#beachfic

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Fenris looks down. "You wish me to…what?"

"Bury me!"

"…Why?"

His son blows a lock of dark hair from his eyes and huffs, crossing thin arms over his summer-tanned chest. "Because. I want you to."

"The sand will go everywhere."

"I don't care," his son tells him, drawing out the last word in open wheedling. "Papa. Please?"

"As you wish," Fenris says, mystified, and his son flops to his back on the foot-marked white sand with a noise of delight. He spares only a moment's glance at the sea beyond until he finds Hawke walking with their oldest in the sky-clear shallows; then he kneels beside his son and levers one arm deep into the sun-heated sand beside him.

Concern flashes briefly across green eyes. "Not in the face, Papa."

Fenris lifts an eyebrow, suppressing a sudden smile. "Perhaps you are not prepared for this."

"No! No, no, I'm ready—"

And before he can finish his sentence, Fenris sends a load of damp sand the size of a mabari hound across his son's bare stomach.

His son gasps, startled, gasps again at the shock of coolness from sand hidden so deep beneath the surface; then, as Fenris obediently begins to spread whole armloads across his son's bare legs, across the short, close-fitting oiled trews Hawke had found for all of them a few weeks ago, his son begins to laugh. "It's cold!"

"It will warm," Fenris tells him, brushing away with his forearm a bit of white hair stuck to his own sweat-dampened forehead. Despite Hawke's enthusiasm, he had not thought he would enjoy this trip northward overmuch, even if Isabela had promised nothing but relaxation. But this climate reminds him of Tevinter's heat, one of the few things he has missed since his flight to the more temperate city of Kirkwall—in weather's respect, anyway—and even besides that, he cannot deny that his children have enjoyed every last moment of it.

It takes surprisingly little time to bury an eight-year-old in sand, even with his wriggling and occasional shrieks of laughter as sand tickles his exposed toes. Fenris tweaks one, snorts a laugh of his own at his son's giggle, and proceeds to bury both young feet with large, two-handed scoops of sand. "Is this what you wanted?" "Yes!" his son shouts, still laughing, still wriggling, and Fenris shakes his head in bemused amusement as he continues his unexpected task. Soon enough, though, the wriggling slows, and as Fenris packs the last bit of sand around his son's neck he cannot help answer the broad, delighted smile that spreads across his son's face.

"So foolish," he murmurs, still smiling, and sits back on his heels. His son resembles nothing so much as a deformed slug, a small dark head with blunted ears and green eyes tossing side-to-side above a long sand-caked dome that stretches towards the sea. Fine white sand clings to Fenris's shins, to the palms of his hands and his forearms, and he brushes at it ineffectually before abandoning the attempt. The lyrium will blister if he leaves it beneath raw sand for too long, especially in the crook of his knees and the tattoo-laced small of his back, but it is worth it to see his son so pleased at his own entrapment.

A hand settles on the nape of his neck, gentle and damp and cold enough to raise chillbumps across his naked shoulders. He looks up into the looming shadow, lifts an eyebrow. "Have you come for something?"

"My son," Hawke says, bending so that seawater drips from her nose to Fenris's own, her smile mischievous even through the halo of sunlight that dims her features, edges her hair in gold. "Have you seen him?"

Fenris glances out to the ocean where their oldest daughter stands with an armful of seashells and various flotsam: her mother's influence at work, Fenris knows, and swallows a smile as he looks back to Hawke. "It seems he's absent," he tells her, feigning dismay as he searches over his shoulder, behind her legs, out to the sea.

Hawke puts both hands on her bare waist, rocking her weight back on her heels. "Oh? Gone forever, then. We'll have to go back with just Leda and the baby."

"Mama, I'm here!" their son says at her feet, laughing again, and Hawke blinks down at him in exaggerated surprise.

"Well! If it's not my favorite middle child. In a bigger mess than usual."

"Papa buried me."

"I can see that. I can also see that we're going to be shaking sand out of your ears for a week."

"I can hear just fine," he mumbles, and Hawke leans over just enough to wring out her hair above her son's face, cold sea-drops splashing on his forehead, his tanned cheeks. He laughs again, pout disappearing, and shakes his head from side to side in futility. "Mama, stop!"

"Say the magic word."

"Please?" their oldest daughter offers, arriving at last with her seashells and interesting twists of dark, salt-stained wood.

"Don't help. That's cheating."

"He's going to be dirty tonight," she says, wrinkling her nose, and Hawke ruffles her hair.

Fenris puts his hands on his knees and pushes to his feet, dusting again at the sand glinting on his knees. "You may help with the bath, then."

"Ugh. No, thank you."

"Then keep your complaints," Fenris advises her, and looks down at his son. "Are you satisfied?"

"Yes. I'm hungry."

"It is near dinner," Hawke notes, glancing at the setting sun. "We might as well head back."

Fenris studies the sand-slug before him, considering, and then he thrusts his bent fingers into the place where his son's hand lies buried. He pauses for a moment, finding the small fingers that wrap so easily around his own; then in one strong motion he pulls his son free of the shore to dangle in mid-air. Sand pours from him in white, glittering trails, dusting Fenris's bare feet, spraying across Hawke's damp legs and sticking there; their daughter pulls another face and hops a few steps back, clutching her treasures. 

"Home?" he asks his son, their eyes of a level like this.

"Home, Papa," he agrees, and Fenris swings him to his back. His son's arms come around his throat; his own hands find the bends of the small, unscarred knees at his waist. Hawke falls into step with him, seawater still beading beautifully across her bare shoulders, the smooth curve of her hip. She catches his heated look, gives him a crooked smile in answer—and promise—before their oldest tugs away her hand and her attention. Fenris snorts and Hawke laughs, both of them ceding the moment to chat amiably with their daughter about dinner and her salvaged secrets as they traipse over the glass-glimmering sand, sunset gold and rose to the west, rushing sea at their backs. 

His son drops his chin to Fenris's shoulder between two lyrium-veins, rests his temple against Fenris's pointed ear. "Thank you, Papa," he whispers, soft enough that no one hears but him.