apocalisse asked: Let's see… Donnic and Fenris, "Tell Me"

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Characters/Pairing: Fenris + Donnic, background f!Hawke/Fenris & Donnic/Aveline
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,200
Prompt: Tell Me: one character confesses something to another.
Summary: Two friends play cards.

—

"Two."

"Hmm. Perhaps you should reconsider."

"You, serah, are only saying that because you've won the last three hands. Two cards, if you please, and less insubordination in the ranks."

"Your wife has been quite an influence," Fenris said, nearly certain that was what he meant, and slid two cards from his well-worn deck across the table. They were backed with leering purple harlequins, and he wondered absently if Isabela had given him the pattern on purpose. There was a mostly-empty jug of undefinable alcohol at Donnic's elbow and a pair of wholly-empty glasses upturned beside it; they threw back the cards' reflections from their curves, turning two harlequins to eight, and when they abruptly vanished from the little stained-glass world Fenris blinked before realizing Donnic had plucked them from the table.

Donnic arranged the cards in his hand. Peered at them. Moved one of them two places to the left. Peered again.

"Your call," Fenris said.

"No, yours. I raised you, remember?"

Fenris lifted an eyebrow, looked at his cards, folded them into a neat stack between his fingers. "Call, then," he said at last, not even minding that he couldn't remember if Donnic was correct or not. His hand was a winning one in three of the games they were accustomed to wagering over, and Fenris was reasonably sure they were playing diamondback. "Knights over Serpents."

"Damn," Donnic said, and tossed the lot of his cards to the table.

Fenris smirked, arranging the fan of colorful cards a bit more neatly over the scarred, pockmarked wood, then leaned back and crossed his arms. "An even four," he said. "Soon I will know even the names of your childhood friends."

"Only because Aveline made me promise to stop taking your coin," Donnic grumbled.

"Your memory is different from mine."

"Like sweets from a child, she said. It's cruel to the poor fellow, she said."

Fenris snorted. "She said nothing of the kind. And you're stalling."

"Damn," Donnic said again, and scratched the thickening stubble on his jaw. "Oh! All right. I have a birthmark on my left foot shaped like a falcon."

"You do not."

"In flight," he stated, and at Fenris's skepticism was apparently struck with the inspiration—alcoholic or otherwise—to bend under the table and fumble with both hands at his ankle.

"Oh," Fenris said, when the meaning of the motion filtered at last through his pleasant drunkenness; a moment later he added, "no," as if it made a difference. Donnic ignored both words, articulate as they were, and as his boot at last came free he leaned back in his chair, rolled his pants sloppily to the knee, and dropped his bare heel upon the table with a thump that rattled the empty glasses.

"A falcon." He bent his toes, straightened them again. "In flight. Flying."

Fenris did not, he decided, have much right to complain on the grounds of cleanliness—certainly not here, in this infrequently-used room set off his main hall, where the fire was warm and bright enough to illuminate almost every piece of long-broken furniture—and after a moment he forgot his unvoiced protest in favor of the blurry bird on the back of Donnic's left foot. His toes had a fine dusting of dark hair across their backs, and Fenris found himself both fascinated and vaguely baffled by the sight of them.

"That," he said at last, "is a pigeon."

"It is not. It's a falcon."

"A dying pigeon."

"Aveline says it's a falcon."

"Aveline is a kind woman."

"Shut up, serah, and deal the hand."

"As soon as you remove your foot from my table, guardsman."

—

"I have only recently learned to read," Fenris admitted later, placing two more bottles of wine on the table.

"I saw the children's primer by the stairs," Donnic told him, shuffling his winning hand into the deck. "Besides, you never return any letters."

"Perhaps it's their author."

"Or the penmanship," Donnic said, and dealt.

—

"I'm in love with my wife."

"That is no secret."

"No," Donnic agreed, "but it's true."

—

"I am," Fenris started, then fell silent. One of his hands still splayed open on his cards; he could see the Lady's eye twinkling up at him above the join of his thumb and forefinger. "I am," he said again, and then, "you," and then, "Hawke—"

Donnic shook his head, tipping the bottle until red wine spilled out into Fenris's half-empty glass. "Keep that one," he said. "Other ears need to hear it first."

Fenris said nothing, and when his glass was full he lifted it to his lips and drained it dry.

—

He did not know the time. Somewhere near three, he thought, late enough to be early and early enough that not even the Chantry bells would ring the hour. Donnic had retired to the sofa with the sagging center cushion, his legs stretched out to the dying fire as he stared meditatively at his still-bare left foot. He shifted his toes in the flickering shadows and the falcon-pigeon flapped its wings; Fenris blinked the image away, blinked again at a world gone blurry, and sighed, returning his waning attention to the single-handed game of Wicked Grace he'd begun against himself.

Two Songs and the Knight of Mercy, and no help at all from the gloating purple harlequins dancing over the deck. He drew a card.

"Anyone home?"

Aveline's voice was loud and too cheerful for the hour, and Donnic rolled to a sitting position with a sudden look of alarm. "Here!" he called, scrubbing one hand over his face; Aveline strode through the open door, Hawke behind her, and Donnic lurched abruptly to his feet. "Captain! Aveline." He wavered a bit and Aveline gripped his shoulder; then he focused on her face, and he said, more tenderly, "Hello, my dear."

She leaned closer, smiling, shaking her head, and Fenris glanced away as Hawke bumped his chair with her hip. "Good evening?" she asked, nodding at the haphazard pile of empty bottles and abandoned, wine-thumbed cards.

"Good enough," Fenris said, and tossed his hand to the table as he stood. "And yours?"

"Good enough," parroted Hawke, reaching to touch the cards he'd thrown down. "The Angel of Death. Game's over, I suppose."

Donnic looked over then, more intently and lucidly than Fenris thought he had a right to, especially considering the arm he'd slung heavily over his wife's shoulders to remain upright. "And you know what that means," he stated, his voice serious—and then he smiled. "You must show your hand."

"What did he mean?" Hawke asked later, once Aveline had coaxed her unsteady husband out the door at last, his forgotten boot dangling from her free hand.

"That," Fenris said, suppressing a smirk, turning to gather the cards that had lost and won him the hand at once, "is a secret."