#and its techincally secretly dating but the idea feels like it worked better than the execution

[kirkwallgremlin]

I know you said you don't need more prompts buuuuuut...."57 secretly dating" from the intimacy prompts list (for whichever pairing you want)?

@playwright-fate thank you all for asking <3 (and thank you anon ;_;), even if it did take me almost a month. I have to say though, I laughed when I recieved exactly the same prompt 3 times in a row 😂

Here’s some Isabela/Fenris <3 1520 words, rated M for brief discussions/mentions of sex and featuring the DA2 companions

Isabela didn’t know exactly when it had happened. When Fenris had started to mean something, when she had started spending as much with him as she did alone. 

She knew when it had started of course. The night when all of the teasing, the suggestive jokes and comments she never expected to go anywhere, and the increasingly bold flirting she received in response had reached boiling point and she and Fenris had ended up in tangle of limbs and messy sheets in her room in the Hanged Man.

They’d been so rushed he hadn’t even fully removed his armour. 

She was the one who raised it again a week or so later, a casual comment about how she couldn’t stop thinking about that night. It was almost true. She could have stopped if she tried but did she really want to do that? 

“Well, then I’ll see you later,” he’d told her in response and she’d appreciated his sudden boldness. 

Then that night had turned into another, then another, and somehow they had found themselves here, with this undefined thing between them, growing every day. 

“Do you think the others know?” he asked her one night as she sprawled sleepily across his bed, the pale sheets a stark contrast against her skin. “About us? About this?”

She wrinkled her nose at him. 

“What is there to know?” she said. “If we talk about this, it becomes a thing. I don’t want it to be a thing. Things are complicated and messy and feelings get involved. And I’m not good with feelings.”

She pouted, shifting to push her bare breasts towards the elf’s serious expression. 

“It doesn’t have to be a thing,” Fenris said, reaching for her, and just like that, the conversation was over.

They didn’t talk about what this was anymore, and they didn’t make any plans to tell anyone. 

She didn’t want it to be a thing, as much as it was starting to feel like one.

 - - -

“Come on, take a risk for once,” Isabela giggled, the door to the Chantry storeroom partially open behind her. She wasn’t sure Fenris believed that she’d found it open - she could hardly believe the luck herself - but she wasn’t sure it mattered as she pressed her lips against his throat. 

“Please?” she added, the words murmured against his skin, pressing closer against him. “It’s only a storeroom and I’m sure the Maker won’t mind. You can ask for forgiveness later.”

Fenris gave in, letting her pull him into the empty room. But as Isabela pressed him against the wall, something clattered and they jumped, realising they weren’t as alone as they had thought. 

“Mage,” Fenris snapped, standing straight as Anders stared at them, wide eyed and shocked. He clutched a large sheet of crumpled paper against his chest. 

“I won’t tell anyone you were here if you do the same,” he said quickly and Fenris nodded. She was close enough to see his cheeks burning red as he awkwardly excused himself. 

She looked back at Anders. 

“Do I even want to know what you’re doing here?” she asked and he raised an eyebrow at her. 

“Do I want to know what you were doing here?” 

“I was trying to do the handsome elf but somebody interrupted that,” she muttered under her breath. Anders heard anyway. 

“Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked.

“If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,” she snapped. “So far though… it seems to be a very wise choice. But you can go ahead and keep that to yourself.” 

Anders knowing didn’t need to make it more of a thing. Lots of consenting adults had sex, after all. 

- - -

“How long have you been sleeping with Fenris?” Merrill asked one day, the words slipping out with such casual ease that Isabela nearly tripped down the stairs to the dock. 

“What?” she spluttered. “We’re not…? How did you...?”

“He watches you when he thinks you’re not looking,” Merrill said simply. “And your face lights up when he’s around, when you think nobody is looking.” 

“It’s just bedroom eyes, Kitten.” 

Merrill frowned, a small crease forming between her eyebrows. 

“Isn’t that the point?” she said. “You wouldn’t have bedroom eyes if you were sleeping together. But they’re outside the bedroom too.”

Isabela sighed. 

“It’s complicated,” she said. “It’s been a few weeks but it’s just sex.”

“Oh.” Merrill continued walking for a moment, silent, the empty bags she took when shopping hanging limply from her arms. “It doesn’t look like just sex. He looks like he cares. You do too.” 

Isabela just shook her head. 

“Just sex, Kitten,” she said. 

As much as Merrill might be convinced otherwise, it was just sex. It wasn’t anything more than that, and it definitely wasn’t anything more than that, not like the elf was implying. 

- - -

“Aveline, my dear friend,” Isabela said, her most charming smile plastered across her face as she breezed into the woman’s office. “I was just wondering, for no reason at all, if there ever happens to be any spaces left… unattended around here. Alternatively, if you ever leave your office for prolonged periods of time.” 

The woman raised an eyebrow at her. 

“Who are you sleeping with now?”

“You wound me, Aveline,” she said, doing her best to look innocent. “I’m simply concerned about your wellbeing.”

“It can’t be Hawke, they’re with that mage.” Aveline continued as though she hadn’t spoken. Isabela rolled her eyes, planting her backside firmly on the captain’s desk. 

“Believe it or not, I do have a life outside of Hawke,” she pointed out. “I have other friends, just like you do.”

“Did Fenris finally give in to your pestering?”

“It's hardly pestering when he’s the one initiating” she muttered. “And some people enjoy being flirted with.”

“I’m not helping you have sex somewhere in my guard headquarters,” Aveline told her, tone flat, and Isabela pouted. 

“You never let me have any fun.”

Aveline just shook her head as Isabela excused herself, looking back as the guardswoman called her name. 

“I hope you’re happy with him” she said. 

Isabela smiled, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. Of course she was happy. It was easy for sex to make you happy. And that was all it was, right?

- - -

“So, Rivaini,” Varric said. “I’m going to need some details.”

“What are you talking about?” she snapped at the dwarf standing at the top of the stairs as she exited her room. 

“You and the elf. You’re not exactly doing a good job sneaking him in here. Unless you’re not even trying to hide it. If not, I’m hurt you haven’t told me already.”

“You’re getting nothing from me, Varric,” she told him, adjusting the jewelry that hung around her neck in the mirror he’d hung in the hall. Better lighting, or so he’d claimed. 

“Oh come on. The pirate and the fugitive? Star crossed lovers, finding each other despite their circumstances? Now that’s a story worth telling.” 

“It’s not a story,” Isabela muttered. “It’s just… sex. Sex between two people who happen to both be very attractive and can both appreciate that.” 

Varric laughed. 

“That’s just an added bonus,” he said. “Sex sells. But, not a problem. I can make up your tragic love story if I need to.”

“Go ahead,” she told him with a cheery smile. “Because there’s no real story here. We’re not star crossed lovers or going to give you a real love story.” 

Varric could do his best but he wasn’t getting any real details to write about. Not from her. And this wasn’t going to really be a lasting story worth telling anyway, right?

- - - 

Fenris was warm under her skin as she lay against his chest, one finger tracing ever so gently across one of the scars on his chest. He had a lot of those, marks from his past, marks that had become so familiar to her over the time they had spent together. 

“So I’ve been thinking,” she said. “About us. About this?”

“This?” Fenris asked, and she didn’t need to look to know that he had raised an eyebrow at her words. She knew him well enough by now. Just like he knew her well enough to know the comment was unusual. 

“This,” she confirmed, forcing her breathing to remain steady. “Don’t get me wrong, this is not a thing. I don’t do things. But I’ve been thinking. Maybe…” Andraste’s ass, why was this so hard? Lips pressed against the top of her head, a familiar, reassuring feeling. “Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world if people knew… that I… care for you. Just a little.” 

Fenris’ lips curved into a smile against her hair. 

“I care for you too, Isabela,” he said. “Just a little.” 

Safe and warm in Fenris’ arms, in his bed, in his house, where she had spent so many of her nights lately, Isabela smiled. 

She wasn’t the kind of person who did things. But whatever this was, maybe she just needed to enjoy it. And if that meant everyone knowing, that maybe that was how it needed to be.