A/N: I know it's from the regular DA Universe, but I thought it would be a good pick-me-up after the zombies. And since it's a one-shot, I'm flinging it in the pile.

Kmeme fill that got fluffy. Basically, Hawke likes one of the guys and goes to Bela for advice. Bonus if the advice relates to the LI and extra bonus if the LI overhears their conversation.

Warnings: fluff, Isabela, booze

"It's not as if you're some blushing virgin," Isabela says, perhaps a trifle too loudly, her voice carrying through the Hanged Man with the aid of copious amounts of whiskey.

Hawke winces and tries to cover it with her own glass, taking a longer gulp than she meant to and choking a bit. "Shout a bit louder, why don't you?" she mutters, her voice muffled by the cup. She scowls at the tabletop as she lowers her glass and wonders, not for the first time this evening, if seeking the pirate's help was a good idea after all.

Isabela almost lunges across the table in an effort to lean closer. Cunning amber eyes pin Hawke to her seat. "You have been with a man, haven't you?" she asks, her voice lowering to a purr. It's the closest thing she has to a proper whisper.

"Once," Hawke lies, unable to meet the other woman's gaze, "In Lothering."

Of course the Rivaini pirate sees right through her and gasps theatrically. "You haven't!" she exclaims, and then claps a hand over her mouth to whisper, still too loudly, "You haven't?"

"Maker, I hate you," Hawke grumbles, lifting her scowl to Isabela's face. "Can't you give me any worthwhile advice, aside from 'strip down and wait for him to come home?'" She feels the corners of her mouth turning down and softening into a pout. "He'd rip my heart out. And I don't mean it the way poets and weeping maids say it, either."

With a sigh, Isabela flings her hands in the air. "Look, Hawke, he's always telling people to keep their distance," she says. "I really don't know what else to do. At least you'll know if he wants you."

Hawke pinches the bridge of her nose and the waitress sets another round of whiskey in front of them. "Fenris doesn't like to be touched. Haven't you noticed by now?" she says, exasperation seeping into her tone. "He'd be furious if I was waiting naked in his mansion. Not to mention that it's dirty."

The pirate shoves a few pieces of hair over her shoulders to reveal her earrings to better advantage. "Hawke," she says, her thumbs making nervous patterns on the surface of her new glass, "I'm no good at romance. I know lust well enough, and I can tell you from the way he looks at you that there's no shortage of lust. And confusion, like he doesn't really know what to make of it. Does that help at all?"

"No," Hawke says, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning. "Now I know he'll never approach me."

Isabela makes a motion like she's trying to choke something invisible between them on the table. "That's exactly my point!" she yells. Her hands shift from strangulation pose and one palm slaps on the table before she grabs her glass and empties it in one pull.

"I really don't understand," Hawke eyes her friend, cupping her whiskey in both hands without taking a sip. She knows at this point she's just being obstinate, but damn it, why can't her friend help her with this?

"You have to approach him. Set him at ease, get to know him, you know. All those things you're supposed to do when you fancy courting a lad properly," the pirate states, rolling her eyes to voice her opinion on such foolishness. "With Fenris, since he hates when you touch his skin, why not see about touching him through all that armor? Don't pretend that part of the attraction isn't the whole dark, brooding armor."

Hawke sighs. That's not awful advice, but it is kind of disappointing. "I'd be lucky if he let me hold his hand," she says wistfully, which is true as far as she knows.

Isabela smirks at her. "You're a virgin, Hawke. It's not as if you're going to be sleeping with him by the time the two of you leave the Deep Roads," she answers. Her eyes get a faraway look combined with a sultry glimmer that makes Hawke want to sink through the floor. "It'll probably take the two of you three years to get it together anyway. But when you do, all that hard work and sexual tension will be well worth it." She says the last far too loud, glancing past her, and Hawke winces yet again.

"Maker, Isabela, why are you so bloody loud?" she grumbles at the pirate, swigging her whiskey and leaving some coin for the waitress. "I'm leaving."

Hawke stomps from the bar with a scowl, deep in thought.

Fenris sits back in the shadows of his corner when the pirate's eyes fall on him. He did not mean to overhear the women conversing, but he couldn't help attuning to Hawke. She is the only person he's met in Kirkwall that he can bring himself to trust even a bit, and he cannot deny that her intriguing appearance has crept into his thoughts all too often. Though he does not remember experiencing it for himself, he knows well enough what desire is.

He had hoped himself better than the Magisters, but to look at Hawke he knows what it must be to fall prey to a demon. To want something beyond his reach.

It's Hawke's last words that catch him. The idea of holding hands is intriguing; he's seen the affectionate gesture many a time and still it eludes him. It makes no sense, this linkage of limbs, yet the idea of touching her hand, of feeling her fingers wrap around his makes his chest feel strangely light and full of air.

But even more than the thought of holding her hand, it's the tone that she says it in, the same tone she uses when speaking of her dead brother or her home in Lothering. It is how she speaks about things that she longs for but cannot have.

Fenris is so enthralled that he leans forward at his table and the pirate's lewd comment about the Deep Roads fades away as she looks directly at him. "It'll probably take the two of you three years to get it together anyway. But when you do, all that hard work and sexual tension will be well worth it," she crows, her voice meant to carry through the tavern.

When Hawke leaves he follows after her, not entirely sure what he means to say or do. Only that he must escape the pirate woman before she can corner him and start forcing 'advice' on him.

Hawke stands outside with her head tilted back, staring at the moon for a second. She mutters a curse and turns to shuffle toward the slums. Her shoulders slump a bit.

He catches up to her with three quick steps and she turns with a confused stare that turns to a look of mortification as she realizes that he must have heard every word. His throat feels dry as he stares at her red cheeks and pursed lips and Fenris does the single bravest thing he has ever dared: he reaches forward and takes her hand.

Both are wearing armored gloves. Their fingers cannot weave together or even grip very well, the metal clinking together awkwardly. But he still manages to grip her hand and she grips back. They walk back to her uncle's hovel in silence.