Chapter Text
Fenris pads through market stalls, but he doesn’t touch the fruit. He has seen his friends undergo a ritual when they purchase produce — they’ll pick it up, hold it in their palms, inspect for blemishes, test for bruises, and even smell it. Varric, for whatever reason, is especially circumspect. Who knew the dwarf would be so discerning on the decision of apricots?
Fenris denies himself this indulgence. To test the fruit, he would have to remove his claw-tipped gauntlets. If he attempted to grasp a ripe pear with them on, he would pierce it to pulp before he could bring it up to his nose.
And he will not remove the gauntlets. That is out of the question.
So he does not touch the fruit.
He points. With a claw-tipped finger. At the pear he thinks looks right. And the merchant will wrap it in wax, and drop it in his market sack.
That morning Isabela had come skulking around and Fenris hadn’t the patience to humor her attentions quite so early, so he’d ducked out into the back alley as she let herself in though the front.
He never locks his doors. There are dead bodies slumped on the floor. He finds it to be a deterrent for thieves.
Not pirates, however.
And so, Fenris found himself pacing the food market. Not touching the fruit. Squinting in the bright sun.
The air smells like cherries and chalk; soot and sweat.
When enough time has passed that his skin is warm under late morning’s enthusiasm, he decides to cease his aimless wandering and return home. His hope is that his guest will have grown bored and left.
He opens the door to his home and what strikes him first is the change in smell — lemony and bright, like a well-vinegared washing solution. Then he sees the abandoned mop on the floor, and the sudsy mess on some of the stones.
“...Isabela?” he calls out. There is no answer.
He waits a moment longer, hand tensing around the straps of the market sack, ready to drop it and reach for the greatsword strapped to his back — but he doesn’t hear anything.
He sighs and moves towards the stairs, intending to go straight to his bedchamber. The bag is full of things he can eat without heating; breads and fruits and cured meats and hard, waxy cheeses. Fenris does not cook.
When he reaches the steps he hears cabinets opening and closing. He hears the random sounds of ransacking and searching.
He drops the market sack and unsheathes his sword to hold in front of him. The scattered fruit rolls on stones, and will be bruised.
He walks softly through the narrow hall leading to the ruckus emanating from the kitchen, and then, impossibly — he hears a feminine gasp. Her feminine gasp. Hawke’s. She makes a similar sound under different circumstances, and that, in particular has haunted him since he last heard it. Three years ago.
When he crosses the threshold of the kitchen and looks into the room, his stomach plummets. Impossible. A daydream.
Hawke was kneeling atop his counter. In a dress. One hand was hitching up the skirts of her dress and holding them out of the way — baring the backs of her thighs — while the other hand reached for something on a high shelf.
“Hawke!” he croaks.
“Shit,” she says, and slaps a hand to the cabinet before she loses balance. She turns over one shoulder to look at him, and this is how Fenris notices the dress is too small and her chest is nearly bursting out of the low neckline. And her dress is hitched high enough that she is baring the backs of her thighs to him. A little higher, and she’d be displaying the cleft of her bottom.
There is a desire demon kneeling on his counter.
He is mistrustful of the spectre. Her every curve is singing to him. This is a siren tempting to shipwreck him. This is magic.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I’m looking for a scrub brush,” she chirps, as if it were obvious.
“Why?”
“Because the sad mop couldn’t cut it with that floor.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m cleaning your house!”
“Why?” he growls.
She looks him in the eye and keeps her face level. “Because it’s filthy, Fenris.”
His face twists into a sneer. Not a desire demon. It is Hawke, and she is only here because she is ashamed of Fenris and his living habits. Though it does not explain her choice of...costume. His unwitting eyes travel to her naked thighs once more. And admittedly, they linger.
She catches him leering and lecherous and blushes with embarrassment before she quickly faces away. Fenris feels ashamed. That was inappropriate of him.
He sheathes his sword again. Before he can think better of it, he crosses the room. To Hawke. There is a small step-stool she has missed, and he kicks it out from under the cabinet, stands on it, and takes the scrub brush in hand. He offers it to Hawke and raises an eyebrow while looking at her, unsure of what to say.
“Oh,” Hawke says. “Thanks.”
“Hm,” he answers. He can think of nothing clever to say in response. He finds himself unable to keep looking into her eyes. The wall to the right gains his attention.
“Well!” Hawke says brightly, and hops off the counter. “I’m off, then!” She holds up the scrub brush with one hand and then pulls it away with both, tucking it away towards her hip; and it is a gesture that Fenris finds...utterly charming.
She dances off, dress skirt swishing at her shins. Her hair is freshly-washed and shining. It bounces.
Demon or no, desire is a heartless thing. Hawke is an impossibility. Fenris wants to destroy her, because she is so bright, and he is so tired of squinting.
He paces in his bedchamber. She really is cleaning his floor. She has already rid his foyer of the tangled skeins of old cobwebs, and she has removed the corpses slumped against the wall. His security system of dead and rotting slavers are now dead and rotting in the refuse heap of the back alley. It is, Fenris thinks, an appropriate pyre — the shit pile.
He had hurried up the stairs to his room, past Hawke on all fours, thighs and backside pointing in his direction as her elbow worked and jerked and scrubbed the filthy floor. It is an image he will not soon forget.
He paces his bedchamber. His armor is gone. He wears a clean linen tunic, fitted to his frame, and tucked into the leather breeches he always wears. He feels like a fool, pacing the room. When Hawke’s elbow moved, so did her hips. And her rear followed. She cleaned and swayed. She has this...dip to her waist. An inverse curve. Fenris is desperate to wrap his hands around it.
His gauntlets remain on.