Title: A Winning Hand
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: T
Length: 689 words
Relationship: Fenris/Hawke/Anders
Content notes: No content warnings apply.
Author notes: Written for the ‘twist’ challenge in fan_flashworks and ‘the game’s afoot’ challenge in genprompt_bingo. Tumblr user singedsun did some amazing sleuthing work to find out the actual rules of Diamondback, which are available here.
Summary: Isabela plays Diamondback with Fenris and contemplates the evolution of his relationship with Hawke and Anders.

***

With one eye on his cards, Fenris slid his fingers into Hawke’s long, dark hair where she was leaning against his knee.

“Queen,” he announced, placing one of his cards face-up on the table.

Isabela regarded the tableau before her. Donnic was dealing and had played a King. Varric had skipped out early, claiming Guild business he needed to attend to. That left Isabela to make her move. Donnic, she dismissed. He always exposed his highest card. Fenris, however. Was the Queen his strongest, or was he trying to bluff them? Or make them think he was bluffing?

Fenris’s weekly diamondback had moved to Hawke’s estate after his mansion had finally been boarded up by the ever-efficient Sensechal. They played in the library, at a table that Fenris and Bodahn dragged out from storage somewhere. Hawke didn’t join them often – Isabela had the impression that she deliberately made herself scarce – but tonight she was sitting on the floor, leaning against Fenris’s leg as she read a book by the light of the fire.

Isabela looked down at her cards. Magician-Priest. Highest and lowest card. Not a great hand, but one that could work well for bluffing. If she could figure out Fenris’s strategy. She looked up to find his intense green eyes upon her, a smirk on his face, a challenge in the quirk of his brow. He picked up his glass of brandy and took a sip while he twisted his other hand in Hawke’s hair, her brown strands entwining with his lyrium-laced fingers. For her part, Hawke closed her eyes and pressed back against him with a soft sigh.

Isabela had had doubts about their relationship. From the start, it had seemed that Fenris had substituted Hawke for Danarius. Though not a mage, her unconscious arrogance and blithe confidence made her someone he could follow, something which was only exacerbated by her rise to nobility. He was utterly devoted yet seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she was fucking Anders.

She had hoped that he would have gotten it out of his system after he slept with her. But even though she chose Anders over him, Fenris had remained loyal. Foolish, she had thought. He had the opportunity to take a new tack, yet he chose slavish loyalty over embracing freedom.

“What is it going to be, Isabela?” Fenris’s deep voice brought her out of her thoughts. She was holding up the game with her musings. She looked at her cards, made a snap decision.

“Magician,” she said, throwing it down onto the table. Fenris just raised an eyebrow and smiled.

“Okay, make your wager,” Donnic said, but he just placed his card on the table, folding his hand. That’s what she thought. She waited to see what Fenris would do.

Placing the glass back onto the table, he reached into the small leather pouch open next to him and withdrew another couple of gold. He threw them into the pile in the middle.

“Your call,” he said, and that challenging half-smirk was back.

Isabela found herself hesitating. He had been ready enough with the wager for this round, even after seeing her magician. Was he that confident in his other card, or was this a continuation of the bluff?

Just as she was about to make her decision, Anders appeared at the library door. He looked even more tired and dishevelled than normal, and only gave Isabela and Donnic a cursory wave as greeting. He walked over to the lounge that Hawke was leaning against and sat on the other side of her. He pressed his leg against Hawke’s side and simultaneously reached out to touch Fenris’s shoulder.

“Who’s winning?” he asked, glancing over the cards on the table.

Isabela suddenly made up her mind.

“Fenris,” she answered, and placed her card face down on the table. “I fold.”

“Didn’t want to see what I have?” Fenris asked, his voice teasing.

“I know when the odds aren’t in my favour,” Isabela said with a scowl.

With another smirk, Fenris turned over his final card. Magician-Queen. A winning hand.

This was why Isabela preferred Wicked Grace.