrace of clean linen with a soft groan, head spinning from the new orientation. “Don't,” he murmured, unable to force out the rest of it. Don't leave.
Somehow, the man seemed to understand. He drew away only long enough to pull his desk chair close to the head of the bed and took a seat, dipping the cloth, wringing it, and folding it over Fenris' forehead. “Rest, my friend,” he said softly. “You've had a long day of it.”
He had used up all of his fight, without enough energy even to tell himself that he wasn't worthy of this kindness. Drunken sleep swallowed him whole, and any time he threatened to come out of it, there was a cool cloth and a warm hand to soothe him under again.
Morning sunlight chased him into his pillow, the scent of linen and incense drawing him up to groggy wakefulness. For a moment or two he blinked his confusion. This wasn't his bed, wasn't his dark room in the bowels of his Hightown mansion. Turning his head to the side, he saw a hand dangling over a chair arm nearby. He let his gaze follow the line of arm up to Sebastian's face in repose, chin resting in an uncomfortable angle atop his chest. Fragments of the night before came back to him, what he had done, what Sebastian had said to him in response. There's only one thing I want from you tonight... You're not a slave anymore...
It was the first time he had seen him out of armor. He looked somehow more real, smaller, and the troubles he concealed behind his placid priest's mask in wakefulness showed in sleep in a small crease between his brows and the faintest hint of a frown. You should come with me to Starkhaven, he had offered during one of their many conversations on the road. At the time the idea seemed preposterous, an elf training humans how to fight. Was it truly so ridiculous?
Accept the love of a brother... Could he? He had accepted Hawke's love, only to watch her focus shift from him to the man beside him now over the past three years. Admittedly, he couldn't fault her. He had all but shoved her anywhere else, had convinced himself it would be easier if she hated him. She didn't hate him. She had stood beside him and prevented him from making one of the biggest mistakes of his life. Now this man seemed to make a similar offer, persisted in seeing value where Fenris saw none, and unlike Hawke, he had the sense to see Anders for the snake in the grass he was, poised to strike. Fenris could hardly fault his perceptiveness in other matters. Maybe he should trust his judgment here, too.
Such heavy thinking wasn't suited well to a hangover. He lifted a hand to squeeze his temples and toyed with the idea of dressing and leaving without awakening the man, a thought quickly discarded. He had to face what he had done the night before. He didn't want to go three years or more with that hanging between them. He liked to think he could learn from his mistakes. “Sebastian?” he said low, reaching to clasp his forearm and shake it lightly.
His eyes fluttered open with a confused look that matched how Fenris felt upon awakening. Quickly enough they focused and he sat up, lifting a hand to the back of his neck and groaning softly. “I must have dozed off,” he said, glancing toward the made bed across from his own. “Brother Thaddeus decided to let both of us sleep.”
“A kindness,” Fenris observed, shifting to prop his head in his hand, lifting up to an elbow.
“He probably ate my portion of breakfast,” the man said, his good humor slipping into place like a well worn glove, eyes crinkling at the corners. “How did you sleep?”
“Better than I would've at home,” Fenris answered honestly. He pressed up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed to settle bare feet to the rug on the floor. “I owe you an apology.” He held up a hand to forestall any protest. “What I did last night was beneath both of us. I—still have a hard time accepting kindness at face value. I'm sorry, Sebastian. It won't happen again.”
His gaze grew thoughtful. “Sometimes I think I'm the one who owes you an apology,” he said. “I know you and Marian were close.”
“Any distance between us is distance I created. I'm—glad she has you, and I believe in time I'll be able to say the same for the fact that you have her.” He paused to gather his thoughts, grateful that Sebastian wasn't the type to fill silence with mindless prattle. “You asked me to accept the love of a brother.” He raised green eyes to meet blue. “I don't yet know how to do that, but I think I'm willing to learn.”
Sebastian's smile lit his eyes from within, and suddenly it was easy for Fenris to see exactly what Marian saw in the man, an inner quality that transcended simple desire and invited one to strive to be more than he had ever thought he could be. “That's all anyone can ask,” he said. The smile shifted to something more humorous in less than a breath's span. “Particularly before breakfast.”
It felt good to laugh.
Author: Lovingvambrace
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mature themes
Word Count: 4016
Prompt: Dragon Age 2, Sebastian/Fenris- Angst, a question of faith, July 2
Summary: Fenris struggles to find his way after attaining the freedom he so desperately wanted. Sebastian is determined that he doesn't have to take the journey alone.
A/N: I've always enjoyed exploring themes of faith. I hope this is an interesting take on it.
Fenris slipped through the doors of the Chantry with moments to spare before the beginning of the service. He preferred it this way, less likely to capture notice in the shoulder to shoulder throng standing in the cool shadow of Andraste's statue. For all of her vices, Kirkwall had a crowd of faithful and those invested in appearing so alike. What was one small elf among so many?
He found it ironic that for most of the life he could recall, people had a vested interest in making him feel small and insignificant, reminding him that were it not for the lyrium trapped within his flesh, he would be less than nothing, dust to grind beneath the heels of the magisters. Yet, here he stood with worn red carpet beneath his bare feet, his face turned up toward the golden benevolence of her countenance, and he felt comfort in the thought of his smallness, his insignificance in the lives of all but a treasured few. So very few.
Freedom was a rockier road than he had ever dared to dream.
Sebastian stood near the stairs. He hoped that one day he might be seated again with his brothers or delivering his part in the service. He knew it would take more than lip service to persuade Grand Cleric Elthina that his change of heart was sincere. He was fully prepared to demonstrate by deed that he was not as she said, flotsam tossed upon the waves at the whim of the wind. White hair flashed in a stray beam from one of the high windows, and the former brother squinted. Was that Fenris?
He smiled to himself. Perhaps some of the talks they had as they accompanied Marian on her business in and around Kirkwall were having more of an effect than he realized. He sensed in the elf a strong seeking spirit, a need that ran as deep as the need for water in one dying of thirst. For a time, it had seemed that Marian might be the focus of that need, but Fenris had somehow moved beyond that. He seemed to know instinctively what so few managed to grasp after years of meditation, that the comforts of the flesh were but pale shadows of what a man's spirit truly needed to heal. He almost found himself envying the former slave at times. His life of privation had stripped away anything superficial or greedy, leaving him wounded, yes, but also a ready vessel for the love of the Maker if he could but release his doubts.
He found himself watching the man during the service. What was he taking from Justinia's sermons? Were the waters of wisdom falling on fertile ground somewhere beneath the elf's many brambles? His scowl was so habitual, Sebastian had come to realize it was but a mask and no true indication of what ran beneath the surface, a defense mechanism developed in a place where being easily readable or showing vulnerability invited intolerable abuse. He decided against approaching him in the Chantry lest he stop attending to avoid the possibly unwelcome intrusion. Better to catch him at a more private time.
Fenris left the service unsettled of mind. He desperately wanted to believe the words of the Chanter, that the love and forgiveness of the Maker extended to all, that redemption was always a possibility as long as there was breath in the body and willingness in the spirit. His hatred ran so deeply. Every time he thought he was making progress in rooting it out, it would rear its head again, against Hadriana, Denarius, his own sister. Had Marian and Varric not been there to stay his hand, he knew he'd have grasped her fluttering heart and crushed it exactly as he had his former master's apprentice's. How could the Maker ever smile upon anyone so mired in his own darkness and filth, a life so tainted by magic that it marked his very skin?
He wasn't aware that he quickened his footsteps until he found himself all but running for Lowtown, the Hanged Man. It was a vile den of viler memory. It was the place he scourged his conscience when he could no longer bear his own company. Isabela or Varric were usually there, willing to help him drown himself in drink. He sensed the Rivaini bore her own wounds she chose to lick with cheap whiskey, both of them too cagey and proud to speak of such things openly. Varric was harder to read, as slippery as any Carta dwarf and charming enough that he could deflect the most stubborn of digging, not that Fenris himself had ever tried.
He slowed his steps as he neared the tavern, even his tough feet in danger from the jagged shards of broken bottles that littered the ground near the entrance. The familiar scent of stale piss and vomit curled to greet his nostrils and made itself so quickly at home he stopped noticing it almost as soon as he pushed open the door and crossed the threshold.
A flash of gold bangles and dark hand told him Isabela had spotted him from the bar and was in a social enough mood to welcome him. He tried to release the tension that seemed permanently settled between his shoulder blades as he made his way through the crowd. He swatted an inquisitive hand away from his belt in a move that was second nature after nearly seven years in the city, never breaking his stride until he reached the former pirate's side.
“I didn't think you were coming today,” she purred with a dark eyed look that was two parts too knowing and one part inquisitive.
“Oh? And why is that?” he grated, leaning an elbow on the bar top and catching Corff's eye.
“I thought you'd be at church. You know, praying and scraping to that big statue.” She leaned in close and made a show of sniffing his hair. “Just as I thought. I can smell the incense on you, polluting this perfectly disreputable tavern. Corff, be sure and pour him a double, extra rat.” The bar tender waved an irritable hand her way, and she laughed. “He hates when I mention the rat turds.”
“I wasn't at church,” he said defensively. “What would it matter if I were?”
She shot him an assessing side-long glance he didn't trust. “It doesn't matter,” she said unexpectedly. “I just like winding you up.”
Slowly, he felt the knots begin to unwind.
Sebastian shifted yet again on the old crate he'd taken as perch across the street from the tavern. He knew he was conspicuous in his white enameled armor. He also knew he had been seen enough in the company of Marian that few but the very stupid or the very desperate would seek to target him here. Darkness fell much faster in Lowtown than in his more familiar haunts. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly the streets cleared, only a bold few remaining out to brave the night.
It occurred to him that Fenris might take offense at his presence and that if he wasn't very intoxicated indeed, he might also figure out that Sebastian had taken enough interest in his habits to know that no matter how intoxicated he was, he'd not spend the night at the Hanged Man. It didn't matter. The way he had all but fled the Chantry spoke of a troubled state of mind. It would be better to have that conversation sooner rather than later. The seeds of faith were tenuous things, easily crushed without proper nurturing.
By the time Fenris stumbled out of the tavern, the shadows were so deep that Sebastian's armor barely made a dent. “Hail, friend,” he called as he stepped toward him, well aware that startling the elf could be tantamount to suicide.
Pale blue flared along the lines of the Tevinter markings, limning the lean elf in a fell glow. Just as quickly, the light damped. “Sebastian,” he slurred, “what are you doing here?”
“I don't suppose you'd believe I had a sudden hankering for cheap whiskey,” he offered, moving to fall into step with him.
“Not—not for a moment,” Fenris said. “Is something wrong? Is it Hawke?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” he reassured him. He debated the merits of honesty with someone reeking so strongly of whiskey and barely able to keep his feet, ultimately deciding that anything less would defeat the purpose of having come and waited at all. “I saw you in the Chantry today.”
He sensed more than saw his companion stiffen beside him. “And?” There was a hard edge to his voice.
“And I saw you leave in a hurry. The sermon was a particularly uplifting one, so I know whatever had you in such a rush wasn't external,” he said carefully. He always felt as though he trod thin ice with the elf, as though one badly placed word could send the man tumbling back into cold despair. Why it mattered so much to him he wasn't entirely sure, other than he knew how difficult his own struggles toward real faith had been and how lost he'd now be without it.
“I didn't ask for your help,” Fenris said tersely, clearly struggling for coherent words. “I don't need—I don't need you following me. Aveline does enough of that.”
“Aveline's concerns are for the laws of man,” Sebastian said. “You know that's not why I'm here.”
The elf whirled on him so suddenly he barely had time to catch his footing before he found himself pressed against a wall in the narrow lane they navigated toward Hightown. “Why are you here?”
He drew a pained breath past the press of steel vambrace against his throat and wished that he could see more than just the shadow of his face and a faint glitter of narrowed eye. “The Maker isn't the only one concerned with your well being, Fenris,” he wheezed. “He acts through us more often than in any flashy ways.” He briefly wondered if he was about to meet a sudden end. It wouldn't be the first time he had seen Fenris act first only to regret later. Maker, forgive him, he thought, if he can't control himself.
Sebastian Vael was infuriating and confusing, far worse than Hawke had ever been. He was difficult to handle sober. What had possessed him to approach when he had to know Fenris was pickled to the gills in whiskey? He released him suddenly, whirling and staggering. The entire alley seemed to swirl, and the stone lane rose to meet his hands and knees with sharp pain. His stomach rebelled. He realized belatedly that more than a little of the sour contents had splashed over pristine greaves and boots.
He pressed back on his heels and looked up, expecting to see the man withdrawing in disgust and cursing him in protest. Instead, he was bending down, reaching to help him up. “Can you walk?” he asked kindly.
I don't want your kindness, something in him snarled beyond his ability to articulate. It emerged as little more than a moan. He hadn't felt so ill in a very long time. He knew Isabela would never drug him—probably—but he wouldn't put it past someone at the tavern to do it. Toward the end both he and the Rivaini had been careless with their mugs.
He tried to protest again when he felt the man squat at his side and throw his arm over his shoulders, bearing him upright. “I don't want this,” he managed.
“Well, I'm not leaving you here,” Sebastian said reasonably. “So you tell me what you do want. I can take you back to the tavern, your place, or the Chantry.” Dark humor crept into his tone. “Or I could always drop you off at Anders' clinic.”
“Bastard.” He lifted his free hand to hook into the front of the smooth breastplate, determined to carry as much of his own weight as he could manage. The thought of the dank mansion in Hightown rotting around him was too much to bear. He knew he'd never live it down if Isabela or Varric saw him borne back into the tavern by the ex-priest. It left the only slightly most palatable option of the three. “The Chantry?” It came out a question. Would bearing a drunkard into the holy place land the man in trouble?
Sebastian mercifully didn't comment on his choice or question why. They took several unwanted stops along the way, Fenris well past the point of dry heaves by the time they reached the imposing double doors. What had been a welcoming sight by day with a voluntary approach was now daunting and shaming. He turned his face against the cool breastplate and squeezed his eyes shut. Sebastian's steps didn't falter.
Sebastian wasn't disappointed in his sisters' discretion, the few who were up and about so late at night giving him little more than questioning glances as he walked Fenris past them. He knew well enough that some of them might gossip about what they had seen later. At least they had the decency not to accost an obviously ill and troubled man.
He didn't stop until he had him in the room he shared with Brother Thaddeus. Thaddeus was deeply asleep, not so much as stirring on his mattress when Sebastian brought Fenris into the room. Moonlight streamed through the window, providing enough illumination for him to settle the elf on his narrow bed. “Can you sit for a bit?” he whispered.
Bleary eyes met his gaze. He was about to repeat the question when Fenris nodded and propped his forearms atop his thighs, head hanging. “Good man.” He left the room to fetch a pitcher of water and a mug, hurrying through the darkened corridors with a familiarity born of years of life there. He half expected to find Fenris passed out when he returned, but he was still seated as he had left him, his breath labored through parted lips.
“You think you're going to be sick again?” he whispered. “Do you need the chamber pot?”
Fenris shook his head and swallowed thickly. “There's nothing left,” he murmured.
Nodding, he poured a few swallows of water into the mug. “Rinse your mouth first,” he said and made sure Fenris had it in both hands before releasing it. He drew the pot from under the bed so that he could spit, poured more for him, and told him to drink it slowly. When he was sure he was doing as he'd been told, he used what remained in the pitcher to wet a cloth and wrung it out in the wash basin. He carefully laid it across the back of the elf's neck, tucking it beneath his hair and armor.
“What are you doing?” The question came low, pained.
“I'm taking care of you,” he replied without hesitation. He continued over the expected protest. “I don't care if you don't need it. I want to.”
Fenris swallowed a bit more water, staring into the moonlit surface of the mug's contents as though it might have the answers he sought. “Why?” he asked bleakly.
Kneeling in front of him, the exiled prince took the mug and set it on his bedside table before reaching up toward the upper buckle of Fenris' right vambrace. “Don't you think it's a tragedy that more of us don't ask 'why not' instead?”
It wasn't just the alcohol sickening him now, he knew. He sat perfectly still while Sebastian removed his vambraces and then his gauntlets. Fear and self loathing coiled low in his belly; pride and whiskey taint prevented him from fleeing. No one can be this good. Once the thought took hold, he couldn't let it go. It gnawed at him, feeding on deep seated resentment, eroding already battered self-control.
When Sebastian moved in closer to reach for the buckles of his breastplate, he acted on it, falling on him open mouthed and grasping, intent on dragging him down to his level, on forcing acceptance of the only coin he had for payment for the devastating kindness. When he had gone to Hawke three years before, it was out of desperation to feel something, anything, besides crippling hatred and rage. Now he was just as desperate not to feel. It hurt too much.
It was Sebastian's turn to still. He neither thrust him back nor responded, his mouth closed. Fenris felt the press of warm hands to his face, gentle pressure firm enough to stop him, and suddenly found himself pressed forehead to forehead. “No, Fenris.” The caress of the man's voice was more terribly intimate than any touch, only the pressure of hands preventing the elf from flinching away entirely and shrinking in on himself. “There's only one thing I want from you tonight, one thing I'm asking, that you accept the love of a brother, not a lover.”
He was grateful Sebastian couldn't see how his face contorted, although he suspected he could feel it, pressed as they were. Please, don't be this good to me. I don't know how to take it. He tried one last time to drive him away, a bruising kiss that would leave both of their lips swollen and tender.
Again, Sebastian stilled him with a press of hands, the pads of his thumbs resting against the cusps of his cheeks. “You're not a slave anymore,” he whispered without recrimination. “How long do you intend to act like one?”
“Nothing makes it stop,” he said, the words spilling from him as sharp as glass, cutting him from the inside. “I can't do this. You don't—” You don't understand what you're doing to me. I don't understand. He leaned in, forehead to forehead again, and caught the faint scent of incense on the other man's skin pore deep, the same scent Isabela accused him of carrying earlier. His mind seized on it, something clean, something real. “Maker, help me,” he cried, the first prayer he had felt from his core since he was a child. He knew it with a certainty that needed no bolster of memory.
Sebastian's hands were moving again, divesting him of the rest of his armor and the stale padding and undershirt beneath. He stood when he was drawn up, accepting the support of arm and shoulder while the man pulled back the blanket and sheet. He slid into the embrace of clean linen with a soft groan, head spinning from the new orientation. “Don't,” he murmured, unable to force out the rest of it. Don't leave.
Somehow, the man seemed to understand. He drew away only long enough to pull his desk chair close to the head of the bed and took a seat, dipping the cloth, wringing it, and folding it over Fenris' forehead. “Rest, my friend,” he said softly. “You've had a long day of it.”
He had used up all of his fight, without enough energy even to tell himself that he wasn't worthy of this kindness. Drunken sleep swallowed him whole, and any time he threatened to come out of it, there was a cool cloth and a warm hand to soothe him under again.
Morning sunlight chased him into his pillow, the scent of linen and incense drawing him up to groggy wakefulness. For a moment or two he blinked his confusion. This wasn't his bed, wasn't his dark room in the bowels of his Hightown mansion. Turning his head to the side, he saw a hand dangling over a chair arm nearby. He let his gaze follow the line of arm up to Sebastian's face in repose, chin resting in an uncomfortable angle atop his chest. Fragments of the night before came back to him, what he had done, what Sebastian had said to him in response. There's only one thing I want from you tonight... You're not a slave anymore...
It was the first time he had seen him out of armor. He looked somehow more real, smaller, and the troubles he concealed behind his placid priest's mask in wakefulness showed in sleep in a small crease between his brows and the faintest hint of a frown. You should come with me to Starkhaven, he had offered during one of their many conversations on the road. At the time the idea seemed preposterous, an elf training humans how to fight. Was it truly so ridiculous?
Accept the love of a brother... Could he? He had accepted Hawke's love, only to watch her focus shift from him to the man beside him now over the past three years. Admittedly, he couldn't fault her. He had all but shoved her anywhere else, had convinced himself it would be easier if she hated him. She didn't hate him. She had stood beside him and prevented him from making one of the biggest mistakes of his life. Now this man seemed to make a similar offer, persisted in seeing value where Fenris saw none, and unlike Hawke, he had the sense to see Anders for the snake in the grass he was, poised to strike. Fenris could hardly fault his perceptiveness in other matters. Maybe he should trust his judgment here, too.
Such heavy thinking wasn't suited well to a hangover. He lifted a hand to squeeze his temples and toyed with the idea of dressing and leaving without awakening the man, a thought quickly discarded. He had to face what he had done the night before. He didn't want to go three years or more with that hanging between them. He liked to think he could learn from his mistakes. “Sebastian?” he said low, reaching to clasp his forearm and shake it lightly.
His eyes fluttered open with a confused look that matched how Fenris felt upon awakening. Quickly enough they focused and he sat up, lifting a hand to the back of his neck and groaning softly. “I must have dozed off,” he said, glancing toward the made bed across from his own. “Brother Thaddeus decided to let both of us sleep.”
“A kindness,” Fenris observed, shifting to prop his head in his hand, lifting up to an elbow.
“He probably ate my portion of breakfast,” the man said, his good humor slipping into place like a well worn glove, eyes crinkling at the corners. “How did you sleep?”
“Better than I would've at home,” Fenris answered honestly. He pressed up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed to settle bare feet to the rug on the floor. “I owe you an apology.” He held up a hand to forestall any protest. “What I did last night was beneath both of us. I—still have a hard time accepting kindness at face value. I'm sorry, Sebastian. It won't happen again.”
His gaze grew thoughtful. “Sometimes I think I'm the one who owes you an apology,” he said. “I know you and Marian were close.”
“Any distance between us is distance I created. I'm—glad she has you, and I believe in time I'll be able to say the same for the fact that you have her.” He paused to gather his thoughts, grateful that Sebastian wasn't the type to fill silence with mindless prattle. “You asked me to accept the love of a brother.” He raised green eyes to meet blue. “I don't yet know how to do that, but I think I'm willing to learn.”
Sebastian's smile lit his eyes from within, and suddenly it was easy for Fenris to see exactly what Marian saw in the man, an inner quality that transcended simple desire and invited one to strive to be more than he had ever thought he could be. “That's all anyone can ask,” he said. The smile shifted to something more humorous in less than a breath's span. “Particularly before breakfast.”
It felt good to laugh.