A/N: Just a quick little exercise to get me back into the swing of writing after some time away. Dragon Age, its characters, etc. are owned by Bioware.
Hawke woke to an empty bed and let out a curse.
At Isabela for leaving in the dead of night once he was asleep.
At himself for thinking that this morning would be any different from the others.
Most nights they would collide in a maelstrom of passion, sweat, hunger, and need. Collide being the perfect word for them and what they did to each other. It was primal and it was instinctual – flesh joining flesh, man joining woman - at least that's how it started out.
Somewhere along the line it had changed for him and for Isabela too he suspected, although she would never admit it. He wanted more and there were times when he was certain she did too.
They still ravaged each other with a ferocity that would frighten a Revered Mother to death. Hawke still felt exhausted when he woke to his empty bed, but mentally he was not sated and had not been for some time. It felt like they were both trying to recapture the spark of their first time together. They could both see it, but it was forever just out of reach, taunting them.
Hawke had already begun to question his relationship, or whatever you want to call it, with Isabella before then, but the Qunari Uprising had definitely been the turning point. Isabela had fled with the Tome of Koslun, but she came back to Kirkwall for him. In turn, he had faced the Arishok in single combat for her. He would have done it for any of their companions, they both knew that. But when he was lying on his back, nearly defeated and losing his will to fight, it was Isabela he had sought. It was his sultry, exotic Pirate Queen that he had looked to for the strength to keep fighting.
He had looked into her amber eyes and seen the fear there. Somehow even then he had known that Isabela's fear was not that he would lose or that she would be taken away as a prisoner of the Qunari. No, her fear was that in his moment of need he had looked to her, and it had scared her more than anything the Qunari could ever hope to do to her.
He defeated the Arishok and the Qunari left with their tome and without Isabela, but she had still fled Kirkwall – fled him. She returned much later and that first night...that first night when they were together again it was electric, but they still failed to grasp that spark hovering just out of reach.
By her actions and deeds, Hawke knew he meant something to her. One night while out drinking Varric let slip that for all Isabela's bawdy talk she shared no one's bed but his. He had hoped that was the case, but he knew enough to realize that any attempt to even remotely confine Isabela, real or imagined, would cause her to leave him again and he was not ready for that.
He wished he could quit her, but Isabela was in his head and in his heart. He wished he was strong enough to live without her, but he knew the truth.
Hawke looked at the empty space beside him and answered its accusations.
Fucking Cowards
That's what they both were - Isabela for not having the courage to stay, and Hawke for not having the courage to say three simple words to her.
I Love You.