In which Isabela returns, FINALLY. (No, the smut doesn’t include Isabela. Yes, it needs to be specified. She is an adorable saucy wench, after all. 😂) 

For @dadrunkwriting Friday!

Read here on AO3:
tinyurl.com/fenhawke8

***************

Fenris opened his front door and was nearly bowled over by Hawke and her mabari hound as they barreled their way inside.

“You’ll never guess who’s back in town!” Hawke exclaimed. Her face was a picture of excitement as she turned to face him. “I’ll give you a hint: only one person in this room has slept with her, and that’s really saying something.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “Isabela’s back?”

“Yes!” Hawke squealed. “We stopped by the Hanged Man to speak to Varric, and there she was at the bar, as casual as you please. It’s like she never left.” She grinned at him as she kicked off her boots. “She even apologized for being gone so long! I almost had a stroke from the shock alone.” She knelt to playfully ruffle Toby’s neck. “It’s exciting, isn’t it, boy?” she crooned. “We just about had a seizure, didn’t we?”

“That’s… good,” Fenris said. He was genuinely surprised. Isabela had been gone so long that he’d honestly stopped expecting her to return.

Hawke threw him an incredulous look. “Good? It’s fantastic! I always knew she’d come back. This is just proof of how good I am at predicting the future. I should moonlight as a fortune teller.” She winked at him.

Fenris eyed her shrewdly as she returned her attention to Toby. She hadn’t often spoken of Isabela in the last three years, but Fenris knew for a fact that she’d been less than certain of Isabela’s return.

“We will be seeing her later tonight, then?” he asked.

“Yes,” Hawke said. “Homecoming party at my house. All of us will be there. That’s why I came, actually – I want to raid your wine cellar. I think you finished my last bottle of red last night.” She smiled teasingly at him.

He smirked. “Guilty as charged,” he admitted. “I don’t believe I have anything good here. But you are free to take whatever you find.”

“Good,” she chirped. “I’ll be back in a moment. Then we can head over to mine?”

He nodded, and Hawke gave Toby one last scratch as she rose to her feet. “Stay here. Keep Fenris company,” she said to the hound, then traipsed off to Fenris’s wine cellar.

Fenris looked down at Toby, who wagged his tail happily in return. Fenris gave the hound a half-smile as he crouched beside him. “Are you pleased to see Isabela, too?” he murmured.

Toby wagged his tail more enthusiastically, and Fenris huffed in amusement. “Of course you are. That damned pirate feeds you from the table. It’s a terrible habit.” He scratched the loyal hound’s jowls.

A few minutes later, Toby was splayed blissfully on his back while Fenris rubbed his belly, but Hawke still hadn’t returned. Fenris frowned in the direction of the wine cellar. He was quite certain it was practically empty; Hawke should have been back by now with any spoils, if there were any to be had.

He rose to his feet, and Toby whined at the abandonment. Fenris frowned at him. “You can come as well,” he said. “No one is stopping you.” He headed to the wine cellar with Hawke’s hound at his heels.

He found her kneeling on the floor of the cellar with her elbows resting on an open crate. Fenris studied her bowed head for a moment before stepping into the room. “Are you all right?”

She jerked her head up at the sound of his voice. “Of course!” she chirped. She hastily wiped her face before turning to smile at him. “I’m in mourning for this last of this bottle of Nevarran red, though. I’m stealing it for tonight.” She turned back to the crate and pulled out the single bottle that sat inside.

Fenris offered her a hand, and she allowed him to pull her to her feet. He gave her a knowing look as she met his gaze. “It would not be unreasonable if you were angry,” he said carefully.

She blinked up at him with wide eyes. “Angry about what? Isabela came back! It’s great!” She released his hand and drifted over to his dusty shelves with Toby in her wake. She idly petted the dog, then drifted her fingers over the detritus and broken bottles that were the shelves’ only contents.  

Fenris watched her haphazard movements with growing tenderness. He hadn’t explicitly mentioned Isabela’s name when he’d asked if she was angry.

He picked his way past the broken crates and gently tugged her arm. “Hawke,” he said quietly.

An instant later, her face was pressed to his shoulder, and her arms were so tight around his waist that he could feel the wracking shake of her body. Toby leaned heavily against her legs, and Fenris held her close, pressing his cheek to the side of her dark-haired head as her fingers clenched against his back.

A long minute later, Hawke took a deep breath. “I’m just… so happy she’s back.” She hiccuped and pressed her face more firmly against his shoulder.

Her voice was thick and a little bit wobbly. Fenris stroked the back of her neck. “I know,” he murmured.

She sniffled quietly, and Fenris simply held her until her shoulders relaxed. Finally she leaned away and smiled at him with reddened eyes. “Wait until you see her, though. She’s more tan than I remembered. Tall, dark, and more beautiful than ever. I’d forgotten what it was like to have Kirkwall’s most gorgeous tart making me look bad.” She chuckled and scratched Toby’s ears until he was wagging his tail again.

Fenris tipped her chin up and gave her a chiding look. “Don’t be foolish, Hawke. Your beauty is incomparable.”  

She grinned at him: a huge, genuine grin, exactly what he’d been hoping to see. She slid her arms around his neck. “You damned smooth talker,” she purred. “Trying to tempt me into cancelling this party?”

He slid his palms appreciatively along the curves of her waist. “Perhaps,” he mused. “Am I succeeding?”

She laughed. “Not quite,” she said. “But I’ll reward that silver tongue of yours later tonight.” She stepped away with a dirty smile.

“I will hold you to that,” Fenris drawled, then followed Hawke’s sunny laugh as she skipped out of the wine cellar.

He didn’t doubt that Hawke was happy about Isabela’s return. But if the past seven years had taught Fenris anything, it was the fragile opacity of Hawke’s humorous mask.

*****************

“Fenris!”

He smirked at Isabela as she sauntered over with a smile. “Isabela,” he greeted. “Three years later and still no ship of your own, or so I understand.”

She dramatically pressed a hand to her ample chest. “Ouch! Hitting me where it hurts? What did I ever do to you?” She planted her fist on her hip and slid an appreciative look over his body. “You look well,” she said. “I’m glad to hear you finally got your cock on straight. Your head, I mean.”

Fenris pursed his lips, and Isabela grinned. “Now that you two fools have finally figured yourselves out, I can give you some tips,” she continued. “There’s a tongue thing that Hawke particularly likes, if you-”

“I know what Hawke likes without your help, thank you,” he drawled.

Isabela gave a throaty laugh. “Oh, Fenris. Such confidence! I hope it’s not misplaced.”

He opened his mouth with a retort at the ready, but Hawke bounced over before he could speak. “Gossiping about me behind my back, I see?” she said cheerfully as she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “I’d rather you gossip in front of my face! Let me watch the whole thing unfold. It’s like my own private melodrama.” She grinned at Isabela.

The erstwhile captain folded her arms innocently. “I was just trying to make sure he’s treating you well,” she replied. “Keeping an eye out for my girl, you know.” She raised one eyebrow salaciously.

Hawke laughed. “Oh Bels, you have nothing to worry about with this one. He does a far better job than you.” She slapped Fenris on the ass, then grinned at him when he shot her a chiding look.

Isabela gasped in pretend offense. “Damn, now {you’re} taking shots at me? If I’d known this was going to be a roast, I’d have worn a less flammable dress.”

Hawke laughed. “Your dress is flammable by virtue of being wrapped around your fine ass,” she said. She swiftly kissed Isabela on the cheek, then hurried over to the door to greet Sebastian and Merrill.

Isabela chuckled, then smirked at Fenris again. “She’s the same as ever, isn’t she? I’m glad this Champion business hasn’t brought her down.”

Fenris gave her a half-smile and shrugged. As with everything difficult in her life, Hawke’s unwanted title weighed on her more than she was letting on, even to him. It was only since they’d begun spending their nights together that he was realizing how much the festering conflict between Meredith and Orsino was bothering her.

But Isabela would figure that out in time, if she stuck around.

A high-pitched squeal of delight made him flinch, and he took a hasty step back as Merrill flung herself into Isabela’s arms. He slipped away from the two women and joined Varric instead, who was trying to teach Sandal how to shuffle cards, with Bodahn’s benevolent supervision.  

A couple of hours, many hands of diamondback, and a few drinks later, Fenris wandered into the kitchen for another bowl of nuts and found Isabela pouring herself a measure of rum.

She leaned back against the counter with her tumbler in hand as he rummaged around in a cupboard. “Ah, I missed you idiots,” she said. “Funny how some things don’t change. Except Anders. He’s gone a bit… weird. More than before, I mean.” She sipped her drink. “What’s going on with him?”

Fenris grunted. His tolerance of Anders has sharply declined over the past few months, but Fenris was in too good a mood to talk about that right now.

He changed the topic. “Hawke is pleased that you’ve returned,” he said.

Isabela sighed and leaned one elbow on the counter. “Is this where you scold me for taking so long to come back?” she said plaintively. “I told you I would. Eventually.”

Fenris shrugged as he opened a sachet of roasted peanuts. “I am not scolding you. You’re a free agent; you can do whatever you like.” He declined to point out that Isabela’s freedom was entirely thanks to Hawke. He raised one eyebrow at her. “Do you think you deserve to be scolded?”

Isabela folded her arms and smirked. “That depends. What does this ‘scolding’ entail?” she purred.

Fenris gave her a flat look, and she chuckled. She drained her glass in two gulps, then poured herself another drink. “Well, Hawke forgave me. If my coming back is good enough for her, it should be good enough for you.”

He scooped some roasted nuts into a bowl. “I did not say it wasn’t.”

Isabela shot him an exasperated look. “Oh come on, Fenris, you’re not perfect either. We’re both lucky that she forgives everyone for everything.” She pushed away from the counter and took the bowl of peanuts from his hands. “I’ll make it up to her, all right?” She sauntered out of the kitchen.

Fenris frowned at her not-so-subtle dig as he followed her back to the cacophony of Hawke’s games room. Aveline and Anders were embroiled in an argument over the last hand of cards, and Donnic was trying to restore the peace while Varric chuckled, but Fenris couldn’t quite muster a smile as he took his seat next to Hawke.

Her face was lit with a broad grin, but it faded somewhat as she looked at him. She gently rubbed his chin. “Everything all right?”

He nodded, but her expression didn’t clear until he surreptitiously placed his hand on her knee. “I’m fine,” he said quietly, and the corners of her eyes crinkled in a smile.

Then Anders’ indignant voice reached a crescendo. “You can’t discard the card you just picked up,” he snapped at Aveline. “That’s not how the game works. It’s not fair.”

“‘Fair’.” The redheaded warrior snorted. “So Justice – or Vengeance, or whatever it is – cares about the outcomes of card games, now?”

Anders swelled in indignation, and Hawke rose from her chair and sashayed over to them. “All right, all right, now I know tensions are high because Varric is fleecing all of us-”

“Hey,” Varric interjected. “My winnings are entirely fair.”

“Untrue. You and Merrill have a signal,” Hawke announced. “I’ve been watching you.”

“Hawke!” Merrill gasped. “I would never-”

“Merrill,” Hawke interrupted, “You are a woman of many talents, but a convincing poker face is not one of them.”

The table erupted into laughter and playful jeering. Isabel threw popcorn at Varric and Merrill while Sebastian chastised them for their dishonesty, and Fenris watched as Hawke continued to tease and deflect until Anders smiled at Aveline and the Knight-Captain affably elbowed him in return.

As he watched Hawke’s careful social lubrication, Fenris thought back to the time he’d accidentally witnessed her lamenting to Varric about his misplaced cruelty. He remembered the multitude of times he’d stormed away from her, only to return to her openly smiling face.

He wondered how many times she’d cried over him in secret when nobody was around to see.

A pang of remorse prodded his belly, and he toyed with his wineglass for a moment before gulping the last mouthful. Perhaps Isabela was right; perhaps Hawke was more forgiving than she should be.

Perhaps the wily pirate wasn’t the only one with several years of sins to make up for.

****************

Much later that night, Fenris followed a giggling Hawke up the stairs to her bedroom. She pushed open the bedroom door, then grinned at him as she made her way inside. “… and Merrill mocking him behind his back,” she snickered. “I never would have guessed she could imitate Seb’s pious-Chantry face so well. I’ll have to ask her to break it out next time we go to the Gallows. Meredith will love it, I’m sure.”

Fenris sat on the edge of the bed as she began unbuttoning her vest. She shed the vest and tossed it onto her desk chair, then glanced at him curiously as she began unlacing her shirt. “You’ve been a bit broody tonight. Handsome as always, but broody.” She gave him a half-smile. “Tongue-tied at the sight of Isabela? I don’t blame you. I was too, I can assure you.” She winked as she discarded her shirt.

He studied her with painful fondness as she stripped off her trousers. How was it that she could be so bold, but so heart-wrenchingly vulnerable at the same time?

“I’m sorry,” he blurted.

“For what?” she said. She glanced casually at him, then froze as she met his eye. The lightning-quick flash of panic across her face simultaneously confirmed his suspicions and broke his heart.

She was still afraid. Despite their warm togetherness, a part of her was still afraid that he was going to leave.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her close to stand between his legs. “I’m sorry that I’ve hurt you. I… the time I needed…” He paused for a moment, then softly he said, “Isabela was not the only one who abandoned you.”

Her face instantly softened, and the sheer relief in her smile only made his heart hurt even more. She gently pinched his earlobe. “You didn’t abandon me, you foolish dreamboat,” she said. “Nobody has been more present than you.”

He shook his head. “I… have not been kind to you,” he said with difficulty. “I left you, I have said things that were not-”

She cupped his face in her hands. “Fenris, it’s all right,” she said firmly. “There’s no need to keep apologizing forever.” She smiled impishly. “You saddled yourself with me in the end. That’s all I really wanted anyway.”

He swallowed hard. The fact that she would joke about herself in this way – that she would joke about his feelings this way… It was far more telling than her cheeky smile.

He pulled her closer, sliding his hands from her hips up to her waist. “I will make it up to you,” he promised.

“There’s nothing to make up for,” she insisted.

He tilted her chin down and looked into her eyes. “There is,” he said seriously, then reached for the laces on her bustier.

Her serious expression broke into a mischievous smile. “Oh,” she said. “This kind of making up? Well, I’m all for that.”

Her spine was already arching, bringing her skin closer to his fingers, and Fenris finally smiled. He took her chin in a gentle grip. “Shut up, Hawke,” he whispered, then gently kissed her raspberry-red lips.

Hawke parted her lips to permit the careful questing of his tongue. She rested her palms on his thighs as he tugged the laces on her bustier, and Fenris fought to ignore the heat of her hands on his legs; he had an agenda now, a compulsion to strip her and to see her to her satisfaction, and he refused to be distracted by the temptation of her infernal magical fingers.

As soon as the bustier was unlaced, he tossed it aside and gathered her close, sliding his hands from her waist up to her shoulder blades and pressing his cheek against the smooth planes of her belly. Hawke sank her fingers into his hair, holding him close as he rubbed his cheek against her skin.

Venhedis, her skin, her soft and golden skin: it was like velvet, a lush and brilliant sheath for this woman who was both lewd and kind, both strong and fragile at once. Fenris brushed his lips from the base of her sternum up to the sweeping curve of her breast, then ran his fingers over the tattoo that spanned her left-side ribs and shoulder blade. The contrast of ink and skin was not lost on him: the twisted ebony curls and spikes of her tattoo crept across the sweet smooth canvas of her back, and Fenris was struck as always by the uncanny match between the woman and the art that adorned her.

He brushed the swell of her breast with his nose, inhaled in time with her as she drew a tremulous breath, then slid his lips across the dusky peak of her nipple. She curved toward his mouth, her fingers curling against his nape as she slid one knee onto the bed to straddle his thigh, and Fenris caressed the underside of her breast with one thumb while sliding his other hand along the silk of her thigh.

He tasted her nipple with careful little licks, savouring the firmness of the dusky little bud on the tip of his tongue. Hawke exhaled sharply, and her palms trailed down to his shoulders to pluck insistently at the collar of his long-sleeved tunic.

He gently pried her hands away from his shirt and kissed the insides of her wrists, and she released a breathless little laugh. “You really prefer touching over being touched, don’t you?” she asked.

He looked up at her in surprise. He’d never thought much about it, but now that she’d mentioned it, the look and feel of Hawke’s twisting pleasure was indeed the thing that most strongly stoked his own desire.

“I prefer touching you over touching anything else,” he replied, and she smiled more widely still.

He pressed his lips to her wrist again, then the inside of her elbow, then the underside of her breast. “I want to touch you now,” he murmured. “Let me give you this.”

She breathed another little laugh. “Fenris, I will never say no to an offer like that.”

He smiled slowly at her. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. Then he took her nipple into his mouth.

Hawke released a shivering little gasp, and Fenris hooked his thumb into the edge of her smallclothes and tugged until she slid her knee off of the bed and pushed the garment down. He ran his hands over her naked body, palming the sweet curves of her bottom, then stroking the ladders of her ribs as they flowed into her waist and the angles of her hips. His fingers trailed along the inside of her thigh, slipping over the moisture that was already spreading there, and then he was caressing the swollen slickness between her legs.

She tilted her hips toward him, her fingers clenching on his shoulders as she pressed her chest toward his ravenous lips. He ran his fingers along the length of her cleft to tenderly trace every heated fold, and soon she was riding his hand, sliding herself smoothly along his fingers as she gasped her pleasure toward the ceiling.

He slipped the tips of his fingers along the edges of her swollen clit, and Hawke jerked and released a high-pitched little cry. The neediness and the want in her voice were as sharp and clear as ice, and Fenris treated her cry like the implicit command that it was: he abruptly rose to his feet and pushed Hawke onto the bed, then knelt at her feet and eased her legs apart.

Her breaths grew increasingly short as he ran his nose along the inside of her right thigh and inhaled her earthy female scent. He gently licked the tender patch of skin at the apex of her thigh, and she pushed her hips up off the bed toward him.

“Please,” she whined. “I need you.”

Her voice was sweet, but the words she breathed were slightly bitter to his ears. He didn’t want her to beg tonight. He didn’t want Hawke to have to beg for anything from him, not when all he wanted was to give her everything.  

Immediately he buried his face between her legs. She fell back on the bed with a mewl of delight, and Fenris devoted himself to her pleasure, slicking his tongue over her tender bud and listening carefully to every sound she made until she was writhing beneath his mouth.

Hawke whimpered and clenched her fists in the blankets, her hips grinding against his face in a circular rhythm, and Fenris followed suit, swirling his tongue obediently around her clit. When she lifted her hips again, he lifted his hand and trailed one finger around her heated entrance.

“Ah – yes, Fenris, I – yes!” Her words trailed off into a wordless wail of ecstasy as he slipped two fingers inside of her all the way to his knuckles.

Satisfied and stimulated by her obvious delight, he growled his approval against her flesh, then swirled his fingers against her inner walls as he stroked her tender swollen clit with his tongue. When she finally gasped her climax, Fenris curled his fingers inside of her, and she arched her back dramatically like a bow.

“F-fuck!” she cried. Her arms were raised above her head, her fists twisted in the now-dishevelled blankets, and as she came down from her climax, Fenris rose to his feet and admired the openness of her pleasure-splayed body.

She languidly opened her eyes and pierced him with a heated stare. “Take everything off,” she demanded breathily. “I want you naked right now.”

He quickly stripped off his clothes, wanting nothing more than to give her exactly what she asked of him. He slid onto her bed, but before he had time to settle himself over her supine form, she pushed herself onto her knees. She crawled toward him and shoved his shoulders until he sat back against the head of the bed, then straddled his hips.

She grasped his shaft and pumped her fist along his length, and Fenris choked out a pleasured gasp as he grabbed her hips. His eyes fell helplessly on the juncture of their bodies, on her slender mage’s fingers wrapped around his cock as confidently as they held a staff. She was the strongest mage he knew, the only strong mage he’d ever known, the most disciplined and controlled and good, and fasta vass, how she could possibly think he would ever leave her again –

She positioned herself over his cock and took him all the way to the hilt, and Fenris groaned as she took his lips in a hard kiss. Within seconds she was rolling against him, her hips grinding hard and swift against him as she gripped the back of his neck.

His fingers clutched her waist and as he lifted his hips to match her every thrust. She peeled away from his lips with a gasp, then leaned back and rested her hands on his shins as she continued to lever herself against him fast and hard, and Fenris simply stared at the perfection of her body. The sweet swells of her breasts, the undulation her belly as she fucked him in a careful flowing wave of motion, the dark damp curls between her legs that coyly veiled the nub of her pleasure, that sweet little bud that he so enjoyed lavishing with his tongue…

He ran his knuckles from her sternum down to the apex of her thighs, then lightly brushed one knuckle against her clit.

She jerked and pressed her own knuckles against her gasping mouth. “Oh Maker,” she whimpered. “Fenris -”

His eyes darted to her face, and when she nodded furiously, he stroked her clit more firmly with his knuckle.

She released a sharp and blissful little cry before biting the back of her hand, and Fenris continued to caress the sensitive little spot. Hawke’s rolling hips came to a torturously slow and steady grind, and he could see her pleasure rising, the tension in her face and the clenching of her fist against her mouth, and his own need was rising in tandem, his cock pulsing with unfulfilled need as she rolled against him so agonizingly slowly…  

And then she gasped, her other hand rising to scrabble at her own throat as she threw her head back and screamed in ecstasy. “Fenris, fuck me!”

He didn’t hesitate, not for a single second. He grabbed her hips and dragged her onto his cock with a hard and heavenly slam.

She grabbed his shoulder, the nails of her other hand clenched against her own clavicles, and then she was crying out as he followed her command and fucked her hard. The euphoric expression on her flushed face was bringing him higher, rendering him frantic as her hands grasped his neck, her nails now gripping his arms, his teeth against her breast and her nipple teasing his tongue as she gasped and mewled in ecstasy –

His climax crashed over him in a blinding rush. Fenris groaned and buried his face between her breasts, his arms sliding tight around her waist as he shuddered helplessly beneath her.

She loosely wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her lips to the top of his head. He heaved a last shuddering sigh and lifted his face, and Hawke’s lips traced his cheekbone in a line of gentle kisses.

She tenderly kissed the tip of his ear. “You make me happy,” she whispered.

Fenris tightened his arms around her, then slowly turned his head to meet her lips in a kiss. But even as he languished in her easy affection, a sad truth rang in his mind: he’d taken her forgiveness for granted.

In the wake of their blissful joining, Fenris had allowed himself believe that years of history could be rinsed clean in the space of weeks. But Hawke’s complicated reaction to Isabela’s return made him think it wasn’t that simple.

There were some things Fenris would never be able to forgive: the lyrium-laced scars on his skin, the abuses he’d both suffered and witnessed at the hands of Tevinter slavers… Some things, in his opinion, should never be forgiven.

Hawke was far more forgiving than he, but Fenris had a sneaking suspicion that there were some things she would never forget.

But Hawke deserved to be happy. After all that she’d lost these past three years, and all that she’d given him – the unstinting friendship, the laughter and the hope and the pleasure of her body: after all that, she deserved to be happy.

And Fenris would do everything in his power to make her so.