Anonymous asked you: 19, f!Hawke/Fenris – forceful kiss

Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke/Fenris
Rating: M
Word Count: 1500
Prompt: #19 - forceful kiss
Notes: Smut. Also, loosely inspired by real events in game. I hate to admit it, but not all of Eppie's bad decisions are her own fault.

It takes all of ten seconds after the high dragon falls for Fenris's hand to close around Hawke's arm. Her head whips around at the touch and he sees challenge in her eyes, and anger too—good, he thinks, furious, and does not bother to loosen his grip.

"What," he snarls, "was that?"

She lifts her chin without looking away, blood still seeping from the open wound across the bridge of her nose. "Isabela," she calls, her voice even, "will you and Merrill give us a minute?"

"You can't possibly be serious. There is a high dragon's cache somewhere around here and if you think I'm just going to let it languish—"

"It'll still be there in fifteen minutes," Hawke says—snaps, really—and after a moment of surprised silence, Isabela lets out a low ooh of understanding. Merrill looks between them, confusion and worry evident in her face, but Fenris jerks his head impatiently and Isabela slings her arm around Merrill's slim shoulders, leading her back up the path and out of sight.

Hawke still has not dropped her gaze. If anything she looks angrier than before, and when Fenris steps closer she jerks her arm out of his hand. "Explain yourself, Hawke," he says again, low and growling beneath the thin shreds of what control remains to him.

"There's nothing to explain," she says, anger rippling down her words. "You saw exactly what happened."

"I saw you throw yourself beneath the feet of a high dragon. I saw you ignore every thought of your own safety and the safety of those you fight with—"

"That's what I was trying to protect! You saw Merrill go down—that dragon came down right on top of her and she wasn't moving—"

Fenris's lip curls, his hands fisting. "And so, like a fool, you rush beneath its feet yourself."

She sucks in a harsh breath between her teeth, outrage stifling her voice. "You—how dare you. Someone had to go after her and you sure as the Void weren't going to do it—and aside from the fact that we needed her help to fight, Fenris, I do happen to actually care about what happens to Merrill!"

"Fine words," he snaps, stung, "but sentiment is poor armor against a dragon's talons." He can still see it in his mind's eye, playing over and over in a terrible loop; one powerful bunching of the dragon's muscled haunch and Hawke had been gone, flying backwards into the sheer cliff face, her head slamming into an outcropped boulder with a sickening crack. She'd fallen face-first to the sand, utterly still, and for one clear silent moment he'd known—he'd known—

But a minute later she'd stumbled to her feet, one hand alight with healing magic pressed to her own head, and the cold knot of terror behind his heart had begun to blaze with fury.

"Considering it was your sentiment for Merrill motivating me in the first place," Hawke grits out, each word clipped short, "I frankly think that's a pretty shit argument."

Fenris's lips twist, wordless in anger, and in four quick steps he has Hawke pinned against the hillock rising from the center of the clearing. Already, the sun has begun to set; the rise of earth casts them both in shadow, dimming the flash of steel on steel as Hawke wraps her gauntleted hands around his wrists. And yet—

And yet, the burning of her eyes into his has not lessened in the least.

He relishes that. Relishes too the defiant lift of her chin, the tendons pulling tight in her throat as he leans closer, crowding her, knowing he is crowding her. "You should have waited. You know this."

"A minute or two—"

"—would have made no difference. None. The blood—Merrill was down. That would not have changed. A delay of even a few seconds would have permitted us to draw the beast away, and then you would have been free to heal her with no danger. Instead—" she starts to speak, eyes blazing, but Fenris overrides her without mercy, "instead you rushed in without thought and endangered yourself, and it was good fortune alone that did not leave the two of us fighting a high dragon with no mage and no healer!"

"Why, Fenris," she says, mocking, edged, "if I didn't know better, I'd say you sounded concerned."

He bares his teeth—but there is something else beneath her scorn, something open and hot with challenge. He searches her face, his grip tightening on her shoulders—and the instant he sees the tight smirk at the corner of her mouth he knows, and even before she starts to yank him closer he is already crashing his mouth over hers.

It has been a long time since they've fought like this, longer still since he has felt so frantic for her touch—but his heart races in his chest, a wild thundering gallop still caught in the ice-bright terror of watching her crumple to the ground. Hawke knows it, he realizes distantly as her steel-tipped fingers scrape across his neck, knows his anger owes as much to fear as fury, and though it grates to find himself so transparent before her he is gratified to feel her own heart beating just as high and hard in her throat as his, her quick gasps into his mouth just as needy, her own hands just as eager to grasp and hold and take as his own.

Hawke opens her mouth under him. He drives his tongue between her teeth, drives his thigh between her legs; she bites his lip and tightens her hand in his hair until it hurts, a glinting pain that sets him snarling. She barks a short, sharp laugh that cuts off into a gasp as he presses harder against her; then her hands are scrabbling between them and her belt is falling loose and his is too, and somehow between them both laces come undone and smalls are shoved aside and her ankles lock together at the small of his back as he pins her with his whole weight against the face of the hill behind her.

"You can be such a bastard," Hawke gasps, her teeth closing around the tip of his ear. "I hate how you treat Merrill sometimes."

"And you," Fenris says into her neck just as tightly, each bite he leaves there dragging a hiss from Hawke, "are frequently careless to the point of stupidity."

"This coming from the most stubborn man in the Free Marches—"

"Justifiably so, when it comes to your inattention—"

"Don't you dare talk to me about justifiability right now!"

"As you wish," he snaps, and she yanks his mouth back over her own.

They neither of them last long, not like this, not with anger still between them, not with the knowledge that Isabela and Merrill will be back too soon. Instead it is short and rough and quick, all fingernails and sharp-tipped steel, all teeth and hot gasps and kisses too hard for the word, and when Hawke throws her head against his throat and hisses out a long string of curses he is not far behind her, his grip tensing on her thighs until he knows she must bruise.

It is only after, when her breathing begins to slow, when his own heart thumps into a rhythm less desperate, that Fenris feels his anger begin to give way at last.

He pulls free, slowly, lets her down as they both wince; without speaking they find their laces and belts and shove hair from faces and straighten themselves to decency again. Fenris knows it is likely a lost cause, at least with Isabela—even from here he can see the marks on Hawke's throat, can feel the ridged scratches on his own leathers where her gauntlets had scraped down his chest—but as he glances to Hawke and finds her watching him already he can do little but sigh.

He says, awkward and stilting, "I will…with—Merrill. I will try."

The corner of Hawke's mouth quirks up. Not quite a smile, but—close enough. "I'll work on the idiotic rushing into battle, then."

"An even trade."

"In the loosest sense of the word, I suppose."

He watches her a moment more, still caught in uncertainty—but as Isabela and Merrill draw into sight on the path curving down above them, Hawke's hand slips carefully into his, her gaze level and clear.

She squeezes his fingers gently, without anger. There is still steel between them, still too many sharp points and edges to catch them both, but here, for now—he needs nothing else.