The Hawke/Fenris stories romance in DA2 leaves quite a lot open to interpretation, as you can see when you peruse the stories on this site. This is a partial campaign-retelling story focusing on the relationship between rogue f!Hawke and Fenris. I've used a lot of the in-game dialogue, though I have made tweaks for clarity and to alter Hawke's responses in places (curse the dialogue wheel!).

T+ for language and sexual situations. They swear in the game; there will be around the same level of swearing in this story. I updated the story rating to M as of chapter 20 - there's nothing here you don't see in the game if you play through the romance, but the game itself is rated M.

All characters and the in-game dialogue are the property of Bioware; I am only playing in their sandbox.

Jade Hawke's eyes met Varric's over the undeniably empty chest.

"Waste of bloody time!" he swore. "Though you have to admit it was a little suspicious from the start."

"No successful smuggler could possibly be as twitchy as Anso," Hawke agreed. "I just fixated on the 50 gold we need, and how much someone that nervous would probably pay to get his very illegal cargo back." She closed the lid with a bang of disgust. "Now the real question is..."

"... if Anso isn't a smuggler, who is he? And what does he want?" Varric finished.

"I don't know whether to be angry or relieved," snapped Aveline. "I can't believe you wanted me to get mixed up with smuggling in the first place, Hawke."

"We needed a reliable sword. Find us someone we can trust who is big enough to swing around a huge metal thing and doesn't have your concerns about what's lawful and we'll stop involving you." It was an old argument. Hawke's heart wasn't in it, and she knew Aveline's wasn't either. The guard groused a lot, but she always showed up.

"So what do we do now?" asked Bethany.

"I guess we have no choice but to go back to Anso and tell him. I'd keep your weapons at the ready. If you ask me the whole thing smells like a trap."

Hawke was the first to step outside, twin daggers in hand. Sure enough, a ring of armed men surrounded the door. Were those Tevinter helmets? Fortunately, they seemed more surprised to see Hawke and her companions than she was to see them. "That's not the elf!" she heard, before someone gave the order to attack, and everyone sprang into action.

It wasn't very long before she was wiping the blood from her daggers. Their adversaries had been more skilled than the average Lowtown gang, but still no match for her team. She gathered them up with a look and headed towards the stairs. No sense in hanging around.

A very angry looking man stepped out from the shadows to stop their progress. "I don't know who you are, friend," he sneered, "but you've made a serious mistake coming here." He shouted for his reinforcements and Hawke readied her daggers, but the only man who stumbled down the stairs behind him was dripping with blood. He managed only to gasp out the word, "Captain" before falling to the ground with an audible squelch.

"Your men are dead," spoke a grim voice, "and your trap has failed. I suggest running back to your master while you can." A slim figure with pale hair moved forward, past the angry man as if he no longer mattered, and came to stand directly in front of Hawke.

Clearly not pleased with any of the night's events, the captain grabbed at the stranger's shoulder. "You're going nowhere, slave!"

It was hard to say exactly what happened next. The stranger seemed to glow, as he swiftly turned and plunged his gauntleted fist into the man's chest. "I am not a slave," he growled, as he... did something... and the captain fell to the ground. As swiftly as it had come, the strange light faded.

Almost casually, the stranger dropped the man's heart alongside his body and turned back to Hawke. "I apologize," he said.

She drew breath to say, "Oh don't mind us," but didn't. This night was getting stranger by the second, and whoever this was had just ripped a man apart with his bare hands. Perhaps discretion was the better part of valor.

"When I asked Anso to provide a distraction for the hunters, I had no idea they'd be so... numerous." The stranger stepped fully into the light for the first time, and she saw that he was an elf, covered in strange white markings.

"Don't worry, we do this sort of thing often." It seemed she couldn't quite control her urge to be flippant after all. She re-sheathed her daggers.

"Impressive." He turned back from his inspection of the carnage in the square. "My name is Fenris. These men were Imperial bounty hunters, seeking to recover a Magister's lost property, namely myself. They were trying to lure me into the open. Crude as their methods were, I could not face them alone. Thankfully, Anso chose wisely."

"Anso's job did seem a little too easy," she admitted, looking him over. Fenris was beautiful. Beautiful and dangerous, two of Hawke's very favorite things.

"Perhaps the deception was unnecessary. If so, I am sorry. I have become too accustomed to hiding." He paused, and his tone changed, as though he deviated from carefully planned remarks. "If I may ask, what was in the chest? The one they kept in the house?"

She shrugged. "It was empty."

"I suppose it was too much to hope for. Even so, I had to know," he murmured, mostly to himself.

"All that for an empty chest?" It seemed unlikely.

"No," said the elf. "There's more."