Take Me to the Depths with You
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Fenris/Dorian (Dragon Age), Rated M
Summary: The other eyes him for a moment, green eyes tracing him carefully. The deep timbre of his voice when he speaks takes Dorian by surprise, and quite a bit with interest. “What?” he asks, and it’s barely a question with the way he bares his teeth at the word. The look of intense distaste on his face remains.
Dorian’s smile hasn’t left his lips, but it’s hardly a welcoming one. “I like to get to know the men whose intense gazes linger on me,” he says flippantly, and the way the elf’s eyes narrow, he knows he’s on his first mistake of the evening. Night.
Warnings: Various warnings apply, this list is incomplete. Overall, PTSD/flashbacks, implied alcoholism, past sexual abuse/negative sexual experiences, non-graphical/implied sex, canon-compliant (and canonically implied) violence, internalised homophobia/homophobic language, (brief) racist language, (brief) instance of choking. The fic does have a happy ending, but it comes with a lot of angst before it. A more comprehensive list of tags/warnings is on AO3.
***
The sharp edge to the elf’s glare is entirely for his personal benefit, Dorian knows that much.
The Herald’s Rest is nigh empty at this hour. The single glass of the swill they call wine that Dorian had meant to come fetch to help soothe him into unconsciousness had turned into numerous more than were originally intended. Then again, he had hardly ever cared about his own intentions when it came to drink, and he was not planning on starting anytime soon, either. Cabot had grunted whether he wanted the whole bottle, to make matters easier, but Dorian had waved him off — his progress through the bottles was information he was unwilling to think about. Skyhold knew far too well his penchant as it was without him keeping track of it, too. It was easier to ignore this way. A mask of any kind is mask enough, wear it long enough and you forget your own reflection, and the pretense solidifies. A lesson he’d learned early.
One of the few remaining patrons is the infamous elf Dorian heard ghosted in behind the Champion of Kirkwall into the Inquisition. And the elf’s gaze is intermittently fixed on him, as if prepared for Dorian to attack any minute, otherwise giving the rest of the tavern a wary glance-over, before inevitably landing on him again.
“Yes?” Dorian calls over to him with an unpleasant smile on his lips, realising that perhaps by now the wine’s gotten to his mind and addled his capacity for self-preservation, since he’s calling over an elf that doesn’t look far from the definition of murderous intent . Then again, it had to be something else, he’d only had enough glasses to perhaps justify poor decisions, but he should not yet be at the stage of hoping to die by a provoked accident. At least as far as he was aware.
The elf’s glare sours even further, but he stands and comes over to Dorian’s table, having knocked back the rest of his drink and left the glass behind. There's a determination in the elf's gait that catches Dorian. He can tell the elf is stone-cold sober, and that makes him wonder what exactly a man was doing at the Rest at this hour, yet still somehow sober and visibly intent on staying so? It also meant he'd recently missed the elf's entrance into the Herald's Rest, which was another tally against how much alcohol he'd consumed so far.
The other eyes him for a moment, green eyes tracing him carefully. The deep timbre of his voice when he speaks takes Dorian by surprise, and quite a bit with interest. “What?” he asks, and it’s barely a question with the way he bares his teeth at the word. The look of intense distaste on his face remains.
Dorian’s smile hasn’t left his lips, but it’s hardly a welcoming one. “I like to get to know the men whose intense gazes linger on me,” he says flippantly, and the way the elf’s eyes narrow, he knows he’s on his first mistake of the evening. Night.
“Dorian of House Pavus,” the elf says, and Dorian’s almost amused by the way he’s echoed his own introduction back to him despite having likely heard it second-hand at best. He’s done his research, it’s clear. The question remains, why?
Dorian merely sweeps his hand leisurely in front of him, palm open and conceding this fact, but makes no additional response. It wasn’t a question.
The other’s eyes narrow further. “A magister?” There’s the barest hint of a faded Tevinter accent on him, one that’s been worn off by years of disuse, but it’s been crudely painted over by a desperate imitation of a Fereldan provenance, intended to hide whatever past the Tevinter elf was trying to disown.
Dorian hides his snort into his glass as he takes a sip. He responds after he’s put his glass back down. “At this rate? Hardly.” There’s the barest quirk of the elf’s eyebrow, but Dorian presses on, eager to flip the topic. “Yet I know not a word of who you are, other than perhaps a guard dog for the Champion.”
Something flashes in the elf’s eyes. “Watch your tongue, mage.” If his words had been cold before, these are a threat. Second transgression, clearly.
That really means he should have known better. But instead, he’s trying to drown enough things at the bottom of whatever bottle he’s draining, so common sense can be yet another victim for the day. He sends him a leering grin, eyelashes veiling his eyes. “Is that an invitation, elf?”
It seems that is the third transgression.
The elf gives him a last blazing glare. “If you don’t, I will cut it out .” He leaves, storming out of the Herald’s Rest, the door slamming shut behind him on the blizzard outside.
***
Dorian corners Varric the next day. “Who’s the elf?” is the eloquent conversation opener he provides. He can’t be blamed for lack of flourish for the day, since the headache slamming behind his ears would be enough to take out the Iron Bull.
He’s used to it, and the guilt behind the hangover is enough to keep him on his feet. Something about the vicious cycle of evading his problems and drinking that created an unbreakable trap that ended in guilt.
Varric gives a laugh. “We’ve got a few of those around here, Sparkler, you’ll have to be more specific.”
Dorian almost says with the vallaslin , but realises that with some number of Dalish elves in and around the Inquisition, it barely narrows it down. “The one who came with the Champion.”
“Fenris?” Varric’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “Why? What happened?”
Dorian gives him an equal look of astonishment. “And that’s your first assumption, that something happened? You wound me.”
Varric shakes his head. “I think you’re the last person who should be going near that elf. He’s got a chip on his shoulder about mages, specifically Tevinter mages with a link to the Magisterium. Can’t blame him, but I doubt it’d be good for your health.”
Dorian leans against the wall. Getting discouraged from doing something is only an incentive to do it more. A hard habit to break, that one. His curiosity is less than satiated.
“An escaped slave, right? Why hasn’t he returned to his clan then?”
Varric’s confusion rises, before realisation crosses his features and he shakes his head again. “He’s not Dalish, Sparkler. That’s not vallaslin on his face, it’s lyrium.”
There’s a pause as Dorian considers this, and then he understands. A lyrium elf. The Wolf. He’s heard of him, of course, it was scandal enough when the Magisterium had gotten wind of Danarius losing him. Well, it certainly explains the elf’s peculiar behaviour the previous night.
The knowledge leaves with it a leaden taste behind that Dorian swallows around, forced to think again of the horrors endured by those who fell into the Imperium’s hands.
With that, he leaves Varric to the rest of his day, and instead proceeds to turn himself to something more productive than falling to the spiral of dread that comes when he thinks too hard on Tevinter — it’s particularly dreadful wanting to return to a nation he’s less and less sure is possible to fix by the day.
***
It’s by accident Fenris crosses his path again in the library, some days after the exchange Dorian had with Varric. He had decided to avoid the elf, preferring his organs where they are.
He finds him seated on a windowsill with a book in his lap in Dorian’s usual corner of the library, but Dorian hides his startle better than the elf does. Fenris is out of his comfortable curl faster than Dorian can blink.
“What do you want, mage?” he challenges, and it’s obvious he’s concealing how he jumped like a startled halla at the appearance.
Dorian merely turns to a shelf, continuing to look for whichever book he’d come searching for. “I believe I’m here to do what people generally do in libraries — find books, that is.” There’s a moment of silence, before Dorian continues. “If it’s any worth, I acted foolishly when we last spoke. I wasn’t aware of your past.”
Fenris scoffs audibly. “And now you are, and you’ve grown wisdom?”
“People in Skyhold like to talk.” Hardly about Fenris, but the truth of where he got his information mattered little. “I hadn’t realised you were the pet project Danarius advertised across Minrathous.”
“If it’s a deathwish you have, find someone else to satisfy you.”
“Ah, but you make such a good option,” Dorian provides, and the fact the elf is strikingly beautiful and so visibly detrimental to his well-being is clearly making everything worse. It clearly hadn’t been just the wine the other night. He wonders why his words remain so biting, and realises it’s because he’s desperate for a reaction. It would almost be pathetic if it weren’t putting his life on the line whenever he spoke to the elf.
“I have no interest in being a magister’s exotic plaything.” There’s a snarl in Fenris’ voice, and Dorian doesn’t even wonder what the damage he bears behind the words might be — he can figure it out well enough on his own.
It’s hardly even worth correcting, on most fronts. And he still turns to Fenris. “I’ve no interest in having a plaything,” he replies, before retreating with the book he’d come for in his hands.
***
The first time they have to come to terms with one another is when they share their first mission together, by the Inquisitor’s personal request.
The outing itself is uneventful, but in the aftermath of the adrenaline, the lyrium and the magic and the fight, they’re both wound tight. They’re sitting by the fire when the other members of their team are resting, the silence around them makes the fire crack like a whip. Fenris has taken first watch, while Sera and the Inquisitor are already slumbering. Dorian’s made the unwise decision to keep Fenris company.
“Why does the Inquisitor trust you?” Fenris asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
Dorian doesn’t take his eyes off the flickering flames in front of him. “Are you looking for holes in her reasoning?”
“I’ve had little luck figuring you out.”
Dorian’s lip quirks imperceptibly. Usually he’d be flattered at this kind of attention lavished on him by someone else. “I assure you, one of my talents is incredible shallowness.”
“Your saying that points to the opposite, mage. Why desert Tevinter?”
Dorian remains silent. He knows Fenris is asking to goad him; he’s likely already gotten enough of an answer from the Inquisition. He can feel the agitation in Fenris, vivid despite the way he seems to sit idly.
“Why leave a perfect life behind?”
“Perfection has its costs,” is all Dorian is willing to say, almost grit out, by way of explanation. It’s meaningless words, but he knows Fenris can glean enough from their hollowness itself to know it’s not flippantness but avoidance that masks the truth. But the tension between them doesn’t relent, it only comes to a head. And in a rare case of candour, the pain that slips into the words is true.
Their conversation doesn't progress from there. They’re standing at the edge of a blade that tips in the wrong direction.
Dorian can feel the way the lyrium flares under his hands as they kiss, and he can tell it’s a bad idea the moment Fenris’ teeth dig at his skin just on the side of too much . He doesn’t even want to rectify it — he doesn’t want kind from Fenris.
Everything goes wrong the first time they’re together. Dorian can tell Fenris twitches at the wrong moments, and Dorian’s mind won’t stop drifting to the blood and the darkness and it makes him want to forget even more. It’s desperate, it’s bruising, and it’s everything neither of them need but both of them want.
Dorian’s life has been a series of unhealthy pleasures. He finds safety in the comfort of routine, despite how it may someday kill him — how it very well nearly has. He lets his mind drift away from that thought, to be dealt with only once necessary. Not before that.
***
There are lines neither of them are willing to cross, but anything in-between is within bounds. It’s evidently self-destructive, what they’re doing, but they’re both more than content to let it be that way.
Fenris sometimes accidentally calls him magister in bed. Dorian’s happy to let him use him as he pleases, and in return takes the distraction when he can get it.
He can tell whenever Fenris loses himself in a memory from the way his eyes glaze over or his breath hitches just too much and too wrong, but whenever he tries to retreat he’s abruptly halted. His questions are met with avoidance, his assurances are met with being ignored.
Dorian knows he slips, too, and that Fenris notices it; the sharp way his eyes observe every detail of his movements is too precise to miss it if he falls too fast into submission or looks away at certain movements.
It’s a silent pact they have, to notice these things and pretend they didn’t happen. And yet, they both always proceed to avoid the motions that caused hesitance on the first try. It’s a false sense of uncaring, a pretense of disregard despite the way they’re both far too aware of the other’s weaknesses. It reminds Dorian so much and yet so little of the stints he had in Tevinter — painful. His considerate partners ended up hurting as much as his cruel partners did, if in a vastly different way.
But with Fenris, with the pain comes something else. Dorian’s Andrastian in a way no one else recognises very easily, and most of the time, he sways on his own faith. Fenris manages to bring him to blasphemy and prayers he’s never uttered before. He doesn’t think where he’s learned these skills, and instead he takes pleasure in seeing the way that the control Fenris carefully builds around himself crumbles down around him when Dorian takes his own turn.
Perhaps it’s easy enough to act like nothing’s wrong, if their minds are in turmoil but their every vein and every nerve screams for more like an addiction.
When it’s over, Fenris never spends time in the bed and Dorian can instead see him lace up his leathers and make his way to the balcony, decidedly ignoring the man still in his bed. Dorian’s left to watch as the moon reflects off the still-shining lyrium markings, both of them having long since accepted Dorian’s loss of control over his magic in the throes of it.
Dorian spends some time observing the way the elf sits himself on the balcony railing, a solid gust of wind away from falling several stories down. After enough time spent with the futility of the moment, he gets up and dresses.
Dorian doesn’t try to stay the night. Fenris doesn’t bother to ask him to.
***
There’s a thin, raised scar near the crook of Dorian’s elbow, a narrow line, perhaps three inches long, down the forearm. There’s enough scars on Dorian from being around the Inquisition that it’s easier to ignore, but Fenris recognises it immediately, and he draws every wrong conclusion from it.
“What is this?” The question is rhetorical, and Dorian knows where the conversation is going to go. Everything is written plain as day on Fenris’ face, and he’s almost tempted to let the elf think what he wants of it — after all, whatever it was that they had between themselves was bound to break off someday. The chasm separating them is infinite.
There’s a dangerous grip on his wrist, not that Dorian’s tried to take his hand back. There’s so much fury in Fenris — he has tenderness, too, and that always stings Dorian when he displays that soft side of his. It’s all too foreign, too wrong, and too undeserved for him to allow himself to process it properly. But his anger, the burning rage that’s so easy to trigger in him, that, Dorian can handle.
“What is this?” Fenris repeats, his thin fingers digging into Dorian’s skin. “Since when have you had this?”
Dorian’s gaze doesn’t wander from the scar. He briefly wonders if hearing about the degeneracy of the upper classes of Tevinter would please Fenris, but he figures the former slave has also seen enough to know more about them than Dorian does.
“What happened to the last resort of the weak mind, Pavus?”
It’s peculiar, Dorian thinks, how there’s almost concern in Fenris’ voice. His stare at the scar remains detached, much like the way he’s thrown into the memories of how he got the scar until he looks up at Fenris’ eyes. Their deep green searches his eyes, demanding answers — begging for them.
His resolve shatters. “It’s the reason I left Tevinter,” he says quietly, before finally attempting to snatch his hand back to himself. Fenris lets him.
“What, you performed blood magic and they found out?”
Dorian sits up in the bed, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and taking his night robe to drape it over himself.
“Answer the question,” Fenris demands, and Dorian wants nothing more than that. The pain on Fenris’ face is too much for him to bear, but he doesn’t know how to frame the matter. Presentation matters.
“Is that what you still think of me?” Dorian snaps back instead of answering, standing and realising he isn’t sure where he was aiming to go. So he turns to look at Fenris. “Do you truly think I’ve been a blood mage this whole time?” He’s not sure he wants to know the answer, because he knows that if that’s the case, he’s spent months in the wrong bed for all the wrong reasons.
There’s a pause when he can see Fenris considering it for himself, before reaching a conclusion. “Fine. So you’re not a blood mage, and yet miraculously you have a scar on your…”
Dorian looks away when he sees Fenris’ brows furrow. The fact that it’s confusion on his face and not shock like the few others who’d heard of the matter is a bare consolation. Perhaps it’s the sense of kinship with someone who knows what Tevinter is like.
“You were bled?” This time, the words are a question, but he’s hardly asking.
“I’ve perhaps never been quite the scion of the house my parents would have wished, but being an unrelenting invert was too far for my father.” He bites back the venom of the words, but the betrayal stills seeps through them.
Fenris doesn’t reply to that, instead simply gauging Dorian. A second later he crosses the line.
“If you wish, you might stay the night.” It’s an invitation, and it’s left up to him, and the words burn with the memory it brings.
Stay, why don’t you? We’ve nowhere to be.
Dorian can almost smell the mixture of cinnamon and sweat and blood, and he thinks he’s going to be sick.
I’d love to.
“No. I’ll take my leave,” he says with finality.
***
They both know they’re playing a dangerous game they’re bound to lose, when their opponent is time itself. It’s a matter of weeks before they’re both deeper than either of them is willing to admit, and perhaps they’re already there anyway. Dorian knows he’s acting like his feelings haven’t been involved since the first moment they touched, and he’s doing his utmost to pretend like he can break this off any moment he wants.
If he were to guess, he’d guess that Fenris knows this too. The confirmation of it comes when Fenris avoids him like the plague outside of their momentary trysts, and when he’s with him he’s asserting every ounce of dominance his slim body carries — which, from an elf with no small amount of power at his disposition, is not an unimpressive and unattractive prospect. It’s a false sense of distance he’s created between them. Dorian knows this can only lead to one of them getting hurt, but he lets the illusion happen as long as he can.
When they’ve both hid their vulnerabilities, desperate to act as if they never existed, it’s bound to falter. There come two breaking points.
The first is when Dorian accidentally spent the night in Fenris’ bed. He fell asleep after an evening spent well that had grown far too long, and before he realised he’d drifted off. He wakes up with a hand around his throat and the elf’s lyrium shining vividly in the darkness of the night, not even a moon to brighten the sky.
“ Fenris —”
The elf snaps out of it, his markings flickering and soon dim again — yet not completely settled, casting still a blue ember of a glow around him — and he scrambles away from Dorian. Dorian coughs the air back into his lungs, grateful that he’d managed to return to reality quickly enough.
When he looks back at Fenris, the elf is trembling, with his back to Dorian. Dorian sits up, trying to gauge whether he should simply leave or comfort Fenris.
“Fenris,” he says softly, and he knows that his facade has already broken, the mask has already slipped from his face. “Look at me.”
He never gives the elf orders of any kind — he’s wiser than that. He can tell Fenris needs a grounding presence, though, and he can’t provide that as a half-measure, no matter how unafflicted he tries to say. The treacherous conscience that every day begs him to return to Tevinter and fix it is the same one that makes him fold now.
Fenris turns to him, and his eyes are more lost than Dorian’s ever seen them. Dorian debates whether to reach for him, but doesn’t have to consider it as he watches Fenris’ hand itself almost move towards him, so his instincts take over and he twines his fingers between Fenris’.
Dorian can try to pretend he’s still aloof. That he’s not falling. That he won’t let himself be overrun by his feelings, unlike for each and every damned boy he’d ever loved for being kind.
“I don’t wish to speak about it,” Fenris says, and Dorian doesn’t argue. Instead, he just sits, thoughts drifting between the bruises he can feel at his neck.
Fenris’ eyes stray guiltily there too.
After a while of sitting in the bed, Dorian finds himself tugging Fenris back to lie down. The elf complies, and despite his vow to never stay the night, for fear of what might happen after it, Dorian finds himself wrapping his arms around Fenris and holding him close, feeling his breathing at the crook of his neck. There are still tremors running through him, and Dorian can hear the faintest whisper from him just as he’s about to drift back to sleep.
“I can’t go back.”
Dorian can’t be sure what he means, but the feeling is raw, and he can hear in his voice the fear of vulnerability he’s familiar with. He forgets to ask what the words meant, in the morning.
***
The second breaking point comes around with the Inquisitor informing him of a letter. The words of the letter are by now engraved into his mind, and he can’t very well forget it despite his best previous attempts to drink it into the bottom of a glass. He has to know, but he’s terrified of what that might mean.
Fenris doesn’t let him try to weasel a half-answer, instead reading the letter for himself despite Dorian’s protests.
“Are you planning on attending this meeting?” There’s a bitter note to his voice, and it’s something that comes from somewhere personal.
“I have to know,” is the explanation he offers, but Fenris’ expression drains further.
“It’s a trap,” Fenris states.
“You’re very certain of that.”
“Because I’ve been on the same end as you, Dorian.” Fenris hands the letter back to him, and Dorian spends far too much time folding it properly.
“Would you like to share, or shall I have to remain in plain mystery of your ominous warning?”
There’s a moment’s pause as Fenris’ eyes trace the carpet, and he leans nonchalantly against the wall near where Dorian’s lounging in an armchair. “I have a sister. I corresponded with her, after finding out about her. I arranged to meet her.” His eyes rise to meet Dorian’s, finally, and it’s not in the least reassuring. “Upon going to the arranged meeting, Varania was there, and so was Danarius. She’d led him there for her personal gain.”
His voice is pure steel, as if the incident doesn’t affect him, as if it’s someone else’s story he’s retelling. Dorian knows it’s something he’s refused to process. He can’t blame him.
“I don’t trust such a meeting set up by any Magister.”
“Perhaps this retainer is a henchman, hired to knock me over the head and drag me back to Tevinter.”
“Or worse,” Fenris says, gaze drifting to Dorian’s arm.
Dorian has the sudden memory of the way he’d been captured in bed, the bodies of murdered men lining the corridor as he was dragged back to his father’s estate.
Or worse is perhaps not a far-fetched option.
“I have to know.” Fenris doesn’t say anything to that.
Dorian’s almost grateful for it, except when he finds himself ready to leave and Fenris stands beside him, armed to the teeth. No amount of arguing with the elf is going to dissuade him from coming with them, so he doesn’t even try. He would rather Fenris not see the state he’d left his affairs in back in Tevinter, but perhaps it was better he lay all of his cards bare.
Fenris had been right; the meeting is little more than a farce, and it goes just about as well as Dorian had dared expect.
He leaves feeling worse than he had before entering and spends the way back in silence. Fenris doesn’t press, and the Inquisitor — kind enough to accompany them, largely to ascertain neither caused too much damage, and that Dorian would make it out alive — doesn’t seem keen to be the first to break the silence.
They reach Skyhold again, and it’s late, and it’s cold, and Dorian’s ready to collapse and sleep for days on end. The ideal might be to just sleep through the rest of his life, he feels in that moment. But Fenris is at his side even as he makes his way to his own quarters, and Dorian doesn’t question it.
He arrives at his room, and sets his armour and staff aside, as Fenris lays his weapons away.
Neither of them says a word as they silently move to the bed, Dorian far too drained to even attempt to do anything. To his surprise and comfort, Fenris gathers him in his arms. The reflection of this against the nights Dorian holds Fenris through nightmares is vivid. Fenris has been there for him through Dorian’s own nightmares, but this is something else; it follows a pain not provided by his own imagination, but instead by a very harsh reality.
Perhaps it’s what makes the embrace feel that much more real.
***
It’s some days spent in unsettling silence and avoidance later that Fenris comes to his quarters. The days have been miserable, with the weight of everything behind and between them pressing down with urgency. Fenris’ past is intricately woven into every part of him, and Dorian’s past makes him a flighty presence on the best of days. But he’s in his room, standing near the desk when Fenris approaches him until he’s standing just in front of him. Dorian looks at him, realising only now that Fenris is shorter than him. It’s not something he’s ever considered, especially when the elf seems always such a presence with his thorned armour and extravagant greatsword.
“I do not know how to do this. How to be this,” Fenris says, and they’re so close Dorian can feel the tension between them ready to snap.
“Neither do I.” His eyes search Fenris’. What do you want?
What can I give?
“You’re not an easy man to love.”
Dorian’s lip quirks involuntarily, even as the weight of the words sinks into his heart.
Love?
“I believe it’s a burden we both share,” he responds in kind, his voice barely above a whisper. It’s theirs. All of this, only theirs. He dare not hope.
“I can’t be a slave, not to a Tevinter. Not to anyone.”
Dorian can guess the meaning behind the words. The fear, the worry, the terror of falling back into old behaviours.
“I can’t have you, nor let you have me, the way you deserve to love someone.” And Dorian means it, because he’ll never be able to give him a stable relationship, especially when he’s made it clear he aims to return to a land that would have Fenris in irons just as soon as he stepped across the border.
Fenris’ hands come to cup his face and Dorian’s hands fist in Fenris’ tunic. There’s hesitance on both their parts, a question that remains unasked, words that remain unsaid. It almost feels like the world is running out of time.
The kiss is searing, but not as a sudden flashfire. It is a searing that spreads through them in increments, before it takes over everything they feel, making sure that there’s nothing else between them than this feeling and each other.
“If you’ll have me, amatus ,” Dorian whispers when they’re a breath apart, foreheads pressed to each other’s, “I swear to do right by you.”
It’s about as much as he can promise. He can’t promise perfection or unshakeable loyalty. He will only swear to what he can give, and that’s his heart and a vow for love and respect.
Fenris nods almost imperceptibly. “And I, you.”
Dorian knows they’ll both hurt, with the way that their pasts haunt them. But perhaps they can hope to hurt through it, together. It makes nothing right, it doesn’t fix anything.
It’s a promise.
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