A Weather Eye on the Horizon

Title: Advance Payment
Fandom: Dragon Age 2
Pairing: Female Hawke/Fenris
Rating: Explicit
Words: 2400~
Teaser: “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve had to sneak a boy in through my bedroom window.”

For "exposure" on my bingo card.

I know, I know. More Dragon Age.



The curtains twitch as Hawke lets herself into the room. She doesn’t even need to look round to feel his smirk.

“Shut up,” she says, closing the door behind her. It shuts off some of the noise of the party—or gala, as her mother keeps calling it. If Hawke had to give it a name she would probably go with Flimsy Excuse for Nobles to Drink Themselves Stupid or Ample Opportunity for Cont De Launcet to Pinch My Arse Without Fear of Retribution.

“I didn’t say anything.” She can hear the laughter in his voice.

Hawke looks at herself in the floor-length mirror, pulling a complicated face that involves sticking out her tongue and wiggling her eyebrows. “Yes, but you were thinking it.” Her skirts brush along the floor when she walks, and all evening she’s felt rather like a large red and black feather-duster. The dress laces up in the back, tight enough that it’s hard to breathe, the bodice pushing her breasts up to near Isabela- like proportions.

Alright, so that’s being generous.

“Mother insisted that I wear it,” she explains, “Just in case you think I’ve gone native.” The bodice forces her to breathe up rather than out, and Hawke feels like she finally understand where the phrase heaving bosom comes from. “Had Jeanne-Luc make the bloody thing behind my back.”

Fenris appears behind her in the mirror. “It’s very…lacy.”

“You’ve no idea. I’ve got lace in places lace definitely doesn’t belong.” She hums in contentment as he wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her back against his body. He’s warm, even through the yards of fabric, armor poking her bare shoulders. “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve had to sneak a boy in through my bedroom window.” Then she has to laugh, as the thought of Fenris wading through the carrots and radishes outside the house in Lothering to scramble up the garden trellis is almost too much to bear.

“I didn’t think the crowd would take well to me coming in through the front door,” he comments dryly.

“Honestly, if I’d known I was going to have to mingle,” she shudders at the word, “I might have stayed in the gutter. Or gone off to join the Grey Wardens myself.”

Fenris’ thumbs draw small circles on her shoulders, fingers splaying outward to dig briefly into the knots formed from being forced to stand up straight all night. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Mmm,” Hawke groans appreciatively. “I’d take Darkspawn to this lot any day.”

“It’s your house, is it not?” Fenris asks. “You could show them out anytime you wanted to.” He gives ‘show them out’ the same inflection one might hear in ‘you could rip out their hearts and feed them to them, bit by bit’.

“In theory,” Hawke allows. “But then Mother will make that face. The ‘oh Marian, darling, won’t you let me have just a small party?’ face. ‘Oh, Marian, it's such a lovely dress, won’t you wear it for just a little while?’ ‘Marian darling, Lord and Lady so-and-so are looking for a wife for their son, and isn’t he a handsome boy? I’m sure that lazy eye will clear up in no time’.”

“I suppose she doesn’t think very highly of a slave.” There’s an edge to his voice, even as he traces a gentle finger along the ridge of her collarbone.

“You’re not a slave.” It’s nearly automatic, an engrained response, like assuring Bethany she’s not fat and telling Anders yes, of course the subjugation of mages is a terrible and reprehensible thing that I will fight with all my power to bring to an end. “And it’s not that, anyway. I think she’s more concerned that I can’t seem to keep any of my clothes on for any period of time when you’re around. You remember last month.”

Fenris dips his forehead to rest on her shoulder, growling softly. “Do not remind me.”

“Please—it’s not as if you were caught getting plowed by a glowing elf by your mother.” That gets a noise that’s half-groan, half-laugh. “Besides, what would it do for my dashing, roguish reputation if my mother approved of all my conquests?”

The grip round her waist tightens, becoming suddenly possessive. He kisses her neck, sending a shiver down her spine even as her skin flares with heat.

“And what about being taken in front of a mirror, in the middle of your mother’s party?” He grows it against her ear, voice as rough as the jagged Kirkwall coastline. “Would that improve your reputation?”

There’s shivers moving through the rest of her body now, leaving her spine in the dust. She clutches his arm as his hand moves up over her breasts. And now she’s found another reason to hate this dress. Too much blighted material.

“If it doesn’t,” she says, as Fenris kisses her shoulders, mouth hot and open, “Then clearly I don’t spend time with the right sorts of people.”

Fenris chuckles, breath huffing out warm. “Clearly.” He finds the laces on the back of her dress, untying the knot with deft fingers. She can feel the slight tug as he pulls out the first cinch, the pressure on her breasts letting up just a bit.

“It’s not…entirely my fault I haven’t found a respectable Hightown prick for a suitor,” Hawke goes on conversationally, despite the way her stomach jumps as Fenris jerks another cinch out of the bodice. “Not—Not many men want a wife who knows eighteen different ways to kill them with cutlery alone, or—.” She draws in a swift breath as a cool finger runs up the newly-exposed skin of her back.

Fenris growls impatiently, nearly tearing out the rest of the laces in his haste. The bodice sags, exposing Hawke’s breasts to the chill of the room. She groans as Fenris’ hands comes up to touch, squeezing lightly, nails catching her nipples. The disparity between their skin is striking in the mirror—she Ferelden-pale, he the color of coffee with just enough milk.

“Mmm,” Hawke hums, leaning back into his grasp. “That’s—shit!”

Fenris has lowered his mouth to her neck, biting down, sucking hard, laving it over with a wet tongue. He’s spent a great deal of time in recent weeks exploring just how hard he has to bite to make her bruise, how hard to press on the marks to make her writhe.

“Oh, thank you so much,” she grunts. “Now it will be, “Oh, Marian darling, how did you manage to be ravaged by a pack of wolves when you were alone in your room’?”

Fenris’ smile is infuriatingly smug. “My apologies,” he says, and then to prove just how contrite he is, he moves to the other side of her neck and bites down there, just as hard.

“Oh, you dirty bastard,” Hawke says, even as heat flashes through her with every touch of his tongue against the bites. “Now you’ve done it. You’ll have to be punished for that.”

Fenris drags his hands down her ribs. “So be it.”


The desk is low enough that being bent over it is not the most comfortable thing Hawke has ever experienced, but it’s in the right place for them to still be able to see the mirror, and by the time Fenris has her pinned and filled up, she isn’t thinking so much about a cramp in her back.

He’s pushed the dress up, piling it on her backside, making her look like an oddly-plumaged bird—albeit an oddly-plumaged bird being taken roughly from behind by an elf.

“Yes,” she grits out, trying to bite down on the volume of her moans. She doesn’t care overly much about scandalizing the Hightown gentry, but she doesn’t want her mother sending Orana to check if she’s alright.

It’s almost too much hard, and it’s almost too much, but it’s exactly what she needs after two hours of mind-numbingly polite conversation. He slams in deep, eyes locking with hers in the mirror, twisting his hips.

“Fuck, yes, Maker...Fenris!” She has to bite down on her arm to keep it from becoming a shriek.

“Marian…” The heat in his voice is low and possessive. Hawke watches him in the mirror, the way his eyes flutter, threatening to close. He’s gorgeous—lithe, hard muscle, silvery-white etched over his body, eyes impossibly green. Best of all—he’s hers. Or she’s his, or they’re each other’s, or—

Her unraveling train of thought is knocked off its trajectory as Fenris pulls her closer toward him, changing the angle of his thrusts.

“Yes, just…right there.” She’s sweating under the dress and her hair has come loose from its pins, hanging in her eyes. “Fenris, you’re—so good.”

That gets a brief flash of a grin, a baring of white teeth.

“Just…”

Hawke grips the edge of the desk, bracing herself as she attempts to spread her legs further, pulling one knee up onto the surface tabletop. It catches on the hem of her hiked up skirt, sliding out from under her.

“Shit…!”

Hawke makes a grab for the desk, but it’s fairly difficult to orient yourself while being fucked. She sees Fenris’ eyes go wide in the mirror, as he attempts to catch her, pulling out with a slick sound, making her spasm and ache, muscles clenching down on nothing.

They end up in a sweaty heap of limbs and lace, Fenris’ elbow colliding painfully with Hawke’s ribs.

If she’d been worried before about interrupting the party with dirty noises, now there’s a good chance of breaking things up by giggling like a lunatic.

“You are a very graceful woman, did you know that?” Fenris grunts, not without humor.

“Yes, well.” Hawke rubs her abused ribs. “You’re a fantastically bony elf.”

Fenris strains to look over his shoulder from where he’s lying flat on his back. “Should we move to the bed?”

Hawke forestalls any attempted motion in that direction with two hands on his hips “Not worth the trip, I think.”

She pushes her skirts out of the way as best as she can, holding Fenris steady as she sinks down on him, biting her lip as he thrusts up to meet her.

It’s quick and hard after that, Fenris holding her hips, fingers tight enough to bruise. Hawke scratches furrows down his chest, lyrium lines flaring up at her touch. It’s moments like these she almost wishes she had inherited the family talent, that she could feel the intricacies of the magic inlaid in his skin, could push back with power of her own. As it is it feels of nothing but a tingling warmth, sending the tiny hairs on her arms standing on end.

Fenris is muttering something in Arcanum, eyes fluttering shut, one of his hands seeking out hers to squeeze tight. The stutter of his hips force out a harder rhythm, spine arching as climax overtakes him, driving up hard.

“Yes, yes, just—.” All it takes is a finger pressed down hard, drawing tiny circles, and Hawke is following him, pleasure building warm and bright before breaking over her skin in waves that shake her body like a lightning spell to the spine.

She ends up curled against Fenris’ chest, his arms slung loosely around her waist. “I feel a little bad about the dress,” she comments after a moment or so, talking against his right nipple.

“Do you really?”

“No,” she admits. “Though mother did pay for it.” She sighs. “Ah, well. I suppose I could always tell her Joey got a hold of it.”

Fenris cocks a dark brow. “Your Mabari? I don’t think that would explain why you now smell like a brothel.”

“Hey.” Hawke buries her face in his neck, breathing deep of sweat, sex, and lyrium. “You’re one to talk.”

He cards fingers through her hair, murmuring. “Ita vero.”

Despite the growing discomfort of the undone bodice pressing into her ribs, Hawke would have been content to lie there until all of the guests had shoved off to their own blighted mansions, but it’s only a matter of time before her mother sends someone to look in on her, and she can’t quite remember if she’d locked the door.

“Come on,” she groans. “I’ve got to get this bizarre contraption laced back up.” She attempts to roll off him and onto the carpet, but a strong, slender arm wraps around her waist, keeping her pinned.

“Why?” he asks, chest rumbling against her breasts. “Why go back down if you hate it all so much?”

There are a million reasons, all of them doubtlessly important in their own mundane, neurotic way.

“Fenris, darling,” she says, drawing out the ‘a’ in a frankly hideous attempt at an Orlesian accent. “Would you care to accompany me to a party?”

Fenris gives a very dubious snort. “I most certainly would not. Your mother would probably have the hound run me off. Besides, I’ve got to be at the Hanged Man tonight.”

“Wicked Grace?” She gets a nod in response.

Hawke props herself up on her elbows. “Fenris,” she says. “Did you come over here to borrow coin?”

What with the scars and the hunter’s glimmer in his green eyes, sheepish isn’t exactly a look that fits well on Fenris’ face, but he’s wearing it all the same. “Among other things.”

Hawke heaves a sigh, clambering to her feet, hitching her bodice up as best as she can. Fine tremors run through her legs and there is a dull ache forming in her center, though it isn’t anything a hot bath won’t cure.

“Alright,” she says, unlocking the storage box in the corner, walking back to push some silver into Fenris’ hand. “But I expect to be reimbursed. Thoroughly. And, if you can manage it, repeatedly.”

Fenris wraps an arm around her waist, drawing her up against him, kissing her deep and wet and dizzying until it feels like his arm is the only thing keeping her on her feet.

“I imagine that’s an acceptable advance payment?” he asks, voice rumbling in the way that makes already overworked portions of Hawke’s body tighten.

“M-More than enough,” she mutters, as soon as she’s caught her breath. “But you’d better be back soon. I start charging interest at midnight.”

The smirk is back. “Then expect me at three.”

---
You ever wear a bodice? Those things squish your breasts something fierce.