So I've been busy... Here's some hot stuff for you to make up for it. Cheers for reading my story guys, as of now it's officially about 800 pages of content and I'm feeling good all with this being chapter 50 now. Cheers again and I'll try to not disappear again for so long.
"Stop whacking at that drum, you imbecile," Fenris growled.
There came a little silence from everyone, doubled by Anders completely stopping his annoying bit on one of the Antivan's drums. He gave him the look, and when he broke into that look, even Anders was bright enough to understand that it was either his life or another few seconds of incoherent annoying whacking. He coughed a bit and wedded himself to silence.
But it didn't help. Fenris had already been battling a splitting headache for some time, and the impossible thump in his head went on and on. Aveline had been nice enough to innocently push a cup of hot coffee across the table to him.
That did not in fact help at all. Urgently taking it, and upon the first few drops, he felt yet another kind of aggravating damned pain. His mouth burned and burned, and and on it on it went, an' a' that an' a' that an' a' that. Would that he could force himself to look on the bright side, well, at least that hell in a cup did not magically fall in his lap to deliver whole new sorts of soul-ripping pains on top of the ones he was already feeling down there.
It would be nice, he reflected, if the universe would entertain the idea that there were millions of other people in the world with which it could screw around and it would be nice if it left him alone for half a damn second.
Varric's room was as dwarven as the table could get, and that was it. His huge bed—huge even for a human—had red silken blankets and loads of white, purple and red pillows, and it was carefully enclosed by a soft transparent curtain. People started to question what exactly happens in that bed that he needed to make it look like the spitting image of a luxury brothel bed, but Varric only chuckled and of course, with an air of dismissive confidence said, "Teh, please."
The light seemed dimmer once they had settled in, but it might have been only the denseness of the group and the smoke. The smell of tobacco mingled strongly with the malty smell of beer.
Upon the shelves there were dozens of beeswax candles, courtesy of Hawke's ineffable obsession with them and consequently, Varric's more or less supportive attitude. He really was the kind of guy who when faced with his friends' odd desires says "What the hell!" and goes along and does whatever you need to make you smile, or at least to shut you up. Anything was alright for him, short of venturing into insane, creepy and dangerous territories for absolutely no reason.
And a lot of times, he complied with that too, just to make Hawke shut up. Of course, friends didn't let friends venture into a hellhole alone, but they also had a somewhat formal agreement that should he die before his time, Hawke would inherit almost everything. And when he said almost that meant definitely not Bianca and when he said everything with a little smile, that included his investments and belongings, the rights to his books to publish post-mortem apparently, as well as the very likely huge debts he had that she wouldn't have any choice but to pay from her own patrimony. Kirkwall law still hadn't introduced that little concept called inheritance with benefit, as in having the right to choose if one accepted or denied those debts. Varric was most pleased with that.
The background of the tapestries was invariably a deep red in the dark. A golden haze hung over the room, which was coming from Varric's huge cigar, to which he was sucking on like a frantic little child on account of being worried like hell that this was going to go insanely wrong.
Fenris seconded, but their telepathic dialogue ceased long ago because the only vibration that he was receiving from his silent mate was horrible noise—Specifically, a long, unerring sacrilegious howl echoing along the telepathic route, bumping into the telepathic walls, dragging itself along, stumbling, choking and suffering paroxysms on the way.
"Er… vot is zis?" he heard Vincento start. Years and years in the heart of trade tongue-speaking Kirkwall and his accent still sounded like it came straight from Antiva's darkest, creepiest, loneliest pit. "Like aeh… er… vat do you prefer? A wild violin, a sad violin, a wild drum solo, a sad—?"
"Whatever you think is best," said Aveline, more to cut him out. "Just er… definitely not a sad melody, but not too cheery or wild either." She scratched her head. "It… doesn't matter, really." She pointed decisively at him. "I repeat, definitely not sad," she said, reinforcing the usual officering tone.
"Alright," Vincento said stoically. "Definitely not sad. Not very vivacious eizer. I quite understand."
"We don't want her hopping and breaking stuff around here," said Aveline.
"Yes, zat vud be a shame," Vincento went on conversationally.
Varric finally made a sound, and a loud one, "A shame? How about a damn fucking travesty?" he said. "This is my home after all, in case you've forgotten what with you living in a sodding dump for—"
"Put the flame poker down, Varric and sit tight in your chair," Aveline commanded methodically.
Varric gave her a look. "Yessir," he said mockingly, crossed his arms and resumed his protesting silence. And go fuck yourself, Captain, he added inside.
"I think this will be interesting," Anders commented with a wide grin on his face.
"Anything is interesting for the 'innocent' bystander with a smug look on his face," Varric fired grumpily.
"Said the man in the high chair who's about to get his world rocked," Anders retaliated in all sorts of little smiles.
"Shut up, Blondie," said Varric sharply. Urgently cutting people without even a little sarcasm lurking in the shadows—bad, bad sign, Fenris thought.
"Get over yourself," said Aveline flatly.
Varric gave her the look again.
Too late to be barking, he thought with a sigh. He should have just locked himself in the Chantry attic and drink his brains and liver out to absolute failure as he used to when he vanished from his own party every year.
Invite them all, inner Varric said. It will be great, inner Varric said. What can possibly be so bad?
Well, fuck you, inner Varric, he thought and outer Varric growled out loud.
He looked over his shoulder, and caught Fenris's detached look. For one fraction of a second, the elf gave him a wan smile, to which he pressed his lips and nodded.
Varric turned back and sighed. Fuck you, Varric, he added again, just to be sure.
Tired and unwilling to meet anyone's eyes in the wait, Fenris stared into the fire. There was a log falling very slowly in the flame, drifting downwards in a process that would take it the night, and it was pitted with tiny holes where some substance that had larded it through and through had burned away fast, and in each of these tiny holes there danced a flame amid the larger flames— and all of these tiny flames with their black mouths seemed to him like faces that made a chorus; and the chorus sang without singing. The chorus had no need of singing; in one breath in the fire, which was continuous, it made its soundless song and—
There was a meaning to it, but it occurred to him that he hadn't been using his brain in the process, which made for a nice dilemma. He sighed and placed his arm on the table, closed his eyes and decided that there was no damned meaning and he would do well not to start brooding in times when the only brain cell still alive to witness the present was still stomping an' a' that an' a' that an' a' that.
He would strangle somebody soon.
The door sprung open in windblown silence, and just when people almost jumped, it was only Isabela with a smug look on her face, innocently swaying along the room and catching a seat next to her twin captain.
"What's wrong, Varric? Why so blue?" Isabela asked him from across the room. She curled a playful lip and added, "You know, this early."
"Shut up, Rivaini," said Varric with the same uncharacteristic grouchiness.
Isabela's eyebrows quickly rose in amazement. She looked at Aveline beside her and asked, "Oh you pissed him off big time." She hit her gently with her fist. "Way to go, girl."
"He's pissed alright," said Aveline with a devil's smile. "And that really makes me feel warm inside."
"Of course it does, you sodding Ferelden Ice Queen," mumbled Varric.
"Hm, is it hot in here or is it just me?" Isabela asked with a smirk, watching the dwarf shooting fiery glances at Aveline that were going right through her, all while she kept her little smile of victory.
"He's pretending to be pissed because in actuality, he must have been dreaming about this for years and any other reaction would look bad," Aveline mused confidently.
"Shut up, Captain," Varric said cuttingly.
"See—" Aveline said, gesturing towards him. "I wonder how that is called. I'd go with massive denial using elusive cutting phrases as defense when you're not confident about the thing you're trying so hard to deny." She grinned. "Someone somewhere in time used to say this with an annoying smug look on their face," she said, curling a finger over her chin. "Oh right, of course, why it was—"
"Aveline," Fenris articulated flatly, giving her a cold look.
She kept her eyes on him unyieldingly for about three seconds and then finally rolled them and said, "Fine… I'll stop making fun of him."
"What's your problem, Feny?" said Isabela.
Fenris looked up with a bored expression and said, "Why, from the whole millions of them, I would choose the one where you two are idiots."
Isabela shook her head and turned her head to the twin captain. "I can't believe this. Two out of three guys here don't like the idea. And we're women, Aveline," she protested passionately. She shook her head again and went on, "The world just doesn't make sense to me right now."
"You don't make a lot of sense to it either," said Fenris.
"Hiss," Isabela said nonchalantly.
"You know you're not supposed to use the word that describes the interjection, right?" Fenris asked tiredly.
"You know you're not supposed to catch roots to the chair and mope around like a little bitch when you're going to get a free naughty show, right?" Isabela fired back.
Fenris shrugged coldly and said, "I do not see the point in this."
"The point is we'll have fun and Hawke won't," Aveline explained joyfully.
Fenris arched an accusatory eyebrow. "So you're punishing her," he said.
"We screw each other often," Aveline went on. She shrugged. "It's a girl thing."
"Really now?" Isabela asked with interest.
"Not in that way," said Aveline, rolling her eyes.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
"The things I'm picturing right now…" came Anders's voice from afar.
"The things I'm trying so very hard not to picture right now," Isabela said meanly.
"Andraste's ass, Blondie, stop it!" Varric protested in genuine anger. "You're putting images in my head that have no business being there."
No one knew this, and he would have never, arrow to this head, verbalized it, but Varric considered Hawke not only his best friend in the whole wide world, partner in crime and in pleasure, personal counselor and occasional bodyguard when innocently strolling through the Merchant Guild district, but also his only real family. And even if she was twice his height, he in turn was two fifths older than her and that was enough a reason to consider himself an informal big brother. He was not a violent man, he was not an unreasonable man, he was definitely not a vengeful person, but when it came to family, Varric metamorphosed into a giant horn-headed red-eyed clapper-clawed spiky-tailed gargantuan monster.
And while that was fine and understandable, this form of his was yet to be discovered, which would make for a nice surprise in the future for somepeople.
"Aw, he's adorable," Isabela said, entangling her fingers. "What are you picturing, Feny?"
"A calm, deep blue sea," said Fenris reflectively, with his eyes fixed into empty space, chin in his hand. Isabela was about to open her mouth, but he went on, "Where I kick you all in and leave you to drown." He closed his eyes. "Then I go home and have tea."
"Save me a cup will you?" came a voice.
"I will," Fenris said. Wait—
Then something softly brushed, grazed, clonked, hacked and then smashed into place and he looked up at the doorway. He winced and found it terribly hard to recall how exactly breathing worked.
This was worse than a pretty dress. This was worse than a black coat and a tight shirt.
This was way worse and he had to blink a few times to see the picture clearly and decide that the unfamiliar body a few feet away belonged to the more familiar face.
She had the same tight black pants, but they were lifted up a bit and she was barefoot. Going up from those wonderful legs, in the place where her belt was once, there was a red veil wrapped around and another somewhat lacey white transparent one was falling in parts on her sides and at the back. In a way, there was a belt, only that it was made of little chains and dangling trinkets. Going up from that, she wore a black top short enough to make her whole waist visible, and much with a sculptor's eye, he noticed just how big a difference it was when she wore her hundred layers of cloth and chainmail and when she wore none—a much narrower waistline in reality, that gave her wide hips and big chest a maddening sandglass angularity. And speaking of chests, hers was enough for him to stare at like an idiot, more so because it wasn't revealed in any vulgar manner. In fact it was all covered, but that only outlined them in their wholeness and in their roundness and—
Okay…
Fenris forced his eyes to go further up and look her in the eye.
Radiant was an understatement. She had a little smile, with an air of toughness and confidence, the kind that was even strangely more desirable when adjoined to this effigy of a beautiful woman with no vulgar display of femininity. Her hair was loose again, falling over her shoulders down to her hips, cloaking her into all that red.
He was having problems deciding what he wanted to touch more urgently. He tried to kill all these traces of strange thoughts, but the most he could do was keep his eyes at a reasonable distance up from the grand bowl of wretched temptation.
"Oh, fuck," came Varric's voice in a low, ghostly tone.
Indeed, Fenris thought.
Fuck you, Fenris, a voice came in his mind.
What did I do? he thought.
I don't know but I'm still blaming you, Varric's voice came back in the telepathic field.
That's cute, Fenris fired back.
Varric uncrossed his arms in the meantime, looked at the two captains and said, "Are you kidding me?"
"Hey," shouted Hawke with a scowl and started pointing at him. "I don't dread this any less than you do, but you'd surely thank me sevenfold if you saw what Isabela wanted me to wear."
"No need, I'm grateful," Varric muttered urgently.
She looked like the goddess of war and goddess of love bound into one single being, Fenris thought. Oh, but not the kind that would love war and battle love, no. The other kind. She who ends wars through love and—
… starts love through a war.
"I think Feny's having a stroke," said Isabela between giggles.
"If he didn't that would be alarming," Anders intervened. "I mean… well. Wow."
Belated with the response, Fenris snapped to reality and gave them both the look. They let him be.
"Sweet Mother of Partha," Varric mumbled uncharacteristically and clamped his face with his hand. So sweet was his tormented gesture that Hawke started to cackle.
But then Aveline grinned horrifically, to which Hawke rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, because she knew it was time. Aveline raised her hand and beckoned, "Hit it, Vincento."
"One not so sad, yet not so cheery eizer solo coming up," said Vincento.
"One not at all sad—" Aveline corrected sharply.
But Vincento seemed not to hear her officering tone, looking much too busy sizing Hawke up from head to breasts, then after several seconds of awkward silence, he picked up the big drum and said, "Oh, I know exactly what to play."
And then that next terrible thing of the night happened, with the first beat in that drum. It was the sort of the thing that just happened when it happened and you realize what it means the sort of way a bell from a tower falls on you from the sky, and you don't realize it until it's too late, and then all of this you could not unhappen.
What this was— Hawke rapidly popped and locked her hip to the first beat, and the other she locked to the next beat, and the faster the beat went, the faster her hips made those striking motions, with her legs and upper body not moving at all. She stretched her arms out and stepped closer to Varric, keeping to those spectacular rapid hip moves along the drum.
The dwarf gulped and his face seemed extremely bewildered, and his eyes were wide open and watching every move.
She undulated and thrust each hip to the beat as if she belonged to it. They were articulated isolations from the whole body, movements of individual parts with little notice given to the footsteps. And while she quaked and rocked her hips, her arms and hands move fluidly, like serpents in the air.
Never had Fenris stared at something this long and hard in his life.
And when the drum beat became slower, she turned around and moved her waist in circles as if animated by some wave, giving the impression that it fluctuated down through her as she went on with swaying her hips and then her thighs, and the transparent lacey veil of her pants moved with her. This maddened him.
The little chains and trinkets around the belt jolted and ringed with every move and that gave her dance an enchanting air of wilderness or some sort of expression of freedom. Up and down and right to left they moved with her hips. The drum stopped and she stopped too, with her hands in her hair. Then the drum assumed a strong beat, to which her left hip immediately went in that direction as if it was possessed by the instrument, then came three other strong beats to which her right hip moved outwards twice, then her left hip shifted again and locked. This maddened him even more.
He heard of belly dance, and he saw some faint expressions of it included in the dance of some performers during feasts and processions where he was supposed to guard Danarius, but there was no argument that this was the real deal.
But the more important part of the matter was that there was no goddess, no performer and no artist doing this dance. It was Hawke doing it. H-a-w-k-e. The woman who dauntlessly managed to burp and sneeze at the same time and then cackle about it for half an hour. Although to be fair, the cackle sort of turned into a very girlish giggle that he started to find endearing after a while…
… This just spiked a lot of strange mental muscles from their dormant place.
Understand, Hawke was a beautiful woman, a girlish face, big eyes, long lashes, rather small and rosy lips, and her body was well, it was certainly of a woman in entirety, but she didn't put stock in beauty and she had no interest in presenting herself as a woman. She was a person, a warrior, a guardian, a comedian, a "freelance fighter" as she called them all, and to her hate, also a mage, but that was it. There was no room for other terms. She rogued her lips with dark shades of red sometimes, and she wore her hair loose on occasion, and just as rarely appeared to take a liking to velvets and satins—although those usually pertained to curtains, sheets and blankets— and she let her Mother sprinkle her with perfume mainly just to shut her up, but that was all that connected her with the mysterious, shrouded, enigmatic world of womanhood.
She was a glass of badassery, as Varric put it. If there was a metal or linen or a wool she hadn't worn, one would be surprised. She always wore linen shirts, chainmail on top – if not letting sleeping dogs lie was on their to-do list – vests or girdles, iron shoulder pads, small chest plates, belts with chains and lots of pockets, the the legendary improvised gauntlets that had a hidden tiny lever which gave rise to spikes on the side. Her pants were always dark and half of them were stitched with chainmail, and she always wore boots that could crush three skulls with one stomp. So all in all, her clothes screamed, "I'm damn practical" and also, "Stay the fuck away from me if you cherish your head remaining on your shoulders."
What Fenris beheld now was another Hawke entirely. She had the face of an angel and the body of a devil.
She swayed her hips and undulated her torso with a grace so exquisite it seemed as if she saw herself alone and dancing for nothing and no one but herself in empty space. It didn't scream, "See what I am".
Even so, it may not have screamed that, but it did seem to scream, particularly to him, all… sorts of interesting things.
She turned to face them again, windblowing the veil and those chains around her waist and then something even more terrible and maddening happened.
She stretched her arms out again and titled backwards a little, and after a few good circling moves with her waist, she started moving it slowly like waves, her chest going outwards with her hips going backwards and she kept the sway enough time for Fenris to catch a glimpse of every shade and every curve her body made on the way. More so when she turned sideways and continued in the same manner, giving him a serious aneurism to battle in the meantime.
He was catching a glimpse of having her, of what she would be like with him, on top of him and stripped bare, dominating the situation in a way no one would dread or hate it.
And beyond those dark thoughts, another little, more decent one lurked around. That this was like an act of legitimization, of her legitimization. A mage free of her oppressors, but wanted dead or alive at any second if her cover was blown. And she kept on with her independent dance and savored her moments of doing whatever the hell she wanted. It was a beautiful thing to watch. Anything else just didn't matter and the rest of the world could go hang.
And it was not now, but long ago, now he realized, that his mind was attaching itself to her. She was taking over. It was like she had materialized where had been a dark figure before. He didn't like this at all.
But it was impossible, absolutely and positively impossible for him and perhaps anyone to picture her doing this and also, doing this with a lot of grace and control, as if she had an awful lot of training in it. It was—
No.
This was a dream. It must have been.
Unfortunately even so, Fenris had no interest of finding out if this was the case. He locked his eyes on her and savored it, forgetting everything and everyone else in the world and in the room. He felt his cheeks fill with blood and a rush everywhere.
He looked up at her, though his head was slightly bowed, and when he saw her large brown eyes with that evergreen on the edges almost brooding as she swayed and they stared at each other, the sense of her force intensified.
Her mouth was incredibly luscious. It was rouged without any sparkle, so that the deep red appeared natural and the bones of her pale shoulders moving and locking into place were for some mysterious reason as enticing to him as the full slope of her breasts.
But the current coming from her was not the sum of all the splendid physical details. No. It was as if she gave off invisible heat.
No, she wasn't dancing for him. Snap out of it, he thought.
Although —
A little anger came over him. What if she was doing it on purpose? Even if it was just a dare, she was a little cunning smartass who always knew how to get her way. It could have been so, considering that the fight wasn't really over. Or was it?
Well, there was certainly no peace that he could feel in a thousand mile radius, so there was definitely something there.
Therefore, this sight, the moves, everything—it was a dare, and that just offered the perfect justification to hide an attempt to—
I'm not getting sucked into this paranoia.
The smoke might have done something to his brain.
But he felt his fists urging to be clenched and a strange sensation of jealousy as Hawke took a hold of those layers of veil and flung them around herself when swaying around Varric and undulating in pirouettes. She put one of those veils around his neck and kept on dancing as she held the veil and pulled a confused Varric closer to her.
People started to woo and cheer and laugh, but Fenris wasn't laughing.
Her dance didn't have anything raw and sexual in it, neither did he gesture towards Varric, and it didn't seem to matter that this was a joke-punishment for the fun of it and it was Varric—seeing her do this with joy and confidence, the expression of liberty, and also just how terribly and absolutely irresistibleshe could be, and wanting her and all of it, they all just reinforced the issue that she was just as easily nobody's— as she's always been nobody's— as she was not his.
And the flickering hurricane lamps and the din of the evening crowd in the room struck a deep, primal chord of fear.
The frustration spiked again. That he needed and couldn't catch her.
And then came the old awareness that he wasn't really doing anything about it. Not with all the firmness and certainty in his being that he expressed on the outside to her. He was delving into extremes, he had no real idea about what he felt for her, ordaining desire as well as flight, he caught roots to Kirkwall but constantly talked about leaving it, and his behavior towards her was blight-damned incoherent.
Adding his rage that made for the reaction towards her secretly decorating his mansion, it really proved why Hawke was reluctant and incoherent in behavior herself. He suspected she did not want to give his mind too many shocks just when he started to adjust to actual freedom, but her mind might have been a storm of worry altogether—
—I must be terribly stupid, Fenris thought.
He remembered how many times he casually commented upon how Kirkwall was an excuse of a city and he wondered if he should leave it, and then her eyes would move away from him for a second, and he didn't give it much thought that maybe this meant she kept record of everything he had ever said and had never forgotten it, everything he had presented over the years—and some of it fated hope, but some of it also bothered her maybe a bit more than he thought and inspired a great deal of fear. Maybe she hated herself that she allowed herself to have feelings.
Maybe she didn't want to lose him?
And maybe she was in a war with herself. Maybe she wasn't liking the idea of feeling attached to someone all with having been the sole provider and protector of a family; and then to him of all people, who was the very symbol of flight. How many a times didn't she offer him the safety of free speech, where he in turn took it away from her? She must have known this. So she must have understood.
He felt a bit unclean. The rage she had a few hours ago, all the name calling and the shouting and the frustration—it was well-founded and he was surprised, having realized all of this, that she resisted for so long without screaming, cursing and punching him in the face. Everything just confirmed and reconfirmed this.
He sort of deserved it.
Sort of, he accentuated.
Why she would look at him, he couldn't conceive. But he didn't have time, and this also was not the time to question such things.
But what a thing to come out with now, really. Who did he think he was? Come to that, who did she think he was? And what did she think he was?
Brooding was not so much an art as it was a deeply inaccurate scientific method of screwing himself over and over with great results, he thought.
The fact of the matter was, that there could always be some other much better man for her, or even no one that she would choose and decide remaining alone was better, and neither of those alternatives did he like. All those fits of jealousy, and the one now, that had no real justification other than the thing he had just realized, they were all testament to something even he had to admit in his heart of hearts, was terribly simple—he wanted Hawke to be his. He wanted nothing but those intelligent eyes, that mystifying brain and that little rare smile of hers for himself and the rest of the world could go hang.
And Hawke in turn, was not his to ravage or feel scared to death for, yet both of those were still alive and burning and there wasn't a god that could roll a thunder on him that he wouldn't catch in his bare hand and throw back in the sky to burn the heavens down whenever she was in danger.
Or simply needed something. He would have done it. Anything. She wouldn't command, rarely would she even ask, but he'd already got accustomed to her pseudo-independence and modesty and sooner or later Fenris would tell her to shove that independence somewhere.
Of course, after he'd tell her some other things he very much neededto tell her. Of course, yes. Time after time, there was no more time. He stretched time long enough with his fears. He'd cursed the darkness far too long without so much as lighting a candle.
But his mind went into overdrive, too many thoughts and sensations piling up one on top of the other and suffocating each other in-between. Most of those realizations remained locked into the realm of Forgot About It The Next Second On Account Of Being Drunk.
Yes, this may well have been a case where chilly logic should have been replaced by the common sense of, perhaps, the average chicken.
He wondered where drunk cheerful Fenris was. Probably, very likely, locked deep into another world not very different from their own, where he was too busy giving names to chairs and oil lamps.
The only clear thing was that she was a woman and he was a man and she was nobody's woman and he was very much ready to change that, whatever it may take.
And common sense clearly dictated today was not the day.
It struck in him such an inconvenience that he felt like smashing the table.
Turning her back on them, she rocked left and right again while lowering herself, and with the last three beats she flung her arms out and absorbed all the light from the candles and waved the flames in her hands around her waist. Turning back, she clamped her hands together and blew in them, creating a roaring tornado of flames turned into a dragon to fly above them and just as quickly disappear.
It was pitch-black now and people started cheering and whistling.
She bowed in the darkness and then shot a few flames in the candles nearby again.
After a while—after all the cheers and wows and after Varric regained his wits—there was general laughter and drinking and gift giving and reminiscing. Nostalgia was unfortunately not a very good choice of feeling at this time. He tried not to keep up with what people were saying and kept to his coffee that was now ice cold instead of satanically hot. Great.
After a surprisingly short while, Varric went from his general attitude of the night of mortified, worried and much too sober to easy, not giving a fuck, just the right amount of drunk.
It was time, and the time was now. Only that another second passes and it's not the same time anymore as it was that one second ago, and in all this time spent pondering on this heavy detritus of thoughts, another few seconds of meaningless are firing up. And this was the most coherent philosophy Varric could bring himself to concentrate on before bursting up in loud cackles and old man giggles pretty fast.
Different sets of eyes beheld him with different sorts of uprising eyebrows.
"Varric," said Hawke whilst eyeing him with a special kind of smile.
"Yes, Hawke?" Varric traditionally saluted, with a special kind of after-cackle. One of his hands fell on the table, tossed half of his pant on it.
"Maybe we should—"
"Have that threesome you keep talking about, how 'bout that?" said Varric happily.
"Hello," said Isabela predatorily.
"Not with you, Rivaini, although — actually, no. Definitely not."
Hawke couldn't bring herself to verbalize anything logical. The most she could produce was an amused and slightly crept out stare and a, "Come again?"
Varric smiled. "Exactly," he said.
"Er—"
"Seems only fair," said Varric calmly, with air of someone who really had relying evidence that it did seem only fair. "And—"
"And that's it for you and the yahoo juice," said Fenris at a fraction of unholy speed of thought. He took his pint one fraction later and left Varric with the last million fractions of heavily annoyed snaky stares.
"You're just cutting me off so you could have her for yerself," said Varric, winking with a pointed finger at him and nodding incoherently.
Fenris weighed between the hubbub of thoughts in his head. It was considerably light.
He pushed the pint back at him. "Knock yourself out," he said.
"Aw, don't fret, you can join," said Varric drunkenly. He looked at Hawke. "Right, Pantaloons?"
"Er—"
"I'll pass, but maybe next time," Fenris said with a blank stare.
The complete silence from the other people present at the table helped so much.
Consequently, Varric went on, elbowing Hawke with saucy eyebrows. "Hear that, Hawke? There's gonna be a next time, but until then I own you."
"Er—"
"How can you ever refuse such a gallant man?" said Fenris with a smug grin, to make things worse. But then he went on, "If this is all he can do, I'm not even worried."
"Hear that, Hawke? He was worried," Varric said cheerfully, elbowing her fits of absolute awkwardness.
"Hear that, Varric? He was sarcastic," Hawke whispered loudly.
"Exactly," said Varric confidently. "He's sarcastic about not being worried, ergo he is worried."
His logic worked fine, only that it operated from thousands of miles away and therefore those arrows of rationality misfired into dangerous open fields of weird.
"You caught me, Varric," said Fenris with a smug look.
"Hey, ho, don't be sad," Varric tattled, flinging his hand in his direction with a brotherly air. "You can have her when I'm done."
"Oh, I'm not sure I could do much after I'm done with you, Varric," said Hawke, wisely deciding to join in the insanity rather than stay out of it and feel miserable (This is a generally wise decision for people to make about living life itself).
"That's true," Varric said while nodding, chin in his hand. "Can't make the world fall from under your feet twice, that's just basic science."
Basic science also dictated that either Varric was achieving whole new astronomic levels of bullshitting or there was some serious pent up frustration hidden beyond those hard layers of Tethrasian self-sufficiency.
"That's quite alright," said Fenris calmly. "I defy the laws of nature on a daily basis, as you already know."
So many jokes about glowing fists and getting under one's skin came to mind that Hawke decided to bite her tongue and stay quiet for the duration.
"You may have it easy with breaking the laws of Mother Nature, but it takes skill to sneak around Her and work it from the inside," said Varric confidently.
"Well, as I said before, you are a man of many words…" said Fenris with a deliberate smug look on his face.
"Just what are you fighting for?" Hawke finally intervened.
Fenris was about to clarify he was too sleepy and bored to think of anything else than making fun of Varric, but the dwarf outran him. "Yeah, elf, we shouldn't waste our time fighting like cocks when there's enough of Hawke for the both of us."
"Did you just call me—"
"—backboned enough to take double the fun," said Varric with a wink.
Just what did he drink? Hawke scanned the table quickly, and then the icy bowl of no booze and a lot of water, and remarked upon the fact that certain people weren't paying attention to their conversation at all, whereupon she sighed in relief.
Since she said nothing, Fenris resolved not to stop here at making fun of Varric and went on. "You sound very determined, Varric," he said, abstaining from drawing up amused expressions.
"I am always determined, except for when I'm not," said Varric.
Since Hawke seemed uncharacteristically devoid of witty interventions, and her cheeks seemed awfully flushed, Fenris's evil drunken mind decided to just go on.
And while he was at that, he decided this needed to be taken up a level on the scale of being an absolute bastard.
"But how do we decide, er— where we would—" said Fenris with a nerve in his tone and coughed, "—er… be?"
"We could flip for it," said Varric nonchalantly.
In the meantime, Hawke was hazardously looking over the walls, down the stairs, under the table—
Fenris's eyebrows locked into concentration. "Alright…what is heads and what is tails then?"
"Well if you don't know that then I don't wanna do this with you, man," said Varric reproachfully.
"And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen—" said Hawke with a mock disdainful smile, "my two best pals in all their glory."
"If you don't leave out that sarcasm, you ain't getting any of us, Princessita," said Varric.
"That's alright," said Hawke.
Varric grimaced in a pretend-nonchalant expression. "Suit yourself," he said. "Me and Broody can—" he said, and then the arrows of logic finally boomeranged back in his cerebral DO NOT CONTINUE THAT SENTENCE area and wisely stopped from continuing wherever that sentence was going.
"Yeeeees?" said Hawke with a predatory smile.
"—can play a round of Diamondback and lose my money for a change," said Fenris quickly in order to effectively prevent any brainfarts from all mighty weird drunken Varric.
"Did I hear Diamondback?" said Isabela, turning to them in an instant.
"Like moth to a flame," Fenris commented, shaking his head. Ignoring whatever purry line Isabela was going to shoot, he turned his head to Hawke and Varric. "Anyway, what do you say?" He put his hands on the table. "Shall we have a quick round?"
"Yessir," said Varric happily.
"Hawke?" said Fenris. She didn't answer. "Or are you afraid you'll have to hack Isabela's ugly jewelry to own up to us?"
"Plus, you know, the rejection right on my name day," said Varric.
"That's alright," said Hawke, and rose up from the table. "I am a woman of my word, and since I've not given any, I'll own up to my non-statement."
"Goin' somewhere, Pantaloons?"
"Yeah, I'm going to sleep."
Too much was too much for one night. She was still fairly spiteful and angry, and from acting all smiles and diverting strange lines from Varric on which Fenris did not help at all, it was a hard choice. And she chose the bed next door.
After a thousand passionate protests and promises on Varric's part not to joke around proposing nasty stuff, and after crawling away from his hold and drag of her veil, she finally said good night and left the room.
Hawke
In the dark hallway I walked, preparing to make a right turn for my rented room.
A pair of hands grabbed me by the arms and turned me around. A pair of hands held me firmly and a pair of hands shoved me against the wall and locked me there—
I swear that this was a recurring motif of some sort.
A light shifted. A wall lamp must have started flickering, because something brightened only slightly and I saw Fenris with uncommon clarity. He looked young and eager, and almost irresistibly determined as he stared at me, but there was nothing young about him, not in the usual sense. The flickering light was spilling on him beautifully, on his white shirt and black coat and everything about him was effortlessly attractive.
"Strange though it is, Varric is reasonable and I am not. He told me to leave you alone. But I think, this time, I must disobey the general," Fenris said calmly, that kind of cold tone containing a secretive and powerful aggressiveness. He pushed me further into the wall. He caught my face and brought it firmly to look at him. His green eyes were full with severity.
With a hungry and decisive deep tone he then said, "You are mine".
Total absence of discernible pulse. I didn't answer. I only stared into his eyes.
"And I intend to make you suffer," he said.
I tightened the lower parts of my eyes in a frustrated expression. "Just talking to you makes me suffer," I said.
"Well, how unfortunate for you, Princess," Fenris said cuttingly, his eyes stern and immovable. "I intend to do more than just talk."
The bastard kissed me. I was so mad, I bit him hard enough to draw blood. Fenris pulled back, lip already beginning to swell.
"We are no longer even, Fenris," I said angrily. "You are as of now in my debt."
"You can deduct it from my slow and painful death," Fenris said.
He kissed me and I felt that shock again. I started to pull back, all rage and frustration, but I didn't, obviously couldn't make up my mind to if fast enough and it started again, that energy, that vibration with the pull of his open mouth.
It was the touch of someone burning with fever, the hot dancing tips of his fingers, and it was further heated by some low sound he made, like a tender growl with barely opening his lips. The kind that maddens even the iciest of nuns.
"You belong to me," he said in something lower than a whisper.
"Yes, Fenris," I answered. Why the hell did I say that? I watched helplessly as his fingers dropped to my waistline and encaged it madly as my body tensed. The sensation shot down right through the most private part of me.
"Mine," he said.
I felt his compulsion to answer him, but I didn't say anything, my mouth opening and then closing on his hot and tender lips. That sweet, clean smoky scent came to me again, flooding me. I thought, I can't bear this. I have to do… something. He is using some altogether new weapon on me. I can't be tormented like this, in this dark and silent place. This is too much.
And our eyes met again, the heat blazing in his, his lips just parted to show the barest flash of white teeth.
I stood numbly in the glare of that faint, sickly light. My senses were flooded. Even the noise from afar seemed to penetrate me, the sweetish smell of smoke and that mysterious cologne to drug me slightly, the hands that now were on me stoking the mixture of dread and desire that I couldn't hide.
"Aren't we a couple of geniuses?" he whispered to me suddenly. It was startling to hear him speak like that. But the expression on his face was even more surprising. He was taking it in the same dazed way that I was taking it in, as if we'd been drifting for hours together in the heat and a lifetime in words and inside jokes. That was more or less true, though.
"Yeah, I think so," I said. My voice sounded as strange as his. I was steaming.
"You like it?" he said. No irony. It was like he'd forgotten who we both were.
"Yeah, I like it," I said. I got a powerful, secret satisfaction from the innocence of his face and voice. And when he looked up at me I winked at him. I could swear he blushed as he looked off.
"I'll work that smile off your face," he said, which strengthened the convivial tension.
I looked at him, half wanting him, half hating him, unable to detect what he really thought of this.
Damn it. How did this happen. What did I want? What did he want to do with me? What the hell did it matter?
The hallway was fading like the light was being closed off. And then coming back gradually and brightly. He had come closer, blotting out the light of the fire a little, staring at me in an unyielding and impatient manner, and I could see the light over his shoulder. I could smell some sort of cologne on him over the scent of cigars and smoke.
I was disintegrating.
I didn't want, for just a minute or two, to see his face. I had to break away from him. I had to get myself under command again.
When you are a warrior, you learn to watch everything, the slightest change in expression or respiration, all the little signals of distress that vary enormously from person to person and from hit to hit when you talk or fight them. Ideally, you are also involved. Impassioned. But you learn to do it so well that you don't need to be burning anymore. And sometimes the burn is so steady and so continuous that you're not aware how powerful it is until you start to bring it close.
But something else was going on here. I wasn't just magnetized by him. I was involved. It was agony for me not to look at him every second, not to touch his skin, his hair. Without really thinking at all, I wanted to provoke his rebelliousness again, his absolutely surprising insolence, his sense of being right there.
What I couldn't stand was the idea of conquering him—in a way that would suddenly feel wrong to him. He had every right to expect me to do this, I think.
And the rational part of me kept trying to figure out what was really going on with the two of us, why I was out of hand.
I thought this without much hope for an answer as I watched him with the back of my eye doing that dance. There was a little muscle dancing in his cheek, a red flush. It was driving him crazy. He looked off when I'd look at him and I could see the glaze over his eyes.
He's a thousand times more handsome than any man from any imagined species, not just physically, understand. He's also a thousand times sweeter than one would imagine him and only I really knew that. But he does have a slightly cruel expression when he isn't smiling, a toughness that he hasn't invented, but on the contrary, tries to conceal sometimes. He doesn't like his own toughness all that much. He takes it for granted.
And green eyes, yes, unbelievable, and infinitely beautiful by sunlight, torchlight, incandescent light, whether or not he is smiling, staring, merely thoughtful, grave. And why, I was telling the truth when I said I didn't quite see much in the Deep Roads, that 'not quite so much' was enough. Well that, and the number of times I walked on him sleeping. Despicable markings or no, his body is the body for a man to have. Say no more.
Now add the bearing, and the deep inflection of the voice and the way he does almost everything calculatingly and more than that, reads my mind in battle as if he could hear my thoughts –Go right and avert the guy's eyes from Person X. Parry with the edge and lock the guy in place while I cut his head off from behind. Watch out though, there's another faggot aiming at you. That's it. Abort, abort! That sort of thing.
And how he syncs with my inner monologues and ideas, brings light to some incomplete spaces in my head more often than not, actually understands my need for pondering life so much, speaks up, has the balls to protest and has the balls to overthrow me with the sole intention of doing things better and not just for a smart crack with deliberate arrogance— but still can't help making little jokes and being a smartass—Well, you've got Mister Fenris with inveterate elegance.
I needed someone like Fenris with me, and this I hadn't realized right from the start. Before having him in my life, I tended to get myself in the worst of trouble in the most reckless manner because I would get carried away with my own cockiness and reassurance that I was the best of the best. So when Fenris came into the picture, well, he showed me I was cutting my own throat sometimes, best of the best or no. I had someone to keep me in tune and remind me that I can't just jump a whole board to get to the king and it's checkmate. He'd reminded me, time after time, that there was no room for victory without a constant seeking for strategy, because that was the only way I'd be a few moves ahead of my opponents. That is always and forever will be the one and only way to win a fight. Well, not only a fight, understand.
Why else do you think did I start to unconsciously use battle stratagems from the Ferelden Art of War in my conversations with Fenris?
A buzzkill once and a wiseass thrice he may be, but he has a reason to.
And even if I can't quite articulate it, let's say he had stricken me as the kind of person who would turn into the most loyal of friends, a truthful and dedicated guy that only drew the line at "evil", the kind that would never forget a good deed you did for him and who would walk through hell with you in return if he needed to.
And well, I never fell in love, never believed all that stuff about guys "kissing" better than others. But damned if he doesn't know how to kiss. Correction, though not very necessary, how to kiss me. Rough and really luscious, and affectionate in a way it can only be between equals, real equals, and with him I always felt the potential for acceleration.
When I danced, I was doing it for the fun of it, obviously, and I was laughing inside at how I threw everyone off completely, thinking I had absolutely no idea how to make a damn good show without making a fool of myself or going overly out of the line. And well, I was a smartass, so I took Aveline for her exact words— dance-around.
But I loathed it suddenly, the artifice of it, and yet the excitement, the sense of the forbidden, the sheer lust at seeing Fenris watch me helplessly, and concealing it almost perfectly… well, that was still there. And he was feeling it; he wasn't flagging for a second. But he was really out on the edge.
And now I pay for it, yes? Yes.
Apart from dry skin and hair, he felt like a man just out of a steambath, his chest heaving, his breath coming in little pants.
He looked just about as enticing as he'd ever looked, and he was silent, licking his lips, only his color and the dancing muscles in his face revealing how mad he was.
He squeezed at my arms and held me in place as I tried to get away. He would not give me a chance.
"Bastard," I said.
"Princess," he said, this time the taunt in his voice a little more on the seductive side.
"Don't do that," I said. "I'm trying to think, Fenris."
Those blot-out rough kisses, scent, taste of Fenris, Fenris's lips, Fenris's skin—
"Do not stop on account of me," he said with mock nonchalance, continuing to kiss me.
"Stop," I said softly. I couldn't see anything. Absolutely paralyzing kisses this man could give. "I wonder why the hell I'm bothering to fight."
"Hmm," he said in a deep and soft manner, approaching his lips to my ear and oh, what a devil, running cold fingers beneath the coat along my hip. "I'm wondering the same thing."
"Will you cut it out, someone might see, damn it," I said angrily.
"See what?" he said, like a smart aleck.
"You take delight in vexing me," I said. "You have no compassion for my poor nerves."
"You mistake me, my dear," Fenris said, kissing my neck indifferently. "I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these last three years."
"Oh what a smart mouth you have," I said, turning my head to him. He backed away and stared at me, so I continued, "Is that all you can do, Fenris? Be a smart mouth?"
His mouth twisted a little, looked a little mean.
"I'll take that silence as a final answer?" I said, trying to reconstruct my tone to the usual sardonics, but failing a little on the way.
There came a chiding look from him, as if to say, "You know better."
"Right," I said. "You are quite sturdy. I remember."
And then he did smile, and his eyes gave a brighter ever more secretive gleam, as he gazed at me possessively. Ah, yes that rare smile that gave his green eyes their lovely sly shadowy depth when they tightened.
"And you are quite hopeless," Fenris said with the darkest of looks and that smile.
The breath went out of me. The breath just left me. I looked directly into his eyes and I saw that drive again, but that was not the most imposing thing in his expression, no. I saw a pure unadulterated affection, and acceptance, and then very gently, as gently as a golem wearing mittens could get, he laid his hand on my left shoulder.
"It appears so," I said, eyes tightened. "What do you want?"
A slow change came over his expression. The smile was gone, but there was no animosity there and I realized now that there had never been. An air of superiority, of secretive superiority, had marked him before, but this expression was unguarded and spontaneous.
"Why, I do not want anything," Fenris said calmly, stroking my shoulder, sizing me up. "I already have what I want, don't I?"
Damn smart mouth.
"And it doesn't matter what I want, does it?" I said with a little contempt.
"Oh, it does, of course it does," Fenris said, keeping that cold tone. He started running his fingers through my hair with that Void-hated nonchalance. I watched him angrily and boiling inside. "I value your wishes," he said.
"Yes, I can see how that is most important right now," I said ironically.
He gave me the half-lidded eyes look. "Well? What do you wish, Hawke?" he demanded.
"Take a guess—"
"The truth is most important," Fenris interrupted. Smirking like a prick, he went on, "You can see how that is different."
"The truth is you are an idiot," I said.
He looked ominous for a second, his eyebrows knotted, his mouth just a tiny bit hard.
Then the smile came back, sort of irresistible.
"Obviously," he said with that smile, sizing me up again as if to give me the proverbial argument for my own statement. Damn smart mouth.
"Weedy bat-fowling—"
"Shut up," Fenris said, and clamped my mouth with his put one arm around me and pulled me close to him, the feel of his fingers against me pretty maddening. He lifted me up against the wall, my arms around his neck, and scarce could I remember how from that we ended up in my room, in the very same position. Ah, yes, he swept me off my feet and carried me through the doorway, giving me the dark velvety grin on the way.
But the tension was growing, and the energy flowing out of him and into me was building up towards something my mind was not ready to comprehend.
I almost begged him, said, "please." My heart was skipping as if I'd been running miles. I was on the very edge of bolting, just backing off from him—I didn't know what exactly—trying to shatter his power. Yet there wasn't the remotest possibility that I could or would.
"You are quite strong, Hawke," he said. "Would you like to try to break loose?"
I shook my head. I knew he was going to touch me again. I couldn't stand the tension.
"Well?" Fenris said, taking one step to encage my left side, and something wonderfully hard almost grazing me.
"I don't kn— I… No," I said. The sweat had broken out all over me. His fingers moved over my lower back, shocking my skin as he pressed his nails down over my spine. I couldn't keep quiet. Quickly and defiantly, he dropped his hand to grab my ass.
I moved my hips back away from him. And his left hand went up behind my neck. He moved to my side, his devil right hand going up again against the side of my ribs and my hip, the fingernails biting into it. I tried not to grimace.
"Kiss me, Hawke," he said.
I turned my head towards him, and his lips nudged at my mouth, opening it, driving that heated force again in me. I locked tight on his mouth and caught his tongue in mine in a second. And the sting came again, that low acute sting inside like the faintest of a dust particle that sooner or later will blow up in a massive vault of energy. Yes, in the beginning there was nothing, which soon exploded. He kissed me like he had me on a hook, he kissed me as if I was the only woman in this world he would kiss. He held me that way, and the power of it, that massive current, it canceled the ground under my feet. His nails pinched my flesh as he clamped my hips, but the pain was just enough to feel it like spiky shocks of pleasure. Oh, even his tongue was commanding mine; it blocked any of my leading attempts, caught it and swirled it into his sending that hot damned force of his right through. I hadn't the faintest cognition to see that I was moaning in his mouth, but I did feel him grin madly as I did it.
He pulled away suddenly, and I closed my eyes. "Maker," I whispered.
Something even more terrible happened and I barely realized it only after it was happening. He wasn't done. Without a care, he pulled close again and I felt a hot tongue on my neck, and a bite so hard that I winced. Now I did very much realize I was moaning out loud. He went up the line, over my ear, and licked it gently, ever so gently, and I thought I'd go mad.
"Fen—"
He put a hand over my mouth and went about his business.
In retrospect, it would have been wiser to have ran for it. Instead I tried to pull his hand off my mouth, even if a highly charmed and terribly dumb part of me was quite enjoying itself in that position.
He grabbed my hand, shoved it away, and took my other hand and dragged me to the bed. Or more precisely, almost threw me.
I landed facedown and began to fade away as soon as I felt those hands on my back. They clamped my hips, almost ripped the shirt up and then came the lips.
My skin, all over had come alive. He bit into the flesh, licked at it.
My body went rigid, my teeth gritted. I could feel his tongue moving very slowly right up along my spine.
"I can't… I can't…" I said between my gritted teeth. I was pulling the sheets.
Then I felt him breathing against my cheek over me, his fingers stroking my back and a low, thumping feeling rolled through me, intensifying the sensation. Soft, silky kiss, and the urgency doubled. Something in my head snapped.
"You want me, Hawke?"
Some protective membrane had been ruptured. My mind couldn't catch up with it. My eyes were wet.
"Open your eyes and look at me," Fenris said.
I turned my head innocently. The image was stunning—his strong form and the gleaming eyes staring so perfectly from their shadowy depth under his manly black eyebrows, his face so seemingly unbreakable, his lips so irresistibly shaped. I hardly saw his hands move, or reach up, until I felt his hand at the back of my hair, his face very close to mine as he said, "Turn around."
I was making some soft angry and helpless noise. I couldn't move. Yet I was doing exactly what he said.
His arms went around me and locked there.
"I loathe you," I whispered. "You fucking bastard."
"Sure you do, Hawke," he whispered back.
I was saying all kinds of little curses under my breath.
He's going to do whatever he wants with me, I thought. He's not through with me. Quick simmer of excitement, but I was so mad. At him or at myself didn't make much of a difference. And I really asked for it, didn't I? Doing what I did to him in the alley, saying those things, and taunting him with that dance, so it's going to be hard. Did I think that overpowering him in the alley and leaving him breathless like that would stop him? Scared. Slow boil.
But I did know he wouldn't do it if I didn't ask for it.
So why the panic inside? Because it was him that was doing all this, up until I'd say stop? Because never before had I ever had one of them who tormented me like this, not the way I'd had him. This wasn't meanness or ill-intent or malice. But he was playing with my permissions, and I was the doll that felt all things. And all I could think about, in spite of this, was that proverbial line of the helpless apostate to the mad Templar, "Whip me, beat me, lock me up, just don't kill me, Sir."
He came closer. He bent over, the buttons of his shirt brushing against my shoulder, and he kissed my cheek. Cologne and silken hair. I shifted against the sheet, thinking I can't come like a school girl from him kissing me, that's nuts.
"What is this, Hawke? All flustered already?" And his lips touched me again, feeding on my neck.
"And what if I am?" I asked defiantly.
"Take a guess," he said.
I didn't dare say anything.
This wasn't horrific, but I was, in a sense, terrified. He wasn't thinking clearly, neither was I, and I spiked something a little sadistic in him, I knew it. I felt a spike of guilt over it, that I had imagined things like this, and it was doubled, the excitement and the fear. They'd always be wearing masks in my imagination, or faceless or just dark figures. It didn't matter who the hell they were, really, as long as they said the right things. But he wasn't wearing a mask. The fantasy wasn't cloaking him.
"Fenris," I said, and I instantaneously forgot what I wanted to say.
"Yes, Hawke?" he said.
"I don't like this—"
He laughed.
"You have to do better than that."
"Yessir."
He shook his head. He was studying me. I licked my lips a little, looking at his mouth. He was frowning slightly, his eyelashes a dark fringe as he looked down and then back up at me. "I like the way you say Fenris," he said, thoughtfully, as if he was considering devilishly. "Let's change it to 'Yes, Fenris'."
"Yes, Fenirs." I was trembling.
"Good," he said.
What a laugh it would be if he knew how scared and panicky I was, or maybe even how incredibly aroused I was with just this.
There was an efficiency to the way he kissed, making every gentle movement count.
I was getting a little scared for the first time now. All the good humor had drained out of his face. And the anger wasn't here either, the way it had been before.
"Naturally, there is also the option of, 'No, Fenris'," he said calmly. "But I do not like that one very much, to be honest."
So he's not losing it. Good.
"Really now," I said rebelliously.
"I'd hate it if you said that, however," Fenris said. "But you can, if you wish to."
"Well I'm quite happy with having the choice," I said meaninglessly. My choice was already made, and I had no real contribution to it.
"And?"
"And I choose for you to shut—"
"It's time I made the talking around here, if you don't mind," he said with half-lidded eyes.
"Okay…" I said. Something close to danger was lurking in that sentence, wasn't it?
But then he took a little break from talking, possibly to construct the speech in his head, and the agonizing kisses, the rough squeeze on my hips, the toughness of hand dancing around on me, and well, the general absolute hell he was harrowing on top of me seemed to help with it a great deal.
It was like a test, the way he spread those stings of heat, and the pleasure built slowly, luxuriously.
I could feel myself breaking down, a slow exhilaration building under the pain, all the defenses weakening that would have been solid against him, had he gone at it more brutally.
"You know you belong to me," he said.
"Yes, Fenris," I answered naturally, spontaneously.
"Have you had better?" he asked.
"I asked you a question. Have you had better?" he said politely, but a little impatiently. "I would like to know."
Oh what sort of question is that, I thought. He wouldn't ask me this in a million years. He could barely ask or say anything that personal all with his cold, private goddamned manner. In another realm, I would have given him quite the witty little taunting response, but I kept my mouth shut.
But I had to answer, his eyes were already piercing me that it almost hurt. It felt good to see him like this. But I was a damned logical being and I couldn't help not push it myself. "Don't you think I should give you such an evaluation in earnest after I see more of what you can do, Fenris?"
"Not yet," Fenris said.
"Well then, we agree that I can't give you an answer," I said.
"That's alright," he said. "You've already answered in a way."
"And how would you know?" I said. "How would I know?"
"There is always time for that," he said
"So you're playing with me," I said.
"Intelligently," he said.
"Yeah, you're quite the fucking wise mouth," I said.
"I am more than a wise mouth," Fenris said.
I would have went up, overpowered him by force. I knew I could. And I would have snapped him out of it, told him to stop his revenge or whatever this was. I would have told him that I wanted him, that I quite understood now the nature of my feelings, and if he didn't, then that's alright too. That it was all alright. Yet I wanted him to talk, I wanted to hear what he wanted and I needed words and deeds that didn't tie us to a bed.
I would have said all that, yet I didn't.
Instead I said, "Yeah, you could also skin me alive or rip my heart out, can't you?"
He bent down and kissed me and I thought I would finally spend, couldn't control it, the wet feeding of his mouth, the way of kissing that was unlike any kissing I'd ever had.
"I could rip your heart out," he said. "But I only wanted you a little heated."
"Oh, is that how it is," I said, more to myself.
"It can be anything you wish," he said.
I looked up at him again, afraid he would lock me in that paradoxical logic and I would somehow be doomed. Utterly and completely doomed. But I was melting into his warm gaze and something snapped again.
"Would you…?" I whispered. "Might I make one little request?"
He regarded me almost coldly for a moment. "All right."
"Let me kiss you again, Fenris, just once."
He stared at me. But then he bent to grant it and I reached up and took hold of him and it was like his heat roaring into me, that brutal and that lyric at the same time.
"Let go, Hawke," he said, and he sounded strict and disapproving, but his fingers were clinging to me, and he released me as if he was the one who'd been told to do it, not me.
I felt that vague ripple of feeling that the Orlesians call frisson. I looked at him in the eye. But I didn't dare ask to kiss him again. He'd say no.
"Look down, brown eyes," he said, but he wasn't disapproving. Oh well now, that was quite the hard on in his pants. I swallowed hard. When I had him in the alley, I looked pretty sure of myself. I knew what I was doing and he locked into me, paralyzed and melted. Now I felt pretty stupid. I felt like the most innocent and chaste girl who winced even at a dirty word. The sight of it, even elusive because of the fabric and everything, was overwhelming. Yes, now the tables had turned. He was the boss.
"Now I won't do anything else to you," he said in a gentle voice. "I am a gentleman and this is as far as I allow myself to go."
I lifted my eyebrows innocently. He gave a low, vibrant laugh.
Then his green eyes and appealing mouth gleamed into the most provocative smile I'd seen of him yet. "I want more, you understand." Oh, that sounded as maddeningly seductive as it did completely innocent. "But I still have one lonely wide awake muscle—I started to chuckle under him—of the mental sorts," he said with disapproving eyes, "Therefore I know this is the worst time and place for other activities."
I started to chuckle again, but stopped when it occurred to me he was trying to be honest and perhaps say these things out loud to make it sink in for me so I won't be frightened, but more for him to get his mind on command. I remained silent and let him continue, "So this is where I draw the line. But—"
"Could you do what you did before?" I asked daringly, staring him in the eye. I grinned. "Could you take it?"
He looked at me fixedly for a second, considering something. "I might," he said. "But—"
"And also—"
He put a finger on my lips and gave me that hard, blank stare again that said he was deciding the 'also's' of the situation. "But one lapse, I mean one little flare of that hot-headed Ferelden balderdash on me again and I won't be so polite anymore, you understand?"
I looked at him and couldn't even nod. I didn't dare say a thing.
"—And I will be very angry with you too, like you were with me," Fenris said. His eyes became tight and demanding. "Does that mean anything?"
"Yes… yes, Fenris." I threw him another glance, bittersweet.
He laughed the same way he had before, in a low warm riff, and he kissed me on the cheek again, and I looked at him again, with a flicker of something more subtle than a smile. It was like flirting with him in the sliest fashion. Kiss me again. He didn't.