Fenris sat back in his chair and glared at Isabela and Hawke.

This was ridiculous, and inane, and almost certainly Isabela's idea. She enjoyed watching him squirm.

Bad enough that he was no longer in his own home, where he felt more comfortable, and in a blasted library of all places, and one where the cruel lighting would be unkind to his scarred appearance and there were no places to sit except directly face-to-face with the two of them. As if that weren't enough, they wished him to talk. Not fade into a blessed silence and concentrate on the fantastical sight of the two of them together. No, he would have to come up with things to say. Surely this was cruel and unusual punishment.

And they expected him to command them? That thought sent unpleasant reverberations through a part of his mind where he rarely ventured, where under lock and key he kept his most terrible memories.

He closed his eyes a moment, and willed himself to remain calm. This was a small thing they asked of him. Especially in comparison to what they offered.

He did recall that Isabela, in their previous encounter, had entirely revealed Hawke's naked body but removed none of her own clothing. This could be a chance to rectify that.

When he opened his eyes again, the girls tittered nervously.

"We're waiting," Isabela reminded him.

"Fine, fine. Take off her necklace."

"Which one of us..?"

"Hawke. Take off Isabela's necklace."

Isabela looked surprised. Her predatory, satisfied look faded slightly.

Hawke, meanwhile, looked quite cheerful. "Ooh, that's an idea. I rarely see her without it."

She turned to her lover and reached her hands up and around her neck. Slowly and tenderly, they brushed across her shoulders and brushed back her hair.

At first, Isabela appeared to freeze. Then, obligingly, she turned her head and lifted her dark hair, and Hawke began to work at the clasp.

"It's so heavy," she said as she pulled it off. "I don't know how you wear this all the time."

"I like to know it's there," Isabela answered vaguely. She watched as Hawke set the necklace on the nightstand. "Now what, Fenris?"

Fenris noted a thin, faint line that crossed her collarbone - some sort of scar.

Best not let on that he'd noticed. She appeared eager to move on.

"Earrings," he said.

The golden ovals were removed, one at a time, by a smiling Hawke.

Isabela still looked a little uncertain. This wasn't what she had been anticipating. "I don't think you understand this game, elf. We can do whatever you want, and you have me taking off my jewelry...?"

"I wanted to see what you would look like without it."

Strangely, Isabela seemed to feel more naked without her jewelry than she did without her clothes. Which made him feel a bit guilty.

It was undeniably pleasant, though, to see the uninterrupted plane of her chest leading up to her soft throat. That beautiful dark skin. Maker forgive him, he wanted to see more of it. All of it.

Oh, this was a cunning game after all. Clever Isabela.

Hawke, taking a little initiative, kissed the Rivaini's left earlobe once she had finished removing the gold earrings. Isabela pushed her off, lightly. "No jumping ahead, kitten."

"No, no," he cut in. And had to swallow right away, his mouth was so dry. "She can do that."

"Do what?" Isabela said pointedly.

"Is the goal of this game to irritate me? You're winning." Then he acceded. "Hawke, you may kiss her ear. As you were already doing."

He watched the flash of pink tongue slipping out to capture Isabela's ear lobe with very, very close attention, and wondered if human ears were as sensitive as his. It seemed to do somethingfor Isabela, who sighed as the smaller woman sucked the delicate earlobe between her teeth. That same action would make a mess of him, if Hawke were to...

(Fenris cut that line of thinking off rapidly.)

"Unlace her shift," he said next.

Hawke released Isabela's ear. "I knew this was going to be fun."

Although the proximity of the two of them rattled his nerves somewhat, it was admittedly a pleasure to be allowed to stare with such a clear, close view. He could see Isabela's dark eyelashes flutter when Hawke's hands ran over her breasts. He could stare at the downy hairs at the nape of Hawke's neck.

To be permitted to see this was a privilege he was still not accustomed to.

Hawke loosened the laces at the top of Isabela's cleavage first, exposing even more of her lovely breasts. Though large, they appeared to be firm and pert. Surely her corset aided that effect; he would see for certain soon enough. Fenris had spent a lot more time than he wanted to admit envisioning her naked breasts. As anyone with even a passing interest in breasts would do, faced with such a paragon of femininity.

But, maddeningly, Hawke suddenly switched to the bottom laces, dropping to the floor as she did so. She was removing the laces altogether, pulling up from the bottom of Isabela's corset.

Isabela was antsy, sitting still like this. "Can I help her with that?"

"... No."

"If you are going to leave me sitting here with nothing to do, you can at least talk to me."

Hawke threaded the laces up another inch, working up the Rivaini's stomach.

"You know, any number of men have dreamed of seeing this much of me," Isabela continued, with an alluring smile. "Does it live up to expectations?"

"You are... different from what I imagined."

"Imagined?" she teased him. "Happy to hear you have an imagination after all. Different how?"

This conversation frustrated him. He knew no way to explain how different they both were from everything in his admittedly limited experience.

"You... talk more. You laugh and joke."

Isabela gave him a disapproving look, informing him that had been his opportunity to compliment her beauty.

Still, it was the thing that had surprised him about Isabela and Hawke. They were unlike any examples of such coupling that he had seen. This in particular had stirred his thoughts in the week since their encounter.

"Is that unusual? That we enjoy each other?"

"So vocally, yes. From what I have seen in Tevinter, it is not common." He thought for a moment, and then asked: "Is it because you are women?"

Now it was Isabela's turn to giggle. "It's because Hawke can't stop talking for a single moment," she explained.

When Hawke made an annoyed sound and glared up at her, she petted her hair affectionately. "Sorry, kitten, but it's true."

"Says the one doing all the talking," Hawke complained lightly, before returning to her task.

To Fenris, Isabela continued, "No, not all women are like that. It's different with different people. Depends on the person."

"You are gentle with each other..." Fenris continued. "That was striking to me. Even when you are more forceful, you are gentle. No... you are generous."

"What were you expecting?"

"Taking. Taking your pleasure from another. This isn't like that. It is more like... play. I have not seen that before," he said thoughtfully.

As if on cue, Hawke reached the top of Isabela's shift and pulled the laces through. The pirate's cleavage deflated, but only slightly, once her corset hung open. Hawke spread open the cloth covering Isabela's breasts, and they were exposed.

Fenris couldn't fully see them, though, because Hawke had descended upon them first, lavishing the soft skin with kisses and caresses. Her body between them blocked him entirely.

"You are bad at following directions," he told her, and could not help smiling.

She chuckled, and sank back to the floor between Isabela's knees. "Sorry, it's hard to resist."

He saw exactly what she meant. Isabela's breasts were spectacular. They looked so soft. Her dark nipples, in particular, tempted him to hardness. The skin around them was unblemished, perfect, and they were so perfectly placed at the peak of the round swell of each breast. To feel them hardening between his lips, against his tongue, he would give almost anything. For a moment he was almost dizzy with longing.

He kept his voice firm. "Hawke... touch them. With your hands. Let me see."

Staying in a kneeling position, she lifted her hands up to caress Isabela's breasts, lifting them, squeezing them, massaging them into new shapes. The contrast of their skin tones made Hawke's fingers even more visible against the supple skin she stroked.

The Rivanni had gone very quiet, leaning back against the chair with a drowsy expression. He could see by the rise and fall of her chest that her breathing was heavy. Her golden eyes were locked onto his face, and the intensity of her gaze was truly stunning. She looked like she wanted to eat him alive.

"Kiss them, Hawke," Fenris commanded in a low, urgent growl.

The rogue rose up between the pirate's knees and brought her lips to the pirate's left breast, kissing her way around it. Meanwhile, her left hand squeezed at the right breast. Her hand looked small against it. Then Hawke found her nipple and stayed there, her lips moving against the delicate skin.

Isabela's mouth opened and closed again, with no sound coming out. Her eyes drifted almost closed, but Fenris could still see golden irises glittering at him from black-rimmed slits. He could vaguely see Hawke continuing her work below, switching her mouth to the other breast, stroking and caressing with her other hand.

He wanted to urge her to do it faster, more. Do for her what he could not.

There was so much more he wanted to see. He wanted to see Isabela's thigh-high boots stripped off slowly, to caress every inch of her powerful thighs. He wanted every last buckled strap from her strong brown arms, so that Hawke could kiss her from shoulder to fingertip. He wanted those gloves to come off to bare her clever hands.

But right now, more than anything, he wanted to see her in ecstasy.

"Her smallclothes," he said, unsteadily this time. "Show them to me."

Rather than simply flip it up, Hawke pulled Isabela's shift over her head, the pirate leaning forward to aid her. All at once she was revealed to him, all but her long boots and her smallclothes. All of her beautiful skin. Scarred as it may be with what he knew were knife wounds from her many duels, for him she was perfect. She had a gold piercing of some kind in her belly that glinted in the light. And she wore the red lace smalls that had featured heavily in his thoughts since he first saw them a week ago.

The room swam in front of his eyes for a moment.

His mind was crowded with (urges) images of what he wanted to do to her, what he would have Hawkedo to her, so many that it was hard to settle on just one. It was hard to think at all, with his body ready to lunge forward entirely on its own and throw Isabela to the floor.

He almost forgot to issue another command to Hawke, who he could feel was watching him expectantly. She stayed kneeling before him on the floor, not doing the obvious and removing the Rivaini's smallclothes, waiting for him to speak again. Could she not know what he wanted her to be doing?

"Take them off," he commanded sharply, without looking at her.

The harshness of his own voice surprised him.

It jarred loose an image of another man, a man in shadow, sitting in a chair above the three of them, issuing commands of his own. Using them to enact his desires.

His eyes snapped shut at that, and every part of Fenris recoiled.

Faintly, he could hear Hawke saying something, but her words were blurred together. Sweet Hawke. Who never complained when he snapped at her, who had been nothing but endlessly patient and kind with him.

What was he doing?

There were the sounds of Hawke cheerfully obliging his order. The chair creaked as Isabela shifted her weight. There was a pleasant low murmur between the two lovers that was tender even as it was barbed with lust. He felt it thrum in his groin, his body still reacting to them even as his skin crawled at his own behavior.

He hung his head, then, and his hair slid over his eyes.

He wasn't sure how much time went by before he heard Hawke call out his name.

He opened his eyes to see her still kneeling on the floor between Isabela's knees, but turned around to look up at him with concern. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"No." He tented his fingers in front of his face once more, and forced the words out. "This isn't right. To sit above you and issue... commands... I do not want this."

"It's a game, Fenris," Isabela said. Her expression was... complicated. Was she annoyed with him? Angry? Something else? He could not tell.

"To me it is not a game."

Hawke, as always, was trying to be helpful. "Don't think of it as a command. Think of it as a... request."

"Don't patronize me," he countered her.

"I'm sorry," Hawke said, softly, her eyes downcast.

Fenris closed his eyes again and tried to bring himself back under control.

"We just want to know what you want," she tried to explain.

"What I want..." Fenris echoed her, not able to finish that thought.

What his treacherous body wanted was one thing. The rest of him was another matter. Indecision paralyzed his mind, and his heart pounded in his chest.

There seemed to be no way through this. Certainty eluded him, as it always did in his present life. He could not have said for certain what he wanted now, nor how to even begin to explain the problem.

The things he really wanted were for later, at some undefined moment in the future when everything would make more sense. When he had killed his master and could really begin to live. There were many things that he wanted for this later. Until then he was only doing the things he already knew how to do: wielding a sword, living in Danarius's manor. Everything else was doubt and confusion.

Someday, when Danarius was dead, he would be a new person, a whole person. Someone who could have his own desires without worrying they were tainted or twisted, and be able to act on them without fear. That person could be worthy of Hawke and Isabela.

But he had no idea how to get to there from here.

Here, his pulse was racing out of control and adrenaline was kicking in. He needed to go. Away. Now.

"I need air," he said abruptly.

He did his best to ignore the bewildered reactions of Isabela and Hawke, and he fled.