You want me to leave it there, afraid of a love affair

[aoes]

[ Hawke never does anything without a reason. Sometimes the reasons aren’t immediately obvious to an outside observer, but he always has them. Even if they’re sometimes too embarrassing to bear thinking about, let alone explaining.

For example, there’s a bloody good reason he’s climbing up the side of Fenris’ horrible, decrepit old mansion right now, with a bottle of wine tucked under on arm, a single red rose between his teeth, and a grim determination not to think about the fact that he’s pretty sure he just felt a piece of the masonry chip off under his foot. And that reason is love.

Well, mostly love, but also Isabela, who’d walked up behind him in the Hanged Man and smacked the back of his head just as he was taking the first sip of a well-earned pint that he spilled half of with the impact. He’d lowered his mug, asked to what he owed the pleasure, and Isabela had pointed an accusatory finger at him and said You let her think you invented orgasms, you shit, and proceeded to give him such a bollocking that he almost wanted to run home and ask his mother to tell him he was a good boy, really.

It was a hell of a way to find out that Fenris considered Isabela a confidant, but worth it to have a reason to explain why Fenris has been avoiding him the way wealthy women avoid Gamlen. And a glimmer of hope, to boot; he hadn’t horribly offended her or even just been a terrible lay. Which opens the way for him to try and make it up to her, because regardless of how incredible he’d thought the sex was he really, really, really likes her. More than enough to embarrass himself in the hopes of convincing her to make a go of it. Surely there’s no nobler reason than love?

Oh, and the fact that she seems to have pushed something (or several somethings) up agains the door that make it impossible for him to just open it, even after all his knocking. Here’s hopin she doesn’t throw anything at his head when he pops it up over the window ledge to say: ]

Fenris?

Comments

[spectraled]

[ fenris hadn't exactly meant to spend the better part of a week ignoring hawke.

it's just --

it had been a lot.

more than she'd expected, and when she'd woken up just before dawn her head was still spinning with all of it. so... a walk, then, and she hadn't meant for it to take hours, but. when she'd come back, he was gone, and while there was a part of her that softened at the idea that he was giving her space, there was another part mortified that they'd just drawn the whole awkward conversation timeline out. she'd meant to go find him in the privacy of his manor one evening and hash all of it out, really, but one night had turned into two and then two into three.

... and then it was a week, and now the idea of having A Talk has built itself up into something insurmountable.

and how is she supposed to tell him what she wants when she doesn't even know? isabela made the whole thing sound so easy -- did you have fun? would you like to do it again? tell him that. -- but! surely hawke deserves a proper explanation for why it would be so impossible for her to become... entangled with anyone --

-- or no, what if it was just a fling for him, and she goes and empties the full weight on her heart out to him, and --

in the end, fenris has decided to wall herself up in her crumbling mansion and indulge in her very favorite activity: drinking far too much wine and throwing the empty bottles at portraits of magisters on the wall. whatever ghosts or malevolent shades linger in this place have little interest in a conversation about Boundaries or The Future, and the wall of half-destroyed furniture shoved hastily in front of the door should keep out any well-meaning friends determined to give her Advice.

unfortunately, she doesn't take into account the idea that hawke is desperate (or foolish or stupid or in love) enough to try climbing the walls, so. when his head pops up above the window ledge, she's already winding up to chuck the most recently emptied bottle at the wall -- it's a very near thing that she swerves her aim just enough to avoid the initial Murder Reflex, and the bottle ends up smashing on the wall just above the window instead.

and then, as if there's some chance he's some kind of lovelorn illusion: ] ... Hawke?