#don't you just love an emotionally constipated red hawke

[spiritsong]

day twelve: romance

#Veilguard30 by @pavus · writing prompt

word count: 2.4k Hawke, who typically has trouble talking about her feelings, has an impromptu heart-to-heart with Isabela. (details: mage red hawke / fenris rivalmance / post night terrors, pre act 2 questioning beliefs, pre a bitter pill) bonus: I made an illustration of what happens right after this fic for today's veiltober prompt, which you can see here! continue below, or read on ao3.

The still shipless pirate captain pushed open the heavy creaking door, stepping into the tavern she had called home for the last few years. The air was heavy with the scent of ale, smoke, and the odor of laborers and drunkards. She deftly navigated past heavily stained tables and crates that served as seats and people with no spatial awareness, all the while careful not to trip over the places where the planked floor turned to dirt patches. 

It was a busy night, though she recognized most of the faces as regulars; others like her who found solace from the chaos of Kirkwall in the seediest of locations. She recognized one figure seated next to her usual spot at the Hanged Man’s bar; that was an unusual sight. 

“Hawke?” Isabela greeted with curiosity as she approached. “Fancy seeing you here.” 

“Fuck off.” Ferru Hawke didn’t bother to lift her head from the cradle of her folded arms. She blinked in her little bowl of darkness and waited for the sound of Isabela’s retreating footsteps, already knowing it wouldn’t come. 

Isabela, long unfazed by Hawke’s prickliness, made herself comfortable on the stool beside her. She noted the half-full tankard of ale beside Hawke, alongside an empty one that had been unceremoniously tossed to the side. 

Ferru begrudgingly lifted her head, squinting miserably even in the relative low light of the tavern. Her rust-colored eyes shifted towards Isabela.

Isabela stared back, the usual air of nonchalance all around her, though she studied all of Hawke’s overt and subtle mannerisms in a way that only a sharp-eyed rogue could. 

“I thought you didn’t drink,” Isabela commented as she waved a pointed finger at Corff, the barkeep, signaling for one order of her usual. 

Ferru snatched her mug and drained the remainder of its contents, licking the sour ale off her upper lip as she slammed the mug back down. “I don’t.”

Isabela pursed her lips at the response, then rested one elbow on the bar top, cradling her head in her hand as she turned her body fully towards Hawke. Hawke, on the other hand, continued to stare pointedly forward, gaze mostly obscured by the choppy locks of jet-black hair that fell in front of her face. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I need to spend the night poking at you until you finally bite?” Isabela asked. “I’d recommend the first option. It would save us both a lot of time.”

“It’s Fenris,” Ferru forced through gritted teeth, with much of the same agony that might accompany the voice of a man suffering through an amputation. 

“Ah.” Isabela couldn’t keep the corners of her lips from curling up into a small smile, though she was blessedly able to wipe it from her face before Hawke’s eyes darted back to her, full of suspicion. 

“I don’t understand him. He’s entirely unknowable.” The words came out quietly at first, though the frustration was evident in the way that Hawke’s fists curled up tightly atop the bar. “I think things are okay, I think I have things figured out, and then—”

Hawke’s mouth snapped shut as the barkeep arrived with Isabela’s drink. 

“Another one, Corff,” Hawke said, pointing at her empty tankards. 

He gave Isabela a weary look. “Is it just me, or is she more of an ass than usual tonight?”

“Hey! I’ve always been good to you, Corff,” Hawke cut in, then slumped, arms folded across her middle as she stewed in her feelings.  

Isabela shrugged with some amusement, then whispered loudly to Corff, “Boy problems.”

“Isabela,” Hawke growled.

The woman ignored the daggers being shot in her direction as she flashed a dazzling smile at Corff. “Well, you heard her.”

The barkeep grumbled something under his breath as he went to tend to Hawke’s order.

“And then…?” Isabela coaxed once he was out of earshot.

For a moment, it seemed that Hawke had bared enough of her heart for the night, but then she let out a heavy sigh. “I think he hates me. No, he despises me.”

“And that would be so bad because…?” Isabela knew she was pushing it with the leading questions, but she had a very particular feeling that tonight of all nights, Hawke would let her guard down. 

She wasn’t disappointed.

“Because… well, because— I like him,” Ferru said pitifully. 

She had never said it out loud until this point. Maker’s breath, she had hardly even admitted it to herself. She felt some of the ache in her chest leave her with the words, but they tumbled out of her painfully, catching in her throat, reluctant to be seen in the light of day. 

The confession relieved her in the way that setting a dislocated shoulder might relieve her. The way that vomiting up her insides after a night of drinking might relieve her, as she might be doing in her near future.

Isabela elected to stay quiet this time, waiting for Hawke to fill the silence.

“But it’s pointless. We don’t get along.” Ferru rubbed roughly at her face, trying to get herself to snap out of whatever this was. She pushed her hair off her forehead, and it all flopped back into place — more unkempt, less effortless. 

She sighed. “I went to talk to him tonight, to see how he was doing after what happened with Feynriel. You know he blames me for what happened in the Fade? Me? I wasn’t the one who turned against him.”

Ferru laughed humorlessly. “Very naive of me. I thought he was going to apologize.” 

“Fenris has a lot on his mind, what with Danarius’s thugs lurking around town,” Isabela offered.

“I know that!” she snapped, then sunk further down onto her stool with another sigh, body folding over as though it were finally giving out beneath the weight of the world.

“Is there no one else that catches your eye? Anders? You two get along just fine.” 

Ferru shook her head. “Anders is special to me, but it’s not like that. In another world… but I’ll always be something more than what I truly am to him.”

Isabela kicked her feet up onto Hawke’s lap. There was always a nonzero chance that Hawke might toss them off of her when Isabela did this, but it seemed far too much plagued her friend’s mind tonight for her to care. 

“Merrill, then? You’re different around her, softer to her in a way that you aren’t with anyone else. We’ve all noticed.”

“No, she’s more like a sister to me. She’s my responsibility. I have to protect her.” Ferru hiccuped right at the end of her solemn declaration.

“I hate to break it to you, dear, but Merrill doesn’t need protecting. She needs a friend.” Isabela’s voice was both tender and resolute; Ferru knew how much Merrill meant to her. 

“Hmm,” Isabela wondered playfully, turning her head to scan their seedy surroundings. “How about the Hanged Man’s resident dwarf?”

Ferru let out a short bark of laughter. “Varric is Varric,” she said, as though that was all the explanation that was needed. 

A conniving smile grew on Hawke’s face; it was the first Isabela had seen that night, and she privately praised herself for finally drawing it out.

“And besides, what about you?” Hawke put on a higher-pitched voice than her naturally deep, gravelly one. It sounded nothing like Isabela. “Oh, Varric, I want nothing more than to fondle your hairy bosoms. Please, please, please let me dive in between those plush pillows.”

Isabela grinned, her warm gaze twinkling with amusement. “What, you’re telling me you don’t?”

“That’s besides the point,” she replied. 

Corff finally returned with a fresh tankard, which Hawke took swiftly from his hand before he could set it down on the bar. She tipped her head back and let the swill wash down her throat. It was disgusting. 

In one graceful movement, Isabela lifted her feet off Hawke’s lap and shifted her weight forward to lean obtrusively into Hawke’s space. With an obnoxiously calculated tilt of her head, her next question was deployed in that very particular way that Isabela excelled at. 

“And me?”

As predicted, Hawke’s gaze fell first on the slope of Isabela’s breasts, the stark white of her loosely laced tunic standing in contrast to her beautiful brown skin. Then there was the ample rings of gold that circled the long line of her neck, her full lips, the coy look leveled back at her—

This all happened in the space of just two seconds, but Hawke, who was mid-sip, choked on her drink as she met Isabela’s eyes. 

Even against the richness of her skin, a deep flush started to bloom on Hawke’s cheeks. Satisfied, Isabela leaned back and laughed heartily.

“You’re far too annoying,” Hawke grumbled. 

For the second time that night, Isabela congratulated herself; as far as she was aware, no one else could draw a blush out of Hawke in the way that she did. It was actually quite a point of pride for her. 

“I don’t want anyone else, Isabela. I want him.” It made Ferru’s stomach turn just to say it. 

Isabela let her voice grow serious again as she asked, “What is it about him?”

“He’s unlike anyone else I’ve ever met.” Ferru’s voice was nearly a whisper. Her eyes traced the wood grain of the bar, conspicuously ignoring the very discerning, very unnerving gaze of her friend. “He’s so stubborn, and infuriating, and incredibly misguided… and entirely without pretense.”

“The stormy eyes and tight physique certainly don’t hurt, either,” the pirate captain said, all matter-of-fact, punctuating her assessment with a sip of her drink. 

“Isabela,” Ferru groaned. 

There was a long silence between the two before Ferru spoke again. 

“He… sees me. I don’t have to be the hardened criminal looking out for Lowtown, or the shrewd businessman with their Deep Roads riches, or the political schemer who has the ear of the viscount, or the rebel mage freedom fighter, or the hero. I can just be… me, in all my ugliness. And he doesn’t turn away.”

Ferru immediately grew embarrassed as soon as she finished, but couldn’t stop herself from publicly wallowing in her misery. Even more than she already had, anyway.

“I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before he does, though,” she lamented. “We have more fights than we do civil conversations. Or at least it feels like it. You’d be better for him— you’re more his type. A hot-blooded woman.”

Isabela crooked an eyebrow at Hawke. “And what does that make you?”

“A nasty weed that won’t die no matter how many times you cut it down.”

“Weeds are flowers to some. It’s a matter of perspective.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Merrill,” Hawke rolled her eyes. “There are no flowers here to speak of. Plenty of spikes and thorns, though. Could probably give you a rash if you look at me wrong.”

Isabela snorted and took a swig of her drink, and Ferru did the same.

“Look at the way you two get along,” Ferru said.

“How is that?”

“He just seems calmer and happier around you. He doesn’t get pissed off at every other word you say or action you take. You’re not a mage,” Ferru spat the word out in the way that they had all heard Fenris do a thousand times before. “The other day, when he asked you about freedom for mages— he was far more receptive than he’s ever been with me. When we talk, it ends in explosive arguments.”

In a show of frustration and stunning melodrama, Ferru slammed her head down onto the bar.

Isabela chuckled. “Oh, Hawke. If I had even a small chance with Fenris, he would be wrapped around my finger by now.”

The annoyance emanating from Hawke was palpable, even in the thick miasma of the Hanged Man. “What do you mean,” she said, more of a demand and less of a question.

The pirate captain leaned into Hawke’s space again, this time to force her to meet her gaze.

“The reason your conversations always end up like that is because he’s mad for you,” Isabela said incredulously. “He’s so mad for you he doesn’t know what to do with himself. You challenge everything he’s ever believed in, and he isn’t sure where that leaves him.” 

She sat back up. “Now, whether this will end up anywhere half-decent for either of you remains to be seen. But don’t doubt that he cares for you.”

Hawke blinked, mouth opening and closing as she struggled to parse out Isabela’s words. “You’re insane.”

Isabela shrugged with some irritation now that her patience was running thin. “Believe me, don’t believe me, it makes little difference to me.”

Ferru rose quickly on her feet, then was hit with such a wave of unsteadiness that left her gripping on the edge of the barstool. Once the world stopped spinning, she wagged a finger at Isabela.

“This is why I don’t drink, because you try to weasel your way into my head and confuse me with your— your weasley ways,” she accused.

Isabela laughed. “Sweetheart, you did that all by yourself with your two and a half drinks.” 

Hawke leveled a nasty glare at her. “If you speak of this to anyone, I will kill you.”

“You’re yammering in the Hanged Man, Hawke. Half of Lowtown will know by the morning.”

Hawke’s gaze immediately scanned across the room. Isabela didn’t need to look to know what kind of effect it would have on the patrons of the Hanged Man; the chorus of shifting noises that followed said enough. 

“Ruling by fear works, too,” Isabela knocked back the last of her drink and stood up, making her way towards Hawke who was heading for the door. 

“Oh, no, I’m not letting you stumble all the way up to Hightown like this,” she said, resting her hands firmly on Hawke’s shoulders. “Someone is bound to end up dead. And even I know that we don’t need that sort of drama in our lives at the moment.” 

“Well, I’m not letting you walk me home,” Ferru said pointedly. 

Isabela huffed. “Well, screw you, too.”

Ferru spun clumsily on her feet and started making her way to the back of the tavern, where the rooms were located. “I’ll crash with Varric.”

Without looking back, she gave a half-hearted wave to Isabela behind her. “Love you, Isabela.”

“Love you, too, Hawke,” she said back, incapable of maintaining her irritation as she watched her typically fearsome friend trip over her own feet.