A/N: You have every right to hate me after reading this.
Warnings: language, drinking, some sexiness and crudeness, mentions of some Carver x Isabela, which I think is an oddly cute couple.
Hawke downed the last of her ale, her head feeling heavy on her neck, and propped her chin in her hand as she stared across the table at Isabela.
"So have you talked to him at all?" the pirate asked, kicking an idle foot onto the nearest empty chair. Her cunning amber eyes settled on Hawke and to her credit, Isabela was valiant in her effort not to smirk, though she failed in the end.
After he returned from his mercenary work in Redcliffe, Fenris seemed distant, even to Hawke. Not that he avoided her, but he didn't seek her out like he once had. He accompanied her on her various quests and jobs, even reminded her to bring him along when she dealt with the Qunari, but she felt as if he hadn't come back, or as if he had left some vital part of himself in Fereldan.
"No, I haven't talked to him," she mumbled, looking away from her friend to study the tabletop.
Night after night she replayed the morning he left, the way he burst into her mansion and scared Bodahn and Sandal half to death, charging up the stairs into her bedroom. She remembered how he stared at her, brushing sleep-tousled hair from the side of her face and leaning forward for just a second to touch his lips to hers. And she cursed herself again and again for not leaning into it, for being too startled and confused and half-conscious to respond.
Isabela smacked the table with an open palm, drawing Hawke's attention back to her. "If you don't talk to him tonight, I'm going to go and talk to him," she announced. Her eyes glittered with whiskey and deviousness. "He's too handsome to be alone in that mansion all night."
She'd found a tome of Tarahone's a few weeks earlier and, while no one was watching, had slipped the small book into the pouch of potions at her side. She didn't dare look at it, but since Fenris had returned, she found herself thinking more and more about Bethany's death and Carver joining the Templars. For some reason having the tome comforted her, though it was a pale comparison to the man she wanted to be there. It was dangerous and powerful, though, and she opened her desk each night to stare at it, never touching it, just as she had with the elf before he left.
Hawke gripped the table and realized that smoke rose from where her fingers dug into the wood. She scowled, reigning in her angry energy, and narrowed her eyes at the pirate. "Don't even think about it," she growled, surprised to hear the jealousy in her tone. A moment later she felt her cheeks burn as Isabela's expression turned from teasing seductress to cat with the canary.
"You know that your elf stole the dirtiest pages of my story, right?" the pirate laughed and drained her glass just as Varric joined them.
Before Hawke could attempt to change the subject by asking him how his meeting with the Merchants' Guild went, the dwarf chuckled and said, "You still haven't told her?"
Her blood ran cold and she glared at each of the rogues in turn. "Does everyone know about this?" she demanded, her mind awhirl with questions. Why would Fenris have taken those pages? What did he do with them? What did it mean that he had stolen Isabela's sordid story?
"No," answered Isabela without hesitation. The waitress brought everyone a new round and the pirate sipped hers before continuing. "Varric knows because I went to him first, looking for the missing bits. Thought he was stealing my intellectual property."
Varric snorted. "Hawke's real romance is much better," his voice took on the narrator's tone he used when drawing in an audience. "Gripping, compelling, forever teasing us with the question: will they end up together, or are they going to circle each other forever, agonizing with their unrecognized love until the end of time?"
Damn his keen observation. Hawke sniffed, trying to sound dainty and offended, but even to her own ears she sounded like she was trying not to cry.
Isabela sighed and reached out to pat Hawke's hand. "Don't worry, sweet thing, we're trying to help you two stubborn mules to stop butting heads and just hump already," she said, her skin as warm as if the sun and sea lived just beneath the surface. "And I mean that in the most romantic, sincerest possible way," she added without smirking.
Hawke wished it wasn't so comforting, but the pirate had proven to be a decent friend, almost fervent in her determination to win forgiveness for the story incident. This was the first Isabela had spoken of it since leaving the brig with a two-page letter of apology scratched on chamber-pot paper. Hawke still had it in her desk as a trophy, and she had longed to show Fenris since he returned but had yet to gather the courage.
"You do love to try my patience," Hawke managed a smile and squeezed the warm Rivaini fingers for a second before relinquishing them in favor of her ale.
"Look at it this way, Hawke," Varric piped up from where he'd shed all the trappings of his meeting—the satchel full of scrolls and house seals and everything he hated—and downed half his pint. "One of you has to do something. Either you or him, and we picked you."
"Maker, I hate you, dwarf," she muttered, echoing one of Carver's favorite phrases. Thinking of her brother reminded her of how Fenris had remained stoic when she most needed his support, and her eyes ached. She sighed, shook her head, and took a gulp of ale, disappointed at her failed joke.
He'd been gone all day, since they hunted down and killed his former master's apprentice, an evil witch by the name of Hadriana. When she tried to talk to him about it he shook her off and snarled that he needed to be alone, after which he disappeared. Hawke's fruitless search for him through Kirkwall and the surrounding paths had ended at the Hanged Man. She was too depressed to return home just yet, and the combination of cheap ale and her friends' humor had remedied her sorrow in the past.
"Like I said, I'll go talk to him for you," Isabela offered. Her brows rose and she gestured to encompass her scanty clothing and prominent cleavage as she continued, "I won't pretend I wouldn't do it if I could, but he won't even look at me. He only has eyes for you, love."
"Like I said," Varric smirked, sipping his ale, "Epic love story."
Her cheeks flamed as she looked at her friend, wondering how any man could resist Isabela's particular set of charms. The idea that Fenris cared for her enough to avoid any other women, even one as willing as the pirate, made her stomach and chest warm. Maybe the ale had gone to her head.
"Isabela," she sighed, wishing that the pirate didn't make so much sense in her ale-addled state, "I've been looking for him all day. I tried stopping at his house when I got back from those awful holding caves. It was the first place I looked."
The Rivaini leaned forward, an eager grin on her face, displaying cleavage that made several other patrons turn and stare at her. "Want me to check the Rose?"
Hawke sputtered. "No! Maker, if he's gone to the Rose," she murmured, head spinning and heart pounding. She didn't want to think of it. She lurched to her feet, ale forgotten. "I have to go find him," she said.
Varric and Isabela exchanged glances. "You need to get some sleep. You're tipsy and if he isn't at his house, you're not going to find him in this state," the dwarf announced. He heaved a long-suffering sigh and stood up, slinging Bianca onto his back. "Come on. I'll walk you home."
After a moment, Hawke stood and followed him outside. Varric glanced up at her with a sympathetic smile as she turned to shut the door with more care than necessary, something she had a tendency to do when she had a bit more alcohol than she'd meant to and didn't want to reveal her state.
"You don't think he's at the whorehouse, do you?" she asked as they crossed the darkened Bazaar.
The dwarf shook his head and motioned for her to cross the bridge ahead of him. "After you, mi'lady," he said, giving a stubby bow with all the flares of Orzamar. "No, the elf wouldn't go to the Blooming Rose. If that was all he wanted, Isabela's offered and he refused. Why pay for something you can have free?"
"Perhaps because he doesn't want all of Kirkwall to hear every detail of his activity in the morning," she answered, not meaning to sound so snippy. Isabela wasn't so bad. Of late she hadn't seen the pirate flirt with anyone.
Varric scoffed as they crested the steps to Hightown's market. "Isabela knows how to keep her mouth shut when she needs to, believe me," he grinned up at her and Hawke registered the glint of an impending revelation in his eyes despite the dim. "You didn't know about her correspondence with Carver, did you?"
Hawke tripped on the hem of her robes and caught herself against a covered stall, making it rattle. "Isabela and… my brother?" she choked, trying to imagine it and shuddering when the task proved too easy. She'd heard the pirate tease Carver too many times before he left for his Templar training not to believe it.
Maker, what would Mother say? Hawke couldn't tell their mother that her youngest was sleeping with the infamous pirate wench who'd carved certain body parts on the stairwell. Leandra had enough doubts about Hawke's friends already without hearing that Isabela had seduced her son.
"Don't tell her you heard it from me," he added, lowering his voice to a whisper, "But she's terrified that you'll find out and be furious. She's been trying to convince him to come visit you and your mother, but he's a headstrong bastard."
"That he is," she muttered. If anyone could sneak into the Gallows at night and get past all the Templars, it would have to be Isabela. Still, it hurt that her friend hadn't said anything, and worse because Carver never wrote or visited. In three years, aside from the awkward day when he pretended she wasn't there, she'd received one letter that didn't even fill a page.
"I think they're good for each other," Varric commented, watching Hawke from the corner of his eye. "She's too comfortable to let his temper get to her and he's too stubborn to let her manipulate him."
They stepped around the corner to her estate, the path strewn with damp petals from the flowering trees lining it. She saw the lean dark silhouette in her doorway, white hair shining like the moon on his bowed head. Her gaze slid from the elf waiting for her to the dwarf who had walked her home.
"Thank you, Varric. For the company and for the information about Carver," she said, giving him a smile. She reached out and squeezed his thick, calloused hand.
Varric smiled at her, eyes glittering as they darted from Fenris, standing like a statue, to her, blushing like a schoolgirl. He kissed her knuckles with a flourish that any Orlesian would envy and murmured, "Now forget about everyone else's romantic entanglements and go entangle yourself with that broody elf." He winked at her and backed away, melting into the shadows.
The walk along her path took forever. She forced herself to shut the gate with care rather than to slam it, and watched as the white head shifted and green eyes glittered through the night, illuminated by the faint glow of his lyrium tattoos. Every slow step ached as she suppressed the urge to run into his arms and her nervous energy set up a breeze through the trees, raining petals down onto her robe and hair.
Hawke led him through her house and into her bedchamber, dizzy as he followed without comment. She couldn't remember his exact words because as he spoke her heart pounded with relief even as it broke for the horrors he'd faced. He paced in front of the fireplace in her bedroom, where Bodahn had lit a roaring blaze despite the spring's impending warmth.
"Are you going to look for the sister she spoke of?" she asked, trying to push his mind toward the good that might come of all this.
It had the opposite effect. "Of course not," he snarled, pacing close to her and glaring in such a way that she felt as if he had somehow grown taller in the last few seconds, or she shorter. "It must be a trap. Danarius must have sent her to tell me that so he might recapture me."
Lightheaded from her ale and his closeness, she said, "I will go with you. I'll help you look for her and together we can kill him once and for all."
"No." His eyes flickered over her face before he turned away. One of her hands reached to grasp at his arm, her fingers finding their way to his skin between left bare by his gauntlets. It felt like electricity, like lightning passing between her fingers and the lyrium bands and she realized in that moment that for all their closeness, for that half-kiss and those brief brushes of hands across hair or cheeks, they had never really touched one another. Not without clothing or armor or gloves in the way.
That single second was all the eternity that he needed to spin back and slam her against the wall, startling her with the sudden violence, his eyes flashing as they met hers. For a second they stared at each other and then the pressure on her shoulders decreased and he released her with shame in his eyes, about to apologize. She felt a smile form on her face as she stepped forward and pressed her mouth to his. She grasped his face in her palms, reveling in the coolness of his skin, the roughness of his lips and the faint stubble on his cheeks, the heat of his tongue as he kissed her back.
The wall bumped against her back again and she felt his hands gripping her hips, pulling her close against him so she could feel the hardness pressing against her thigh as he drew her leg around his waist. Heat filled her, need for him, and she broke her mouth apart from his to trail it over his neck, up to his earlobe, gratified by the growl he uttered and the twitch of his manhood through their clothes.
Fenris lifted her, securing her legs around his hips so that she had to pull her robes over her knees. One of his hands grasped her backside and the other dug into the underside of her thigh, the clawed tips of his gauntlets drawing blood from his desperation and desire. He held her up with his hips and the wall and one hand, kisses growing frantic as he trailed his lips for her mouth to her throat to her collarbone.
Everything happened so fast that Hawke reeled. One moment he was kissing her, his free hand pulling at the neckline of her robe, and as she fumbled with the straps of his armor he jumped back. He moved so fast that she fell to the ground, not expecting the sudden absence of his body against hers.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as she caught her breath, feeling the heat pooling on her face and between her legs. "I am no better than a beast. I am not worthy of a noblewoman."
Hawke got to her feet, straightening her robes and attempting to smooth her hair in a final attempt to regain her dignity. "I'm not a noblewoman. I wasn't raised to strut and preen and swoon and I never will," she answered, her frustration seeping through in her tone. She crossed her arms over her chest and met his intent stare with narrowed eyes. "Why kiss me like that, Fenris? Why rouse me so when you mean only to leave me unfulfilled and shame me for my desires, desires you provoked?"
He stormed forward, grabbing her hair in his hand and twisting it until it hurt, until she cried out against his bruising lips and he softened his grip, but not the kiss. Instead of pressing her to the wall he wrapped her in his arms and held her too tight to escape, his lips and tongue insistent against hers, demanding and taking as he pleased.
When he pulled back they both breathed hard, staring with glittering eyes at each other. The heat and fury of his gaze faded to sorrow as he looked at her. His thumb traced her lower lip and she felt a stinging where he touched her.
"See what I've done to you," he said, lifting his hand to show her the red drop of blood clinging to his skin.
"I don't mind," she answered, raising her chin with defiance in her eyes and shoulders. "It is a part of you and I want it as much as any other part of you."
But he stepped back, shaking his head. "I mind, Marian," he whispered, using her first name. No one called her by that anymore, not even her mother. The sadness and shame in his stare broke her heart as he opened the door of her bedroom. His eyes met hers before he stepped out. "I cannot cause you harm like that. I would sooner die than hurt you."
"You're hurting me now by leaving," she replied. She didn't wait to see his reaction, whirling away from the image of him standing in the door, about to leave.
"You looked like a bride as you walked toward me that night," Fenris says, running his fingers through her hair. The tenderness in his eyes makes Marian's heart pound and her lips curve to match his as his hand shifts to cup her cheek, his thumb tracing her smile. His voice grows deeper, husky as he adds, "I would not be opposed to seeing you like that again."
"What, sitting on the floor wanting you and furious that I couldn't have you?" she asks, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He chuckles and shakes his head. "No, I mean I wish we could be wed," he answers, drawing her close for a long kiss and pulling the sheets over their heads.
How many people forgot about the frame story? Hahaha, yeah, it might actually turn into a prequel for my DA3 prediction fic.