Characters/Pairing: Hawke/Fenris
Rating: K+
Word Count: 1500
Notes: For onemooncircles, who had a bit of a rough week, and who asked at the end of it:

Can anyone recommend any blogs dedicated to posting descriptions of happy-drunk Fenris curled up in an oversized armchair and reading a book about kitten-care while petting Hawke's dog and snuggling under a patchwork quilt made for him as a Satinalia gift by Orana and Varania? I realize that's a fairly specific ask but I could really use this in my life right now.

She received quite a number of really superb fills, but considering how dear she's become to me over the years, I had to give it a shot, too.

—

"You're drunk," says Hawke.

Fenris's head falls heavily against the back of the armchair, a peculiar twitch to his lips signaling the not-quite-perfect control that only comes with his worst inebriation. "I am," he tells her, and shrugs. It's not a particularly elegant one, as shrugs go, but at least he's not retreated into that too-heavy silence that often heralds a rougher night. "Does that bother you?"

"That depends. How much of my good wine have you had?"

Fenris laughs outright, waves an indolent hand towards the endtable at his left. One empty bottle—shared between the two of them earlier—and another half-so, abandoned on her part after Aveline had dropped by for a quick chat about a run to the Coast the week before. "Enough. You left."

"I came back." Hawke saunters closer, drawing the curtains against the hazy twilight as she passes, and pulls a long swig herself direct from the bottle's mouth. "Aveline says hello, you know. Just like that. 'Tell Fenris hello for me.' Message relayed, job done."

"You are drunk."

"Not yet," Hawke sighs, and runs her fingers lazily through Fenris's hair as she passes by his chair. Insultingly soft for a man who couldn't care less, though his eyes fall shut on the second draw with a low, pleased hum, and Hawke grins through the abrupt slosh of immense, tipsy affection. "You've got too much of a lead on me, I think."

"You might try."

"You might regret it if I do," Hawke says with a bark of laughter, and replaces the bottle on the table. It's loud enough to bring the dog through the door a moment later, his nails tacking against the polished wooden floor; at the sight of his human bent a bit lopsidedly over the elf in the armchair, he lets out a heavy wuff of exasperation and flops to his stomach at Fenris's bare feet.

Fenris smiles, drops a careless hand atop the enormous head. "See, Hawke. The dog encourages it."

"He does not," Hawke says, laughing again, and at Fenris's smirk she drapes both arms over the back of the chair and leans down to kiss him. He lifts his face readily enough; practice has made him comfortable with her sentiment, and Hawke is—modestly, of course—an excellent kisser, and by the time his fingers have tangled in the linen of her shirt at her waist her pulse has already begun to thud hard in her throat. Still, there is no reason to rush; instead she smoothes her fingertips down both sides of his face, drops them to his throat, then along the lines of his shoulders, less broad without the armor and yet perfectly delectable in fine black cambric. "You're attempting to distract me. It's a very devious tactic."

He looks faintly insulted, but his palm sliding up her waist and down it again is very warm. "These accusations."

"Can you blame me? You taste like wine. You look very good in black. And you're smiling, Fenris. What's a girl to do?"

"I am not smiling," Fenris says through a wildly unsuccessful attempt to repress it, and when Hawke grins his other hand joins the first at her waist and pulls. After a momentary upending of the world Hawke finds herself in Fenris's lap, his fingers pressing against her shoulder blades, her legs swinging loose over one overstuffed arm of the preposterously comfortable chair.

"This," Hawke says after a moment, when Fenris's mouth is not quite so insistent and his eyes not quite so soft, "is precisely what I mean by 'devious.' What a dirty trick for such a comfortable elf."

He smiles again, an abrupt quirk of the corner of his mouth, and Hawke runs her fingers through his hair once more before dragging free the quilt laid over the chair's back. It takes only a moment to arrange it over her legs and his, his arms lifting above the hem before resettling at her waist. They don't unfold it often, the blue-and-gold squares still too cherished for everyday use, but it's warm and it's real, Varania's design and Orana's handiwork, and the change that passes over Fenris's face only for an instant when he sees it, as it always does—that's real, too, and Hawke cups his cheek with her hand so that she can see it better, so she can remember if only for this moment how Fenris looks when he does not hide his happiness.

"What is it?" he asks, his voice low, and at Hawke's shake of her head his smile quirks again, and his hand slides easily to the curve of her thigh through the quilt. "If I'd known you intended to stay so long, I would have brought more wine."

"What's stopping you from sharing?"

He glances at the bottle forgotten at his elbow, but Hawke intends a distinctly literal interpretation, and the genuine laugh that startles free at her kiss is enough to have her grinning against Fenris's mouth. It's a sloppy thing, both of them entirely too inebriated for anything more interesting—or inciting—but it's wonderful, just like this, this slow warm intimacy not quite familiar yet but nearer every day, Fenris strong and solid under her legs, his fingers drifting lazily up and down her spine, the quiet, sudden breaths against her lips when they break, come together again.

She presses her tongue against his lower lip; he palms the back of her neck and pulls her closer, opening his mouth under hers, wine on his lips and hers too, and a deep humming happiness in her chest she can't bear to stifle. He kisses her twice more, until she's fairly certain she's nigh to bursting with contentment, and then she wraps her arms around his neck and buries her head in his shoulder, the lyrium warm and living against her mouth. Fenris draws a long breath that she can feel rise against her chest; then he lets it out again, his fingers lifting to touch the ends of her hair.

"Hawke," he says at last, and nothing else. Varania's quilt lies warm and weighted over them both.

Eventually, when she feels that she must either move or resign herself to the rest of her lifetime spent sleeping atop her favorite elf in Thedas, Hawke turns her face until her forehead lies against his neck. "You know," she says, just loud enough to be heard over the dog's muffled snores, "I never asked what you were doing when I came in."

"You did not."

"And?"

He laughs, makes a vague gesture she can feel against her back. "Reading, Hawke. As one does in libraries."

"My, my, you're being so coy."

"Not intentionally." He stretches against her, reaching across the arm of the chair to the endtable, then leans back with a slim yellow volume in one hand. "It's what was at hand. The subject matter is somewhat…."

"Prurient?"

"Tame."

Hawke laughs. "Do tell."

He hands her the book instead. It's as thin as she thought, and—she is rather more drunk than she thought, too, the words inconsiderately dancing across the page before she can settle them again. In retrospect, she hopes Aveline hadn't been too offended; perhaps that's why the meeting had been so short. "From Whisker to Tail: Retrieving Your Tender, Affectionate Kitten from the Claws of the Sour Puss. Fenris, really?"

He's laughing again, his lips pressed tight, his eyes bright. "As I said, it was at hand."

"I didn't even know I had this," she says, leaning her head against his own, resting the spine of the book against his knee as she cracks it open. "Maybe Isabela planted it."

"You have no secret desire for a small cat that I should know of, then."

"That you should know of, no," Hawke purrs, giving a teasing nip to his jaw. "But perhaps you should be wary of any covered baskets Merrill brings by in the next few weeks."

"Dangerous threat indeed," Fenris says, and the dog lets out a heavy sigh and rolls to his back. They both watch him for a moment, but with another deep sigh, he settles again with all four paws aloft. "Have you asked permission?"

"Mm. An excellent question, really."

He laughs, low and entirely easy, and when she leans back against him his arm comes around her shoulders in something very close to gentleness. She pillows her cheek on his shoulder, rubs a thumb over the black cambric across his chest; he spreads his hand over her leg in answer with the Satinalia quilt between them, and turns to the second chapter of the kitten book she still can't believe she owns.

She murmurs, "Read to me."

Wine on his breath, at her elbow; his taste in her mouth; the dog at their feet; Varania and Orana's quilt atop them to keep them warm against the night.

"As you like," Fenris says, smiling, and he does.