Title: Games
Author: aces
Rating: meh, PG at most
Warnings: Two men kissing! Close your eyes, people!
Notes: No, I have no clue, honestly.
GAMES
"How the hell can you do that?" Bobby asks him in a frustrated growl, pacing the room.
Darien is playing solitaire at the pool table taking pride of place in his apartment. "How can I do what?"
"Play those damned card games. Don't they bore the hell out of you?"
"No," Darien replies, moving one small set of cards and turning over the card beneath. It's a repeated pattern, old and worn and comfortably familiar like his favourite Barfly t-shirt. He likes the routine, the clear knowledge of the only possibilities that will come next. It's a bit of sanity in an otherwise insane life.
"They bore me," Bobby spits out and sprawls into the chair across the table from Darien. "Can't you do something else?"
"Like what? We could play poker, but you don't trust me not to turn all the aces invisible and put them up my sleeve."
"Hell no, not after last time." And this is old and worm and comfortably familiar too, and Darien doesn't want that to change either. Is it weird to think of Bobby as a semblance of sanity? Yeah, probably. "Do you ever do anything, Fawkes?"
"I'm playing cards right now," Darien responds, on the defence but not caring too particularly. "I read. I listen to music. I make paper airplanes. It might not sound like much, but it's a fulfilling life."
Bobby Hobbes has an eloquent snort.
A flip, a swish, the seven of hearts. Useless for now. Even the thief thing had been a helluva lot more stable than these days—it had to be, or else you were a pretty crappy thief. And, okay, yeah, he hadn't been the greatest thief, but the thing with the old guy was just a huge mistake that anyone coulda made...
Flip, swish, slap as a card is thrown down on the wood table. Bobby's being awfully quiet now, and Darien looks up to see what he's doing now.
"You're seriously not bored?" Bobby asks the instant their eyes meet.
Darien rolls his eyes and slouches lower in his seat. "Do I look bored? No. Am I constantly whining about being bored? No. I am perfectly content with my card game."
"Let's go out," Bobby says. "C'mon, you and me, two guys out to conquer the world. We'll have fun."
"I'm having fun," Darien insists.
Bobby growls and flops back in his chair. "Hey, don't let me hold you back," Darien says, glancing up again while flipping the discard pile idly through nimble fingers. Thief's fingers, used to snatching and grabbing quickly, fiddling with the little things. "You don't have to stick around, Hobbes."
"What, am I screwing up your routine?"
Darien frowns down at his evenly spread out piles of cards. "What routine?" he asks.
"Your routine, you know, your routine. Isn't this the way you wind down, cool off, chill, before calling it a night, turning out the lights, heading off to bed?"
"Uh...yeah, I guess." He flips another card, three of clubs, nothing doing, he discards it with a neat little twist of his wrist. "So what? You like to go out and party, I like a quiet night in. What's the big deal?"
"What big deal, there's no big deal." He's talking fast again, the way he does when he's nervous or avoiding a subject he wants to talk about but doesn't. Darien looks up at him again, suspiciously. "You just like your routine."
Flip, swish, a gentle smack as the card lands on top of another card. The cards are bent, dirty to the touch; he's had them forever. Perhaps there's grooves in them from where he holds them, where he always places his fingers, automatically. He savours the uncertainty in the routine; he doesn't know if he'll win or lose this game, but he knows one or the other is inevitable, and he knows his pattern of playing, the best pattern he's come up with in order to win over years and years of playing solitaire. It's strangely soothing, the repetition of oft-used manipulations, strategies.
If maybe a little boring.
"Yeah, I like my routine," Darien says. "So what? You have your routines too. Like the way you clean your gun. Or the way you check everything in your specific order in Golda. Jesus, Hobbes, you've got more routine than I do."
Bobby shrugs, working his whole body into it the way he does when he's really trying to be elaborately casual. Darien decides it's best just to ignore him and continue playing. But the game isn't holding the same comforting appeal it's held for so long. Suddenly it seems pointless, unthinking routine.
He could be spending his time in better ways.
Calmly, Darien pushes all the cards together in a giant pile in front of him. Bobby watches him, frowning. "Fawkes? I don't think I know this game."
Darien grins. "Could play a little fifty-two card pickup."
Still got an eloquent snort. "You play. I'll sit this one out."
"You can't sit this one out," Darien says. "It's a two-person game."
"Oh yeah." Bobby sounds sceptical. "I'm not much of one for card games, Fawkes."
"Not a card game," Darien shakes his head seriously. He stands up and gestures for Bobby to do the same. Hobbes does so, frowning. Darien comes closer, and when Bobby opens his mouth to talk, the younger man kisses him.
After a while he steps back, and Bobby looks up at him thoughtfully. "Now that game I could like," he said.
"I thought you might."
They ended up having to play fifty-two card pickup anyway, but only much, much later.