Title: Sorry
Author: YukiVampyra
Fandom: Dragon Age II
Pairing: F!Hawke/Isabela
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything.
Summary: Isabela comes to a realization at a party in Hightown after she and Hawke have a falling out over Zevran.
A/N: I wrote this in maybe half an hour, so excuse any errors that may be present.
She wasn’t the Lady Hawke today, she was Kirkwall’s champion and she showed that with the glittering, polished armour instead of some female finery, though the ensemble wasn’t quite complete as her sword had been checked at the door. Isabela tried to keep a low profile now that she had spotted the leader of their merry little band, but it proved difficult, what with the warrior’s sharp senses and the pirate’s seeming inability to keep her eyes to herself.
Isabela hastily moved to a nearby crush of slightly inebriated nobles attempting to dance, but Hawke was faster and the nobles were more apt to move in the face of the woman’s determined expression. Before long, the Rivaini was caught by the Ferelden who kept up with appearances by setting one hand on her hip as if they were to join the dance.
“Fancy seeing you here, Hawke.” Isabela purred, looking up at the taller woman from underneath thick eyelashes. To her credit, Marian didn’t look ruffled by the flirtation. She was used to it by now, though she would be lying if she said her eyes hadn’t followed the ripple of muscle in Isabela’s exposed back as she’d moved, hadn’t hungrily undressed her as her brain supplied images of what the pirate looked like naked and sweaty and glorious. Hawke cleared her throat and leveled stormy blue eyes on the other.
“I think that’s my line, Isabela.” Her tone was measured and clipped, reminding the pirate that she was still in trouble with the warrior. Isabela sighed and curled her arms around Hawke’s neck, settling them carefully between the neck guard and pauldrons.
“I’m simply enjoying the party.”
Fingers coated in cold metal pressed up against the small of her back, a shiver running along the length of her spine at the touch to her heated skin, bared by the dangerously low dip in the back of her dress. The touch drew her closer, almost flush against the armoured chest of the woman in front of her in some mimicry of a dance.
“Why are you really here, Isabela?” The words were whispered against her ear, the warm puffs of air making her shiver for an entirely different reason as she pressed further against Hawke, mindful of the press of metal against full breasts nearly spilling from taffeta. It reminded the pirate that she hadn’t had Hawke in nearly two weeks after an argument, her body flushing and going warm as her head tilted.
“I told you. To enjoy the party.” To her irritation, her voice had gone breathy, fingers curling into the silky hairs at the base of Marian’s skull.
“Don’t lie to me.” Her voice had taken on a flinty quality and Isabela caught her lower lip between her teeth, irked beyond belief at how she hadn’t been able to take the edge off with another lover. All she saw was Hawke’s ill-hidden tears. All she heard was Hawke’s tired command for her to leave the estate. All she felt was the burning in her chest from the guilt at what she’d done. And she hadn’t really done anything, not really. Old habits die hard and Zevran had been one of her favourites. But at the look on Hawke’s face, her whispered plea for her not to do it, Isabela had relented. She’d thought the matter settled, but it hadn’t been. They’d argued back at the estate and Isabela had left, back to the Hanged Man where she’d tried to drown her sorrows in drink and sex and none of it had worked. The whiskey had tasted vile and had sat like lead in her belly and no matter where she’d looked, all she saw was Hawke. Damn her.
“To see you, sweet thing.” The next best thing was flirting; she knew how to get under Hawke’s skin, even if the tall warrior would never admit it.
“You know where I live. Why not wait for me there? I know locks have never been an issue.” If Isabela didn’t know better, she might have thought that last comment was a tease, but not with the flat tone of voice the woman still clung to.
“You know I’m not a woman of…patience.” The pirate’s hand crept higher in Marian’s hair, nails scraping over her scalp in a way that usually made the woman melt and purr like a spoilt cat. Instead, an even more irritated Hawke grasped her by the wrist, the metal of her gauntlet pinching slightly as her hand was lowered from her hair.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s something no one would ever accuse you of.” That, that was bitterness Isabela heard, a tinge of sadness and anger and hurt all mixed into a poison that iced her veins and pained her heart. “Now leave before someone notices you’ve picked their pocket.” The Ferelden released her completely and took several steps back before finally turning away and moving out towards the balcony of whoever owned this mansion.
Isabela stood there until a particularly drunken man attempted to grab her arse. She left him nursing a broken hand as she stomped after Hawke, nearly fuming at all of the feelings the blighted woman brought out in her.
“Marian Hawke, by Andraste’s flaming knickers if you…don’t…” The pirate snapped only to trail off into stunned silence as the scene before her unfolded. A man, young and blonde and smarmy in only the ways a spoilt noble could be, had Hawke by the lips, tongue shoved into the frozen woman’s mouth. The woman didn’t appear to know what to do, caught between propriety and the obvious urge to knock all of his teeth in. So Isabela did it for her. She marched over and fisted her hand in the man’s hair, ripping his mouth away from her warrior (yes, hers, all hers, she was starting to realise how Hawke felt; it was terrible, roiling sickness in her stomach and red in her vision) and slammed her fist into his face, feeling his jaw, as well as her knuckles, crack under the strain of the assault. In the end, her bones were the strongest, his giving way underneath her mangled hand, blood spraying from him and dripping from her.
“Isabela! Maker’s breath, what on earth…” Hawke’s tirade was cut off before it began by a pair of warm lips that the tall Ferelden immediately responded to, gauntleted hands gripping the Rivaini’s hips to drag her closer as Isabela’s tongue slipped into her mouth to reclaim her territory. The man whimpered and the pirate rested her forehead to Hawke’s, amber eyes searching blue.
“I’m sorry.”