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“Er, hello?” Donnic said, startled and poorly hiding it.
Fenris squinted against the glare of the sun, painfully bright. “What time is it?”
Donnic’s eyes kept shifting down. “Just past the tenth bell—I’m sorry, are you okay like that?”
Fenris looked down. Right. He was phased halfway through the door by his waist.
Grumbling, he pulled himself back into his hallway. His skin tingled as the lyrium returned dormant, a familiar stinging itch, and took the indulgent liberty to bang his forehead once on the wooden paneling. It, predictably, hurt. He lifted the inner door lock and opened it once again on Donnic, who was now more amused than concerned.
“Rough morning?” Donnic teased.
Fenris snorted and immediately regretted it; he was certain if he sneezed it would fully dislodge his thudding brain.
“Evening. Isabella,” he explained darkly. “Said—claimed—she won a bottle of ‘Maraas-lok’ as a celebration for cleaning out the Bone Pit, again, but I’m pretty sure if not for Hawke’s healing, I’d have woken up blind.” Instead, he had woken up to the sound of pounding at his door. Fenris walked back to his rooms, rightly assuming Donnic would follow him. “Were we to meet?”
“Hm? Oh, yes, but it’s alright. Was going to have you check some smugglers for lyrium dust, but he confessed.” Donnic was shamelessly poking around his nightstand as Fenris grabbed a tunic to pull over his breeches. It smelled clean. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“I get enough of that from your wife, you know. She keeps bothering me to hire a maid.”
“And she’s always right. Though you might want to clear out the obvious signs of murder.” Donnic tapped the sigil on his chestplate. “I feel like I should remind you that we’re both in the catching-murderers business.”
Fenris shot him a look. “They deserved it.”
Donnic shrugged. “Perhaps. Can you stomach the outdoors? Your room’s depressing me.”
Fenris looked around. It contained everything he needed; a comfortable bed, expensive, too, with real feathers in the pillows; thick curtains to keep out prying eyes and sounds from the street; a functional fireplace to burn any lingering sea-damp; and dressers full of warm, tailored clothing that he took to the elderly elvhen washerwomen down the street who pinched his cheeks and called him handsome. It was both irritating and welcome.
“If you’re paying to fill my stomach, yes,” was what he landed on.
Donnic laughed. It was gentle, quiet. He wasn’t loud or boisterous, not like the company Fenris usually kept.
He followed the man as they cut through Hightown, descending one of the long staircases to get to Lowtown. Hightown might have better wine, but no one beat the street vendors lower down. Donnic flipped a couple coppers to the stall owner, and Fenris was quickly rewarded with a hot eel pie, savory and fatty and rich.
They perched against the stone masonry, angling out to watch for cut-purses or any other sign of trouble. Donnic, while not in his full regalia, was still visibly a guardsman, and while Fenris had made enough of a reputation of himself as a deadly, mage-killing elf, that only dissuaded some and attracted enemies otherwise.
Still, the pie was invigorating. Some of the pounding in Fenris’ head receded enough to get a good look at Donnic’s face. He wasn’t one to emote strongly, but the bruises under his eyes had deepened, and there was a tension in his friend’s shoulders.
“Everything alright, Donnic?”
“Yes, of course.” Donnic scanned the crowd; an impressive bit of distraction, but Fenris had played Diamondback with the man once a week for the past three years. He knew the man’s tells well. “You know how it is.”
“Do I?” he asked dryly.
Donnic grimaced, then finished his own meal, wiping greasy fingers clean on a handkerchief. It was poorly embroidered with his initials, a detail so awkwardly, lovingly domestic it could only have been Aveline's stitch-work.
“Something’s brewing. Ave’s worried. And I know you can feel it.”
Fenris sighed. “Yes.”
“This truce, this stalemate between the powers that be. It can’t last.”
“You’re not one to worry about politics, Donnic.”
“Are you calling me simple?” he joked.
“I’m saying you’re straightforward and pragmatic when it comes to how you live your life.” Fenris waved his hand, conciliatory. “But yes, you’re also simple.”
That earned him another one of Donnic’s quiet laughs. But he quickly sobered. “You should hire that maid. It’s not wrong to put down roots when you can.”
“I don’t technically own the estate.”
“Yes, you do, legally speaking. You’ve been squatting there long enough you control the property unless the deed holders petition the court.” He pushed away from the wall to force Fenris to look him in the eye. “I am straightforward when it comes to the law, Fenris.”
“I see.” Fenris itched with how Donnic was putting his back to the market.
“I consider us friends, Fenris, even if you and your crew are single-mindedly determined to turn my wife’s hair white.” Donnic smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “But we can’t protect you.”
Fenris nudged Donnic back so his eyeline wouldn’t be obscured. And also because he hated having to look at the sun from that angle. His stomach was no longer roiling, but he would still murder that pirate witch for poisoning him with moonshine gin next he saw her. “Did she tell you about Danarius’ return?”
“Yes, but she didn’t have to. I was one of the guards who had to mop up the Hanged Man after.”
Fenris… didn’t know that.
Donnic gave a half-smile. “You were rightfully distracted. I don’t think you saw me, but I was glad to know him truly dead.”
Right. Fenris also didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say. The house was both his and it wasn’t his, spitefully stolen. How his life was his own, now. Danarius dead, by his hand. By Hawke’s hand, by Hawke’s team. Aveline had been there, too. Her face coldly furious and determined in the wake of a magister. Of Fenris’ nightmares made flesh.
Fenris had escaped before, and returned, sacrificing every friend who had encouraged him to seek freedom. The qunari who protected him, who believed in him. In the end they didn’t matter. Fenris returned home and lost not his body but his mind.
His freedom, achieved.
“I’ll think about the maid,” he lied.
Donnic shook his head. He knew Fenris’ tells, too.
“Just know—our home is open to you. Even if things in Kirkwall become complicated.”
Fenris clapped him on the back, not trusting himself to speak. He believed in Hawke, a belief so strong that it wrapped around into trust, even when the rest of his companions were functionally insane most of the time. But they were Hawke’s friends first, the linchpin that held them together for nearly a decade now, through betrayals, death, windfalls, loss, acceptance, revealed truths. They knew more about him then he had let anyone know him, and he appreciated their presence in his life as much as it unnerved him.
Donnic, while connected through Aveline, was Fenris’ friend more than anyone else’s in the group. They played cards together, teased each other. For every greasy meal Donnic bought him, Fenris covered the next back. It was simple and easy, the way most of Fenris’ day-to-day relationships were… not.
Even Aveline was a confidant, though her advice on matters of the heart were almost always terrible. When he would play cards at their house, keeping Donnic company on his off-nights when the man was otherwise assigned to night patrol that month, Aveline would wander into the drawing room in the morning. She would kiss the side of Donnic’s head, and squeeze Fenris on the shoulder, palm warm and calloused.
Again, it was simple and easy.
It was, surreal as it was, somewhat of a normal life.
Fenris coughed. “So, what did I miss with the smugglers?”
“Honestly, not much in the end, but half their lyrium dust was cut with pumice ash,” Donnic said. He inclined his head, walking back the way they came up the steps to Hightown and back to Fenris'.
Sighing at the uphill journey that awaited him, Fenris matched his friend's gait as he was caught up on the case.