A/N: Well, it's nice to know I don't suck. Thanks for the encouraging review guys 3. In case anyone was wondering, there's no order to these things. If one chapter has a connection to another in some way, I'll make mention of it but I strive to have these all stand alone rather than rely on each other. Knowing fine details is just a bonus for you guys.

Title: Instincts

Summary: Act 3, post relationship reconcile. Despite the desire to want to be with someone comes the challenge of getting to know their quirks and knee jerk reactions. Hawke happens upon one of Fenris' and the results are not what the elf would like.

Warnings: May make a few squeamish with internal organ touching, angst, followed by fluff.


Instinct. Fenris had lived by this one thing for so many years and it had served him well. The instinct to fight, flee, survive…if not for it he was sure that he would still be Danarius' pet, standing by obediently to be called on for use.

The night had started out simple enough as Hawke and Fenris were happily spending some of their downtime together. A perk of being the Champion of Kirkwall was that Hawke had little need to run errands for coin anymore and it allowed them more time together. She could pick and choose if she wanted to go traipsing into dark spider infested caves and what not.

Dare Fenris think that he was flattered that she chose him over some sort of adventure she could be having, for that was all those kinds of errands had been reduced down to by now. Despite how long they had known each other, it was only now that he felt like they were really getting to know one another. There need be no more secrets and the like.

Of course with growing comfort came growing intimacy. They had agreed however to take things slow this time. Admittedly he was afraid of a repeat of their time together before where things went far too fast from one thing to another and he did not want to make that mistake again. The way things were turning out tonight however….he could never imagined. It had happened in a flash, one blind instinctual flash that had Fenris' horrified.

They had been sitting together, a bottle of wine between them as usual. The wine always brought them closer and soon talking turned to touching. He was starting to get used to it in certain degrees and at the very least that was a pleasing fact. Along with a sort of routine that he found had developed put his mind at ease…he always knew where her hands were going to go.

It figured then, that she would choose to break routine because that was just what Hawke did. Her fingers had been brushing through his hair, the white strands tangling between her fingers as they smoothed through them. It was a feeling he had learned to enjoy…not the usual petting motion he associated with being a reward for being a good slave. She always sought to break that thinking.

Then instead of their usual path the deft digits of his rogue had found the shell of his pointed ears. The first instinct was pleasure. If anything on him could be considered sensitive at all, it would be his ears and his eyes closed at the pleasurable feeling of her sliding her fingers up his ears, hands mirroring one another.

It was a slow journey as her fingers slid up all the way to tapered tips, rounded over them, and then those fingers gave the now downward slope of his ear the same treatment. It was a ghost of a touch, barely there but still intoxicating. Like when she would lovingly caress one of her daggers really.

It made his heart race. Hawke did it again. Once more her fingers slid up, this time with more pressure, and traced over his ears. He thought he heard himself even make a sound to the feeling. A third time her fingers made the journey though they stalled at the tips this time, tugging lightly.

Knife-ears. All of a sudden his vision flashed white and his eyes snapped open. He blinked in a daze, confused as he was staring at Hadriana. She had taken great pleasure in the natural sensitivity to his ears, tugging and pulling as she pleased to cause him pain.

"Fenris?"

His brow creased as the voice that came from the woman didn't belong to her and he tried to remind himself that she was dead, but still the muscles in his body drew taut. Something snapped and instinct took over again. The instinct to fight.

The glow of lyrium flashed brightly as he funneled the power into his hand, and as it phased he thrust it forward into the chest of the woman before him to seek out her heart, even if he didn't have his gauntlets on it was still an effective technique. He could still find her heart and squeeze hard enough to kill her and send her back to the dead.

Those hands left his ears as the momentum of the motion pushed her away from him as he bore down with his weight and pressed her into the bed and straddled her to keep her there. She would not get away. With his arm still phased and buried wrist deep he was happy to rise above his quarry with a growl in his throat. He wanted to see that fear clearly etched across her face.

He drew back his power some, letting just his fingertips come out of their phased state. The heart beneath his fingers tips beat strongly and he couldn't help but grin as the slightest pressure he put forward made it struggle and then beat faster. Hopefully in fear.

"F-Fenris." She called his name again, pain laced into her voice as it cracked lightly but not from fear. It was not a pleasant feeling to say the least.

Hawke's voice, not Hadriana's. Fenris paled and he blinked a few times as if trying to clear his vision and then horror struck across his features as reality finally set back in and the fog in his mind cleared. Not Hadriana who was pinned down with her life literally for his taking, but Hawke. His Hawke.

Despite the predicament Hawke found herself in, she gave a weak attempt at a joking tone. "Welcome back." It wasn't the first time he had reverted back to defensive gestures and gotten a far off look like he wasn't there…though nothing entirely serious as this had occurred before.

Instinct struck him again. This time the need to flee but the greater fear of hurting her by moving any fraction of an inch at all kept him rooted in place like a rabbit being stalked by a fox. Maybe if it didn't move, it wouldn't be seen and thus harmed. Something that rarely worked out for the rabbit.

"Hawke…" A tone of 'what do I do?' entered his voice. He was always asking her that it seemed. Usually she had an answer for him.

"I'm right here." She was terrified, though she refused to show him that. Hawke knew that she needed to be strong for the both of them if they were going to get through this particular moment without Fenris feeling the need to keep her at a distance to protect her. She didn't want to be protected from him. He had spent his life as a slave and she had deemed it her personal mission to break him of any of those habits. This was just another trial in the long process.

Fenris closed his eyes, his whole body aware of the feeling of her heart under his fingertips. One move could kill her if he so chose. He couldn't bear to see her look at him like the others he did this too had right before they died. Was he killing her now? He had never thought himself possible of hurting her…and here they were now.

His breathing started to labor under his thoughts and then quickly caught in his throat as warm fingers slid up along his jaw to them rest against his cheek. Despite being in such danger, she sought to soothe him?

"Look at me."

He did as was bade of him, and he forced himself to look at her as she lay underneath him with his hand buried in her chest and the blue glow of lyrium ghosting over them both. Fenris watched as she closed her eyes, taking a breath and he could feel her heart slow a bit and drop from the staccato he had induced.

"You feel that?"

Fenris nodded dumbly, perhaps more off guard by the calm demeanor she had called upon despite how every part of her should be trying to escape him. Rogue tricks, no doubt.

"You're the one person who can touch me there." She was sure that if he wasn't so terrified at the moment he would have snorted and scolded her for what he'd deem a grossly inappropriate joke for what was happening. But Hawke knew what she was doing…if there was any foe she was well practiced in dealing with, it was Fenris. She was smart enough however to fight him on an emotional level in some battles. This was one of them. "In all ways."

Hawke closed her eyes, and reminded her body to keep calm despite the danger. She trusted that Fenris would never hurt her intentionally, even despite how close he was now to killing her with one simple move. "It's beating for you, love. You're the one that keeps it going." It probably sounded cheesy, Hawke sure thought so, but at the same time she knew how her words would hit him as they were quite literal too. Hopefully, she was right.

The implication was clear to him but he remained still all the same. He had done this to countless others…reached into their bodies and found their hearts with expert precision. Sometimes he squeezed till they talked, or squeezed till the life driving organ gave way under his hand. Yet…there were also times when he didn't kill with this action. That's what she trusted him to do now.

Fenris frowned in concentration, directing his power again as he had learned to. He would make sure that he didn't hurt her like this. Only when he felt his hand completely phased once more did he pull his arm back, watching the now ghost like appendage emerge from her body along with a sigh of breath from her.

The glow of lyrium abruptly extinguished as he sat back on his heels where he was straddling her, and he blinked at the smudges of blood that graced just the pads of his now solid fingers. Her blood. The rabbit had broken its stupor and the instinct to flee came rushing back now that he could without hurting her.

Hawke must have known as before he could even move her hand was wrapping around his wrist. That same hold that always told him 'don't go' and he had promised that he never would again when she asked. All the tension seemed to drain from his body at that simple motion and more so as she so easily swiped the blood from his fingers with the edge of her tunic, despite its finery, and erased the evidence of his mistake.

Fenris closed his eyes, and let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding as he leaned forward and rested his ear against her chest over her heart. For a few long quiet moments he listened to the steady rhythm, assuring himself that she was alive and well and that he hadn't hurt her.

He felt her hands slide into his hair again in that comforting motion she used so often, but this time he gently grabbed her wrists and pulled them away. He didn't want to risk her even brushing his ears right now.

"Something I should know? You seemed like you were enjoying that. Then not."

"My ears were used against me." Fenris kept it simple, as when it came to Hawke he usually had to say little to get his point across as she was excellent at reading between the lines. He frowned as his body gave an involuntary shudder at just thinking about it, how Hadriana used to delight in being able to illicit the same guard dropping response in him before twisting and tugging on his ears.

"So I suppose I shouldn't touch then?" A simple nod against her chest was all the answer he gave. Hawke just smiled. "Just one more lock to open to undue any left over chains. In time."

"And if that lock is too strong?"

Hawke gave an un-ladylike snort. "Fenris, there is not a lock that is beyond my skill. Eventually, it gives way."

"You are persistent."

"You can count on that fact." Hawke's first instinct was always to fight for what she wanted most. This was no exception.