She Seems Happy
A/N: Initially written for dragonage_kink, comment thread is here. This version has been edited slightly for minor grammatical and style errors. Warning for pretty mild M!Hawke/Fenris (by my standards, at least), but there's no sex, kissing, action or nsfw content.
Original prompt: Leandra's feeling rather sad and lonely lately, so Hawke decides she needs a night out and invites her to the Hanged Man, along with all the companions. Chaos ensues. Cards, discussions of Hawke's sex life/relationships (I have a F!Hawke/Fenris preference, but any of the LI's and either gender is fine), too much booze, etc., all with Mother's input. Super Mega Ultra bonus points if Leandra takes it all in stride. She ran off with an apostate, I'm convinced there's a party girl in there somewhere.
---
The first time his mother mentions the idea, he assumes she's joking and is only too happy to play along.
"It's not too bad a place," is the reply he gives her, grinning. "If you don't mind the smell of cheap ale and the occasional knife fight. And the blood everywhere or the assorted uncooked portions of any food served from their kitchens. Apart from all that, though, the Hanged Man's really quite wonderful. The people are absolutely lovely, too, when they're not falling over each other to pick your pocket. Why not come down this evening with me?"
"Unfortunately," Leandra murmurs, "Comtess Dulci is bent on taking me out shopping later. She always does love to hear about my time in Ferelden -- if only to contrast it against how wonderful Orlais is in comparison. Otherwise I'd love to join you, if only to meet all your new friends. It does get so quiet in here, sometimes."
"I'll miss you, Mother," Garrett says. "But how about next week? I'll even ask Aveline to come along."
"We'll see," Leandra replies, and then they never speak of it again.
---
'Never' lasts until next week.
He drops by the estate to pick up some spare cash and when faced with the sight of his mother, dressed casually in one of her more practical outfits, Garrett is forced to admit that perhaps taking her words as a joke was a not a good idea and proceeds to explain himself.
"Mother," he says, in complete seriousness, "I don't think this is a good idea."
"Oh, nonsense. You did say you'd have Aveline join us, wouldn't you? She's a lovely girl."
It's always been rather odd hearing someone refer to the Guard Captain of Kirkwall as a 'lovely girl', but Garrett supposes that she's been called worse things. Still, though, he's determined not to let this deter him from his point. "It's not the kind of place you should be going to," he tries, "it's full of -- people who aren't nobles."
She laughs and cups his hands, placing his purse in them. "I don't know if you've noticed, darling, but most of Kirkwall isn't nobility, and I grew up here. Now, here's the money you came back to pick up. Shall we be off?"
It's about then that he realises that he isn't going to win this one.
---
This is hideously, tremendously awkward, but Garrett's not stupid and he's been thinking his way out of this as fast as he can. Sidequest: Get Mother Back to the Estate is now in operation -- or at least, that's how he's going to put it down in his journal.
Attempt one to complete the quest, tell her stories about how terrible it is. It's a brilliant plan, especially considering that he won't even have to make that much up.
"...then Isabela grabbed him by the balls and squeezed while Fenris cleaved through three of the mercenaries with one mighty blow, after which the rest of them ran away. That same evening, they had hot drunken sex with three other women and a dog joining in before proceeding to wake up the next morning naked in the gutter. Trust me, you really don't want to meet these people."
"Really? Just what were you doing, then, sitting down and taking notes? Garrett, I'm horrified, I didn't raise you to be the sort of boy who would stand by while a lady was in trouble."
"Mother, Isabela's never in trouble. And I don't know if she'd call herself a lady."
"Still, darling, that does sound rather rude of you. I should meet this girl, if only to apologise for your appalling behaviour."
Brilliant as attempt one seemed to be, it really isn't working for him.
---
The problem is, he doesn't really have much other ideas. He's tried out a few other stories, things like how Merrill accidentally exploded a man ("Maker, the poor girl, that must have been so messy."), how Varric is secretly being hunted down by a group of terrifying assassins ("Is he now? Well, so long as they're polite and don't interrupt us during dinner."), how Anders got sick of all the drunkards one day and magicked all of them sober, which resulted in the brawls becoming even more viscous than normal and ended with Aveline arresting everyone ("I'm sure he's learned his lesson from that, hasn't he?") and how Sebastian ended up inciting open rebellion against himself by getting drunk and rambling about bringing an army into Kirkwall ("What a loyal boy, and a Prince, too. I would love to meet him.")
Needless to say, every single attempt has met with the solid stone wall that is his mother.
The seeds of a second plan are sprouting in his mind. If he can't scare his mother off with only very mildly exaggerated stories, thenperhaps he can scare her off with the Hanged Man itself. Attempt two hasn't had much thought put into it yet, but currently his plan looks like this:
1) Open door to the Hanged Man
2) Mother is terrified by the sight
3) Mother goes home
4) All is once again right in Thedas
It's risky, but seeing how they are already in Lowtown and only a few minutes walk away from the inn, he'll have to pray that it works.
From all he's been through, though, he's starting to suspect that the Maker's really not on his side.
---
Attempt two is an even more colossal failure.
Garrett isn't sure if it's possible to actually embarrass himself by proxy, but his mother does seem to be doing a good job of trying.
They're on the third round of drinks, and the 'I do wish I'd had a family portrait done when he was young, Garrett was such a lovely boy' stories have been replaced by the 'you wouldn't believe what Garrett gave as an excuse when I found him in that barn with that other lad' stories. He'd bought wine for his mother, which was hideously expensive but would hopefully get her tipsy faster and bring about a quick end to the evening, but somehow he'd also managed to forget that he'd inherited his iron liver from her.
Somewhere, he suspects, his father is probably laughing at him.
To summarise, his mother is very sober, very cheerful, and not at all unrepentant about setting foot in the Hanged Man.
He can't hide a grin, though, even though his face is flushed, when he hears her laughing and sees his friends smiling along with her. It's been a long while since she's looked like that, and if the price is that he gets thoroughly embarrassed to within an inch of his life by his mother, then so be it. He can afford to pay.
---
In contrast to his mother's demeanour, however, Fenris has been strangely silent the whole evening, brooding over a mug of ale in the corner.
The main indicator that something is wrong, Garrett knows, is that it's a mug of ale. In front of Fenris, the biggest wine snob he knows. Which is why he heads over, sitting down at the same table and pulling the mug away from the elf.
"You're quiet tonight," he says.
"And you're observant," Fenris replies. "Would you like to point out something else, perhaps? How the sky is blue, maybe, or how the Qunaris' boat is never coming for them?"
This is also very quickly going nowhere. He gropes for a while for something witty to say, anything that might provoke one of those rare, slight smiles from the other man. Before he's even opened his mouth, though, he notices that Fenris' eyes have slipped from him to over his shoulder, where his mother sits at a table with cards in her hand, demonstrating her hitherto unknown talents (to everyone else, at least) at Diamondback.
If there is anything to be said about him, though he'll never admit it to anyone but himself, Garrett knows when it's not the time for jokes -- which is why he offers a smile in exchange for the ale, and then turns to glance over at his mother.
"You know I love her," he says, "more than anything. She loves me too, no matter what damn fool things I've done with my life -- that's what it means to be family. If you were wondering..."
"I wasn't," Fenris begins, and then looks away.
"...I know," Garrett replies, content to leave it as that.
---
Unfortunately for Fenris, Garrett is not his mother.
Leandra makes her way over a few minutes later, which is just after she's cleaned several people, Varric included, of all their spare change for the night. Garrett knows her well enough to know that she's played dirty and gave better than she got, since he learned most of his tricks from her.
This is why he completely expects it when she sits down next to him, causing Fenris to start in surprise.
"And this is your friend Fenris, isn't it? It's a pleasure to finally meet you," she says, a smile on her face that promises nothing good for Garrett, who has found himself pinned between his mother and a wall. "I've heard so much about you from my son."
Fenris somehow works up a smile. "All terrible, I expect," he says.
"Oh, no, it was all very interesting. Tell me, did you really cleave through several men and then proceed to... what was it again, make passionate love all night to that nice girl Isabela, three other women and a dog? Garrett assures me that you did."
In retrospect, Garrett should really have known that this one was going to come back and haunt him. He'd considered the possibility, of course, but hadn't expected it to be quite so soon.
The look Fenris gives him for it, though, makes it entirely worth it.
---
The evening ends late, later than he's usually accustomed to. Normally he'd have found himself making numerous excuses to leave early, to catch his mother before she went to bed and tell her about his day. It's somehow different having her be a part of his day, though.
She seems happy.
If he had been anyone else here tonight, only seeing her smiles and the way she laughed, not being able to hear the loss in her voice when she spoke of how her husband Malcolm would have loved to be here with her, he'd have believed that, too.
Still, it's a start. And when Fenris offers to escort them back to their estate, since he lives -- or squats -- in Hightown as well, Garrett's glad for it. As much as he's done to clear the Kirkwall's streets of their night time gangs, there are still some stragglers around. Better to have a friend with him in case something untoward should happen.
The reach his home with little event, thankfully, and Garrett stifles a yawn as he heads in while his mother stays at the doorstep, saying something in a low tone to Fenris. Whatever they might have to tell each other isn't really his business, after all.
At least, it isn't until he catches the words 'I've seen the way you look at my son', and then promptly decides that it is.
---
Fenris is apologising for something, and Garrett wants to shake him by the shoulders.
He missed some of the conversation while running upstairs and finding a window over the door, but what he can hear now appears to be his mother telling Fenris that it isn't her he ought to apologise to.
Maker. Maybe they're all drunk, maybe he can wake up in the morning and this will never have happened, this is somehow worse than conversations before the Hanged Man.
"I'm afraid I don't understand your meaning," Fenris says, and Garrett winces in sympathy, before --
"It's you, lad," his mother replies. Trust her to see Fenris as a child. "I may not know you, but I know the children I have raised, and I've also seen the way Garrett looks at you. Do you think I can't recognise what it is?" She laughs, and Garrett can picture the smile on her face, the look in her eyes as she says: "I was in love once, too."
"I don't -- I am not your family, there's no need for you to concern yourself with me."
"Not yet," Leandra says, "but perhaps someday. My son already thinks of you as one of us, though I doubt he'll admit it. He always was a quiet lad."
There's a snort. "I have never found him to be particularly so."
"About what's important to him, I was going to say. You've known him for a number of years, haven't you? What do you think?"
Garrett turns away from the window. The answer to that -- he'll wait to hear from Fenris himself.
---
The next morning, he wakes up to find out that his mother's decided on having visits to the Hanged Man become a weekly outing, starting from this very day.
Garrett groans and complains and starts to make up another story, but finds himself cut off by his mother, and is thoroughly unsurprised to find that he's smiling. "You know I'd never say no to you," he says, giving in, "but please don't go without me. I'd worry about coming home to find that you've won us the Viscount's Keep itself in a card game."
He gets a sharp tap on the chin for that, which he's happy to endure before leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.
"Mother," he says, "you know --"
"I know," she replies. "But I don't want you thinking that your mother doesn't have any life left in her. I can still keep up with all those lads and lasses you're running about with."
"Will I come home to find you courting three men at once, then? And one of them a dwarf?"
She laughs. "Perhaps. I'm sure I still have a few surprises in store for you. All I'm saying is, if flowers come for me when I'm out..."
"I'll deliver them right to your room," Garrett says, sweeping her into a hug. "Be happy, mother."
"Oh, love," she says, "I intend to try."
---
A week later, Garrett sets foot in his home to find Gamlen questioning Sandal about the whereabouts of his mother, and white lilies at the door.
Original prompt: Leandra's feeling rather sad and lonely lately, so Hawke decides she needs a night out and invites her to the Hanged Man, along with all the companions. Chaos ensues. Cards, discussions of Hawke's sex life/relationships (I have a F!Hawke/Fenris preference, but any of the LI's and either gender is fine), too much booze, etc., all with Mother's input. Super Mega Ultra bonus points if Leandra takes it all in stride. She ran off with an apostate, I'm convinced there's a party girl in there somewhere.
---
The first time his mother mentions the idea, he assumes she's joking and is only too happy to play along.
"It's not too bad a place," is the reply he gives her, grinning. "If you don't mind the smell of cheap ale and the occasional knife fight. And the blood everywhere or the assorted uncooked portions of any food served from their kitchens. Apart from all that, though, the Hanged Man's really quite wonderful. The people are absolutely lovely, too, when they're not falling over each other to pick your pocket. Why not come down this evening with me?"
"Unfortunately," Leandra murmurs, "Comtess Dulci is bent on taking me out shopping later. She always does love to hear about my time in Ferelden -- if only to contrast it against how wonderful Orlais is in comparison. Otherwise I'd love to join you, if only to meet all your new friends. It does get so quiet in here, sometimes."
"I'll miss you, Mother," Garrett says. "But how about next week? I'll even ask Aveline to come along."
"We'll see," Leandra replies, and then they never speak of it again.
---
'Never' lasts until next week.
He drops by the estate to pick up some spare cash and when faced with the sight of his mother, dressed casually in one of her more practical outfits, Garrett is forced to admit that perhaps taking her words as a joke was a not a good idea and proceeds to explain himself.
"Mother," he says, in complete seriousness, "I don't think this is a good idea."
"Oh, nonsense. You did say you'd have Aveline join us, wouldn't you? She's a lovely girl."
It's always been rather odd hearing someone refer to the Guard Captain of Kirkwall as a 'lovely girl', but Garrett supposes that she's been called worse things. Still, though, he's determined not to let this deter him from his point. "It's not the kind of place you should be going to," he tries, "it's full of -- people who aren't nobles."
She laughs and cups his hands, placing his purse in them. "I don't know if you've noticed, darling, but most of Kirkwall isn't nobility, and I grew up here. Now, here's the money you came back to pick up. Shall we be off?"
It's about then that he realises that he isn't going to win this one.
---
This is hideously, tremendously awkward, but Garrett's not stupid and he's been thinking his way out of this as fast as he can. Sidequest: Get Mother Back to the Estate is now in operation -- or at least, that's how he's going to put it down in his journal.
Attempt one to complete the quest, tell her stories about how terrible it is. It's a brilliant plan, especially considering that he won't even have to make that much up.
"...then Isabela grabbed him by the balls and squeezed while Fenris cleaved through three of the mercenaries with one mighty blow, after which the rest of them ran away. That same evening, they had hot drunken sex with three other women and a dog joining in before proceeding to wake up the next morning naked in the gutter. Trust me, you really don't want to meet these people."
"Really? Just what were you doing, then, sitting down and taking notes? Garrett, I'm horrified, I didn't raise you to be the sort of boy who would stand by while a lady was in trouble."
"Mother, Isabela's never in trouble. And I don't know if she'd call herself a lady."
"Still, darling, that does sound rather rude of you. I should meet this girl, if only to apologise for your appalling behaviour."
Brilliant as attempt one seemed to be, it really isn't working for him.
---
The problem is, he doesn't really have much other ideas. He's tried out a few other stories, things like how Merrill accidentally exploded a man ("Maker, the poor girl, that must have been so messy."), how Varric is secretly being hunted down by a group of terrifying assassins ("Is he now? Well, so long as they're polite and don't interrupt us during dinner."), how Anders got sick of all the drunkards one day and magicked all of them sober, which resulted in the brawls becoming even more viscous than normal and ended with Aveline arresting everyone ("I'm sure he's learned his lesson from that, hasn't he?") and how Sebastian ended up inciting open rebellion against himself by getting drunk and rambling about bringing an army into Kirkwall ("What a loyal boy, and a Prince, too. I would love to meet him.")
Needless to say, every single attempt has met with the solid stone wall that is his mother.
The seeds of a second plan are sprouting in his mind. If he can't scare his mother off with only very mildly exaggerated stories, thenperhaps he can scare her off with the Hanged Man itself. Attempt two hasn't had much thought put into it yet, but currently his plan looks like this:
1) Open door to the Hanged Man
2) Mother is terrified by the sight
3) Mother goes home
4) All is once again right in Thedas
It's risky, but seeing how they are already in Lowtown and only a few minutes walk away from the inn, he'll have to pray that it works.
From all he's been through, though, he's starting to suspect that the Maker's really not on his side.
---
Attempt two is an even more colossal failure.
Garrett isn't sure if it's possible to actually embarrass himself by proxy, but his mother does seem to be doing a good job of trying.
They're on the third round of drinks, and the 'I do wish I'd had a family portrait done when he was young, Garrett was such a lovely boy' stories have been replaced by the 'you wouldn't believe what Garrett gave as an excuse when I found him in that barn with that other lad' stories. He'd bought wine for his mother, which was hideously expensive but would hopefully get her tipsy faster and bring about a quick end to the evening, but somehow he'd also managed to forget that he'd inherited his iron liver from her.
Somewhere, he suspects, his father is probably laughing at him.
To summarise, his mother is very sober, very cheerful, and not at all unrepentant about setting foot in the Hanged Man.
He can't hide a grin, though, even though his face is flushed, when he hears her laughing and sees his friends smiling along with her. It's been a long while since she's looked like that, and if the price is that he gets thoroughly embarrassed to within an inch of his life by his mother, then so be it. He can afford to pay.
---
In contrast to his mother's demeanour, however, Fenris has been strangely silent the whole evening, brooding over a mug of ale in the corner.
The main indicator that something is wrong, Garrett knows, is that it's a mug of ale. In front of Fenris, the biggest wine snob he knows. Which is why he heads over, sitting down at the same table and pulling the mug away from the elf.
"You're quiet tonight," he says.
"And you're observant," Fenris replies. "Would you like to point out something else, perhaps? How the sky is blue, maybe, or how the Qunaris' boat is never coming for them?"
This is also very quickly going nowhere. He gropes for a while for something witty to say, anything that might provoke one of those rare, slight smiles from the other man. Before he's even opened his mouth, though, he notices that Fenris' eyes have slipped from him to over his shoulder, where his mother sits at a table with cards in her hand, demonstrating her hitherto unknown talents (to everyone else, at least) at Diamondback.
If there is anything to be said about him, though he'll never admit it to anyone but himself, Garrett knows when it's not the time for jokes -- which is why he offers a smile in exchange for the ale, and then turns to glance over at his mother.
"You know I love her," he says, "more than anything. She loves me too, no matter what damn fool things I've done with my life -- that's what it means to be family. If you were wondering..."
"I wasn't," Fenris begins, and then looks away.
"...I know," Garrett replies, content to leave it as that.
---
Unfortunately for Fenris, Garrett is not his mother.
Leandra makes her way over a few minutes later, which is just after she's cleaned several people, Varric included, of all their spare change for the night. Garrett knows her well enough to know that she's played dirty and gave better than she got, since he learned most of his tricks from her.
This is why he completely expects it when she sits down next to him, causing Fenris to start in surprise.
"And this is your friend Fenris, isn't it? It's a pleasure to finally meet you," she says, a smile on her face that promises nothing good for Garrett, who has found himself pinned between his mother and a wall. "I've heard so much about you from my son."
Fenris somehow works up a smile. "All terrible, I expect," he says.
"Oh, no, it was all very interesting. Tell me, did you really cleave through several men and then proceed to... what was it again, make passionate love all night to that nice girl Isabela, three other women and a dog? Garrett assures me that you did."
In retrospect, Garrett should really have known that this one was going to come back and haunt him. He'd considered the possibility, of course, but hadn't expected it to be quite so soon.
The look Fenris gives him for it, though, makes it entirely worth it.
---
The evening ends late, later than he's usually accustomed to. Normally he'd have found himself making numerous excuses to leave early, to catch his mother before she went to bed and tell her about his day. It's somehow different having her be a part of his day, though.
She seems happy.
If he had been anyone else here tonight, only seeing her smiles and the way she laughed, not being able to hear the loss in her voice when she spoke of how her husband Malcolm would have loved to be here with her, he'd have believed that, too.
Still, it's a start. And when Fenris offers to escort them back to their estate, since he lives -- or squats -- in Hightown as well, Garrett's glad for it. As much as he's done to clear the Kirkwall's streets of their night time gangs, there are still some stragglers around. Better to have a friend with him in case something untoward should happen.
The reach his home with little event, thankfully, and Garrett stifles a yawn as he heads in while his mother stays at the doorstep, saying something in a low tone to Fenris. Whatever they might have to tell each other isn't really his business, after all.
At least, it isn't until he catches the words 'I've seen the way you look at my son', and then promptly decides that it is.
---
Fenris is apologising for something, and Garrett wants to shake him by the shoulders.
He missed some of the conversation while running upstairs and finding a window over the door, but what he can hear now appears to be his mother telling Fenris that it isn't her he ought to apologise to.
Maker. Maybe they're all drunk, maybe he can wake up in the morning and this will never have happened, this is somehow worse than conversations before the Hanged Man.
"I'm afraid I don't understand your meaning," Fenris says, and Garrett winces in sympathy, before --
"It's you, lad," his mother replies. Trust her to see Fenris as a child. "I may not know you, but I know the children I have raised, and I've also seen the way Garrett looks at you. Do you think I can't recognise what it is?" She laughs, and Garrett can picture the smile on her face, the look in her eyes as she says: "I was in love once, too."
"I don't -- I am not your family, there's no need for you to concern yourself with me."
"Not yet," Leandra says, "but perhaps someday. My son already thinks of you as one of us, though I doubt he'll admit it. He always was a quiet lad."
There's a snort. "I have never found him to be particularly so."
"About what's important to him, I was going to say. You've known him for a number of years, haven't you? What do you think?"
Garrett turns away from the window. The answer to that -- he'll wait to hear from Fenris himself.
---
The next morning, he wakes up to find out that his mother's decided on having visits to the Hanged Man become a weekly outing, starting from this very day.
Garrett groans and complains and starts to make up another story, but finds himself cut off by his mother, and is thoroughly unsurprised to find that he's smiling. "You know I'd never say no to you," he says, giving in, "but please don't go without me. I'd worry about coming home to find that you've won us the Viscount's Keep itself in a card game."
He gets a sharp tap on the chin for that, which he's happy to endure before leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.
"Mother," he says, "you know --"
"I know," she replies. "But I don't want you thinking that your mother doesn't have any life left in her. I can still keep up with all those lads and lasses you're running about with."
"Will I come home to find you courting three men at once, then? And one of them a dwarf?"
She laughs. "Perhaps. I'm sure I still have a few surprises in store for you. All I'm saying is, if flowers come for me when I'm out..."
"I'll deliver them right to your room," Garrett says, sweeping her into a hug. "Be happy, mother."
"Oh, love," she says, "I intend to try."
---
A week later, Garrett sets foot in his home to find Gamlen questioning Sandal about the whereabouts of his mother, and white lilies at the door.