A/N: I hope this does a good job of capturing character development, drama, and smut as well as the off-canon rivalmance that centers around Hawke and Fenris not being able to control their physical intimacy but trying to deny that it could be anything more out of mutual grouchiness and evasiveness.
Love to the reviewers, special shoutout to T.I.M.
Warnings: smut, Fenris hating on Anders, language, violence, angst
Hawke hisses when the blade slides through her belly, eyes narrowing on the fierce scarlet of the Arishok's gaze. Blood stains her teeth as she gives him a feral grin and drips from the corner of her mouth down her chin in a line. The giant Qunari sneers at her and his sword arm snaps upward, the blade catching under her ribs and hauling her entire body upward so she dangles with helpless legs above him. She can feel every pulse of her heart, so close to that wicked blade, and for a moment wishes that he would cleave through her, that the final nick will come and set her free.
Dimly, through graying consciousness, she hears the gasps and weeping of nobles and the shouts and curses of her friends. One voice snaps out over the rest, deep and oddly ragged: "No! I will not allow it!" She's never heard Fenris sound so panicked, she thinks, with a sort of strange distance. One of her palms wraps around the Arishok's blade to keep it from tearing through her too much and with some effort, she twists until she can press her feet to his neck and shove herself off. She coughs blood in the giant's face as she pulls off the blade, and it lands in his eyes. While he is blinded she twists around behind him and slams her dagger between the first and second vertebrae of his back, the point shucking inward until it slides into the softness of his brain. He falls so suddenly and with such force that her blade snaps off in his skull. How Varric will love re-telling this story.
As the Arishok falls she feels the tingle of Anders' healing magic lacing up through her side, already patching up the damage from that blade. As soon as she can bend forward she does so, lifting the Qunari's blade from his hand and gripping the pommel, holding it aloft with a wordless snarl of victory. It takes every ounce of her strength to lift the thing, but she does so anyway, aware of the tearing ache in her back and the trickle of blood as she tears the knitting flesh of her stomach wound. Hawke utters another roar as she watches the remaining Qunari leave, and none approach her to request the Arishok's blade.
The Keep empties in increments, except for her companions. Anders hovers nearby, making irritating sounds of concern while Aveline's strong arm grips her shoulders in what is half a hug, half keeping her standing. Varric keeps Merrill from lunging too close and Fenris broods a few feet away, refusing to meet her eyes. Isabela wrings her hands and grinds her teeth and approaches.
"Hawke," says the pirate, "I am so sor-mmph!" She staggers back when Hawke's fist connects with her face at full force, wincing and lifting her fingers toward the forming bruises on her cheek. "I deserved that," she admits, looking away from the glares everyone else levels at her.
"No," snarls Hawke, tearing the hem of her shirt from Ander's hands and lifting it to reveal the half-healed mess of her stomach. "You deserve this."
No one speaks, not even Isabela, though her amber eyes widen at the sight of the wound. It's a testament to Anders' skill as a healer that Hawke is on her feet, that she's not already dead of blood loss. In spite of the mage's haste and skill, blood still oozes from many gaps as he attempts to knit each individual muscle together. And though the movement of her punching the pirate serves to send a fresh gush of blood forth, Anders keeps silent for once in his life and just sticks to healing.
After a few moments of silence the pirate hangs her head and leaves the Keep, followed closely by Varric and Merrill. Aveline waits until Hawke can stand on her own before she, too, leaves to check on her guards. Hawke stands alone with Anders prodding her wound gently and Fenris giving her a dark stare from across the room. By the time the three of them leave, the sun is setting behind the Chantry, somber dark creeping through the silent aftermath of the invasion. From the top of the steps of the Keep, Hawke can see many bonfires throughout the city, the pyres for dead citizens and fallen enemies alike. The stench of burning meat and death hangs heavy in the air, thickening the humid summer air.
"If you'd like, I can stay with you tonight," Anders offers, a tone of pleading permeating his words that sets Hawke's teeth on edge. He means well, for all the kicked-puppy looks of adoration he shoots her, but Hawke does not want a tender, mooning man who clings to her. She wants someone vicious and impossible to tame. Her eyes shift for half a moment toward the elf on her other side.
"I will stay," Fenris snarls, moving up on her other side and glaring across her with such force she thinks that she can feel his gaze sear her skin.
Hawke takes a breath and meets Anders' eyes before they can start glowing blue. "You've done all you can," she tells him, waving him away with a hand. "Go see to the people at your clinic."
The apostate gives her a long stare, reaching out to squeeze her hand before he leaves, his staff clicking against the stones of Hightown's streets. She watches him go for a moment before she starts limping down the long flight of stairs. She gets down three steps, holding in a string of curses, and strong arms wrap around her. Fenris hoists her against his chest and totes her down the stairs her up like a bride being carried across the threshold.
"I don't need your help," she grumbles, unable to muster any real force. Her side might be healed enough that she is able to limp a bit, but that doesn't mean it isn't painful.
Green eyes flash down at her as he treks across the courtyard with long strides. "Yes, you do," he answers, his tone short. His chin lifts, gaze jerking away from hers, and she's left staring at the lyrium lines on his throat and wanting to bruise them again with her mouth. He does not set her down even after shoving open the door to her house with his foot and huffing at Bodahn to leave them alone, carrying her up the stairs and depositing her on her bed before he turns to close the door.
"What is your bloody problem?" she growls, hissing as she props herself up on an elbow. Narrowed eyes follow his swift steps as he returns to her bedside, shucking the remnants of her leather armor away and discarding it so she sits in a torn tunic that barely conceals her smalls. She swats at his hands, impatient, and he stills, verdant eyes boring into hers. "Why?" she demands.
Fenris swoops down, gripping her hair and looming over her to pin her with a glare as he tears one gauntlet off with his teeth and spits it onto the bed beside her. "You are a fool," he growls, pulling her in for a vicious kiss, devouring her mouth.
She struggles back, wincing as the movement sends pain through her side. "How am I a fool?" she snaps.
He answers by lunging forward, capturing her mouth in another bruising kiss, his tongue pressing against hers. One of his arms crushes her good side close as the other grips her thigh. She feels the tips of his gauntlets pricking her skin and the tiny points of pain jolt through to her core, sending shivers of heat through her body. Her hands tangle in his hair, gripping it and twisting the fine strands in her fingers and she moans into his mouth in spite of herself. A moment later he pulls back, heated eyes on her face, and presses her back to the pillows with one hand.
"Do not move," he snarls, with a harsh note of command to his voice that makes her shiver with loathing as much as desire. He has absolute control over her body and mind at this moment, and she hates him for using it as much as she hates herself for giving in to his game. His metallic hand trails over her tunic and halts over her breast as the warm skin of his other hand runs up the inside of her thigh. All the while those green eyes stare into hers.
Hawke bites her lip for a moment as his fingers trail over the damp silk of her smalls. "If I didn't fight the Arishok, his men would have attacked everyone," she snaps, her voice hitching as his thumb shifts the fabric aside to brush moisture up from the slit to the small group of aching nerves above, sending jolts of pleasure shocking through her.
Fenris pulls her tunic's laces apart with a growl and lowers his mouth to hover above her breast, breath playing over the pebbled skin. "Still a fool," he answers, tongue flicking across her nipple before he draws it into his mouth, biting and sucking until she whimpers. He lifts his head to stare at her with accusing green eyes, his white hair mussed around his face. "Do you see how weak your body is, woman?" His fingers tear the sodden smallclothes away from her hips and two of them press into her as if to drive the point home. His thumb continues circling that bud of pleasure and she shivers, pinned to the pillows as he watches her face with drawn brows.
"The Arishok didn't do this to me," she gasps, moaning when he curves his fingers inside of her to find the point that makes her back arch, thrusting her breasts toward him again. He might be making her pant for him, but damned if she won't argue her point. Heat builds inside her stomach in waves and she holds in a whimper by hissing, "It was the right choice and I'm still alive, so what does it matter?"
He trails open-mouthed kisses over her breasts and then drags his tongue down her abdominal muscles and past her navel. For a moment his eyes meet hers as his hands shift her legs apart and hook her knees over his shoulders. "You nearly died, you fool," he sneers.
"What are you doing?" she asks, trying to sound furious but only sounding wanton and soft as his breath brushes over the tender skin he exposes. And while she realizes what he means to do, it still comes as a surprise to feel his tongue lave over her, his ungloved fingers inside of her sliding a slow rhythm as his lips find the tender nub just above. The cold metal of his gauntlet pricks against her breast as his fingers curl inside of her heat and she moans his name. His tongue alternates between slow, aching strokes along her folds and flickering across that bundle of nerves. When her breath grows too ragged and her hips lift off the mattress, her moans and pleas incoherent to her own ears, his fingers flex against that place inside as his lips close over her sensitive, swollen bud. Hawke can't tell if it takes seconds or hours, but she trembles and screams for him the pressure of his mouth and hand becomes too much to take.
Her eyes open, hazy, as Fenris sits up and smirks down at her, licking his lips. When he kisses her his tongue has a salty, musky flavor and she shivers.
"Do not be so eager to throw your life away, Hawke," he growls against her lips. His arm presses against her shoulders, holding her in place as he pulls blankets over her naked body. She grabs his hand as he draws toward the fire, away from the bed, and he hesitates, his fingers tangling with hers.
Their eyes meet across the space of their skin, tanned and pale linked with lyrium-lined fingertips. Something flickers in the green and she snatches her hand away, rolling over before he can see her expression falter. She hears the shuffle of his feet around the room and one by one the lamps and candles flick out in puffs of his breath. Just before her eyes can brew a silent, vicious storm of tears, she sees his figure outlined in the starlight of her window as he stands at the opposite side of the bed. With a few clatters and clinks, he strips his armor in swift movements and lies beside her, facing her without allowing their bodies to touch.
For a long moment they lie there in the dark, staring at each other across pillows and a distance too vast to be measured in space. Then his hands fold around hers, as if to hold both in a silent prayer. He shifts forward until their foreheads lean together, and his lips brush across her knuckles and wrists and then her jaw and cheeks and eyes and mouth. At last he falls still, his breath playing over her lips and his soft hair mixed with hers around their cheeks and foreheads, still pressing her hands together in a silent prayer that she doesn't know the words to. She falls asleep like that, and when she awakens, of course, he is gone.
Later that afternoon a messenger arrives with a package and a flustered, flushing Orana brings Hawke a delicately-wrapped pair of black lace smallclothes embroidered with a tiny green wolf on the hip. The only marking is a shakily-drawn F.
Fenris visits her again, but can never manage to catch her alone. Soon she's on her feet training and before he knows it the air's gone cold and snow dusts the city. He hovers in his mansion alone, only seeing Hawke with others at the Hanged Man, or at Aveline's holiday dinner, though she consents to dance with him.
In front of their companions and various guards and dignitaries, he holds Hawke too close so that her body molds against his and he can feel her breasts- displayed too well in her dark red dress- pressing through his tunic against the planes of his chest. Her eyes, hazy with too much wine, stare into his and they stand holding onto each other after the music stops. When, an hour later, she drags him into the pantry, he doesn't resist her lips on his, pressing against her hands as they fumble over his belt. He growls when she breaks their kiss, staring at her eyes as they flash through the dark, and she drops to her knees with silent grace.
His hands dig into her hair as her mouth closes over his length and he fights down a groan as her tongue rasps along the bottom of his shaft. Then her lips close around him and she draws him in and out in a rhythm, only breaking it to focus on the tender head of his cock and a point of flesh he never knew could send his pulse racing just beneath. Everything narrows to her and that overwhelming suction as he shudders, helpless against her. The heat of her mouth and her nails digging into his behind make him hiss in pleasure, his hands tightening in her hair as his tattoos alight too soon, bringing that terrible receding flash. She swallows his seed, not letting him pull back until he can't think of anything else, gripping her shoulders and panting.
Hawke zips his pants up for him and stands, eyes flashing at him again before she smooths her skirt and leaves the pantry, fixing her hair. He stands in the dark for several more minutes catching his breath, and when he comes out, she has already left.
Days blur by into spring sunshine, days of drinking wine and cursing, flinging half-finished bottles at the walls and into the fire until broken glass litters the room and he can't walk without cutting his feet. He resigns himself to clearing the mess, which only stokes his rage. Damn her, he thinks with every seething breath. Damn her vicious eyes and the predatory curve of her lips and the taut lines of her body. He rakes his hand to pull his hair away from bloodshot eyes time and again, each time he hears even the faintest noise, hoping it might be her.
When she comes to his house again, she does so during the day, with Aveline and the abomination in tow, which further infuriates him. That she would think to bring guards, as if the presence of others will somehow erase past events. He knows that she brought that dirty apostate with her in a deliberate gesture of hostility by the faint, vicious smirk on her lips.
"Fenris," she drawls, folding her arms over her chest. As if nothing happened between them. He grits his teeth.
She stands in the front hall, a defiant backward tilt to her chin as she regards him from the bottom of the stairs. He bites the inside of his cheek to hold in the snarl bristling through him, snapping his sword into its sheath on his back and pulling his gauntlets on before vaulting over the railing to land in front of Hawke. The wind of his landing rustles her hair, and though he rises from his crouch only an inch apart from her, she does not flinch or waver from her stoic pose.
"Lead on," he murmurs, eyes boring into hers.
Her gaze slides away from his as she turns on her heel and jogs out of the mansion. No one speaks as they pass through Hightown, but Fenris can feel the mage's eyes jittering into the side of his head. He keeps his gaze forward, focusing on a place beyond Hawke in an effort not to stare at her hips and think about how it felt to crush those tender bones against his or how her skin felt under his palms.
"Do you always have a snarl like that on your face, or is it just because you hate mages so much?" the abomination asks in an irritating, chipper voice.
Fenris glares but does not answer, refusing to rise to the bait. One of these days he's going to rip that mage's heart out and make him eat it. He seethes in silence, grinding his teeth together and staring past Hawke with ferocious determination.
Of course the mage takes his silence as license to continue prattling. "You know, you might try and act a bit more pleasant. Maker knows that Hawke spends enough of her time worrying about you and taking care of you," he announces, earning a backwards look of warning from Aveline. Instead of feeling grateful that the Guard Captain is on his side, however, Fenris feels irritated that Aveline feels it's her place to step in to this. Bad enough the abomination has inserted himself. "Most men would kill to be doted on by Hawke, but all you do is sit in that mansion brooding and drinking and when you come out, all you do is glare." As if to prove his point, the mage fixes an intent stare on Hawke's rear, even licking his lips as her hips sway ahead of them.
It's too much. Fenris grabs the abomination by the throat and slams him against a wall, squeezing until the mage's face turns red and he sputters for air. The lyrium lights under his skin and he reaches back, fist flaring into that clawed hand that precedes a full-phase disembowelment. "Do not look at her, mage," he growls.
A body slams into his, whirling him away from the abomination and shoving him against the wall with sudden ferocity. Hawke's vicious eyes stare at his across a space of inches, her lips drawn away from her teeth in a furious snarl. Her knee presses between his legs, both her palms dug into his shoulders between the chest plate and the spiked shoulders. He reaches up to grasp her wrists and can feel the pound of her pulse against his palms. It's strangely gratifying that her blood races at the same rate his does, whether from fury or proximity he can't say.
"I'm sick of your bullshit, Fenris," she hisses, her face close enough and her words quiet enough that he knows only he can hear her speak.
"Good," he snaps, his hands tightening around her wrists, "Because I have grown weary of your games, woman."
Her lips twist into a bitter smirk and she leans closer until their noses brush together. "My games?" she murmurs, her mouth close enough that he can feel the words against his own lips. "You have a lot of nerve saying that."
He glares at her. Clearly she did not understand how much it meant for him to do what he did after her duel with the Arishok. She underestimates his desire for her and it makes him furious, makes him hate her anew because how can she be so Maker-damned cruel to him? After the care and concern he's shown, opening up to her and proving his adoration and loyalty time and again. How does she not understand how desperately he wants to be with her, how much he hates himself because he cannot? Just as his hands leave her wrists to grip her face and hair, a cough sounds. Both he and Hawke snap their heads in that direction to see Aveline shaking her head.
"There are laws about doing this sort of thing in public," the guardswoman comments, folding her arms. Almost as an afterthought she raises an eyebrow at them in what is almost an exasperated manner to add, "Whatever it is you're doing." The abomination scowls at the two of them from behind her, still red and trying not to cough from his semi-strangulation.
Fenris releases her face just as she steps back, away from him. With furious, flashing eyes, she turns back to the guardswoman. "My apologies, Aveline," she says stiffly, and he can glimpse the vicious twist of her lips in profile as she gestures one sharp hand to her side as if to sweep him away. "Fenris, go home. I'll see you when we get back."
His heart pounds with fury and his face heats to the tips of his ears. She's mocking him, humiliating him like a Magister would. After helping him to keep his precious freedom, after enslaving his body and even his thoughts, after introducing him to various companions and calling him a friend, she's casting him aside in front of those other friends, throwing him away like he's one of those useless items she sometimes snatches while recklessly looting the bodies of her slain foes. To make it worse, the Maker-damned abomination was smirking at him over Aveline's shoulder, smug in his cowardice. Fenris burns with fury to the point that he feels that lyrium buzz of his tattoos flaring to life as the fury turns cold. His tattoos flash once and burn out before he snatches her wrist in the clawed tips of his gauntlet.
"No."
That single word brings everyone to a halt. They stare at him, Hawke turning around slowly to face him last of all. Her eyes flash with that vicious glitter and she says, in a very quiet voice, "What did you say?"
"I said, 'no,'" he answers, still grasping her wrist. "I am going with you wherever you go."
Her eyes narrow as he lifts her arm up with his so that the red scrap of silk on his wrist stares her in the face. A storm of emotions rages through her gaze as she looks at his favor from their night together and he cannot hope to identify all of them, but a few he's seen before- fury, confusion, determination, sorrow and underneath it all, desire. Hawke shifts her eyes to meet his. He stares into her frowning face and recognizes that despite the drawn brows and downturned lips, her eyes still have that tempestuous quality. "Why?" she demands.
Although he knows she wants him to convince her of his use in a fight, he smirks at her and says, "I enjoy following you."
For several seconds her mouth opens and closes without sound, the faintest hint of color rising to her cheeks and across her nose, and she whirls away, snatching her hand from his grasp and marching to the head of the group. "Hurry up. The Wounded Coast is a long walk," she snaps.
Aveline's shoulders shake with silent mirth as she falls in step beside Hawke and the women take to murmuring. The abomination shoots him a hard scowl and turns away to march along behind them and Fenris takes the rear, watching Hawke's hips the whole way through the city gates and down the path to the jagged cliffs of the coastline. He ignores the mage in favor of the womanly conversation up front, which he can hear without effort. In fact, it would be harder not to hear it, so he listens with a pounding heart and his eyes fixated, unashamed, on Hawke.
"What's going on, Hawke?" Aveline, ever blunt, mutters at a low enough volume that other humans couldn't overhear them.
He watches with a stab of rage as Hawke presses her hand out to steer Aveline around a corner that cuts through the Foundry District. Her head tilts toward the guard captain, hair falling to hide her face, and she answers in just as low a voice, "I have no idea. He's... confusing, shall we say?"
But Aveline is not so easily put off. She keeps pace with Hawke's brisk run, their arms linking once they are out of the city's walls and she says, "Maker knows you deserve a bit of happiness, Hawke."
Fenris blinks, shocked at the guardswoman's words. Until now he's never considered his desire for Hawke as a chance at happiness. He's considered it an obstacle he must conquer, an infuriating problem to be dealt with. The idea hits him like a bucket of cold water, as if Hadriana has decided to return from the grave and awaken him for menial tasks like repairing her robes or inspecting the security of the grounds to keep him awake and weak. Just as then, he feels shocked and weakened and helpless in the face of things he cannot fight against. But he killed Hadriana, and when Hawke was cut by the Arishok's blade he felt a stab of horror and physical agony, as if his chest and stomach were being torn apart by wild beasts, fear a thousand times worse than the scrabbling duty he had as a slave when his master's life was threatened. He frowns at Hawke's hips, which aren't swaying as much now that she walks so close to Aveline.
Hawke takes a sharp breath through her nose before she speaks. "I don't know if happiness is even possible for him," she mutters. There's a note in her voice he's never heard before, a rough sound that makes his chest twist. He tries to feel fury at her words, but instead his head just swims with confusion and the sort of nightmare terror he felt when he first ran from Denarius, as if the world just passes by him as he waits to be captured or killed.
With her head tilted at that angle, Aveline could probably see him, and he realizes that she does when she murmurs, "He's not scowling when he stares at your ass."
"Nor when he sleeps in my bed and disappears in the morning," Hawke grumbles, though she does sneak a glance at him and he has to tear his gaze away from her backside, scowling at the ground. They are mocking him, he thinks, feeling his cheeks color. Hawke adds, "I think he can hear us." Of course she would notice his flush. He grinds his teeth.
"Well, you saw how it went for me and Donnic," Aveline murmurs, resting her temple against Hawke's in a moment of sisterly affection. "That's all I'm saying."
Fenris expects Hawke to shove her away at any moment, but to his surprise, she tilts her head as well. It's a sort of half-embrace that he envies and in that moment he hates both of them for sharing such a tender contact so easily, especially considering that Hawke is not the sort to show affection to anyone.
Before he can get carried away with his jealousy, however, Hawke pulls the guard to a halt and the others stop short behind her. "Look down that hill," she says, pointing. Fenris clusters up to her other shoulder before the abomination can weasel his way in and tips his head close to her shoulder as he gazes down the line of her arm. Not that he needs to; the scene is obvious. A group of guardsmen cluster behind a low stone wall, dodging the well-placed arrows of a group of Raiders. Without a word, everyone jogs down the hill, taking cover and edging over to the guards.
Aveline and the lieutenant speak briefly and Fenris does not listen. One way or another, there's going to be a fight. He watches that vicious glitter in Hawke's eyes as she nods to the guardswomen and then leans into a huddle to discuss a plan. A moment later she grips his arm and draws him into the group with the mage.
"They're bound to have traps laid out all through the front. Send your men around the sides while I clean up these traps and wait for my signal to come in. All the casualties will be theirs from here on," Hawke promises. Her voice has that hard, fierce tone in her voice and the vicious glint in her eyes and he can smell the tang of sweat and leather and that floral perfume underneath when he leans closer to her. He wants to reach over, to grasp her chin and kiss her mouth in front of all of these people, and then he realizes how that would be like any beholden slave desperate to please a Magister, to show such public adoration.
He scowls at her. "And you intend to move ahead of us, no doubt?" he growls. He dislikes the idea of her being without protection, however temporarily. She knows how to use those shadow-bending techniques that other assassins and rogues rely so heavily on, but he has seen her use them only on rare occasions. It stands to reason she could be out of practice.
Hawke glares at him. "You won't have to wait long," she answers. A grim smirk jerks the corner of her mouth up. "You can keep staring at my arse in the meantime."
A chuckle ripples through the guardsmen and even Aveline averts her eyes and pretends to cough. Fenris glares at her as she takes a breath and hops over the wall into a copse of scrawny trees, disappearing from view as soon as she hits the shadow. His fists clench in impotent fury and he turns his fearsome look to Aveline, who crosses her arms and shakes her head as if to tell him his scowl won't change her opinion, either. But at the first shout, he sprints out of hiding and rushes to her side while every Raider in the camp turns toward them in shock.
There's a second of silence that he uses to lunge toward the nearest group, slamming his sword against all of their armor to send them staggering back. Hawke flips behind the largest of the bunch and her daggers slide into his neck. The battle begins with a series of screams and the clang of weapons and armor. Guardsmen come pouring around the low hills, but the Raiders have sent archers and a few mages up there to rain down hellfire on the flanking attack. The crowd is deep and he hears Aveline shouting at the men, her voice rising to a taunting bellow. He dashes toward her, dancing around blades and whipping his own broadsword through the men as he passes by. He pulls up back-to-back with the guardswoman, feeling a magical barrier engulf the two of them, and sees one of the mages on the hill drop to the ground in front of Hawke. A vicious grin carves across her face as her hand and foot snap out to stab the archer and break his knee in case he's quick enough to dodge her strike. He isn't.
At one point a sword rips into his chest on the wrong side and Fenris manages to activate his lyrium powers in time to prevent his lung from being punctured. A burn of magic flares over him and he sees the green glow of his skin and bone being knitted together as he decapitates his opponent and the sword falls free. He glances over his shoulder to see the abomination's pale, sweating face contorted in concentration as a man rushes toward him with a shield. Fenris snarls and lunges to defend the mage who is healing him, and Hawke.
If not for Anders' healing magic and their combined determination to keep the abomination alive when men turn on him, Fenris wonders if they would survive the battle at all. By the end they are all panting and shaking, covered in blood from head to toe, with bruises and scratches that the mage didn't bother healing because he's half fainting from exertion, the lyrium potions at his belt making hollow clinks.
"We need to get you back to Kirkwall," Aveline says as the blonde man sags against her, exhausted. She slides her arm around the mage's shoulders and one of the surviving guardsmen takes his other side. "Come meet me when you're done checking through the camp. I need to hear from you to make my report complete," she says over her shoulder at Hawke, who's already begun to gather the corpses' possessions into her pack.
The moment their companions are out of sight they turn toward one another and fall on each other with sudden violence and overwhelming need. She presses him against the cliff face with her torso against his as he crushes their bloodstained mouths together. He drags his hands up through her hair, holding her close, and realizes as her fingers make the buckles of his armor clatter that she's trembling. His kiss grows heated, brutal and tender at the same time, his tongue tracing hers and his teeth catching her lips. They fight to be free of just enough clothing and he spins them around, jamming her back to the rocks as he frees his length and shifts the leather skirt of her armor up over her hips. It happens fast and fierce, both of them clinging to each other with desperate hands scrambling across shoulders and hair and faces and backs, their mouths never parting as they swallow each other's moans and gasps.
The lyrium alights as her lips and tongue muffle his shout of her first name, and Fenris expects the flashes to come. He sees that tiny red-haired girl with yellow ribbons and the terrifying dog outside the gate, he sees the soft grey eyes of a mother and the whip of a master that he learns to hate, to try to protect them from. He collapses against Hawke, giving her a long, languid kiss with the cold steel of his palm cupping her cheek. But the images don't flee as he kisses her and he realizes they've become familiar to a degree. His heart pounds as he pulls back just enough to stare at her face, the softness of her eyes and skin against his palm.
As he drinks in the sight of her, those brilliant, vicious eyes narrow at him and she slides herself off his length, shoving him away. Her lips purse as she straightens her smallclothes and the various knives strapped to her thighs, now bruised with his fingerprints again.
"Not this time," she mutters as she passes him, pausing only when the glitter of an object catches her eye the entire way back to Kirkwall.
She never says a word to him and he does not attempt to speak to her. What can he say? As much as he wants to tell her how he wants her, as much as what Aveline said about being happy might have the uncomfortable ring of truth to it, he can't stop thinking about those memories. There's nothing but fragments and perhaps they are things he has seen so often that he cannot help but to remember them at this point. But perhaps this is the key to learning of his past, to recovering the single greatest thing that Denarius stole from him.
Fenris pauses in Lowtown and catches her hand for a moment. Hawke turns to stare at him, her eyes flashing that same war of emotions and her fingers tighten around his for a moment before they slip away. He turns toward the Hanged Man to ask Varric how good his spy network in Tevinter is. He has a sister to investigate.