(As always, nothing belongs to me; I'm just playing with Bioware's property.)
A/N: Warning for mature ideas and situations ahead, including some touchy subject matter involving abuse. Read at your own discretion.
She is only in the other room when she hears the outer door opening. Assuming no thief would be so brazen as to walk in the front door, she rises from her book to go to the entryway empty-handed. That it is him waiting there should be a relief, or at least a surprise, but she finds that it is neither, as if she has been expecting nothing but this these last few nights. Saying nothing, she simply waits, for the explanation, the argument, the accusations.
He begins as she would have, had she given herself leave to speak, "I have been thinking of you. In fact, I have been able to think of little else." Her heart speeds in her chest with some mix of hope and fear as he stalks towards her. "Command me to go, and I shall."
"Command you?" The sudden burn of rage surprises her, and she steps towards him, "Are you my dog now? Should I have you sit at my feet? Should I get a leash for you?" It doesn't matter that her mother is asleep upstairs and her trio of servants in nearby rooms as she snarls at him. That he won't meet her eyes is the deepest insult of all, and she reaches out to grab his arm, to force him to tell her why he's behaving like this. Why they must have this terrifying reversal of their usual argument.
The sudden glow of the lyrium is blinding, and she feels herself impact the wall before her mind registers that he's lunged for her. His eyes are still turned away from her, and as he leans back, she snarls, pulling on him by the grip she still held on his arm, despite the flash of lyrium that burns her palm.
She's not certain whose lips move first, but she knows it's her who flings him against the wall in her place, and her kisses are hungry and wanting as she pins him there, eyes closed against the burn of tears that she can't explain. For a moment, he is still, and she feels the first touch of actual terror that she has gone too far this time before his hands come up around her, clawed gauntlets tangling in her hair and snagging on the delicate fabric of her robe.
Her eyes flutter open and she realizes that he's staring at her, and it seems that she can feel his heartbeat speeding, as if it echoed through the lyrium marks under her hand. Knowing they hurt him, she tries to find a place she can put her hands without touching them, even as her mind starts to cloud with the undeniable want of him.
One of his hands goes to her hip, and he tries to coax her closer, farther up his body, but their positions do not suit the motion, and they are turning again. This time, her shoulder hits a picture hanging on the wall, and it crashes to the floor, but it doesn't matter, because his hands are beneath her thighs and she can feel him, through his armor and her robe.
He growls, low in his throat, as she puts an arm around the back of his neck, but he doesn't pull away, savaging her with lips and bruising grips. He is fumbling with the tie on her robe when they hear a squeak and both break away in an instant.
Orana stands in the doorway, a hand over her mouth, either in horror, or in an attempt to smother the disrupting sound she's let escape. "I'm sorry, mistress! Goodnight!"
Even if her mistress had been trying to think of something to say, the young elf girl is gone before her brain can do more than snarl at the sudden cessation of feelings. Suddenly, the hands supporting her thighs are gone, and she is slipping to the floor on shaky legs.
"No!" Her hand on the back of his neck tightens, keeping their faces close, and she says, "My room." It's not a command, or a question, more of a plea.
Then, he is on her again, and they stumble over each other as they make it to the stairs; she is fumbling his armor loose as he pulls away her robe to bare her shoulder, which he sets his teeth on hard enough to hurt as he herds her backwards up the stairs, her hip following the wall.
Something from the wall crashes to the floor, but she doesn't care as they reach the landing, and she drags him through the dark house, towards the doorway to her bedroom as another one of the house's doors opens. It doesn't matter that Leandra is a bare few steps from seeing her daughter savaging the mouth of an elf as she fumbles behind her for the door handle. It doesn't matter what it is that Orana says to keep the woman from investigating; all that matters is that the door is open now, and they are through, and now the robe can be thrown aside and the armor pulled off with frantic fingers.
She succeeds in liberating him from his strange chestpiece, and one gauntlet is already gone. The other is at her back, and the clawed finger tips send shivers up her spine as he runs them gently over her tender skin. The light of his lyrium is blinding when she runs her hands over his bare chest, and she draws back, her mind clearing enough to ask, "Does that hurt?"
"No."
She ignores the lie in his voice in favor of the want in his breathing and the tremble of his body. Kissing him again, she runs her hands down his torso, surprised that she can still feel the hum of the lyrium lines, though he glows no longer. When her hands reach the barrier of his waistband, she growls against the skin of his throat, and it is worth all the frustration in the world to hear his answering chuckle vibrating up through his chest.
Obligingly, he rids himself of the rest of his armor, then spends a moment assuaging his own curiosity, trailing kisses down her throat and over her chest. He does not stop, as she had, when he reaches her breastband, seeming fascinated by the way her nipples tighten even with the fabric between her skin and his lips. The hand at her back tightens, and he snaps the fabric with a jerk that makes her flinch involuntarily, the strip of fabric fluttering down between them.
The support of his hand on her back is all that keeps her from swooning as his mouth returns to her breast with starved intensity. His kisses have become almost bruising, and she feels the quivering tension in the muscles on his back when she finally reaches to guide his lips back to her own. "Relax," she whispers soothingly in his ear before brushing her lips against the delicate point, "we have all night."
Free to explore now, her hands trace the humming lines down his abdomen, dipping lower in slow, wandering motions. She can feel him against her as her fingers finally brush the base of his length, and she smiles as she wraps her hand around him, stroking- a surprised sound escapes her as his fingers tighten around her wrist in a grip that grinds her bones together.
"Do not... touch me... like that." The trembling she can feel has changed, and again, his eyes are to the side, staring at the floor, not her face.
She knows something is wrong then, but does not care. Twining her arms around his neck again, she murmurs, "Then you touch me." Resuming where they left off downstairs, he puts his hands beneath her thighs, lifting and supporting her when she wraps her legs around his narrow hips.
He carries her across the room, pressing her back against the neatly made bed. His hands are wandering, his touch hesitant and light, and she makes a small, frustrated noise as she kneads the muscles of his shoulders and back, urging him on. A long time ago, he told her that he had never done this before, but his hands seem to know what they are doing as they ghost over her hips, her thighs, and cup the heat between them.
Reaching down, she takes his hand in her own, lacing her fingers through his almost tenderly, and he is distracted, looking towards their joined hands bemusedly. But then she is twisting beneath him, heaving up with wiry grace to flip him, for once grateful of the indulgent size of her bed. Pressing their still-linked hands against the mattress beside his head, she straddles his hips, beginning to lower herself down as she smiles triumphantly.
But now he is not watching her, his eyes are screwed shut, and as she feels a violent shudder run through the body beneath her, she sees fear on his face. His hand in her own has gone limp, and he's let the other fall to his side, passive, and the desperate, intoxicating spell is broken.
"Fenris."
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes, turning his head to see Hawke curled on the bed beside his head, resting her chin on her knees. Her hair was still mused from his fumbling, her lips half parted and swollen, and he could still see the light sheen of sweat on her collarbone, but she'd gone still, regarding him with too-knowing blue eyes. For once, it seemed he understood her without any words at all. "I'm fine," he lied for the second time that night.
"Who did this to you?" Her voice held all the hard command it did on the battlefield.
"It does not matter." He couldn't meet her gaze and focused instead on her hands, watching as she stopped hugging her knees and clenched her fists so hard they trembled.
"Was it her, or was it him?" Hawke was careful not to say the names here, but she couldn't keep the fury from her voice. For the first time, she longed for Denarius to come for Fenris, though her means of removing his heart would be much slower than the elf's.
"She was his apprentice," he sat up slowly, seeming to register his nudity for the first time as he crossed his legs, "her torments were but a shadow of his." Turning, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, "I should go." The shame and fury that this was taken from him as well was a hard lump in his chest.
Hesitantly, Hawke shifted to her knees and reached to put a hand on his shoulder, "If you need to, you can go. But I don't... want you to." The kiss she placed on his neck was timid and chaste. "I'll do... or won't do... whatever you want." When he didn't pull away, she smiled wryly against his neck, "No more rogue flips and tricks."
Turning around, he looked at her for a long moment, his eyes darting across her body and away before locking with her own. This was Hawke, the maddening, demanding, insane woman who had gone out of her way to help him; who had never tried to hurt him. Holding out his hand, palm up, he said, "Your hands," when she placed them willingly in his own, he threaded his long fingers through hers, holding them together and raising them above her head, "stay here." Gently, he pressed her back against the rumpled blanket, trapping her hands above her head.
"Whatever you want," fearlessly, she met his gaze, lips parting invitingly.
Unable to resist, he leaned over her, starting at her lips and kissing his way down her throat as his free hand began to wander again. When she showed no fear or hesitation, his motions became more confident as he went from straddling her to kneeling between her thighs. By the time he released her hands to brace himself firmly above her, he didn't even register any pain when her freed hands moved to grip his lyrium lined shoulders and her body bowed beneath him.
Hawke didn't awaken until the bed beside her had cooled. At first, she simply groped beside her blindly. Finding nothing, she sat up, spotting Fenris leaning against her mantle. Forcing a laugh and pretending his answer wouldn't shatter her, she asked, "Was it that bad?"
AN I spent far too long thinking about why Hawke might say 'Was it that bad', no matter what romance or what personality (at least that I've seen). Never is it 'Was I that bad'.