AN: The following few chapters are from a minific prompt meme I did on tumblr some time ago. Enjoy!
Characters/Pairing: Hawke/Fenris
Rating: K
Word Count: 600
Prompt: G: a fistfight, from kindervenom.
—
It occurs to Hawke, in retrospect, that informing the man his face resembles the backside of a queasy bull might not have been the most tactful way she's ever dissuaded a handsy drunk.
Unfortunately, the thought occurs to her right about the moment his meaty fist is flying directly towards her left temple.
She's not exactly built for melee, but she knows the Hanged Man far too well by now, and she flings herself to the side just enough that his knuckles smash into the solid drink-stained bar instead. The man howls and staggers back, clutching his fist; Hawke slithers off the stool and ducks around him, doing her level best to ignore the sight of the Hanged Man pitching wildly under her feet. Damn Isabela and her drinking games—damn Isabela for wandering off with that smiling woman from the apothecary's—damn her own careless mouth—
The man shakes out his hand, scowling, and swivels on his heel until he finds Hawke again. She's vaguely jealous of his lingering coordination, aware also that the rest of the Hanged Man's illustrious patrons have cleared a loose ring around them and more than one shouting onlooker has begun to place bets.
She pulls a face, stumbles another few steps backwards, and tries to catch her breath. The man across has begun rolling his shoulders backwards, cracking his neck, and when she gives him her best look of bewildered innocence he only strips off his vest and spits.
"Nasty habit," she offers weakly, and is disappointed when the patrons behind her refuse to allow her exit from the makeshift ring. Then she catches a glimpse of white hair in the crowd, and a flash of a gold earring; and there stand both Fenris and Varric, their arms crossed under identical looks of speculation and not nearly enough concern for her taste.
Hawke purses her lips and gives Fenris a very hard, very specific look. Get. Me. Out. Of. This.
He arches an eyebrow. I warned you to learn how to control your tongue.
She gestures furiously at her very tall, very annoyed, very muscled opponent, who has succumbed to both his liquor and the crowd's encouragement and now stripped out of his shirt as well. A large tattoo of five angry skulls spreads over his back, doing very little to alleviate any part of Hawke's trepidation. He is going to kill me. Literally. Kill me dead right here and now.
A very, very small shake of his head. Not that far.
She narrows her eyes as viciously as she can. I am warning you right now, Fenris: if I end this fight spread across the baseboards here in a disgusting, liquor-soaked, pulpy paste of an ex-Champion, I will happily and gleefully forgo every moment of the company of the Maker's side I have allotted to me in order to haunt the absolute entirety of your remaining miserable, lonely, unbelievably unhelpful life.
His brow furrows. What?
Hawke groans amid the raucous cheering, and that's when the drunken colossus across from her ducks his head and charges.
(She does scrape out a win in the end, thanks to her own panicked reflexes and a surprisingly solid support beam, but that victory's not worth half the satisfaction she feels ignoring Fenris for the rest of the night.)
(At least, until he gives her half his winnings. She's a practical woman, after all, and if he even unbends enough to kiss her cheek as he hands over the coin, well—to the victor go the spoils.)
—
.
Characters/Pairing: Hawke/Fenris
Rating: K
Word Count: 900
Prompt: S, Music [send a song or a lyric]: "you can wear the crown but you're no princess," from knight-of-tuxedo. The lyric is from Death Valley by Fall Out Boy.
—
The Champion of Kirkwall is never what they expect. She's not tall enough, not strong enough, too scarred, too loud, too prone to quips and casual touch for any well-bred party to easily invite without concern. They do anyway, of course, the snub outweighing the risk, and if nothing else she's good for conversation fodder in the off-season.
All the same, Trevelyan's not ashamed to admit she's worried. The Inquisition needs Hawke and her Warden contacts, not to mention her expertise with the monster they're fighting, and there's not really another option; but at the same time she's heard the stories of the refugee and her questionable table manners, her penchant for insulting powerful people with no thought to the repercussions. The last city leader to challenge her had ended up dead, after all.
But. But Corypheus looms, and the Inquisition needs Hawke, and Trevelyan has little choice. It's with no small trepidation she goes to the battlements with a dinner invitation in one hand and the mark faintly burning in the other, just in case they end up desperate for conversation. It's not needed, however; against all odds Hawke appears to be a perfectly human Champion, no tinges of demonic power or unhinged ambition leaking out even once, and despite herself Trevelyan finds she's rather looking forward to dinner.
She installs Josephine to the Champion's immediate right all the same, just in case a little diplomacy is needed to smooth over a gaffe or two. It's not that she distrusts Hawke; it's just that she's known all her life the way these conversations can turn at the drop of a feathered Orlesian hat, and she'd prefer not to alienate the scraps of their support because a duke with an over-inflated ego can't recognize sarcasm when he sees it. Hawke is a Fereldan refugee, she knows that much, and while she doesn't doubt the woman's capability in combat, she's not certain how often farmers teach their daughters the intricacy of Nevarran royal hierarchy, or which way a painted fan can be turned during a conversation to give the most offense.
It takes all of two courses to see she's woefully underestimated the Champion of Kirkwall.
The woman is—and Trevelyan even hates to think the word, reminded too strongly of overbearing aunts in her childhood—charming, and more than able to hold her own against Lord Forsythe's casual disdain, and she even restrains herself to civil deflection at the most impertinent questions of her time in Kirkwall. Every now and then her eyes catch Trevelyan's across the table, the faint irony in her gaze enough to make Trevelyan blush at her own expectations, and by the end of the meal she's appalled to discover Lord Forsythe bending his head over Hawke's hand with more warmth than she's seen from him in weeks.
"If the Champion supports the Inquisition, we can do no less," he says just as Trevelyan approaches, his mustached smile unfortunately handsome, and Trevelyan holds her tongue long enough for him to withdraw before requesting Hawke's company.
She accepts, as somehow Trevelyan had not expected, and by the time they've wandered to the base of Skyhold's formidable walls she's mustered the strength to apologize. "I didn't intend for you to become a recruiting officer when I invited you. I'm sorry if Forsythe's attentions were unwelcome."
Hawke waves a hand, turning them both towards the stairs that climb the battlements. "He's harmless. A fop, but harmless. Besides, I don't mind helping the Inquisition if I can. It's my trouble you're hunting as it is."
"Varric did say you were prone to taking too much guilt upon yourself."
"Varric talks too much," Hawke says, grinning, and then they reach the top of the battlements and a cool, crisp wind soars over the stone, bringing the smell of snow and smoke with it.
Hawke falls silent, and when Trevelyan stops she turns to lean both hands on the wall, staring out over the mountains spread below them like so many crests of endless waves, plucked into being by the Maker's hand and cloaked in snow. The sun has already dipped below the horizon, glazing the peaks in a narrow range of purples and twilight blues, and in the distance the first stars have begun to gleam through the wisping clouds.
"I wish he could see this," Hawke says abruptly.
Nothing more. Trevelyan takes a step nearer, one hand hovering over the Champion's shoulder before falling uselessly to her side. The wind picks up again, rippling through the fur Hawke wears over her shoulders, flicking Trevelyan's hair from her forehead and back again.
She does not think Hawke's eyes are wet from the smoke.
Besides, it isn't Varric she means, and Trevelyan's shocked at how much her heart aches for this woman she barely knows, this Champion from a city she's never visited, a farmer's daughter with Amell blood and too many scars, who's got blood on her hands and death behind her and a smile that comes too easily. How stupid, not to realize she's nothing more than a tired woman in love after all.
"Hawke," she says instead, only that, and leans with her on the battlements, her face turned into the wind over snow, thinking of the ones they've left behind.
—
.
Characters/Pairing: Hawke/Fenris
Rating: K
Word Count: 480
Prompt: K. On the edge of consciousness, from lollard.
—
Fenris closes his eyes. And opens them again, and closes them, and does his best to take one true breath through the agony splitting his chest. There's a touch on his shoulder and then his neck, and someone's mouth has moved very close to his ear.
"Fenris."
He knows that voice. He likes that voice, likes the sound of his name in it even better. Something dredges up a name from the depths of his memory, though the word is difficult to speak. "Hawke."
A faint, fond laugh. He feels himself relax at the sound of it. "Be still, lover. That maul got you square in the chest and I need to make sure you're not dying."
He hums agreement, furrows his brow at the pain lancing up his throat at the effort. He tries another breath, experimental and tentative, and groans when the sharp hurt spreads to his shoulders and further, echoes shocking down his arms.
"I told you to hold still," Hawke says, very close to him, and then he feels his breastplate lift away and cool hands spread over his chest. Then—the telltale hum of magic through his skin, and deeper into his bones. He tenses, defensive reflex; a moment later he recognizes the taste of it, the feel of Hawke in his skin, and all at once the burring tension fades into nothing. Hawke will not hurt him. Hawke's magic will not hurt him.
"Just cracked," Hawke says above him. "Nothing badly broken. Good."
"Good," he echoes, feeling her fingers ghost down towards his stomach and back again towards his chest, trailing magic behind them. He does not wish to smile; all the same it feels impossible to suppress, and as the magic fades away Hawke's mouth presses gently, upside-down, to his own.
"Hawke," he says again, as much to remind himself as to feel the name in his mouth.
"Still here," she says quietly, and somehow he manages to drag his eyes open enough to see her. There's a faint glow of magic below his chin, throwing blue light oddly across her face above him, but even so he can recognize the smile slowly spreading over her face. "Welcome back, my dear."
He breathes in, feels the ache of new healing spread through his chest, already only a fraction of the hurt before. The sense of Hawke in his skin is faintly overpowering and comforting at the same time, but as her fingers dance over his chest and up to his chin, he finds himself not caring in the slightest.
"I was struck," he says, startled.
"Rather abruptly," she tells him, her voice dry. "Regardless, I think you'll live."
"A relief," he says, and closes his eyes again to the low murmur of Hawke's voice and the ripple of her magic through his skin.
No safer place for him, after all.