Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fenris sat, as usual in the late evenings after a day out fighting with Hawke, in a chair too grand for him in a room too expensive for him in a mansion that didn’t belong to him, and a bottle of wine in his hand. The moon was barely rising but his room was lit by its soft glow over the buildings from the window. He hadn’t bothered lighting any candles when he came back. Instead, he stared aimlessly at the wall across from him as he slumped in his chair, lost in his past and his pain.

There had been more of them today. Slavers. Hawke had led him and his party down to the docks, hunting down some gangs hiding taking refuge in the shadows there. They ‘negotiated’, as Hawke called it, meaning they killed them all after Hawke getting bored of them. Once they had finished, there they were.

“Let’s see what the Vints will pay for ‘em!” They shouted.

“Double for the pretty elf!” They cried.

Fenris snarled, sprinting towards them with his sword held high, bringing it down in vicious half circles. Isabela had stayed at a distance, wanting to get more involved in the fray but more worried about being caught in the large and ferocious arc of Fenris’ swinging blade than the slavers’. She jumped in to nick one of them where their armour was weak, slicing flesh and he dropped to the ground with a cry, but then she leapt away just as fast as Fenris took the man’s head off.

Hawke had rained lightning down from above and then Fenris plunged his hand into a man’s chest, ripping his heart out as he slashed the sword down on a woman to his right. He hacked and slashed his way through the thicket of them until they fell. As he did, he heard the cry of reinforcements from behind him. He spun with a growl.

“Clap ‘em in irons!”

It didn’t take long after that. Fenris tore their hearts out one by one until they were all motionless on the ground.

He stood panting angrily, eyes fixed on the horizon and let a bloody organ drop to the ground from his hand. He was so consumed with rage he felt almost blinded by it. He wanted to fight, he wanted to kill every damned one of them. He would.

Fenris hadn’t heard Varric calling him over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears, and he flinched in surprise when he did. “Are you alright, Broody?” The dwarf chased his eyes with a worried gaze.

“Yes,” he’d responded. Varric wasn’t convinced. Fenris hadn’t even managed to convince himself.

They headed back in silence.

It was hard. It was always hard, after. He was haunted by memories in the silenced, plagued by them in his dreams. And after days like this, he didn’t have the strength to stop them.

So he sat there, with the wine bottle loosely dangling in his fingertips and his other hand clenched tight around the armrest, staring forwards but seeing anything but the room ahead of him. Danarius. Hadriana. The unending torture he endured at the hands of each of them, how he-

His thoughts were abrupted by a sound, and Fenris was shocked out of his reverie. Was that someone talking? It couldn’t have. Could it?

But there it was again. High pitched, muffled through the walls… a woman? Maybe someone looking for help? Or pretending to need help, anyway. There was another sound then - footsteps? Like scrabbling, scratching on the stone floor beneath him.

Fenris stood, setting the bottle down and grabbing his sword. He moved silently through the house, sword raised, and peered over the balcony. He couldn’t see anything, but he could still hear the scrabbling, and very softly, that voice again. He followed the sound down the stairs, ears twitching as he listened. The elf paused outside the door to the pantry, pressing his ear against it gently.

It was louder this time, but now Fenris could make it out. It wasn’t talking. No, not talking. It was…

Meowing?

He pushed the door open with a loud creak to reveal a small, raggedy cat meowing at a small mouse hole in the wall. It was old, its tortoiseshell coat matted in some places and patchy all over. Its ears were white and down-turned, and it had long, thin whiskers that drooped off of its tired face like a perpetual frown.

When the cat heard the noise, it turned its head towards him and when it noticed Fenris standing in the doorway it screeched and scampered around the room like a freshly shot arrow. It ran in a circuit of the room before it scuttled to a larger hole in the cellar wall and tried to squeeze its way through. Fenris supposed it was probably how it got in in the first place as he watched its limp tail disappear through the hole.

The elf stood in the doorway for a moment, leaning on his sword in surprise. That hadn’t been what he’d expected. He glanced at the two holes in the walls with slow eyes. He didn’t use the pantry, which is why it was empty and that he’d never noticed the holes, he supposed.

He used to think the only person who would try to find him here would be Danarius. It turns out he might have more unwanted guests of a different kind.

Fenris sighed, took his weight off of his sword and carried it out of the room, kicking the door to as he left, not noticing it was slightly ajar. He headed back to his room. He sat down on his bed, this time and ran a hand through his hair.

It had been a while since anything had been able to pull him from one of his episodes, if not ever. It left him feeling numb, almost. He wasn’t hurting, which was a plus. He just felt… tired. But he was grateful for the distraction, brief as it was. He hadn’t been able to keep the bemused smirk off of his face as he watched the cat run. It looked so alive .

He got ready for bed in silence and as he closed his eyes, some part of him hoped that the little thing would find a meal. It had been through a lot.

They both had.

Chapter Text

A week later, Fenris had forgotten about the incident. It was late, again. It seemed it always was, in Kirkwall. Maybe he just didn’t notice the sunshine. He sat in a chair in the dining room, alone, with a single candle lit opposite him on the table as he ate a few of the scraps he’d… procured for dinner.

As he picked at the food in front of him, never quite working up enough of an appetite to eat much, even if he could now, he heard a sound. He glanced up as the door to the room squeaked a little bit more open. Fenris kept his wary eye on the door, hand on his sword, but then he saw a little head peek its way in.

The elf cocked his head at the cat as it took a step forward and froze when it saw him. Then the most peculiar thing happened. The scraggly cat cocked his own head back, one of its eyes bright and green, the other milky and staring at him blindly. There was a moment of silence between the two, as the cat surveyed the scene and the danger the elf posed, and then, out of nowhere, it opened its small mouth and meowed softly. Fenris let out a small chuckle, before moving very slowly to tear a few small chunks off of some of the meat on his plate and tossing them so that they landed in front of the cat.

It flinched in surprise at the movement, and Fenris thought it might leave. Instead, slowly, very slowly, it brought more of its weathered form through the door with its eyes trained on him, before slowly dipping its head to sniff at the offering. Deciding it smelled better than going another day hungry, the cat began to lick it, and it was then that Fenris saw it only had a few teeth left.

He leant back in his chair, watching the cat with attentive eyes. “Aren’t we a pair?” he said softly, picking at some more of his food. He… Well, as odd as it was to say, he was enjoying the somewhat company.

The cat wasn’t loud, only soft, broken purring between bites, it was just there, and Fenris found its presence soothing. Perhaps, he thought with a wry smile, it was because the cat was everything that healer wasn’t.

He sighed at that thought. “That mage would love you,” he said under his breath, “Don’t suppose you’ve ever been to Darktown?” He asked to himself as he watched the cat finish the last of his scraps. In response, the cat simply looked at him, tired and frail bones hunched over as it raised its head, so Fenris tossed it some more food.

Fenris sat there in comfortable silence, idly thinking about nothing, with the cat eating the last of his dinner from its space near the open door. From the looks of the cat, Fenris supposed it had never found that mouse. If there had even been a mouse to begin with, that is. It looked thinner than Fenris had remembered, but it could have been the dying light from the candle. He watched its greying head pull at the meat in front of him and wondered where it was from, what its story was, how it got here. It somehow managed to get in through his pantry, and Maker knows where that hole led.

Perhaps it had an owner. Maybe they died and left the cat behind. It was certainly old, that was true. To have made it this far, to have lived this long, just on scraps… it seemed unlikely. But it could be true. The cat was a fighter. He could relate to that, at least.

The cat sniffed the floor where it had finished the scraps and looked up again at Fenris, who had nothing more to offer. When it saw there was no more food to come, it swivelled its green eye around the room once more, and slowly turned and left, bones creaking as it left with light footsteps against the cold stone floor.

Fenris watched the small thing go with wide eyes. It had left as soon as it had arrived. He couldn’t say he was surprised. It got what it came for and left. He couldn’t say he blamed it, he’d done that more times than he could count. But he couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed. He didn’t quite know why.

He left not long after that, the candle burning low and running out of wax to melt.

The cat came back the next night. It was around the same time, and Fenris was once again eating alone at the table, and the door was opened again. He was surprised: he didn’t think it would come back so soon, since it had waited so long last time. Nonetheless, he was sort of grateful it was back.

The small creature came further into the room, braver this time, and sat down a few feet from his chair, waiting expectantly with a patient mew. Fenris smiled at the thing and reached down to place some food down, as he had before. The cat padded a little closer and sniffed at it, before digging in again.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” he said slowly. “Perhaps I should get you a bowl, if you’re going to make a habit of it.”

He’d never looked after someone like this before. He’d been responsible for Danarius’ life, more times than he could count. As his bodyguard, as his slave , there had been so many times he’d saved him. But this… this was different. He was looking after that poor thing because he wanted to. Not out of pity, no.

Because it reminded him of himself.

And he would have done anything for someone to have looked at him back then and helped him. Anything.

Now, he had the chance to do that for someone else, even if it was only a cat. Perhaps it was some sort of weakness, this sentimentality towards another creature. He hadn’t been able to keep it up with Hawke. Ran from it.

But this time he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t alone. He was at peace.

It felt silly. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

He leant over and held out his hand to the cat, who flinched, eyes wary. Slowly, very slowly, it moved forward and sniffed at the slender fingers held out towards him. Fenris turned his hand around, moving just as carefully as the cat, noticing how skittish it was, and gently stroked the top of its head. It bowed away from the action at first, but noticing how nice the soft hands were on its fur, it stopped and let Fenris pet it.

The elf smiled. The fur wasn’t particularly soft, instead, it was rough and still matted, in places, but the cat seemed to be enjoying it.

And… Fenris enjoyed it too.

Chapter Text

The cat came back for weeks, after that first night, at the same time. As he’d promised, he got the cat a bowl. Or he found a bowl in one of the dusty cabinets and put it on the floor for the cat to use, and another for water. That morning, he’d put some milk in the bowl before he left to meet Hawke at his mansion. It was an impulse buy the day before, he thought the cat might enjoy it, though he wouldn’t know until the evening.

That day didn’t go as planned, though.

Hawke led them to Hubert, first, who informed them that something had happened in the Bone Pit. The man had rolled his eyes. “There’s always trouble at the mine,” he’d said, and he was right.

Nevertheless, they hurried down there, to find the mine on fire. They fought their way in, as usual whenever Hawke was involved, but Fenris could never get used to fighting drakes and dragons. And the dragons kept getting bigger and bigger, and before he knew it there was a high dragon breathing fire down on them.

The first half of the fight was fine, going by as smoothly as it could have. Half the mountainside was on fire and he was pretty sure his hair was singed or glowing, by the smell in the air, but the dragon was bleeding. He’d severed one of its tendons on one leg and it was limping, but still swirling around with a vehemence despite the various cuts on it.

Hawke brought down a flurry of frost and suddenly the beast was frozen. Fenris leapt into action, hacking at the dragon’s neck, but the first blow shattered the ice around it and it immediately lashed out with one taloned arm. It dug into his armour and flung him hard away from it.

Fenris flew for a moment, blood spilling from his shoulder where a talon had dug into his flesh, and then he landed with a crunch. He kept rolling from the momentum, rolling and rolling and then he was off of the cliff, tumbling down.

“Fenris?!” He heard a cry before everything went black.

He was woken up several minutes later, his head ringing. His eyes were blurry but he could see a couple of figures before him in front of his eyes. He blinked in dazed confusion until they came into focus.

“Maker, Fenris, I thought you were dead!” Hawke said, sighing in relief as he sat back on his heels.

Merril rubbed a hand over her face as she looked at the blood around him. “We’ve got to get you to Anders.”

“No,” Fenris tried to sit up, but groaned as his head fell back again. Merrill looked about to protest so he tried, with more force this time, to sit up and this time he succeeded, his head rushing as he did so. “Get out of my way,” he snarled, pushing the blood mage aside as he attempted to stand. Hawke offered his hand and he took it without a glance, thankful for the support but not willing to acknowledge it.

“Okay,” Hawke said, “Okay. Let’s head back.”

They headed back in silence, and when Fenris stumbled, they didn’t comment. Fenris felt the other elf’s eyes on him, and he ignored them. He pressed a hand into the wound on his shoulder. It wasn’t too bad, he told himself. The armour had taken the brunt of the hit and the claw had only got in because of the gap between the two pieces of armour. It still hurt, though, but he’d had worse.

It was dark by the time they got back to the city, and he left without a word, not following them back to Hubert. Fenris headed straight home and burst through his door in anger (or was it pain?), the door slamming shut behind him.

He stripped his armour off in his bedroom, trying not to jostle his arm but too irritated to really care, tossing the pieces to the ground with harsh clunks. He took his underarmour off with jerky movements and looked at the angry wound with narrowed eyes. Fenris rummaged in one of the drawers for some of the wrappings he kept there, pressing some of it into the cut and using some more to bind it in place.

He sighed and shuffled back on his bed, where he passed out, slumped against the wall.

He was woken by a loud bang. A door closing.

He sat up like lightning, head whirling, but he got out of bed with haste regardless of how much his head protested. He grabbed his sword and carried it in his left, uninjured hand and ran to the door on silent feet. Fenris approached the balcony slowly and then peered over the edge. And then he stopped.

“Mage.” He growled through grit teeth.

Anders looked up at him from where he was crouched. “Fenris,” he gave a lopsided grin, “That’s not a nice way to greet someone who’s here to help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” he spat back.

The mage laughed softly. “Regardless of how lowly you perceive my standards as a healer, elf, I am good at my job. And even if you don’t want my help,” Anders turned back to where he was looking before, “This little guy looks hungry!”

Fenris followed his gaze to where the mage was reaching out and scratching the small cat behind the ear. He clicked his jaw in mild irritation.

“You know, Fenris, I always assumed you weren’t a cat person. Not that you seem like a dog person, either,” he continued under his breath, “Sometimes I forget you’re a person at all.”

“Watch your tongue, mage,” he said, “And I’m not a cat person.”

“I suppose that bowl of milk just put itself there, then.”

Fenris didn’t respond.

“What’s his name?” Anders asked him, as the cat rolled onto its side, purring loudly.

Fenris was taken aback and narrowed his eyes at the man. Silence passed between them, until the elf ground out “It doesn’t have one.”

“It?” He asked in surprise, “Come now, even you can’t be that heartless.”

The elf didn’t reply but felt uncomfortable, exposed. He furrowed his brow. Get him out. “If you’re going to patch me up, mage, I suggest you get on and do it.”

Anders looked up at him again. “Okay, do you have somewhere I can work?”

Fenris made his way down the stairs and led him to the dining room, where he sat himself down in the chair he normally used, gesturing to one of the cobweb and dust-covered ones for Anders, who gave a very fake and toothy grin with a sarcastic “Thank you,” but didn’t sit. He instead set down a case Fenris hadn’t noticed was there and brought out a few bandages and a poultice. At least he wasn’t using magic.

The mage set to work dressing the wound, mostly in silence, and Fenris ignored the various comments he did make and the face the healer made when he saw the shoddy job he did wrapping it himself. His mind wandered and he stared with an irritated look pointedly in the opposite direction, anything to take his mind off of the mage wrapping his wound almost tenderly. Halfway through, the cat jumped onto Fenris’ lap and he stroked it idly, thoughts on other things.

Anders jumped at first, surprised, and glanced at Fenris’ face, which was turned away as the cat settled and Fenris brought his hand up to pet it. He didn’t comment and just got back to work with a faint smile. He didn’t think the elf cared about anything except hating slavers and mages. It was… odd to see him showing any kind of care for the wellbeing of anything else. Perhaps he’d misjudged him.

Probably not.

He finished up quickly. “There,” he said with a smile. “All done.”

Fenris was pulled back to reality with those three words, looking down in embarrassment when he realised the cat was curled up quite comfortably there, his fingers in its matted fur. Anders knelt down beside him, and reached out a hand to scratch the cat behind its ears, speaking to it softly in a singsong voice. The elf didn’t know what to do, awkwardly staring down with a frown.

Anders glanced up and immediately drew back. “I’ll be on my way,” he said, standing up and collecting his things, “I’ll leave you,” he said, bending down to stroke the bundle of fluff once more, “And your little friend here alone. It shouldn’t, but come and find me if it festers,” he said, making his way out of the room.

“You know I won’t!” Fenris called after him, looking down at the mangy old thing in his lap with a soft smile.

Anders saw the look on his face as he looked back and he added, “Maybe you should name him after your sword.”

“Lethendralis?”

The healer barked out a laugh. “Bit of a mouthful. I meant the new one.” He opened the front door and left. “See you around, Fen.”

“Oh,” the elf looked down at the small cat on his lap and it looked up at him, and he looked into his eyes, one clouded and one sparkling green. “Mercy, then,” he said with a grin as the cat meowed in response.

Anders half ran to Lowtown, flinging open the door to the Hanged Man and grabbing Isabela and practically dragging the drunk woman up the stairs. He pushed open the door to Varric’s room with a grin splitting his face and the dwarf looked up in surprise.

“You will not believe what I just saw!”