<gaaaaasp> omg I LOVE YOUR FENHAWKE ART. I feel like I’ve been contacted by a celebrity. Needless to say I filled your prompt immediately for @dadrunkwriting! I hope you enjoy this silly fluff! :3 

For everyone who hasn’t seen: @rhythm-diary does the most beautiful Fenris/femHawke art, please check it out here! 

Read this drabble on AO3. 

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

With a whisper of metal and a satisfying thunk, Fenris’s knife sank into the Archon’s face.

Fenris stared at the damaged painting with malicious satisfaction. If only this hideous portrait were an actual Tevinter magister. Though if it were, he’d probably get more satisfaction from using his sword than this puny knife…

He lifted another throwing knife from the set. With a deft overhand throw, the blade sank into the centre of the oil painting.

At that moment, Hawke wandered in, her hands in her pockets and a smile on her face. “Ooh, a new hobby. Cleaving your foes into a bloody pulp isn’t enough for you anymore?”

He raised one eyebrow. “Mastery of a new weapon is always a boon,” he said. He threw another knife, pleased when it sank into the center of the vile portrait’s nose.

Hawke plopped herself down on the floor, immediately pulling off her boots as she was wont to do. “I didn’t know you knew how to throw knives,” she said.

“Isabela taught me,” Fenris replied. “I have done my best to practice when I have the time.” He whipped another blade at the painting, and it slammed directly into the Archon’s right eye.

“Ah, Isabela. Of course,” Hawke said. She leaned back on her palms and stretched her legs out in front of her. “I can’t decide who that must have been more enjoyable for. Did she stand behind you while teaching you?” She adopted a droll imitation of Isabela’s sultry voice. “‘Here, Fenris, let me put my arms around you and show you how to make a man bleed…’” She sighed happily. “Two beautiful people learning a beautiful lesson together. Varric should write a book about it.”

Her jests would have seemed genuine to anyone else, but Fenris knew of Hawke’s strange little insecurity when it came to her own best friend. She might have been drunk when she’d revealed her envy of Isabela and Fenris’s flirting years ago, but Fenris had never forgotten it.

He shot her a chiding little smirk. “Hawke, how is that you are jealous of Isabela? You’re the one who used to sleep with her.”

“Why else do you think I’m jealous?” Hawke retorted. “I know firsthand what Bels is capable of. She does this thing with her tongue, like this rolling thing, and it’s just…” She trailed off, her smirk wry and expectant, and Fenris folded his arms.

“Yes?” he drawled. “Please, continue. You’ve got my attention.” He was only half-joking. His lewd and mindless cock was stirring with interest – not at the thought of Hawke and Isabela together, which is what she likely expected, but rather at the fond fantasy of his own tongue rolling against certain sensitive parts of Hawke’s lithe body…

She grinned slowly at him. “I bet I do,” she purred. “But I don’t kiss and tell.”

“You just were,” he said flatly.

She dissolved into laughter. “Okay, fine, I do, but only because Isabela did first! But I’m not saying any more. I don’t want to give you any more ideas about Kirkwall’s sexiest pirate. I just barely caught your eye, I’m not about to cut myself off at the knees.”

She tossed him a rueful smile as she pushed herself to her bare feet, then strolled over to the painting. Fenris frowned at her in confusion as she began pulling the plethora of blades from the canvas. Just barely…? Why would she think his interest was so hard-won? Or so fickle, for that matter?

She turned away from the damaged painting with the throwing knives in her hands, and Fenris accepted them with a silent nod of thanks. Hawke sat on the floor again with her legs stretched out. “Well? Impress me,” she purred.

“I’m not here to put on a show for you,” he grumbled.

“Fenris, everything you do is like putting on a show for me,” she retorted. “You walking… You picking up a bottle… You swinging your sword into someone’s face… oof, someone get me a glass of cold water.” She fanned herself playfully, then winked at him.

He shook his head despairingly, but a traitorous little smirk pulled at his lips. “You are an idiot,” he informed her.

“Only for you, Fenris. Only for you,” she said, just as she always did, and her reliable response made his smile stretch wider.

He threw a few blades at the painting, and Hawke hummed to herself as she watched him, her toes bobbing in time to whatever song was stuck in her head. Then Fenris picked up another blade, but instead of throwing it, he ran his thumb idly across its narrow handle and eyed her speculatively.

She stopped humming as she met his gaze. “What is it?”

He studied her for a moment more, then waved his hand for her to approach. “Come here. I’ll teach you.”

Her eyes widened, and a huge smile bloomed across her face. “Really?” She scrambled to her feet.

“Yes,” he said. “You should learn another method of attack. Blades are more reliable than your blasted lightning and firebolts. You mages never seem to anticipate physical attacks.”

Hawke frowned and opened her mouth to retort. Fenris waited, the back of his neck already prickling in anticipation of an argument, but she hesitated.

Finally she shrugged. “I guess that makes sense. I mean, I’m great at lightning bolts,” she winked at him again and he pursed his lips with displeasure, “but as a famously broody handsome elf once said, ‘mastery of a new weapon is always a boon.’”

She deepened her voice in a mocking impression of him, and he smirked at the terrible imitation. She might be teasing him, but she’d clearly heard what he’d said.  “I will take that as a ‘yes’?” he said.

She nodded happily. “Yes. Teach me something new. I’m ready.”

He handed her a blade, then demonstrated with the knife in his own hand. “There are many ways to throw. I will show you one that’s quite powerful with little effort on your part.” He placed the base of the knife against the meat of his thumb and positioned his index finger along the narrow edge. “You will throw it from the side with a flick of this finger, like this.” He launched the knife at the painting, and it sunk into place with a solid thud.

“Oh, so it’s like skipping stones!” Hawke said.

Fenris frowned. “What?”

“You know, skipping stones on a pond like you do when you’re a kid. Didn’t you…?” She trailed off, her face falling slightly as she realized what she’d said.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a tiny voice.

He shook his head in a silent dismissal, then took a step back and gestured at the painting. “Go on. Try your hand.”

She settled herself into a ready stance, then threw the blade.

It spun through the air – a sure sign she’d done it wrong – then bounced harmlessly off of the canvas.

Fenris shrugged. “Try again.”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Hmm, I like it when you’re bossy. Any chance of that ice water anytime soon?”

He sighed tiredly. “Hawke…”

She laughed and turned back to face the painting, and Fenris thoughtfully watched her dismal attempts. As often as he argued with Hawke, one of the things he most appreciated about her was that she always heard him. She’d debate with him and she’d make her jokes, and they’d disagree most of the time, but at least he knew she was listening. As fond as Fenris was of Isabela, she always turned tail and ran at the first sign of a controversy. He might never get angry at the buxom pirate, but he’d also never really had a meaningful conversation with her.

Hawke kept on trying with the knives, her technique growing more erratic until she finally stopped and leaned her head back with an exasperated groan. “Fenris…”

He came out of his reverie and held out his hand. “Here.”

She tried to hand him the knife, but he shook his head. “No. Give me your hand.”

Her eyebrows rose slightly in surprise, and Fenris supposed he couldn’t blame her. He almost never initiated physical contact, after all.

She tentatively placed her hand in his, and Fenris carefully stepped closer until he was standing behind her. Gingerly he placed his unoccupied left hand on her hip and adjusted her posture, then molded his right palm around the back of her knuckles to adjust her grip. “From the side, like this,” he told her quietly. “Keep your hip rotated. It will help your balance.”

She was silent as he adjusted her body. When he had her positioned correctly, he paused, then realized that he was holding his breath.

Hawke’s knuckles were warm against his bare fingers. The slender curve of her hip fit perfectly into his palm. Her back brushed against his chest from their proximity, and there was a jittery little kick beneath his ribs, thrumming hotly through his chest and down into his belly.

Hawke argued with him and teased him constantly. She wielded magic instead of metal weapons, and her knife technique was truly abysmal. And she was the most appealing woman he’d ever known.

On impulse, Fenris leaned closer to her. “You have nothing to be jealous of,” he murmured in her ear.

He heard the hitch in her breath as she inhaled, and he watched with a swelling of fondness as her cheeks grew pink. “Shut up, you flatterer,” she muttered.

Fenris smiled. Then slowly – and quite reluctantly – he stepped away from her. “Try again now.”

She did, and the blade bounced harmlessly off the painting, but Fenris wasn’t bothered. He sat in her former spot on the floor as she practiced, her face growing more serious and focused with every failed throw.

A considerable time later, the point of a knife sank into the painting, and she whooped and punched her fist in the air. “Finally!” she exclaimed. “Fuck’s sake, I was starting to think I’d be here all night.” She hurried over to his side and grabbed her boots.

Fenris sat up from his lounging position as she dragged the boots onto her feet. “Are you leaving?” he asked. He was frankly surprised; it was unlike her to leave his house so quickly.

“Yes, I was supposed to meet Sebastian at the Chantry over an hour ago,” she said, then burst out laughing. “He’s going to murder me. And then he’ll probably wail and gnash his teeth and beg my bleeding body for forgiveness. You know how he is.”

Fenris smirked. She was such a mess. “If you don’t show up tomorrow morning, then I’ll know what happened,” he said.

She swept her hair back from her face and grinned at him. “Exactly. Just make sure I’m buried on Sundermount Peak, all right? I’ve always wanted to be resurrected as a cursed wraith. Merrill can bring me flowers and offerings.”

Fenris rolled his eyes in disgust, and Hawke laughed merrily. She pinched his chin, then ran for the door. “Bye!” she shouted.

“Shut the door behind you,” he yelled, and he smirked as the door closed with a hearty slam.

Fenris slowly pushed himself to his feet, then resumed his practice with the knives. As he hit the canvas with blade after perfectly-cast blade, he couldn’t help but think of Hawke’s determined face as she tried to do the same.

Completely abysmal, he thought. She really was bad at this.

Maybe she’d be interested in another lesson sometime soon.