Author's note: Sorry for the time between updates. Again, this is an alternative to the in-game rival romance and as it goes on it will veer further and further off-canon, though other details and characters will follow the game fairly closely. Written for Aggressive Hawke, who just doesn't get enough fan love (and she's so pimp, man!)
Warnings: violence, alcohol, sensuality and the combined might of Varric and Isabela
Fenris stalks around his mansion at night swearing in Arcanum. He hacks a few pieces of furniture to kindling with his sword and tears several of the useless books off the shelves, ripping the pages out to feed the fireplace. He refuses to look at the window, where she lives just a rooftop away. He could slip into her bedroom window without anyone else knowing and-
"Festis bei umo canavarum," he snarls, flinging a painted urn into the wall.
He needs to leave this place. She will not come tonight, because she has not visited him in almost a year, not since they left the Deep Roads. Every time he sees her it is outside, either fighting gangs or in the Hanged Man, where her sober eyes keep watch around the card table. He watches her across the table and every time, resentful that she does not speak to him, or to anyone else, unless spoken to. In the past months he's drank himself into a stupor on the card nights, drinking until he couldn't stand and had to stay on the floor in Varric's suite, a level of trust and security that he never knew until she came into his life.
His chest tightens as he thinks of her deliberate cruelty, spurring his feet to a run as he moves through the shadows toward Lowtown. The door of the Hanged Man has been rigged to prevent too much drunken slamming, and creaks on a hidden spring so that his grand entrance snaps back at his face and he has to try again. He knows this, and he blames her absence and her refusal to see him for his forgetfulness.
"That was well done," announces a brash, loud female voice and Fenris bites back a snarl. Isabela stands at her usual corner of the bar, smirking as she watches him come in. She shifts her elbows to the counter, folding her arms to push her breasts together in a show that would be impressive if it weren't such an obvious ploy for attention. Batting her heavily made-up eyes, she purrs, "So, have you come all this way to visit little old me?"
"No," he answers, walking past her, up to Varric's suite.
Either the pirate cannot take a hint or lacks any sort of survival instinct, because she follows after him, plopping into a chair beside the dwarf and slinging her legs over the side in such a way that her lack of undergarments is apparent. He snorts and looks past her, to Varric.
"Girl problems again, Broody?" the dwarf asks, not looking up from the column of numbers he's engrossed in.
Isabela perks up, a sly smirk spreading over her face, and shifts to sit properly, pinning him with her stare. "Ooh, do tell. I haven't heard a thing about this... thing," she chuckles.
"I do not have girl problems," Fenris snarls, smacking a fist on the table and raising that same hand to point at the pirate, still refusing to look at her and her infernal knowing smirk. "Why is she here?"
Varric lifts his head from his accounting sheets and removes his gold-rimmed spectacles, glancing between the two of them with an expression of paternal exasperation. "No one's told you anything because you're a gossip, Rivaini," he says in a placating tone, patting her brown hand. His eyes shift to Fenris, brows lifting. "And Isabela lives here, or at least she pays for the room she passes out drunk in."
Fenris scowls, but he can't argue the obvious, if unstated, point. He has taken advantage of the dwarf's hospitality and good nature far too often in the last months.
"So what is going on between the two of you?" Isabela asks, planting her chin on her hand and staring with a rapt expression. "You're both so stoic and silent, I wonder how either of you would manage to talk about it. Or do you just skip the talking and jump right to the steamy part?"
"Isabela," Varric says in a warning voice, before Fenris can lunge from his chair and tear her damned throat out. He turns his attention back to Fenris. "Have you ever thought of going to visit her? She might be busy helping her mother... arrange shit." He makes a fluttering motion with his hands, the same gesture that he often uses as accompaniment for Orlesian jokes and explanations of magic.
The pirate laughs, a harsh noise that startles the entering waitress. "Wait, you haven't even gone to see her new place?" She claps both hands over her mouth and brays again, eliciting a wince from Fenris. "Maker, that's priceless."
"Do not involve yourself in my affairs," he growls at her.
"How can I, when you're not having any?" she laughs, and Varric laughs as well, the two of them far more struck with the hilarity of it that he is.
The waitress hands him a cup of whiskey and he drinks it in a long, burning gulp. Fenris glares at her and hands over the necessary coin from his belt pouch. He stands up as the waitress leaves and glares at the pair with him at the table as their giggles subside.
"I'm leaving," he announces.
Both get up as he turns away, calling "Wait, Fenris," and "Don't go," and the like. He scowls and keeps on his course, refusing to be swayed back to their mockery. As he descends the stairs, he hears the pirate yell, "Go pay Hawke a midnight visit, already!"
Bawdy laughter chases him out, and he snarls at the night as he makes his way toward Hightown. He hopes some thugs try to rob him, though he doesn't look like a good target in his ferocious armor with a giant sword on his back. Furious, ashamed, he stalks through the streets of Lowtown, past the alley where she used to live and finally to the bazaar, his feet silent in the dark.
Just as he prepares to give up hope of encountering any gangs as he enters the Hightown Marketplace, an arrow whizzes past him and he turns to see it thunk into a merchant's covered stand. A feral smile darkens his face as the lyrium lines light his skin. He draws his sword and charges.
Fenris almost pulls up short when he sees her there, daggers flashing as she dodges arrows and blades alike, twisting inside of the heavier swords' reach as her knives sink through the gaps in their armor.
As he swings his savage blade through several attackers trying to cluster around her and overwhelm her with numbers, he can't help admiring the surgical precision of her strikes. A knife to the kidney, through the side lacings, angled just so. A blade to a jugular. A shield slams into her chest, flailing wildly, and she stumbles back, lashing her feet out into the shield-bearer's knee. He hears a sick crunching noise before his sword squelches through that thug's neck.
Her foot hooks around the severed head as she stands and lobs it into the face of a rogue trying to sneak up behind him. The metal helmet cracks through the woman's facial bones and his sword finishes her off. The rest of the gang members die within seconds.
They face each other in the empty, darkened marketplace, surrounded by corpses. The faint sheen of sweat on her face makes her skin glow in between the blood splatters, and the fire in her eyes makes his heart race and his lungs feel too small. For too long they stare at one another, and he wonders if she also feels that lingering battle euphoria, the bloodlust transforming once the bloodshed ends. His mind whirls as he studies her features, the strange combination of delicate bones and hardened strength that reveal no emotion. Only the brilliant eyes, the flash of pure viciousness that smolders there.
He's furious at her for not visiting him and for being out here and for staring at him like that and most of all because he wants to step forward and grip her face in his hands and tear at her hair as he devours her mouth. She is too good for him and knows it, and he's certain that's why he wants her, so he can knock her off her thrice-damned pedestal with every gasp of pleasure and pain.
"What were you thinking, coming out here alone?" he demands, satisfying his urge to yell and to step closer in one swoop.
Those fiery eyes burn brighter as they narrow on his face. "I might ask you the same question," she retorts, crossing her arms.
"You are too-" he claws the air with one hand, unable to find an appropriate word and snarls, "-too small to be running around alone at night." He wants to shake her. She must be some new torture devised by Danarius, some wild dream the mage has created of freedom so he can learn how he'll never be free of the magister unless he enslaves himself to her.
Her lips curl into a sneer. "I did well enough before you came charging in," she lets her arms fall, but he can see the tension coiling through her body. He recognizes her fighting stance and realizes that she's prepared to fight him, bare knuckles, right here in the market.
Fenris wants her to lash out, to lose that perfect calm and take a swing at him. He knows that if they fight, it will be brutal and vicious and everything about her that makes his skin tingle and his heart race. The idea thrills him, makes his blood sing in his veins. His eyes sharpen on her face in the dark as he sneers back at her, his hands clenching at his sides. He feels as if his heart will beat so hard that it pops, the way so many hearts have popped in his hand before. And it infuriates him, because what right does she have to make him feel this way?
"You should not be wandering alone at night," he snaps. Why does he feel so protective over her? She is better with her daggers than the pirate, who wanders at night more often than not. She is faster than he is, able to dart and flip and dodge around enemies and kill them instantly with her blades. But the idea she might have been killed or wounded or worse tonight makes bile and rage rise in him. He isn't sure who he's mad at now- whether it's her or Danarius or the thugs who attacked her.
She tosses her head, dark hair jerking away from her eyes for a moment so he's struck with the full force of her gaze as she steps closer to him. He sees heat and fury and that beautiful vicious edge to her stare as she conducts her deliberate invasion of his personal space, halting when the leather armor covering her breasts presses to his metal chestpiece. "Don't tell me what to do," she answers, her voice low and dangerous, barely more than a whisper.
"You are a fool," he snarls, reaching a clawed gauntlet into her hair, the fine strands tangling around his fingers as he twists her head back, staring down over the scant inches of height that separate them. He feels her seething breath against his mouth and suppresses a shudder at the desire it evokes. His gaze darkens to match hers and he adds, "I could do anything right now and you would be helpless to stop me."
"And what would you do?" she sneers, arching her neck to bring her mouth closer still. The vicious eyes seem sharper, intent, and yet something clouds through them that he can't read, because she couldn't possibly desire him. No, she means to challenge him, to remind him that she is better than him.
He shoves her away as suddenly as he grabbed her, forceful enough that she stumbles back. They stare at one another a second longer and she whirls to stalk up the steps of the market. He knows he ought to follow after her, to walk her to her door and ensure no further thugs attack, but he stands there in the dark market, staring at her swaying hips and wondering if he should have kissed her.
Hawke crosses her arms and tips back on her chair, her feet crossed at the ankles on the tabletop. The posture appears casual, but from this position she can think of eleven possible attacks or defenses she can mount with either her body, knives, the chair or the table itself.
Varric raises his brows at her in an attempt to look innocent, but the corner of his mouth smirks just enough that she can tell he's plotting. "Fenris was here the other day," he comments in his 'talking about the weather' tone. The smirk creeps a bit higher. "He said he hadn't seen you in a while."
She shrugs as if it can halt the racing of her pulse. "So?" she asks, her tone harsh. "All we do is argue, anyway."
Now the dwarf has a blighted glitter in his eyes. "Oh, Hawke," he laughs, waving a hand as if to dismiss her defensiveness. "I know you haven't gotten together. If you had, neither of you would be so grouchy about each other."
Scowling, she glances around the bar and counts patrons, just to test that she still knows where everyone is, to maintain that vital situational awareness that allows her to sense traps and enemies, avoiding death and dealing it with brutal efficiency. Better to keep her attention on the motion around her than to flip backward off her tilted chair and kick it across the table at him. "You're being nosy, Varric," she snaps. "If you know what's going on, why do you need to ask?"
"I'm confirming things," he says, the smooth baritone insufficient to hide his irritation. He takes a sip of his ale and mutters into the cup, "Why couldn't you just drink?"
No matter how often the dwarf offers her a drink, she sticks to the murky water that they serve at the Hanged Man. She doesn't trust herself to drink since Bethany died. It feels like a scream building inside of her, this horrible burning void. Both her younger siblings are dead. Her father told her to protect her family, to take care of those precious younger siblings and she keeps failing all of them over and over. Hawke knows that if she drinks, if she lets herself embrace that outlet, she'll fall into that void and that scream will emerge to consume her.
"When will Aveline be here?" she asks, trying to change the subject.
"Oh, she's not coming," Varric waves a hand at her absently. "Late patrol duty or something." He shrugs and takes another, longer sip from his mug.
Her eyes narrow on her companion and she stretches in the chair until the balls of her feet leave the table, only the tips of her toes connecting her to the surface. "Was she ever coming, Varric?" she asks, her voice lowering to a dangerous octave.
"Nope," he answers, unafraid. "I wanted to ask if the elf had gone to see you."
"Then, if the bullshit is quite done, I'm leaving," she responds. The chair's legs snap back into place and the moment her feet touch the ground she stands, glaring at her dwarven companion.
Varric gives her a thoughtful stare, tapping one thick finger against his chin. "You know, you and the elf are so alike sometimes I wonder what'll happen first- either you'll kill each other or sleep with each other."
Hawke spares the dwarf an obscene backwards gesture as she stalks through the door of the pub and into the dark street. Why must her companions be so Maker-forsaken nosy? Why must they insist on inserting themselves into all of her business at every opportunity? How bored are they?
The animal fat torches of Lowtown smoke and stink and when one thug attempts to approach her she yanks a knife from her belt and flings it into his throat before he can get across the bazaar, pausing only to yank the blade out as she continues on her way. She sees the shifting eyes and hears nervous murmurs and knows the rest of the man's gang is debating whether or not to attack her. They make the smart choice and slink back to their dirty alleyways.
Hightown passes in a blur and she doesn't realize she's walked past her own estate until she finds herself standing in the front hall of Danarius' stolen manor. "Fenris!" she shouts, letting the syllables of his name become a roar of rage.
A moment later the telltale shock of white hair appears on the landing, the prowling figure haloed in firelight from the room behind him. She can't see his eyes, but the tension of his body reveals the viciousness within and the insides of her lungs seem to stick to themselves. He stalks down the stairs without a word, stepping over corpses that he refuses to remove and broken pieces of glass and furniture with sure steps. The brutal cold of his stare burns through her; she knows that in spite of the obstacles his feet navigate he never takes his eyes off her until he stands with his chest almost against hers, as they stood in the marketplace surrounded by bodies.
"Hawke," he says, in that infuriating calm voice. She prefers him screaming, ranting, angry and passionate. Her brows contract at the last thought and she narrows her eyes at him.
"Get your sword," she says, imitating his frosty tone and commanding demeanor.
One of his dark brows rises and he steps closer, pressing their chests together again. He doesn't have the armor on his chest and shoulders, just a dark tunic, and she's hyperaware of how close that puts them. What is his game? She's seen him flinch from casual touches, seen him embrace the rage the lyrium fire in his veins sets off, but she's never seen him come so close to seeking out another's touch. It makes her mind swim with questions and uncomfortable, shivering emotions that she shoves aside before she can identify them.
"What is it you want, Hawke?" he asks. This time that sharp edge of his voice has something beneath, a husky quality that sets her blood racing and her skin prickling. Hawke doesn't even realize her hands are against his chest until one of his gauntlets rises, the pricking fingertips brushing across the back of her glove.
She shoves him away. "I said, go get your sword," she snarls. "We're going to Lowtown."
The corner of his mouth lifts in a smirk that she wants to bite and taste and punch bloody. "As you wish," he answers, eyes flicking over her before he bows his head and lets the hair fall to conceal his gaze as he turns to retrieve his weapon and the missing pieces of his armor.
Blighted lofty bastard. She wants to twist his hair in her hands and claw his back, to make him beg for her. Then he'll know that he's not so much better than everyone else, that he sweats and wants and begs like any man does for a woman's hands and mouth and body. That she wants him so much- that untouchable lyrium-laced skin and that searing vicious stare that haunt her dreams- makes her hate him all the more.
Her eyes remain on him as he returns, sheathing the greatsword across his shoulders in an agile slicing movement that makes the lean muscles of his arms ripple under her gaze. Impatient, she whirls away, feeling the pool of heat growing in her stomach at the sight of him. She marches out the door and rolls her hips more than usual, feeling the snap of her armor's leather skirt against her thighs. A feral grin stretches her lips when he remains a few paces behind her for a long moment.
Just as she turns the corner to cut through the Merchants' Guild square, a popular hangout for gangs hoping to catch a stray dwarf leaving a late night of accounting, a steel-encased hand grips her arm and lifts it. The world spins a second and her back slams into a wall. A second cold metal hand covers her mouth and she sees Fenris' green eyes over it, his face close to hers. He leans forward without removing the hand from her mouth, even as the other holds her hands steady.
Hawke shivers when his lips brush her ear, unable to control herself, and he pushes closer to her until their hips bump together. "I'm going to let go of your mouth," he murmurs. "Don't yell. I saw Tevinters in there."
He releases her mouth but remains just as close, the hand now shifting to grip her waist. She feels the claws, knows how easy it would be for him to snap the laces and straps of her armor with his fingertips. His cheek doesn't quite touch hers, but she can feel the heat of his skin, the very edge of his scant stubble, the brush of his hair against her face. And his breath against her ear.
Not to be outdone, she moves her mouth to his ear, hovering over it and she whispers, "Let's go kill them." She lets her lips brush against the tender flesh of his earlobe and he shudders.
The hand on her waist tightens and he slams her against the wall again, driving her up and pinning her with his hips. Green eyes flash at her and she stares down at him from this new vantage, one of her legs curling around his waist to keep her aloft, the other trapped between his thigh and the wall. A snarl forms on his lips, silent in the night, but she can feel the coiled tension of his muscles and the hard pressure between his legs throbbing in time to his racing pulse.
"We need to gather a greater force," he hisses, brows drawn together to darken his gaze. "They are too numerous."
Emboldened by his body's reaction to their proximity she smirks at him and tilts her face down until their noses almost brush against each other. "Either way, don't you have to put me down?" she murmurs.
"Vasta fas," he growls, and she can almost feel the shape of the foreign curse against her lips. The hand that had held her waist scrapes down along her thigh, leaving tiny biting scratches where the pointed tips of his gauntlets touch her skin. His stolen touch lasts only a second before he steps back, letting her drop to an agile crouch. He fixes her with a dark glare and she feels smug satisfaction that she's broken his calm tonight.
Her eyes dart to count the men in the courtyard and she sees only eight. As good as their equipment is, she knows she has the skill to defeat them. Before Fenris can grab her again, she dashes into the shadows and flings a flask that explodes in a hallucinogenic mist to stun them as they stand grouped together. She sprints forward with her knives at the ready, dropping to roll to the ground and sever two men's Achilles tendons and spinning through the legs of a third, her daggers sinking into the flesh of his neck just above the collar of his armor.
Just as the stunning effects of the flask wear off she hears a whistle and Fenris sprints in shouting vicious curses in his native language that make every head turn toward him. As ever, his brutality dazzles her, the way he takes a fearless leap, lifting his sword high and hammering it through a man, armor and all, the impact sending shockwaves that knock two nearby rogues to their backs. She jumps on one as he sweeps his weapon sideways, away from her, decapitating the other one as he struggles to his feet. In the same motion he swats an arrow aside with a ping and she realizes that reinforcements are rushing from a boarding house, shouting.
She ducks and weaves, knives sinking into the weak points of armor or the unguarded throats of the men swarming after Fenris. His tattoos flare as his blade shears through several, now in only one hand as the other sinks through the chest of a man. When arrows start flying toward him she sprints and somersaults, landing atop the archer with both feet on his chest and both blades in his throat. A man flies past her as she runs for the other archer, his dead body bowling the living man over so that Hawke only needs to kick him in the nose and drive the bones into his brain. She turns to rejoin the main fray but sees that only one man stands, his shield hanging useless from a broken arm for a second before Fenris lifts him by the neck and she hears that series of wet pops that indicates a broken neck or crushed throat or some combination of the two.
He tosses the man aside and she notices several gashes in his arms where blood wells over the lyrium marks. Green eyes stare at her, fierce and furious as he storms toward her.
"You fool," he snarls, "What were you thinking? You could have gotten us both killed, or worse! How could you be so foolish?"
"You're obviously fit enough to yell at me," she snaps, sheathing her daggers and walking up to him with her fists clenched. She wants to punch him and haul him into an alley, to beg him to take her and to make him beg her. She wants to kill him and kiss him in the same breath.
Fenris grabs the front of her armor, twisting it in his fingers and shouts in her face. "I told you not to attack and you did not listen to me and now-"
"We're still alive," she returns, grabbing his wrist and trying to pull his hand away. His hold is too strong and she remembers yet again that he's much stronger than she is, that he could lift her in the air without effort. "Why must you disagree with every decision I make?"
"Because you choose foolishly, time and again. You persist in recklessly endangering both of our lives and then make reckless choices about the company you keep and the people you associate with," he snarls, giving her a shake. She grips his hand with both of hers now, struggling to remove his iron fingers, but they do not budge.
"You're one of those people," she hisses, pushing her face close to his. "What, you have a problem with my other friends because they're mages? We've all had hard lives. At least you don't remember your failures!"
Green eyes narrow further. "Do you think helping blood mages escape Templars will bring your sister back?"
That does it. Her fist snaps out and connects with his jaw just as her knee jerks into his groin. He gasps at the sudden pain she inflicts to his tender areas and staggers back, releasing her to double over his crotch. Before he can catch his breath she flees back to the mansion, not even stopping to loot the bodies of her dead foes.
A/N: So maybe not THAT far off-canon. I mean, they can't be getting it going too early, now!