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Chapter Text

The year was 9:32, the night was young, and Varric couldn’t remember the last time life had tasted this fucking sweet. 

Just a few sovereigns more. Then he and his unlikely, unlooked for, unparalleled partner in business and crime were going to delve into the Deep Roads, take everything that wasn’t nailed down, and return to Kirkwall triumphant, richer than Maker-damned kings.

Varric—with enough gold to keep his brother off his back and keep the good times rolling. Hawke—with enough gold to buy his mother’s old title and estate back; with enough gold no templar would ever look twice at him again; with so much fucking gold it’d make the best, most effective smokescreen an apostate could ever dream of. Hawke and Varric, Varric and Hawke—with the whole damn world at their feet.

It was all so close Varric could taste it.

Or maybe he just… thought he could? Taste it? Because he was very—very—prodigiously drunk right now.

The Hanged Man was buzzing loud with good humor, the mood loose, and Varric was drunk in the right way: the world around him a beautiful, benevolent blur.

And Hawke? Hawke was right there with him, and damn, was that a good thing.

Shit, that was the best thing.

He didn’t want Hawke to tip too far. Not into the melancholy that’d seize Hawke, sometimes, when deep in his cups: that’d have Hawke looking over ledges or into bodies of water a little too long, that’d have him cracking jokes that weren’t funny at all. That were concerning, frankly. The kind of jokes that made Varric want to shake him by the shoulders.

No, Hawke was here, and Varric was going to keep him here. Here, in this beautiful, drunken benevolence. Here, in this beautiful bubble of now.

Hawke was leaning, now, getting between Rivaini and Aveline as their voices rose.

“Av-ve-line,” Hawke dragged her name out sulkily. He leaned his elbows on the table, eyes round and wounded and guileless. “Don’t you know it’s rude to play favorites? Just how many people do I have to sleep with before you’ll call me a whore?”

He stuck his lower lip out, the way a child would. “It’s like you don’t appreciate all my hard work!”

Quick on the draw, Rivaini went along with the joke: perching her chin on Hawke’s shoulder, fixing Aveline with a theatrical pout.

“Don’t you appreciate his whorefulness, Aveline?”

“My whoretry?” Hawke pouted too, eyes rounder, more wounded, tilting his head to rest against Rivaini's.

“His whoritude,” Broody added flatly, fighting a grin.

“His whorindipity!” Daisy piped in, giggling, bright as a new copper.

At that—Daisy’s exuberance; the word ‘whorindipity’—Varric burst out laughing, delighted by the horror she’d wrought upon the trade tongue, and eager to contrive reasons to use it himself.

And Hawke was laughing: convulsing with it, leaning ever more heavily on his elbows until he was lying half-on the table. And Rivaini was laughing: crowing with pride, slinking around the table to cover the crown of Daisy's head with pecking kisses. Even Broody was amused: biting his lip, eyes suspiciously alight.

And Aveline— who’d been wasting the last ten minutes trying to rope Rivaini into some bullshit argument —she was laughing too, her edges softening, softening. Letting her anger go.  

Varric glanced at Hawke, then.

Face now flat on the table, Hawke caught his glance—and winked at him knowingly.

And wasn’t that just like Hawke, to diffuse tension with a flick of the wrist? Like it was easy? Like it was nothing?

Like the first time Varric had seen him do it, nearly a year ago now, when some huge, mean-looking human had taken objection to ‘dog-fuckers cogglin’ up’ the Hanged Man, and decided Hawke would be the one to pay for it. He’d shoved Hawke; he’d challenged Hawke to a fight—

Only for Hawke to agree.

And start stripping.

Stripping off his shirt, his trousers—all the while spouting off a stream of unhinged nonsense, each word nuttier than the last—until Hawke was squaring up to fight the guy stark fucking naked.

And that huge, mean-looking human? Backed off. Made for the door even as he tried to act like he wasn’t, tried to salvage his pride with parting shots about ‘batshit Fereldens.’

And once the door swung closed? Hawke had dropped the act. He’d turned to Varric, pointed to him with a snap of the fingers, winked, and said, ‘Word to the wise? No one wants to fight a naked man.’

Junior had locked his eyes on the ground and hissed at his brother to ‘put your fucking clothes back on, so fucking help me.’

Aveline had scrubbed her face, long-suffering, and told her friend that he had ‘ten seconds before I arrest you for public indecency.’

But Varric? Oh, Varric had cackled so hard he thought he might cough up a lung.

Hawke was always doing shit like that. Always pulling off the crazy, clever thing. Always getting out of tight spots with a deftness; always coming up with a joke whenever he wasn't coming up swinging. Always—

…Surprising.

Yeah. That was it.   

Varric looked at his friend— unlikely, unlooked for, unparalleled; face flat on the sticky, undoubtedly disgusting table —and winked back at him.

That’s what you are, he heard himself think. A surprise.

Time slid by drunkenly, blurred at the edges. There were more jokes. More tankards. More hands of Wicked Grace. There was music, too, a song wafting through the air like smoke…

And there was Hawke: close now, suddenly… clear.

Crisp.

Like snow up on Sundermount. Like the first bite of an apple.

Hawke’s eyes were such a warm, warm black. Rich. Arresting. He gestured with expressive hands as he spoke, the pitch of his voice sinking lower, sonorous, as his Orlesian-Ferelden accent grew thicker, stronger, unleashed by drink.

“Non, non, Varric—that, precisely, is what you don’t understand,” Hawke was insisting; he was expounding; and yet he was smiling. Fervent, focused, gazing deeply into Varric's eyes and smiling, explaining some crucial point about…

What were they talking about?

Varric wasn't sure; Hawke was still talking—

No. No, it… it was more than that. Hawke was rhapsodizing. He was in raptures.

“That, er—” Hawke clicked his tongue, searching for a word. “—impermanence? Is what I love most! Music—”

Hawke was cupping his hands, now, to hold something invisible.

He stared at it so intently Varric had to stare at it, too. At the rapturous nothing in Hawke’s hands. 

“—Music exists in time, not in space. You cannot touch it. C’est ici; c’est parti!” Hawke flourished his hands, as if to make the rapturous nothing disappear.

“Music lives in a moment, and music dies in a moment, just like we do,” Hawke sighed like a man in love, happily consigned to his suffering, still smiling at Varric. Smiling and smiling. “Don’t you think that’s wonderful?”

Varric could only smile back at him, stunned.

Wonderful, his mind echoed in answer. Wonderful, wonderful.

Because when Hawke got like this?

It was.

This was the sweet spot, wasn’t it? The blurry place well beyond the province of buzzed, but just shy of boneless. Just shy of—

…Of melancholy.

But! When Hawke hit this sweet spot? Everyone he met dazzled him. Everything he encountered mystified him. And he would routinely open Varric’s eyes to a multitude of—of wonders, of revelations, that'd never before been visible. Not to him.

Hawke was prone to making bizarre, heartfelt declarations. Just last week, he’d come to an abrupt halt at the top of the stairs in the Hanged Man; took Varric’s face into his hands; proclaimed with a great, jarring solemnity, ‘Everything about you delights me;’ pressed a kiss to Varric's forehead; and then released him; like it was easy, like it was nothing; turned to keep walking—

Then fell down the stairs, ass over teakettle, having completely forgotten where he was and what he’d been doing.

He’d been none the worse for wear, thankfully. He’d landed hard on his ass; eyes wide, he’d looked up to find Varric frozen at the top of the stairs; and then he’d burst into laughter at his own expense. Lying back on the floor, shoulders shaking, grinning into his hands, unloosing peal after peal of helpless laughter.

Oh, yeah, when Hawke got like this? Maker's breath, it was wonderful.

He had a gift. A way of making things alright just by being there. Swill smacked sweeter. Laughs rang louder. Tales grew taller and stories spun gold. Everything Hawke touched spun gold; Hawke could spin gold out of thin air.

Time kept blurring by… and Varric found himself saying as much.

To Junior.

Varric was sitting next to him; he tugged Junior’s sleeve at the shoulder to get his attention.

“You know what your problem is?”

Junior rolled his eyes, face puckering into a scowl, but Varric didn’t let that stop him. It’d been a rhetorical question—he was going to tell him regardless.

“You want to be impressive, but you never want to be impressed.” Varric took another swig from his tankard; he wiped the foam from his mouth with a broad pass of his hand. “You want to know your brother’s secret? How he charms damn near everybody?”

Junior shot him a look that could curdle milk.

“Oh, do tell, dwarf.” His sarcasm was acidic. “Tell me just how mu—”

“He’s charming because he’s charmed, dumbass,” Varric cut him off. “He likes people, so people like him back,” he emphasized with three light slaps on Junior’s shoulder.

“Whereas you?” Varric made a pshh sound. “You don’t like anybody.”  

Junior’s face did something complicated, then. If Varric didn’t know better, he might think Junior winced. That he might’ve… hit a nerve.

So Varric cut his losses. He hopped down from his chair and left Junior alone. Looked for someone else to talk to.

Even now, tucked fast in the heart of this beautiful, benevolent bubble, Varric remembered the rules. He wasn’t allowed to dig his barbs too deep into Junior.

Not unless he wanted Hawke to ice him out. Again. For a whole fortnight.

No, Varric hadn’t liked that.

Here? Here was good. Now was good. Where was Hawke?

Time blurred… and Varric was spinning a yarn about the docks, the harbormaster, and a bottle of cod liver oil.

Blondie was here, listening, a smile creasing his forever-weary eyes. And Macha—the woman with the templar brother, the one they’d saved from blood mages—she was here too. She kept glancing at Blondie with a sparkle in her eye. A little hopeful, a little shy.

But Blondie didn’t seem to notice. Hawke’s laugh was booming from across the room, now, greeting Tomwise and his brother “Tybalt, Prince of Cats!” with clap on the back—and that was where Blondie’s glance went instead, all his sparkle reserved for Hawke alone.  

Interesting, he thought, as if he didn’t already know.

Time blurred… and Varric was spinning a yarn about Bartrand, the Merchants’ Guild, and beards so long you could trip over them.

Broody was here, chuckling, trying to hide his grin behind his tankard. And his buddy Anso was here, too, more at ease these days with life on the surface. He was launching into his own Guild story; he paused, tapping Broody on the shoulder to ask some quick clarifying question.

But Broody didn’t seem to notice. Rivaini was leading Hawke in a dance, now, dipping him low to the ground; he yielded to her gracefully, sinking with a slow, muscular control—and that was where Broody’s gaze had fixed, flitting between them both.

Interesting, he thought, as if he didn’t already know that, too.

Time blurred… and Varric was dancing with Daisy. Her long fingers and his short ones; his ears full of her bird-bright laughter.

Time blurred… and Varric was tossing out some asshole on Norah’s request. Her approving nod; her voice calling over the noise, “Master Tethras—your next ale’s on me!”

Time blurred… and Varric was shuffling a deck of cards; he was handing the deck over so Rivaini could cut it; he was dealing out a hand of Diamondback, flicking a card to each player in one looping circle after another. One, two, three, four, five, six; one, two, three, four…

No, Varric couldn’t remember the last time life had been so sweet.     

He really had a good thing going, didn’t he? He had coin coming in on the regular, with the promise of more just over the horizon. He had misadventures, near-misses and scrapes, each more exhilarating than the last. He had an endless fount of ideas fizzing in his brain, plot twists and characters and reversals of fortune that jumped off the page whenever he found a spare moment to scribble one down.

…He had friends.

Not associates. Not contacts. Not informants. Real, honest-to-goodness friends. People who had fuck all to do with the Guild. People who… simply enjoyed his company.

Who knew that was a thing that actually happened? Varric hadn’t. Not for people like him.

And yet, here they were.

A pirate captain without a ship and a blood mage without a clan. A former Warden and a former slave. Somehow, bafflingly, the new Guard-Captain in training.

And a down-on-his-luck apostate refugee who’d spent most of his life working a farm. A man who, on paper, should be the least compelling of them all.

His friends were funny. Fractious. As touchy a lot of waifs and strays as you could ever hope to meet. In a word? Perfect. Jagged and deeply flawed. Honest and alarmingly true. They bickered at the drop of hat and Varric wouldn’t change a single solitary thing about them.

To think he received all of this good fortune—the money, the inspiration, the people—all inside of one year.

And to top it all off?

In three days’ time, Varric was going to see Bianca.  

She had business in Jader, he’d arranged his own Jader-bound alibi, and now their rendezvous was right around the corner. And what could be better? What could better warm Varric the whole Deep Roads through, other than the afterglow of an entire week with Bianca?

Time blurred… and Varric began to blur with it, thinking of her…  

—But Hawke was here.

Crisp as Sundermount snow. As the first bite of an apple.

Interrupting Varric in the middle of some yarn he’d been spinning to point a finger in his face.

“Bullshit,” Hawke chuckled, punctuating that word with a little jab of the finger. “You’re having me on.”   

Varric was chuckling too, drawing his head in; he brushed Hawke’s finger away like a gnat, grabbing at it a little. “What are you talking about?”

“That—that business with the, what did you call it?” Hawke made a circle with his arms. Emphatically, like it was supposed to mean something. “In the house? There’s no such thing!”

Varric felt himself bubble over with laughter.

“No such thing as houses?” he teased; he was leaning in, towards Hawke, closer to Hawke. “Were you raised in a barn, Farmer?—I thought that was just a figure of speech.”

Hawke gave him a half irked, half amused look. With a light nudge he pushed Varric’s face away from his, fingers brushing, glancing over Varric’s cheek gently.

“You dick. You scamp, you utter rapscallion,” Hawke said; his eyes were… doing… something. Something interesting. “That’s not what I meant, Messere Riche, and you know it.”

“Do I?” Varric replied, just to be an ass.

…Maker, Hawke’s eyes were really something. Such a warm, warm black. Too warm to be likened to onyx or obsidian; to be likened to anything that wasn’t vibrantly, vivaciously alive. They reminded Varric of…

Of what?

Varric wasn’t sure. He began to blur again, trying to capture it, the… the simile, the metaphor, on the tip of his tongue…

—But Hawke kept making emphatic circles with his arms, at a loss for words himself. Kept pantomiming, kept Varric in the moment—

And, eventually, Varric caught on.

“…Runic plumbing?”

“Ouais! That’s the— Hot water, just like—like that?” Hawke snapped his fingers with a flourish. “No well? No boiling? No bakery next door, like the bathhouse?”

He blew a disbelieving raspberry, still grinning, his eyes… glimmering.

Yeah. Glimmering.

“You’re fucking with me,” he continued. “You must be.”

“I shit you not,” Varric grinned back at him; he was leaning in again, towards Hawke, closer to Hawke. “I can prove it to you.”

Hawke looked at him sidelong, one eyebrow arching dubiously.

Varric tsked; why wouldn’t Hawke believe him? He put his hands on the table, leaning his weight onto them.

“Bartrand got the Tethras townhouse all kitted out… pfff, ten, eleven years ago?”

Hawke hummed doubtfully. He took a swig from his tankard—and then he was looking away. Losing interest.

No. No, Varric didn’t like that.

So he touched him. Hawke’s forearm under his palm, under his fingers.

Look at me.

After a short delay, Hawke did. With those warm, warm black eyes of his.

“Hawke, I swear on my mother I’m not fucking with you,” Varric said; he was swaying a little, for all that his tone was serious and sober.

He tilted his head. “Well… right now,” he amended. “About this.”

Another short delay as the words sank in.

And then.

Slowly.

A smile began to unfurl over Hawke’s face. Broad, and crooked, and warm. His lips parting. His eyes glimmering, glimmering.  

“…Oh, fuck, can we go now?” Hawke asked; he believed Varric, finally, finally.

—He was touching Varric back.

His hand just above Varric’s elbow, circling, almost like a handshake… but… not. Gentler.

Hardly any pressure at all.

“Will you show me?” Hawke asked, so enthused he was shining. He shone so brightly Varric had to blink against it.

“Shit yeah,” Varric answered, grinning like a fool.

Varric stood, and yet it felt like falling. He had to steady himself on the table as he felt it: something falling, falling, inside of his chest.

“Come on, Hawke, I’ll show you.”

***

It took a while, leaving the Hanged Man.

Junior had something to say first, bristling at his brother in Orlesian-Ferelden patois. Hawke had to placate him, nodding amiably, responding in kind.

It rankled Varric. It always did.

Orlesian was the language of prestige in Kirkwall. The nobility learned it, so Varric had learned it, like every other Guild kid with a tutor. Kalna or ascendant? Didn’t matter. You flattered humans in Orlesian to disarm them into better business deals. You entertained humans in Orlesian in their theater boxes, choosing le mot juste to make witty little jabs about the actors who, naturally, were performing in Orlesian. If you took a human lover, you seduced them in Orlesian—because the only good dwarven reason to take a human lover was for their title, to be used to further the interests of your good dwarven House.

Patois was a different beast. A sonorous, slurring language that kept coming up whenever someone cut their eyes at Varric and decided they didn’t like the look of him. Whenever Junior wanted to shut him out of a conversation with Hawke. Whenever one of their dog-lord neighbors pointedly ignored him, addressing Hawke as if he were alone.

Varric didn’t like not knowing things.

But, no matter how he tried to parse it, patois wouldn’t give up its secrets. It was more than just the sum of its parts. Listening to it…

It reminded Varric of looking into a shattered mirror. He could only ever catch glimpses, divorced from the whole. Words, phrases, a select few sentences? Sure. But how it all hung together, the grammar? Eluded him.

So Varric didn’t know what had Junior’s smalls in a bunch right now. All he could make out was the word ‘uncle,’ and… something about worry. Either “I’m worried about you” or “You’re worried about me.”

Varric couldn’t tell it apart. Who was worried about who. Or why. Or what Gamlen had to do with it.  

Hawke gave Junior his coin purse—but that only made Junior scowl more.

Junior dug out a couple silvers; he tried to give them back to Hawke—but that only made Hawke dance away with a grin, holding his hands up, refusing to take them.

Next, and much less irritating, were the long goodbyes.

Daisy didn’t want them to leave, the sweetheart. Neither did Rivaini. She tried to entice Varric into another game of cards, and when that failed, she coiled herself around Hawke to murmur in his ear. The way she was wont to, when she invited Hawke to sleep with her.

But Hawke just shook his head, kissed Rivaini on the cheek, and, flicking the brim of her hat, murmured a reply that made her laugh. The way he was wont to, when he turned her down.  

He always turned her down.

Even when it seemed like he didn’t actually want to.

Interesting, interesting…

It took a while, but they managed it: Varric and Hawke left the Hanged Man. Let the door swing shut on all its noise, its odor, its dirt and delights.

Not that Lowtown was any less lively.

People were out in force, tonight.

You’d be forgiven for thinking it a holiday, but in truth it was simply the weather. The spring rains had finally eased. The night air was cool, no longer cold. The moons were shining brightly overhead, torches and lamps were blazing along the bazaar, and the people of Lowtown were raring to live it up now. Before summer. Before the only reason they’d be up all night was because it was too damn hot to sleep.

Hawke paused to light an elfroot cigarette.

Varric paused too. He closed his eyes to focus on the night air: those chilly hands cupping his face, cooling the drunk-flush heat of his skin.

His eyes opened, and he noticed all the paper.

The square in front of the Hanged Man was littered with paper. Leaflets fluttering underfoot, stirred by the breeze.

Varric took a step—and a leaflet stuck to the sole of his boot.

He unpeeled it from his boot. Brought it up to his face to read it, squinting.

Ugh.

It was yet another diatribe. Extolling the virtues—ha!—of Kirkwall’s native sons; exhorting said sons to join the Friends of Kirkwall and ‘DRIVE THE FOREIGN WASTE’ from Lowtown ‘BEFORE WE ALL GET FLEAS!’  

Varric knew what this was good for.  

He blew his nose in it. Crumpled it. Tossed it back on the ground, where it belonged.

Then he scrubbed his hands over his cheeks, trying to sober up a bit. He needed to remember this; he needed to check in with Gallard tomorrow.  

Gallard should have a lead about these stupid shitting leaflets by now. There were only so many printing presses in Kirkwall. The Coterie should know, so Gallard should know—so Varric should know, so he could finally put a stop to these so-called Friends of fucking Kirkwall.

Gallard tomorrow. Gallard, the leaflets, tomorrow.

“Rather an odd way to advertise your fetish, don’t you think?”

Varric shot Hawke a glance, not understanding.

Hawke was reading one of the leaflets with a wry quirk of the lips. He turned the leaflet to Varric, and tapped it where it read, ‘HOW LONG MUST WE LIE WITH DOGS?!’

“Methinks they doth protest too much,” Hawke continued in a stage whisper. He took another drag of his cigarette as he gazed at Varric conspiratorially, that wry little quirk ripening into a grin that crinkled his eyes.

Those eyes dancing in the light of the lamps, in the light of the moons.

There was… something about it. There was a simile, a metaphor, on the tip of Varric’s tongue, a… a point he wanted to make.

About what?

Varric didn’t know—but it wasn’t important; it could wait. Because Hawke was here.

He felt a grin steal over his face.

That fact cut clear through his drunkenness: banter came first, when Hawke was here.

“Ah, don’t be too hard on them, Hawke,” Varric stage-whispered in return, grinning wider and warmer as he spoke. “It takes a lot of work to be that stupid. I’d bet they haven’t even realized they have a fetish—they’re still figuring out how to breathe with their mouths closed.”

At that, Hawke began to laugh.  

It was a long, low sound. A sound from the depths of his belly, from the base of his spine. Rumbling through the hollow of his chest, through the hollow of his throat. Billowing out over his lips in loose, languid curls, like smoke.

It was a sound Varric could feel.

But didn’t it make sense, that such a resonant sound would… resonate, like this? Resonate outward, and outward, until it touched Varric and resonated inside of him, too? Didn’t it make sense, that laughter would beget laughter? That such a sound would… flood him?

Varric thought so. The warmth he felt, flooding him through… He couldn’t imagine anything that’d make more sense than this. 

So he laughed too.

For a little while, that was all they did. Laughing together. Lingering beneath the old, creaky figurehead of the Hanged Man, easy and at-ease together. Everything else— the leaflets fluttering at their ankles; the people ambling by, calling out to each other —meaningless, receding gently into the distance. Just for a moment. Just for one moment more.  

Time blurred… but not far, and not much.

Varric led Hawke through the crowds into Lowtown Bazaar.

Into its twisting streets, tonight well-lit and raucous, rife with stalls selling fried fish and faulty enchantments, peddling ‘ancient’ relics and miracle cures, hustling scam after scam after scam.

Andraste's ass, he loved Lowtown.

Raw, real, hewn rough from the rock—Lowtown had a brutal kind of beauty to it, one he’d loved since he was a kid. This was where he’d first been mugged. First been kissed. First heard someone say ‘Sorry’ and actually mean it. These blind alleys, these hidden passages: this was where he’d sneak off to escape a dull day of lessons. Or his brother. Or even his mother, at her worst.

And with the arrival of the refugees, Lowtown had only gotten better.

His fellow Kirkwallers could bitch all they like, but the Fereldens were a breath of fresh air. They'd brought so much newness with them. New fruits, new flavors, cuts of meat cured from animals he'd never heard of. New songs, new dances, new—

New stories.

Tall tales—ancient myths—comedies lewd and tragedies epic. Heroes and villains. Witches and shapeshifters and kings. Each one new, beautiful in its strangeness, more precious to Varric than gold. 

Werewolves? Spectacular. Nuts, but spectacular.

It threw Varric, to be honest, that so many Kirkwallers didn't see it his way. Who wouldn't want fresh air in Lowtown? In this pit of pits? In this glorious, most sublime shithole of shitholes?

He was glad Hawke wasn't like that. Wasn't closed off to new, wondrous things.

“You know what you should do, after the expedition?” Varric said. “You should get runic plumbing for the Amell estate. For bathing, laundry, whatever you want.”

He was swaying as they walked; he bumped into Hawke’s side again, misjudging the distance between them. “I’ll snoop through Bartrand’s office—I’ll get you the name of the guy he hired.”  

They were passing the Ferelden Imports shop. Lirene was out front, holding court with her neighbors. A fiddle. A reedy singing voice. A couple of kids playing a game, chasing each other, ducking and weaving through their parent’s standing legs. 

“You can’t just ask him?” Hawke asked.

He bumped into Varric once; twice; more; he was grinning; he was making a game of it, putting a little more of his weight behind each bump.

“Oh, I certainly could,” Varric replied.

He returned the favor; he was bumping into Hawke on purpose now, being a little shit, enjoying it immensely. Leaning his own weight onto Hawke. Grinning up at Hawke.

“But, you see,” he continued, raising one finger. “That would require talking. To Bartrand.”

Hawke hummed in understanding, his eyes dancing, dancing. “Too cruel a punishment.”

“Doesn’t fit the crime,” Varric agreed, grinning, grinning.

Oh yeah, he loved Lowtown. And on a night like this? With a friend like Hawke? He could almost believe Lowtown loved him back.

…Which meant.

Naturally.

That the other shoe was just about to drop.

The thing about Fereldens?—in Kirkwall, they’d all been lumped together as one. Those who’d never seen a city before the Blight, and those who’d never known anything but. Shipwrights from Gwaren. Charlatans from Amaranthine. Woodsmen from the same dark forest as Daisy’s clan, and seamstresses from towns so small they might be the only one alive to remember its name.

The only thing that truly united them all was a special hatred for Orlais, harbored deep in the heart.

But some Fereldens kept that hatred burning for people like Hawke and his family: fellow Fereldens they’d deny were Ferelden at all, from South Reach or similar, for the crime of speaking patois.

Some. Like the Fereldens in the alley coming up on the right.

They knew Hawke by sight, now. Ever since they’d first heard his accent, they’d gone out of their way to spit on the ground whenever he went by, to say something inflammatory. Like, ‘Keep it moving, mongrel.’ Or like, ‘Your mum lift her skirt for every chevalier what rode by, or what?’ The kind of shit that’d get Junior fighting ten men at once. That Hawke had long learned to let roll of his back.

You had to pass this alley to get to the Hightown stairs. That was the whole point. These assholes might not have picked out a name, yet, but Varric knew a gang when he saw one.

Their leader was a man with a comically big chin. He dropped down from the nearest stoop on light feet—

—and his mabari followed. Watching.

Waiting for the order.

Adrenaline focused Varric. The world sharpening. His mind sobering.  

“What’s this?” The man with the big chin spread his arms wide as he approached, in the manner of a host greeting his guests. “Wintersend come early?”

He let out a low, threatening chuckle; he was enjoying this. “Know it’s not my name day.”

More Fereldens now. Two, four— Seven that Varric could see. Their hands twitching towards their weapons: three bows, four swords—

Twitching: not yet touching.

They, too, waiting for the order.

But Hawke decided to ignore them. He kept walking towards the Hightown stairs.

Varric followed his lead, keeping the gang in the corner of his eye.

“Oi!” The man with the big chin strode closer, face twisting in anger. “Don’t act like you can’t hear me, half-blood!”

Hawke slowed to a standstill.

Turned to face the man with the big chin. Leaned on his bladed staff— a scrappy halberd in appearance: the kind of weapon any farmer could scrounge up —and made a show of looking unbothered.

“Oh, the egg on my face,” Hawke replied casually, coolly. “You seem to know me, but I must tell you, I have absolutely no idea who you are.”

Hawke cocked his head to the side; his grin was full of teeth. “You must have one of those faces. One of those forgettable, utterly inconsequential faces. Don’t you agree, Varric?”  

Varric was already drawing Bianca off his back; he held her loosely, ready to aim

“The Maker must not’ve been inspired, the day He made you,” he bantered back, compounding the insult.

Compounding—why?—because pissed-off assholes make mistakes, that’s why. Because Varric never met an advantage he didn’t like, didn’t take, didn’t seize with both hands. Because he couldn’t not banter back. Not where Hawke was concerned.

“Or maybe He just knew you wouldn’t be worth remembering,” Varric added, smirking.

That hit its mark: the man with the big chin purpled with rage.

Trust Hawke to sniff it out that quick. Where the sore spot was. Where to dig in. Just another one of his talents, sizing someone up with a glance. Just another reason to be glad Hawke was on his side.  

The man with the big chin resumed his approach, his face purpling further, hands hovering over his sheathed daggers.

The other Fereldens followed, mabari at their heels.

“You’re going to regret that, friend,” snarled the man with the big chin. Snarled it low, quiet. Dangerous.

But Hawke wasn’t going to let the man be dramatic; he’d ruin that for him, too. Even as Hawke shifted his stance to ready himself for a fight, he kept on digging, digging, digging to that sore spot.

“Shit, and he says we’re friends,” he stage-whispered to Varric, dripping with mock pity. “Can you even imagine what that’s like? To be so unremarkable your own friends forget you?”

Varric was scanning the alley— Eight— Nine men he could see; three mabari— Two exits, one behind him—

Yet he found himself snorting. The point of pissing the guy off might be strategic, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy doing it.

And he did.

He snuck a quick glance at Hawke, and saw Hawke was glancing at him too, with a sharp, vicious smile.

Maker, he did.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Hawke,” Varric stage-whispered back. Loudly. “It’s a miracle he’s lived this long; how did his mother remember to feed him?”

Hawke barked a laugh—every bit as sharp and vicious as that smile—and the sound shot up Varric’s spine like a fresh bolt of adrenaline.

“What do you say we save her the work?” Hawke asked, tone darkening.

He was raising his halberd-staff in earnest—

The first mabari was beginning to charge—

Varric was taking aim— 

One of the Fereldens was bellowing, raising his sword high—

But.

Then.

A raw, crackling energy.

It rolled through the air over their heads, like some kind of strange, shared premonition of thunder.

Immediately it firmed, it narrowed—the raw, crackling energy now thin as a wire.

It lashed through the air.

Once—

Hawke stumbled, leaning hard on his halberd-staff— He clutched at his chest, gritting his teeth against a hiss of pain—

The charging mabari came to a swift, skidding halt— It looked back to its master, whining in confusion, in fear—

Twice—

Hawke leaned more heavily on his halberd-staff, knees buckling under the strain—

Varric’s heart hammered in his chest— He kept Bianca leveled at the Fereldens, at the mabari—

But they’d stopped too. They weren’t looking at him. Not at Hawke. Their eyes were fixed behind them, beyond them. Towards the Hightown stairs.

In the direction of the raw, crackling energy.

“Templars,” spat the man with the big chin. “Fucking figures.”

He turned to his gang, and jerked that stupid chin sharply. “Fall back!”

They did: the Fereldens and their mabari disappeared into another alley.

Varric didn’t waste time. The moment their backs were turned, he had Bianca holstered and was at Hawke’s side. Helping Hawke stand, supporting his weight—

Thrice—

Hawke staggered— Varric took more of his weight, steadying him, hurrying him—

They had to move; get out of here; go faster—

Varric was half-dragging Hawke, now, doing his damnedest to make it look like he wasn’t the only thing keeping Hawke upright. Just two drunk buddies out on the town. Slinging an arm around Hawke’s waist just for the sake of it.

Hawke was doing his damnedest, too.

Damned to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Damned to go along with the ploy, slinging an arm over Varric’s shoulders.

Varric could feel Hawke’s fingers trembling, trembling, on his shoulder.

The next alley over led to a hex, and it was deserted.

Varric spied a friendly shadow darkening a doorstep. It was inside an even friendlier shadow, casting everything to the left of a hex stoop in darkness.

“Almost there,” he murmured, giving Hawke a subtle, bracing squeeze.

In answer, trembling fingers pressed his shoulder.

A few more dragging, agonizing seconds—

And then Varric had Hawke safe, sheltered in the heart of two overlapping shadows.

Templars. ‘Fucking figures’ indeed.

They did this on patrols through Lowtown. At midday in the bazaar; at night in hexes and outside taverns; at irregular intervals, so you’d never know when. Templars would find a crowd, send Smite after Smite through it, then arrest anyone whose knees buckled. Whose skin went clammy. Who shook, and shook, and shook as they collapsed, puking their guts out.

Everyone could feel the raw, crackling energy of a Smite— its rolls of strange, silent thunder; its firming, thinning lashes of wire —but only mages took sick from it.

Time didn’t blur, now.  

The seconds were slow, weighty things. They filled ponderously, growing fat and gravid like droplets of rain on glass until they finally, finally passed, and Varric felt each one, no different than if those droplets were real, with physicality enough to bore a hole into his forehead.

Hawke was shaking all over. Varric could feel that, too; Hawke had laid on his side, racked with pain, and he’d curled around Varric a little, so Varric had curled over him a little in return. Bending over Hawke. Rubbing Hawke’s shoulder to soothe him.

Varric did that absently, though. He focused on what he could hear, on what he could sense in the air. He had to stay present; he had to—

He couldn’t think about last time.

No. No, he couldn’t afford to—it’d been awful, but they’d all got through it fine. That raid on Hawke’s hex—

Hawke’s fine; everyone’s fine; everyone’s safe.  

The raw, crackling energy— Another Smite— Closer now, the templars were closer— 

      Everyone, corrected an inner voice, but the little neighbor boy.  

Rolling over their heads—

      The boy’s mother: pleading, screaming.

Firming into wire—

      ‘Have mercy, please! My son, he’s—he’s all I have! You can’t—'

It lashed through the air—

      Hawke’s mother: covering her face, turning away.

Once—

Hawke spasmed with pain, curling tighter—

Daisy’s clear across Lowtown, Varric told himself. Grounding himself, reassuring himself, rubbing Hawke’s shoulder. Blondie’s in Darktown. Hawke’s—

Hawke shook harder, his skin colder, clammier—

Varric felt his focus converge into one deadly sharp point.

Hawke’s got me.

***

Before this year, Varric had never been in the position to ask himself if he would kill a templar.

He’d never had cause to.

He’d been a young man, barely twenty, when Knight-Commander Meredith executed old Viscount Threnhold. He remembered the outrage. The unrest. How Kirkwall’s nobility had tested her yoke, insulted, unwilling to bow rather than be bowed to. How the Guild had run to the abacus rather than the sword, determined to make a profit regardless of which human wore what crown.

In time, though, Kirkwall adapted. Dumar was installed, placating the nobles. The market stabilized, enriching the Guild through all its ups and downs. And Varric had adapted too. That’s what you do, right? The rules change; you change with them. That’s life. That’s how you survive.

But that was before Daisy. Before Blondie. Before Hawke.

Varric had cause, now.

And he didn’t need to ask himself if he’d kill a templar—

“Going to draw them off,” he whispered into Hawke’s ear on the barest exhale. “Stay here.”

—because he already knew the answer.

Void, he was already thinking of rumors to spread. Ways he could pin the murder of a whole templar patrol on that gang of shit-ass Fereldens.  

He stole from the friendly shadows of the hex into the next shadow, and the next, and the next. He made for the mouth of the alley on soundless feet, following the source of the Smites.

All the while his mind raced. It’d be better if he actually could draw the templars off; violence would only bring down heat on his friends.

Did he—? He checked—

Shit, fucking—he only had one sodding grenade. Would that be enough?

Varric was past the mouth of the alley, now. One step, two, melting into the shadows—

…Wait.

The strange thunder, the lashing wire: it was gone.

The Smites had stopped.

…When? Just now? A moment ago?

Damn it, I’m still drunk.

Varric shook his head. He tightened his grip on the grenade in his hand. Grounded himself with the weight of Bianca on his back.

—and he saw them.

Over there, at the foot of the Hightown stairs. Four templars. Swords sheathed. Talking in a tight huddle. No—arguing. They were arguing.

More importantly, they were distracted.

So Varric gingerly, gingerly, crept closer through the shadows.

“…waste of lyrium…! …don’t you…?”

“…can’t seriously be… …not our place to…!”

He recognized three of them. Two were recruits, friends of Macha’s brother; one was more senior, a man he’d seen before with Thrask. The fourth… unfamiliar. A woman with a strong Starkhaven accent.

Starkhaven? 

“It’s against orders,” said one of the recruits with a note of finality. 

Wasn’t there a rumor about…?

An impertinent note, apparently: the senior templar shot her a withering glare, and, though the recruit pressed her lips together in a prim line, she cast her eyes to the ground in a show of deference.

But wouldn’t Thrask have said…?

“Smiting the drunk just makes it easier for robes to hide,” the Starkhavener replied. Level. Dispassionate. She crossed her arms over her breastplate. “Hauling some lout who can’t hold his liquor back to the Gallows to test him’s a waste of time and lyrium. We c—”

“For fuck’s sake,” the senior templar cut her off tersely. He shot a glare at her, too. “Cease your preaching, ‘Sister,’ we heard you the first time.”

His lips twitched into a mocking grin. “And I’d think twice before telling us our business, if I was you. Last I checked, we—“ He gestured at himself and the recruits. “—didn’t let a Circle burn down on our watch, did we?”

‘Burn down,’ Varric’s mind repeated slowly, as if sounding out the words. ‘Let a Circle… burn down… our watch…’

He mulled it over; he went to scratch his nose—

—and found the grenade in his hand.

Still drunk.  

The senior templar started to pontificate, but Varric wasn’t listening anymore. He was focused on the grenade in his hand. The only one on him.

Got to make this count.

He picked a spot across the square. Empty of people, far from the Hightown stairs, from the templars.

He hefted the grenade—

Took aim—

Andraste guide my hand.

—and let it sail.  

And damn, did it sail. Arcing high, true, and beautiful. Varric watched it go with no small sense of superiority.

The grenade began its descent—

“Got an arm on you,” whispered an admiring voice close to his ear.

Varric jumped out of his skin—

The grenade landed— An explosion— Glass breaking, wood splinting— Varric’s ear’s ringing—

He whipped his head around to face the voice; he dug for the knife in his boot—

The templars were shouting— Under the ringing in his ears, he could hear their raised voices—

And right here, meeting Varric’s startled gaze—

Hawke.

Grey-faced, but grinning, crouched in the shadows beside him. 

Varric blinked, bewildered. Had he really been that out of it, he hadn’t heard—? And what about—? How did Hawke recover so—?

A look of understanding. Hawke tapped his shoulder, where a hidden pocket had been sewn into the seam of his shirt, and mouthed something Varric couldn’t fully hear. Probably the name of some healing herb: Varric knew what the pocket was for.

Hawke’s grin grew wry; he tapped a finger to the side of his nose—

His finger still trembling.

Varric’s eyes latched on it.

Slightly, but still trembling. And… Varric caught a faint, stale whiff of vomit.

After he’d left to draw the templars off… but before they’d stopped Smiting… Hawke must’ve been sick.

Alone.

In the dark.

“…Maybe we should head back,” Varric said. He could hear his own voice, now, the ringing in his ears receding.

It’d be the smart thing. The safe thing.

But as Hawke tilted his head, his eyes began to glimmer again. A little mischievous. A little challenging.

“So you were lying,” Hawke pointed a finger at Varric’s face. More mischievous, more challenging. “What did you call it? ‘Runic plumbing’?”

He grinned at Varric crookedly, and that grin was a dare. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

Varric couldn’t back down, not from a dare. Not from Hawke.

“I’ll show you ‘too good to be true,’” Varric said, grinning himself. “Come on.”

I’ll show you anything you want.

***

So Varric led Hawke the rest of the way.

Across the Hightown Bazaar. Around nobles and their hangers-on, perusing wares that were marked up outrageously, imbibing the very same liquor found in cheaper bottles anywhere else. Around the pickpockets dogging them like a bad stench. Around guardsmen who were either on the take or were truly just that incompetent, to not notice all the theft happening right under their noses.

Then into Guild Square: the first of the three dwarven squares in Hightown.

Sure, a dwarf could live anywhere in Kirkwall, so long as their gold was good. The squares weren’t Alienages. But the dwarves of Hightown were all neck-deep in Guild shit, and the squares? That’s where the money was. Where the tradition was. Any dwarven family rich enough to call themselves a House? Lived here.

Which was what made it so weird, to find Guild Square empty.

Guild Square was, well, the Guild. Their answer to Hightown Bazaar. On a night like this?—the rest of Kirkwall out on the prowl, their coin purses just begging to be plucked? Wild horses shouldn’t be able to drag the merchants away.

So why were the stalls shuttered?

Varric glanced at the most imposing manse on the square: the one that housed the Merchants’ Guild.

Huh.

It was still occupied.

Each window on the ground floor was aglow, thrown open to admit the cooling night breeze—and each window was near rattling under the sheer force of the cacophony inside.

All the deshyrs were assembled. Were in an uproar. Were trying to shout all the others down.

For the very first time, that awful sound made Varric smile.

He really was still drunk; it’d completely slipped his mind that this runic plumbing notion ran the risk of crossing paths with Bartrand.

And yeah, Bartrand was going to have to get used to Hawke at some point. And, true, it should probably happen before they were stuck in the Deep Roads together. And, okay, sure, Varric knew that job would fall on his shoulders, because when did it not? He’d been managing Bartrand’s prickly fucking moods his whole fucking life.

None of that meant Varric wanted to do it now. Fuck no. Now was for now things.

They were crossing into Stone Square, and dead ahead, on the other side… 

Sat the Tethras townhouse.

Like it’d been… waiting for him.

Varric came to a halt.

It was stupid. He knew that. He just… hadn’t. Lived there. For a long… long time.

He’d visited. He had every right to, even at this hour. He wouldn’t be unwelcome; Bartrand still kept his old rooms the way he’d left them, convinced Varric would one day ‘grow up, quit playing ‘human,’ and come back home.’

It’d be stupid to bring Hawke all the way up here just to stop now. And why? Because he’d been… unhappy, in that townhouse?

It was stupid. It was even stupider to hesitate here, in Stone Square, where someone might see him. Where anyone would know him by sight—

—like those Carta thugs.

Varric froze.

But luck was on his side, tonight: the Carta thugs didn’t stir. They just kept lounging in a doorway three townhouses down. Whatever their job for the night was, it wasn’t roughing up the beardless Tethras weirdo and one of his entourage of humans and elves.   

They watched, though. Eyes glinting in the low light like daggers…

“Thank fuck, I’ve been gasping since Worthy’s.”

Varric glanced at Hawke.

Hawke was leaning on the stone railing to the Helmi’s front door. Casually. As if he didn’t know House Helmi wouldn’t think twice to have the offending arm cut off for ‘polluting’ it. 

…Did Hawke know? Had that ever come up, over the past year?

Hawke didn’t act like it. He was pulling a slim tin case from his pocket. He opened it. Took out an elfroot cigarette. Lit it with a match.

And, for some wordless reason, Varric… didn’t interrupt. Didn’t tell Hawke he should move.

He just… watched.

Watched his eyes flutter shut, inhaling. Softening his features. A tension releasing in increments.

Watched his lips part, exhaling. Slowly. Slowly. Savoring.

Watched his eyes flutter open… and, the moment his gaze met Varric’s… watched his features soften just a bit more. One last incremental release.

Hawke favored him with a slight smile. “Want one?”

Varric exhaled; why had he been holding his breath? He cut his eyes in the direction of the Carta thugs, on the off-chance Hawke hadn’t noticed them yet.

It seemed Hawke had. He simply tilted his head at Varric, and held up the tin case to pose his question again.

—The tin case: it was steady.

Hawke’s fingers weren’t trembling anymore.

At that, Varric felt his own incremental release. A knot in his chest, loosening.

“Why not?” he shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t feel.

He joined Hawke. Leaned against House Helmi’s stone railing like it was easy, like it was nothing, like he didn’t feel a defiant, frightened little thrill, doing it.  

Hawke lit the match for him. He always did. One of those funny, fussy little affectations of his: playing the gentleman.

He leaned in, towards Varric, closer to Varric, cupping one hand around the match to shield it from the breeze.

And Varric leaned in too, towards Hawke, closer to— Or. Wait. Towards the match. Closer to…

He met Hawke’s gaze.

—and inhaled sharply.

Because Hawke was— He was doing that—that thing again: gazing at Varric with a question in his eyes.  

A question he wouldn’t ask.

A question Varric couldn’t read.

It’d been happening more, lately. There’d be a lull in the conversation while out on a job together, or at the end of a wild night, and then… a moment like this. Just the two of them. Just a silence, and this inscrutable question.

Varric could see the question, clear as day, but not what it was, not what it meant. He couldn’t parse it. It might as well be in patois, or Antivan, or ancient fucking Tevene, for all the good it did him. 

And the worst part?

…Varric wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Which made absolutely no fucking sense. Varric wanted to know everything; that was who he was. He pried. He stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. He was the damn proverbial cat, dying for, driven and revived by his curiosity.

So what was the problem?

Varric didn’t know. And that bothered him.

But any decision Varric might’ve made, in this moment, was taken out of his hands—

Because his sharp inhale brought the smoke into his lungs too quickly—and Varric was coughing, red-faced, thumping a fist to his chest.

Hawke thumped him amiably on the back, and the moment was gone.

Stupid, Varric chided himself, face flushing even redder. So fucking stupid.  

***

Varric ushered Hawke into the Tethras townhouse through the servant’s entrance. Less chance of startling some poor maid or valet from their sleep, this way. Less chance of waking anyone, if they didn’t use the heavily-belled front door.

Still, once inside, Hawke spent an inordinate amount of time wiping his boots on the mat.

“I think you got it,” Varric said quietly, his voice pitched low.

Hawke didn’t reply. He just kept wiping his boots, frowning down at them like they’d offended him in some way.

Varric left him to it. They were in the kitchen; he nipped into the larder to get a bottle of something expensive, and to load a plate up with finger foods. Pitted olives, grapes, cheese.  

When Varric came back in the kitchen, Hawke was still at it. Scraping the soles, over and over.

“…Do your boots owe you money, or something?”

A half-reluctant, almost shaky chuckle; Hawke’s shoulders, untensing.

Unbidden, a memory: that time he’d dropped by Gamlen’s place and found Hawke scrubbing the floor on his hands and knees.

Gamlen, steaming in another room; Leandra, staring out the sole window with empty eyes; Carver, Maker knows where; and Hawke, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. The circles of soapy stone, lopsided: favoring his right hand because the left didn’t grip so well. An old injury. One he didn’t really talk about.

Varric’s gaze flicked to Hawke’s hands.

They were always too dry, Hawke’s hands. The soap dried his skin out ’til his knuckles cracked, ’til they bled.

Those hands—reaching, now, to relieve Varric of the bottle of wine he held.

Varric looked up—

Hawke had an easy grin affixed to his face, but, for all its usual crookedness, it looked… off-center. Not quite right.

“Tell me, will this make me forget my own name?” Hawke lifted the bottle to peer at its label. “Or is it true, what they say about rich people?”

He glanced at Varric with a glint in his eye. “That none of you have taste?”

But… if Hawke was joking… if he was still playing around… then Varric could joke and play too, right? It must be okay.

So Varric returned the grin, feeling a touch more at ease. “You tell me. Give it a try.”

He turned half away, gesturing for Hawke to follow him—then paused, and shot Hawke a glinting look of his own over his shoulder.

“Might as well get all your hits in now,” Varric added breezily, smirking. “In a couple of months, you’ll be too rich to make them.”

Varric made for the corridor, the staircase.

One second. Two. Three...

And there was Hawke, falling into step at his side.

Varric snuck a glance at him.

Hawke was grinning down at the bottle as he idly messed with its cork. Halfheartedly trying, and failing, to twist it free with his hand.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, offhand and affable. He aimed his grin at Varric, and it looked natural now. Real. “I’ll just be a hypocrite.”

Surprised, Varric barked a laugh before clapping a hand over his mouth. It’d ruin the whole thing, if they woke someone else up. If it wasn’t just them.

Hawke placed a finger to his lips, giving Varric a play-stern “shush” face.

Varric bumped his shoulder against Hawke in reply, felt easier, and led him to the staircase.

They descended.

Like its neighbors, the Tethras townhouse had been built to suit dwarven sensibilities: the rooms growing grander the deeper they delved.

By the third landing, Hawke let out a hushed, disbelieving breath.

“All this, and only Bartrand lives here?” he asked, eyeing a tapestry.

Varric shook his head.

“When my father got exiled, the whole House got exiled with him,” he explained in a murmur. “My mother, Bartrand, and all his other relatives. His siblings and their families; aunts, uncles, cousins, and their families…

“And all the unlucky bastards who’d been sworn to House Tethras’ service,” he continued. “Warrior caste, Servant caste, with their own families…”

They were turning the fourth landing, now. The deepest level. The grandest rooms.

Just standing here hit Varric with a sudden wave of weariness.

“Most struck out on their own, eventually,” he finished, voice lower. He suppressed a sigh. “But… some chose to stay here.”

His weariness grew as they reached the bottom of the staircase. As they started down the corridor. As he saw the door to his old rooms at the end, waiting for him.  

“…Guess they wanted something familiar,” Hawke said softly.

There was something in his tone that made Varric look at him.

Hawke had fallen a half-step behind, skimming a hand over the wall. Brushing his fingers over the rise and fall of a bas-relief. Over the inlaid lights, enchanted to shed a dull red-orange glow: an imitation of the lava-lights of Orzammar.

Varric’s throat felt thick. “Homesickness…”

He trailed off; he wanted to qualify this. There were things Hawke didn’t understand—but Varric had come to realize, this past year, that there were things he didn’t understand either.

“…I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything about Orzammar worth getting homesick over,” he hedged, but it didn't satisfy. Didn't get close enough to what he actually meant.

Varric opened the door to his old rooms—and it swung open too easily. He’d used more force than he needed to; he hadn’t meant to. What was wrong with him?

His grip on the knob tightened. “Living in the past, it—”  

His breath caught in his chest.

Why?

Varric didn’t know. Why didn’t he know?

He pressed forward. Over the threshold. Into his old, old rooms, deep under the ground.

“You can’t live like that.” His tone was brusque, and it was unlike him, so unlike him. “Gives you nowhere to go.”  

This was getting too real.

Varric didn’t want to think about this. He was still drunk; he was too drunk; he wasn’t drunk enough. Why did he do this to himself? Why was he here?

He didn’t want to be here.

Not in his old receiving room, next to the chaise Bianca liked to fuck on. Before she got married. Before they’d fallen in love, when it’d all been just a game, when they were just young and dumb and reckless.

No, Varric didn’t want to think about this shit. Not with Hawke here. He didn’t—

He didn’t want to be another problem for Hawke to solve.

Hawke trailed into the receiving room without comment, his steps stirring up plumes of dust that couldn’t be seen, that tickled the nose. He circled the intimate space. He stopped in front of Varric and gave him a sidelong look. One eyebrow arched. One corner of his mouth quirked.

A beat.

Then he was extending the bottle back to Varric. Like it meant something.

Varric took it. Like it meant something. What, he couldn’t say, but… something.

“You know,” Hawke said, offhand, affable, with a slight grin. “If I wanted to ruin your mood, I’d tell you that you sound exactly like Carver.”

“…If you wanted to ruin my mood,” Varric repeated.

“That’s right.” Hawke was grinning fully, now, and there was something wicked in it. Something wicked, something playful, and something knowing, in those warm, warm black eyes. “If.”

Varric huffed a soft sound at that, almost like a laugh.

A breath of fresh air, he heard himself think. Even here, four floors and ten years under the ground.

Varric glanced down, tucking his chin in, feeling…

Grateful.

Yeah. That was it.

Such an earnest thing to feel. And earnestness wasn’t really something Varric did, but…

He huffed softly again, to paper over it.

“…Good thing you don’t want to.” He gathered the courage to meet Hawke’s gaze, donned a smirk, and held the bottle up. “I’d have to deny you the pleasure of my company, and drink this all by lonesome.”

Hawke tsked. “I’d just hate to think of the hangover you’d subject yourself to, if I called your bluff.”

“Because it’s my health you’re worried about,” Varric said, twirling his wrist to make the wine slosh audibly.

“Varric, you wound me.” Hawke placed a mock-aggrieved hand to his chest, even as he grinned that wicked grin, completely unabashed. “You of all people should know I can multitask.”

Varric barked another surprised laugh—and, this time, he had no free hand to clap over his mouth to muffle it.

And that made Hawke laugh, too.

And what could Varric do? What could he do, other than feel the natural response to that resonance, to that light, flooding him through?

…Funny, how friendship worked.

Varric wondered if he’d ever get used to it.

***

The bathing pool was just there, through his old bedroom.

Varric had to grope along the wall to find the right runes; he put the plate and the bottle down on the credenza, searching for them… The lights came on, more red-orange enchantments shedding their glow.

The second Hawke saw the bathing pool, his eyes went as round as a cat’s.

“Oh, fuck off,” he enthused, smiling broadly. He rushed to its edge and knelt on the tile to examine it. “It is like a bathhouse! You could fit four, five humans in this thing!”

Varric moved the plate and the bottle to a tray beside the bathing pool. “Proper humans, or short ones like you?”

Hawke hummed noncommittally, not paying him any mind. He was wholly absorbed, ghosting his fingers over the runes of the pool, over the surface of the water.

“If you’re not careful, I might try to court you,” he said. Offhand, affable, like it was easy. Like it was nothing. “This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen!”

Varric laughed it off, and the sound skittered over the tile strangely.

He cleared his throat. Scrubbed a hand over his face. He, uh. He must be drunker than he’d realized.

Nothing for it but to get drunker. Where was…?

Varric tried a credenza drawer, and… yep: a corkscrew, just as he’d thought.

He sat heavily on the tile beside Hawke, and took the bottle of wine. “You haven’t seen it in action, yet,” he replied belatedly.

The wine uncorked with a hollow pop!

Hawke tried to snake a hand in, to steal the bottle from him—

But Varric was faster. He was always faster; Hawke was so bad at this, and it never failed to make him laugh, when Hawke actually managed to be bad at something. Varric twisted away, laughing. Took a hearty swig.

The wine went down smooth as silk. It hit his stomach, and he felt it… expand. Resonating outward in waves of warmth. Wave after wave after wave.

Varric sighed his bone-deep appreciation.

Then he twisted back around to press the bottle into Hawke’s hands.

“How’s this for taste?”

Closing one eye, Hawke made a show of peering down the neck of the bottle with a dubious, exaggerated frown.

Varric lightly shoved him on the shoulder, earning one of Hawke’s quick grins.

Hawke lifted the bottle high—too high, exaggerating—and drank.

Paused.

Gave Varric a gobsmacked look.

And, with a quiet, understated kind of bafflement, said, “Oh. Oh, no.”

Varric had to stuff a fist in his mouth to keep from laughing at him. And he did, if only because he just had to hear what Hawke would say next.  

Hawke blinked at him. Licking his lips, he stared at the bottle and blinked at it, too. “Maker’s meaty balls, that's dangerous.”  

It was the seriousness of Hawke’s delivery that did it.

Varric dissolved into laughter.

That was the only word for it: he dissolved. Into giggles, into bubbles, fizzy and effervescent, lightheaded and lighter than air. Dissolving, dissolving, into the tile… into the water…

Time began to blur, again.

They were in the bathing pool, now. Varric had wanted to show him; Hawke had wanted to see; and there was room for four or five humans, besides, though… they were…

Closer.

Closer to share. To share the wine, the olives, the grapes and the cheese.

Closer, and… naked. But that was just like a bathhouse, right? It wasn’t weird.

Was it weird?—that it… didn’t feel weird?

Varric didn’t know. And that probably should’ve bothered him, but it didn’t.

He wasn’t bothered at all.

He was smiling; he'd been smiling so much his face hurt. Was that a thing? How would he know? He’d never had a friend before.

Not like this.

Time blurred… eating, drinking, joking… and then Hawke was shaking his head. Clicking his tongue. The amusement he wore… thin. Brittle.

Why was it brittle?

“I don’t understand you. You could have this—” Hawke gestured with a wide, expansive arc of his arm. “—every night, but you choose to stay in Lowtown instead.”

“Lowtown’s…”

How was Varric supposed to explain it? Didn’t Hawke already know?

“…real.”

With a slow, theatrical pomp, Hawke brought a hand down to clap the rim of the bathing pool. “Feels real to me.”

At that, something inside lurched. Hooked, pulled, plucked a string in Varric that didn’t want to be plucked.

That didn’t want to be touched at all.

There was an elfroot cigarette in Varric’s hand. He took a long drag of it; longer than he’d intended to, but he didn’t stop. Just kept dragging, dragging the smoke into his mouth, into his lungs.

“There’s… strings attached,” he exhaled on a billow of smoke. Exhaled it flat. Brusque. Punctuated with a flick of ash into the bathing pool. Unlike him, so unlike him.

Hawke let out a short, brittle laugh.

Pluck.

“I wonder what that’s like,” Hawke said. Not quite offhand. Not quite affable. His amusement still brittle; why was it so brittle? “To have your pick of realities.”

Pluck.

“Said the mage,” Varric replied low, half-mumbling, “with no sense of irony.”

Hawke made a sound like a chuckle, and it skittered over the…

No. No, it wasn’t like skittering.

It was like hearing something shatter in another room. Strangely distant. The softness of it false.

Varric didn’t like it. He— He needed to bring Hawke back.

Back into the bubble.

Beautiful. Benevolent. Full of wonder, of revelations, of rapturous nothings for Hawke to cup in his hands.

Time blurred… and Varric was deploying the aromatic oils, the bright alchemical soaps that fizzed and popped on contact with water. He was showing Hawke what all the runes did, the subtle inlaid spouts that shot out massaging streams…

And it was working.

Hawke was dazzled; he was mystified; he took it all in and he breathed out the beauty, the benevolence, that Varric had missed so terribly. Hawke made the bubble; Hawke limned its shimmering border with gold; Hawke—

Hawke was the bubble.

There was just… something about him. Something that made Varric want to give him things. Just to make those dark eyes go big and round like that. Just to have more things to talk about, in the event they ever ran out.

Time blurred… and Hawke was lamenting Lowtown Bazaar’s southern pickings at length.

“You don’t even know,” he repeated for the third time. “You don’t want to know what I know—”

“About p-potatoes?” Varric cut him off; it was a struggle to get the word out in one piece, laughing around it.

“They don’t deserve—they’re so sad, Varric, they’re pathetic,” Hawke insisted, frowning outrageously. “What I wouldn’t give—ohhh, blackberries; you don’t understand, Varric, the blackberries—and the cheese! Oh, good cheese, druffalo cheese—”

“The fuck’s a druffalo?”

“…Are you serious? What do you mean, ‘the fuck’s a druffalo’?”

There was an explanation Varric didn’t quite follow about beasts of burden. About an animal that sounded exactly like an ox, but emphatically wasn’t.

It was worth it, though, to see Hawke work himself up over cheese, of all things.

So Varric leaned into it. He started boasting. He made it into a bit, a joke, to work Hawke up even further. He didn’t pay attention to the bullshit leaving his mouth; he was too blurry, too bubbly, too focused on Hawke. On the reactions he was getting.  

Hawke was laughing; laughing at him, but that was the point; it was exactly what Varric wanted. Making Hawke laugh, it… it was…

“I would pay good money to see you geld a druffalo,” Hawke said, replying to some ridiculous boast Varric had already forgotten.

“You doubt me?” Varric leaned into the bit further; he was leaning towards Hawke, closer to Hawke.

Hawke’s eyes were such a warm, warm black. They grew even warmer; they held a laugh inside. “I doubt you.”

“It can’t be that hard if you can do it, Farmer.”

Hawke chuckled, his eyes glimmering, dancing. Making Hawke’s eyes glimmer, it was…

“You don’t know what ‘geld’ means, do you?” Hawke asked, indulgent, full of mirth.

“Sure I do,” Varric lied, grinning. He was about to make a shot in the dark, and he had a good feeling about it, about the reaction he’d get. “I used to geld my mother once a week.”

And Varric was right. It paid off.

Because Hawke laughed. Louder than thunder, larger than life, booming right from the belly. His body racked with delight: a bell struck, and struck, overwhelmed, overwhelming—

—overwhelming Varric. That resonance, that delight, in his own body. Racked with it too.

“Y-you—” Hawke was spluttering, struggling to speak, wiping tears from his eyes. “You used to c-castrate your mother? Once a week?”

Varric had to breathe through it—through the rack, the resonance, the delight. He had to keep going; he had to keep riffing; he needed to ride this as long as he could.

“Yeah,” he exhaled, breaths hitching. “Sh-should’ve done it more often. A d-dutiful son would’ve castrated his mother daily.”

Hawke’s laughter hit another peak. He sank further into the bathing pool, hanging off the rim by his elbows, hollowing his collarbones. The water lapping him. The water rippling outward; outward to Varric, lapping him too—

And Hawke smiled at him.

It wasn’t a grin. It was… softer than that. Fonder than that.

As he sagged into the pool, Hawke smiled at him softer, fonder, and riffed back, “H-hourly.” 

And that—that—was when it happened.

Kiss him.

The thought appeared whole. Fully formed. An impulse compelling him towards Hawke, closer to Hawke.

Kiss him.

Varric didn’t.

His mouth. Look at his mouth.

Varric did.

He looked at Hawke like he’d never seen him before.

The lean line of his body. That one rogue curl escaping the cloth he’d loosely tied around his hair. The flush of his brown skin, revitalized by wine, by the warm water beading down his chest. Those new nipple piercings, lapped at by water. The tattoo above his heart.

Varric knew Hawke was attractive. He wasn’t blind.

It just hadn’t mattered, before.

He’d noticed Hawke’s mouth, sure, but he’d noticed the same way he’d noticed Rivaini’s generous thighs and Daisy’s long, elegant fingers. Nice to look at, but only ever that: nice. Nice the way a painting was nice. Nice the way a pretty verse from the Chant was nice. He hadn’t been moved.

He’d never looked at Hawke before and… wanted to…

To know.

To know the plush of Hawke’s mouth beneath his fingers. Beneath his own. On his—

Varric’s face burned. You weren’t—this was embarrassing—you weren’t supposed to think that sort of thing about your friends, right?

…Maker save him, how long had he been staring at Hawke’s mouth? Varric’s face burned hotter; his gaze fled—

Only to snag on the line of Hawke's jaw.

Kiss him.

On the slope of his neck; on the angle of his shoulders.

Kiss him there. And there.

There were… so many things Varric wanted to know.

Lick him.

What he tasted like.

Take his shoulder into your mouth—

If he’d taste like snow.

—and bite him.

If he’d taste like an apple.

Look at his—

Varric tore his eyes away with a ragged breath, and, on reflex, attempted a grin.

It was nothing. A weird nothing, but nothing more than—

It was stupid. He was going to see Bianca in three days; he was probably just—

It wasn’t like there was any chance that—

Varric took the wine bottle. Tilted his head back, screwed his eyes shut, and took a big swig. He was burning; he was blushing. Like an idiot. Like a damn kid.

This is stupid. You know it’s stupid. It means n—

“…This isn’t, er,” Hawke sounded distracted. “Your family’s whosit-whatsit.”

Varric opened his eyes.

Hawke had the corkscrew in his hands, and was examining it with more fascination than it deserved. Still dazzled. Still mystified. In love with the world.

Pluck.  

Varric winced.

His eyes flicked down. He watched as Hawke's fingers traced the handle of the corkscrew, explored the engraving on it by touch.

Oh, the engraving: Hawke was talking about the crest.

“That’s because it’s not.” Varric’s voice was a little rough, a little ragged; he cleared his throat. “It’s Hugin’s.”

“Hugin?”

“Bartrand’s Second. An Orzammar thing,” Varric waved it away. “His right-hand man, basically, since they were kids.”

Hawke blinked those big, round eyes of his. “Do you have one? A Second?”

A flat, muted chuckle escaped Varric; a deeply unpleasant feeling wriggled inside him. “Uh, no.”

“…Am I your Second?”

Pluck.

What was Varric supposed to say? Was he supposed to waste the next hour explaining caste? That a Second was given to you like a toy, to be your playmate and your bodyguard—to be your first fumblings in the dark, more often than not, whispering honey in your ear; to be your confidant, the only person you could ever really trust—and yet never to be your equal? Never your friend?

To think of Hawke as his Second…

‘Mages cannot be our friends,’ echoed, unbidden, the memory of the Knight-Captain. ‘Mages cannot be treated like people—they are not like you and me.’

Pluck.

Varric rubbed at his chest. There was an ache, in there; Hawke was plucking strings he didn't even know he had.

“No,” he said, rubbing the ache in his chest. His plucked strings, painfully strumming. “You’re not my Second.”

Hawke’s brow pinched, and the warmth in his eyes… guttered. Like a candle in a draft.

Varric looked away. Swallowed. Scrambled mentally for a new subject.

“So,” he affected a grin. A lie, a shield, a way out. “Are you and Rivaini ever going to…?”

He tried to keep his eyes off Hawke. He really did, but his eyes wouldn’t listen; they went to Hawke too quickly, too eager to gauge his response.

Hawke met his gaze steadily. 

“Why?” he asked, tilting his head. He might’ve been grinning. His eyes might’ve been glimmering or glinting. It was too subtle to tell. Too guarded. “Interested?”

A silence like a held breath.

It made Varric exhale. It made him look away again, his false grin faltering—

It made him lie.

“Humans don’t really do it for me,” he shrugged, like it was easy, like it was nothing. Like he meant it. “Half the time, it’s not even about me—it’s about some kidnapped-by-the-Carta fantasy.”

That part was true, at least. The best lies always hid inside a truth.  

Hawke’s nose wrinkled with sympathetic disgust. “Eugh.”

“Tell me about it,” Varric said in the cadence of a joke. He made himself grin at Hawke to sell it; to ensure Hawke wouldn’t see through him. “Once, this human waited until she was riding me to—I shit you not—ask me to growl at her. So she could pretend I was a bear cub.”

“No!” Hawke gasped, aghast, amused. He fought a grin and lost; he covered it with his hand, choking on a laugh. “What? Oh, that—that shouldn’t be funny.”  

It was weird, to make Hawke laugh—to get what he wanted—yet feel… hollow.

Varric didn’t want to talk about shitty sex with shittier people. He wanted—

Damn it, he wanted to know.

“And...? Don't tell me you'll sleep with Martin but not Rivaini,” he angled, before forcing a chuckle. “I'm still wrapping my head around that one, to be honest with you.”

Hawke shrugged one shoulder airily, looking away. He turned to the rim of the bathing pool. Started picking at the olives on the plate, fiddling with them absently.

“What’s there to wrap around?” His tone was… deliberate. “We need the discount; Martin's poisons are expensive.”  

Pluck.

Varric stared at him. Brow furrowing. Chest aching.

Is—? Is he saying what I—?

Before Varric could ask, Hawke sighed gustily.

“To borrow a phrase?” He gave Varric a quick grin: a flash of teeth. “Friends don’t really do it for me.”

Then his eyes flicked back to the olives. He flattened one with his thumb. “Martin’s alright, I guess, but I wouldn’t call him a friend.”

Pluck.

Varric shook his head, a different kind of heat rising in his body.

“So, you’re... you’re saying, what, exactly?” He shook his head again; his teeth wanted to clench. “That you only sleep with people you don’t like that much?”

Why would Hawke do that to himself? It didn’t make any sense. It—

“—doesn’t sound like much of a good time,” Varric continued. Without choosing to. Without thinking. “And isn’t that the whole point? To have a good time? Rivaini— Or Blondie, or Br—”

Hawke’s shoulders tensed.

No. No, it was more than that. He went rigid, tension shooting through his shoulders, making them one stiff line.

Hawke blew out an incredulous breath. “What are you on about?”

Was he playing dumb?

“Are you—?” Varric began to ask, because, apparently, his mouth didn’t need his permission to speak, anymore. “Don’t play dumb, Hawke, you know what I’m—”

“Do I know?” Hawke interrupted sharply.

It was a rhetorical question. Varric knew that.

But, as Hawke asked, he turned and fixed Varric with a pointed look. Held Varric’s gaze. Held him in suspense.  

Hawke’s eyes had never been so… cold, before.

Pluck, pluck, pluck.

That heat in Varric’s body, his sudden anger, leeched out of him.  

Hawke broke their shared gaze first, scoffing under his breath.

“I know they want to fuck me,” Hawke said. Muted, flat, tetchy. He scoffed again, face twisting. “You don’t get through a life like mine without figuring out when people want to fuck you. I just also know—”

Pluck, pluck, pluck, pl—

“A life like y—?”

Hawke waved a hand in terse dismissal. “—also know they’ll get over it. It’s nothing. Less than nothing. It’s not—”

A horrible pause.

And then Hawke was leaving.

He was putting both hands on the rim of the bathing pool; he was starting to lift himself out of the water; he was leaving—

So Varric touched him.

Hawke’s arm, just shy of the shoulder. Under his palm. Under his fingers.

Don't go.

Hawke stilled; his eyes snapped to meet Varric’s.

Varric took his hand back a little fast, swallowing. He chanced a grin, and that grin was a lie. A shield. A way out.

“I’m—I’m an asshole,” he said, at a loss. His grin quirked wider; he glanced away with a false, nervous chuckle. “Ignore me.”

Another horrible pause.

Varric kept his eyes on the water.

…And the water shifted. Rippled. Its level rising as Hawke sank back into the bathing pool

“I don’t… want to ignore you, Varric,” he said quietly.   

There was no reason for that to shoot up Varric’s spine like adrenaline. To pulse inside his wrists like an ache. To flood him with so much… relief.

Varric didn’t trust himself to look at Hawke. Instead, his eyes went to the plate, to the bottle…

Unbidden, a memory.

It’d happened last month. A jilted lover of Rivaini’s had burst into the Hanged Man: a woman who, bafflingly, had chosen to throw away her Chantry vows to chase Rivaini down all the way from fucking Seleny. A real piece of work. She’d taken one look at poor Daisy and shrieked, ‘I am a Montilyet! And you’d toss me aside for this? A taste of rabbit?’

Junior and Hawke had hauled the bitch out in short order. Rivaini had rubbed soothing circles on Daisy’s back, tutting, and decided to console her with the immortal words, ‘And that, Kitten, is why you don’t fuck rich people.’

It’d brought down the house; it was too funny not to. And Hawke had laughed. He’d raised his tankard in a toast; he’d clanked it heavily against Varric’s; and, eyes crinkling into a smile, proclaimed, ‘To becoming unfuckable!’

So Varric picked up the wine bottle. Extended it towards Hawke.

“To becoming unfuckable?”

One second.

Two.

The bottle lifted from his hand— Varric looked up—

—and he found Hawke smiling at him.

A slight smile, but a real one.  

“…To becoming unfuckable.”  

Chapter Text

Everything about Hawke was tenuous.

There’d never been a time when Varric hadn’t known that.

He’d known Hawke was an apostate before they’d met. It was why they’d met. The apostasy—it’d been a big part of Hawke’s appeal, of his draw. It’d…

It’d been leverage.

It was an ugly truth, but then, truth tended to be.

Not to say Varric would’ve tipped him to the templars— he wasn’t that much of a bastard —but the fact remained that when he’d gone searching for a partner for the Deep Roads expedition, well, he’d… searched for someone desperate. Someone who could hold their own in a fight, of course, but just as crucially someone who wouldn’t look at the risk of the thing too closely. Someone who couldn’t afford to look too closely.

Someone who couldn’t say no.

So when Varric returned from Jader, unlocked the door to his suite, and found the Nose already inside?

“You got to be kidding me.” Varric’s hackles rose; the straps of his bags wore cuttingly into his palms. “What could he possibly want now, that can’t wait?”

“Hello to you, too,” the Nose drawled, not bothering to look up from the book in her hands.

A book she’d plucked from Varric’s shelf.

To thumb through in Varric’s best chair.

At the head of Varric’s low stone table.

A duster going through a noble’s things: it was one of the Nose’s many, many games. Trying to provoke him. Trying to prove something. To him. To herself. For all that caste ‘didn’t matter’ up here, under the sun.

Varric never gave her the satisfaction.

“That lock was supposed to be unpickable,” he muttered to himself as he looked for a spot to stow his bags.

“I wouldn’t know,” the Nose said offhandedly. She glanced up from the book, and bared her yellowed teeth at him in a grin, mocking in its sweetness. “Edwina let me in.”

Edwina would. She liked the Nose. Probably because they were both terrifying.

Varric didn’t dignify that with a response. He dropped his bags by the bedroom, then went back to shut the door to his suite.

The Nose let out an abrupt chuckle.

“I like this one.” She tapped the cover of the book: it was The Dasher’s Men. “It’s impressive—you really managed to get everything wrong about what it’s like to be Casteless.”

She cut her eyes at him, her grin sharpening. “That why you don’t write about dwarves anymore?”

Varric scrubbed a hand down his face.

“Look, Ulldi.” A short, weary sigh escaped him. “I just got back and I’m beat. What’s so important Bartrand had to send you? Not a letter?”

As she put the book down on the table, she held his gaze. As she untied the string that held her tin nose in place.

As she removed her tin nose.

As she itched the skin that lined the gaping hole underneath, where a nose should be.

Varric broke their shared gaze first, his stomach churning sickly.

When the Nose spoke, her voice was warm with the victory of it: making him look away.

“Your brother wants to cut the Fereldens loose.”

A hot, sour anger spiked in Varric’s gut; his eyes darted back to her.

The Nose didn’t acknowledge him. Of course not. Perish the thought. Instead, she spent a long moment inspecting the inside of her tin nose, as if she had all the time in the world. As if she didn’t feel his impatient gaze on her.

Then she tied her nose back into place, and was all business. 

“House Gavorn’s got forty sovs on the table as we speak. And before you ask—yeah, I know your brother hates Dougal more than he hates most. But…”

She shrugged, leaning back comfortably in the chair. “He’s not confident your man’ll come up with the scratch.”

“That’s not an option,” Varric said. Firm. Immediate. In a tone that brooked no argument. 

Too firm, too immediate—

Because the Nose noticed. She was watching him openly, now, an inquisitive glint in her eyes. 

Varric’s hot, sour anger threatened to shoot up his throat.

So he turned. To hide his face; to buy himself time to collect himself.

There was a sideboard by the low stone table that he kept stocked for guests. He went to it. Busied his hands with a bottle of whiskey and a glass.

Damn it, Bartrand—why do you have to be such a fucking rat?

Varric focused on keeping his voice level. “There’s more than just a verbal agreement with ‘the Fereldens.’ There’s a contract. Bartrand knows that—I was there when he signed it.”  

Varric focused on the glass. On the arc of the whiskey as he poured a finger of it.

“When you remind Bartrand of that little wrinkle in his plans?” he continued, focusing, focusing, tone darkening despite himself. “Make sure to tell him I used words like ‘dwarven honor’ and ‘does he have any’.”

Varric turned to the Nose. Offered her the glass silently.

She shook her head with an almost polite wave of the hand.

He shrugged, and took a sip himself.  

“You’ll know what he’ll say,” the Nose said, tone mild, uninvested. Just the messenger. “‘Dwarven honor’s only between dwarves,’ and, ‘the longer we wait,’ and, ‘darkspawn,’ ‘death,’ ‘financial ruin,’ blah, blah, blah.”  

Varric leaned against the sideboard. Thinking, swirling the glass in his hand absently. He glanced down, and…

The way his wrist moved… The way the light moved in the swirling, swishing dark liquor…

It reminded Varric of his mother.

With a chill he put the glass back down on the sideboard, and left it there.

“…Hawke will come through,” he said quietly, half to himself.

Then summoned a confidence he didn’t feel. “Shit, if Bartrand only wants forty sovereigns, Hawke’s got it right now. He’ll have the rest like that,” Varric said, snapping his fingers for emphasis.

“And how soon is—?” the Nose snapped her fingers to repeat him, to ask. “The original plan had you leaving three months ago.”

“I’ll ask, alright?” he bit out, and it was too quick, too heated: his hot, sour anger burning in his throat like acid. “Soon as you leave, I’ll splash some water on my face, take a fucking piss, march on over there and ask him.”

Which was a mistake.

The Nose watched him closely.   

“…This isn’t like you, Varric,” she said, slow, curious. Less uninvested. “What’s it matter who the backer is?”

What did it matter? 

Varric trapped a laugh behind his teeth.

It mattered because Hawke needed his own wealth. To make his mother happy, certainly; and to keep his brother out of trouble, sure, why not; and to get them out from under his uncle’s greasy, miserable thumb, praise the fucking Maker. It mattered because Hawke needed the old Amell title, even though he couldn’t see that, yet.

It mattered because Varric didn’t want to be like Bartrand. He didn’t want to be a fucking rat. He didn’t want to—to use people like that. It mattered because—

Because Varric knew, alright? 

He knew there were safeguards he couldn’t provide long-term. He knew. He couldn’t escape knowing. Every time he tagged along to the Gallows on some job, he always wound up locking eyes with some poor Tranquil bastard, and…

‘Karl, no!’

…and that knowledge would confront him. Again.

‘You will never take another mage the way you took him!’ 

For all of Varric’s efforts… all his spies, all his careful bribes… The only thing that had truly kept Daisy, Blondie, and Hawke out of the Gallows so far was dumb. Fucking. Luck. 

There were just things a deshyr couldn’t do.

No matter how rich and well-connected. No matter what the Guild tried to tell themselves.

Things the old Amell title could do, if Hawke got it back. If Varric showed him how to use it.

Because it’s all so… tenuous.  

Varric swallowed a lump in his throat. Affixed an easy grin to his face. Met the Nose’s watchful gaze. And said the only true thing he could say aloud.

“Ulldi, if you were coming with us to the Deep Roads?—trust me, you wouldn’t be asking. Hawke’s not just a backer. He’s a fighter, a damn good one, with experience killing darkspawn. Two for the price of one?”

He forced a chuckle, and it was a rock in his lungs. Scraping him from the inside. “That’s just good business sense.”

Half an hour passed, or so.

They compared notes on the bad blood between Bartrand and Dougal. One of Varric’s more mean-spirited insights made the Nose bark a genuine laugh.

She caught him up on the bullshit his family had been cooking up, back at the Tethras townhouse. The latest installment of some long, storied, overwrought drama between two of his aunts that’d be a void of a lot funnier if Varric didn’t know, already, that the chore of peace-making would wind up falling in his lap. It always did, sooner or later.

And, when she asked how things had gone in Jader, Varric wove his lie with a practiced hand. Not too detailed. A misdirecting truth or two. A solid, banal alibi. If she saw through it— if she’d figured out that he’d seen Bianca; if she had any motivation to snitch to Bartrand —there was no sign.

All in all, one of the more pleasant interactions he’d had with the Nose.  

Yet Varric’s hot, sour anger didn’t abate.

It kept on rising. Rising. Up his throat. Into his mouth. It coated his tongue…

…and it tasted like guilt.

***

It only took a week for the assassin to come.

His back flat on the floor, his eyes starting out of their sockets, Varric gawked at the elf strangling him to death and wondered, distantly, if he ought to be flattered. 

It’d soothe his ego, at least, if House Davri had had to splurge for this guy. If they’d had to go to the Crows or to the House of Repose.

Because Varric had bought it. When the assassin had poked his head into the suite with a tentative look, and asked, ‘Are you Messere Tethras? Gallard sent me. He said you’re good at… handling things,’ Varric hadn’t thought twice.

Oh, no. He’d waved the assassin in. Treated the assassin like any of the other elves Gallard had sent his way.

Void, the assassin had sold the ‘tragic elf’ act so well— hesitating on the threshold, picking a scab on his hand, acting like he wasn’t sure if he was really allowed to come in or not —that Varric prompted the assassin to close the door. So they could speak privately. To put the assassin more at ease.

Real smart, Tethras.

Varric had pulled out a chair for the assassin to join him at the low stone table. Asked if the assassin would like something to drink. Poured one for him. Listened to the assassin weave a tale of woe so convincing, so compelling, so—so Maker-damn sad that Varric got up midway through to pour himself a drink.

And, once sat back down, the assassin gave Varric such a broken, beseeching look that he’d had to glance away.

Yep, real smart. It was just…

It’d all felt so real.

That look had humbled Varric, and he’d felt… unequal. Unequal to meet such a raw, uncomplicated display of emotion. Unequal to such a man capable of it.

In another life, the assassin could’ve taken the Orlesian stage by storm.

In this one, he’d taken the opening to poison Varric’s drink.

And Varric had been none the wiser.

Shit, had the assassin chosen quite literally any other poison? He’d already be dead. Just another corpse in the Hanged Man. Just another unpleasant surprise for Norah, Edwina, or Corff to stumble upon.

But, by luck, or by the Maker’s own penchant for dramatic irony, Varric knew this one.

It’d been… popular, a few years back, among the ascendant families of the Merchants’ Guild. A trend. A macabre fashion.

So when Varric lifted the glass to his lips, he’d caught it:

A faint, faint whiff of almonds.

Varric hadn’t drank.

The knife had come, flashing, half a second later.

Varric had thrown himself from his chair, just barely dodging it in time—

And now they were here.

Varric—pinned on the floor, the knife in his sleeve long since batted away, clattering to the other end of the room, the knife in his boot too far out of reach, and all he could do now was rake his fingers over the assassin’s face, trying to gouge his eyes out, to make him stop, stop, please stop, but failing to, falling short, too far, too far, too far.

The assassin—pinning Varric with a strength his slight frame belied, throttling Varric with a cold ferocity he’d so capably kept hidden just a few minutes before, his face bloodied, his jaw set, his grip iron, throttling, throttling, throttling the life out of him.

Both men—staring at each other.

It… was an odd thing, gazing into the eyes of your assassin as he killed you.

Varric’s assassin had lovely eyes. A soft shade of blue.

Almost grey.

Almost like Bianca’s.

Vision receding at the edges… mouth shaping words he no longer had the air to say… here, at the precipice of death, Varric lingered with the memory of Bianca.

The scent of her hair. The curve of her shoulder. Sunlight, shattered on the waves of the sea, dancing over her skin in shards, in fractals. Her lips shaping the word ‘Fractal’; her fingers describing lines in the air. Her catty smirk. Her curling, smoky laugh. The morning and the night of her.

Worth it.  

Varric gazed into his assassin’s eyes, and grinned.

Worth it… 

Suddenly, a shout.

A voice, and… Varric knew that voice.

The assassin flew off—was thrown off?—Varric, tumbling over Varric’s head, limbs flailing like a ragdoll’s—

Air whooshed into Varric’s lungs immediately—inexorably—deep, rattling, and painful—and relieving—and fucking painful as fucking shit—

And instinct took over.

Lungs burning, ears ringing, instinct rolled Varric out of the way as something—someone?—sped past him.

Instinct had Varric scrambling. Instinct had his hands searching, gripping, grabbing whatever he could for purchase. Had him rising on shaking legs. Had his eyes darting wildly, everywhere, for—

—Hawke?

Varric blinked at him dumbly.

At Hawke. At his halberd-staff, slicing through the air—

At the assassin, panicking, skidding around the table to get away from Hawke; at the assassin, falling to his knees to slide across the floor, to avoid taking the blade of the halberd-staff in the throat—

At Isabela, now racing into the suite. At her dagger, now thrown, now spinning, spinning, turning circles—

At her dagger, missing the assassin by a hair, burying itself deep into Varric’s nice oak cabinet.

For the space of those four, five seconds, that was all Varric could do: watch on in a daze. His lungs burning. His ears ringing. His head swimming.

The assassin sprang back to his feet. He was clutching Varric’s knife, the one he’d batted away; his arm began to draw back, to throw it at—

Varric unfroze.

Found Bianca in his hands.

Pulled her trigger; felt her familiar, muscular recoil hit his shoulder—

The assassin came to a sharp halt.

Head snapping back.

Body collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

The bolt in his forehead vibrating, vibrating, as it thwinged itself from motion to sudden, shuddering stillness.

One second.

Two.

The assassin laid dead…

…and Varric’s eyes drifted from the corpse in an odd, loose way.  

There was blood on the floor, and his eyes drifted over it. Drifted, drifting, over bits of brain… bits of bone… Well, skull. The assassin’s skull. The assassin’s blood… on the floor, on the wall… on Varric’s nice oak cabinet, the one he’d picked up… two?… three?… years ago, in Cumberland with Bianca.

…Damn, that’s going to stain.

It was a distant thought. Everything was distant, now. Distant, and slow, and… soupy.

There was a hand on his shoulder, and it registered to Varric soupily. He dragged his eyes upward, through the soup…

…and found Hawke, peering at him. Hawke, talking to him, saying things he couldn’t hear yet.

Hawke’s mouth was moving.

Varric felt his gaze settle there. 

There was a thought, somewhere, about lipreading. A skill some people possessed. A skill Varric had never picked up. The movements too vague, too subtle, for him to make sense of.

Then Hawke’s mouth stilled: his lips thinned into a tight, unmoving line.

Varric didn’t like that.

His gaze drifted up… and it wasn’t just Hawke’s mouth. Hawke’s jaw, his whole expression had… firmed. Grown tense. Serious.

Varric didn’t like that, either. 

Oh, no. Even in the midst of this thick, slowing soup, his dislike was instant.

He found himself squinting at Hawke. He found his lips parting—he was going to say something.

Something true, if vaguely delirious, like, ‘Your face looks weird like that. Stop it. Don’t do that.’ Or like, ‘You know you’re being rude? You could make it okay. You could smile; you— But you’re not, and that’s rude.’ 

Or like, ‘It’s me. It’s me. I’m not them.’

…Varric wasn’t sure what he meant by that, exactly, but he was going to say it anyway. His lips parted—

But nothing came out.

Or… maybe it did? How would he know? His ears were still ringing, ringing, ringing.

Hawke’s expression firmed further. His hold on Varric’s shoulder tightened.

And then he was steering Varric to his bed.

And Varric was letting him.

Hawke made him sit at the foot of the bed, and Varric let him do it. Hawke crouched before him, bringing his gaze level to Varric’s throat, and Varric let him do that, too.

He let Hawke examine him. Let Hawke frown at him. Let Hawke, with the ghosting suggestion of a touch to the jaw, turn his head to the side, gently, gingerly, and examine him further.  

Hawke’s frown deepened.

Gaze unwavering, touch still lingering on Varric’s jaw, Hawke took his staff in his free hand and, with great concentration, began to cast a healing spell.

Time passed at a dragging pace.

It always did, when Hawke healed someone. He was crap at it. 

Unbidden, a memory: the Wounded Coast, in the early days of working together. 

Blood on the sand. Sand in their wounds. Varric, crumpled in a heap next to Hawke as they both waited for Anders to finish tending Aveline’s more dire injuries. Varric, watching the shattered potions they’d brought along seep uselessly into the sand. The pain starting to get to him. Making him impatient.

Making him bitchy. 

‘W-wasn’t your father a Circle mage?’ he’d asked Hawke through a hiss. ‘He really didn’t teach you any healer shit?’

Hawke had shaken his head, breathing labored, eyes squeezed shut.

Varric had chuckled darkly. ‘S-seems like an oversight. What, were f-fireballs more farm-friendly?’

Hawke had shot him half a glare before glancing down at his left hand: the one that didn’t work so well. Lifted his hand to look at it better.

To make Varric look at it too, probably.

‘…Blending in—was,’ Hawke had replied between hard breaths. ‘M-miraculous—recoveries… tend to s-stand out.’

Then Hawke had grinned at him, and that grin was a warning.

‘Can’t be—tempted b-by…’ Two hard breaths. His grin brittle, full of teeth. ‘…knowledge you don’t—have.’  

Time dragged.

And dragged.

And dragged.

But it passed, one dragging second at a time, and as it passed, the thick soup of Varric’s mind began, gradually, to thin.

The spell was working. Varric could tell: he could feel it bearing him out of the worst of the pain in slow, hard-won increments. The ringing in his ears was fading, too, a half-step behind.

He could just now hear the faint buzzing of a voice.

“—I have it?”

Varric’s eyes opened; when had he closed them?

His gaze fell on Hawke first, but it wasn’t him: Hawke was fixed on Varric’s throat with a single-minded focus, concentrating.

So who was it?

Varric made to angle his body towards the voice, so he wouldn’t have to turn his neck. It hurt anyway; he winced—

He caught a glimpse of Isabela, kneeling by the assassin’s corpse— She perked up to see Varric had heard her—

But Hawke gently, gingerly, tapped the corner of Varric’s jaw to stop him from turning further, and murmured something too low to hear, even this close.  

Varric’s eyes snapped back to Hawke.

Hawke didn’t meet his gaze, though. He was focused, frowning, forcing his magic out with great effort: doing his damnedest to funnel a flood of mana through the narrow mouth of a reed. Bending it in shapes it never wanted to go. Being fought every step of the way.

A bead of sweat gathered at Hawke’s hairline.

Varric watched it collect.

Grow heavy.

Ponderous.

Watched it tip slowly, and slide slowly, sliding down the right side of his face.

Temple, to cheekbone…

Cheekbone, to jaw…

But Isabela would not be denied. She was entering Varric’s peripheral vision with a big grin and a raised voice, over-enunciating her words.

“This—” She held up a vial for Varric to see, wiggling it in her fingers. “—is the Kiss of Maferath, an excellent poison with a truly mean-spirited kick.” She didn’t pause; she didn’t hesitate at all to ask, “Can I have it?” 

Varric huffed, then winced, because it fucking hurt. He waved a hand to say, “Knock yourself out.”

Her grin brightened, and he found himself grinning back at her.

With friends like these, he thought, with more fondness than he’d admit.

“Did he nick you anywhere?”

Varric glanced at Hawke—

But Hawke hadn’t waited for him to answer; he was already addressing Isabela over his shoulder. “That poison—would you know it by its symptoms?”

Isabela hummed thoughtfully. She came forward, appraising Varric with quick eyes.

“Make two fists for me.”

Varric looked down at his hands, and tried.

It took effort. His fingers were stiff, reluctant; the assassin’s blood was tacky on his skin, under his nails. An ache shot down both of his wrists, but he managed it. Two fists.

When Varric looked back up, he caught Isabela exchanging a glance with Hawke, her lips pursed.

“I’ll go see if Justice will let Anders out to play, shall I?”

“Would you?” Hawke gave her a grin, and it sat on his face strangely. Not quite right. “You know we can’t have fun without Justice.”

“Just don’t have too much fun without me,” she answered in kind. She winked at Varric—

—but left with a quickness that betrayed her worry.

Which left Varric alone.

With Hawke.

Just him, and Hawke, and the not-quite-right grin that fell heavily from his face once Isabela was gone. Once he began to cast the spell again.

Just him, and Hawke, and a stretching, discomforting silence.

…and Hawke’s eyes. Intent. A little intense.

…and Hawke’s fingers. Featherlight. Ghosting, guiding the spell where it needed to go.

Varric suppressed the urge to swallow.

Say something.

Hawke didn’t. A second bead of sweat was beginning to gather at his hairline; Varric suppressed the urge to stare at it.

Tell me a story.

Hawke didn’t. The bead of sweat was beginning to slide down; Varric suppressed the urge to wipe it away with his thumb.

Tell me a joke.

Hawke didn’t.

Tell me off, if you have to, just— Say something, won’t you?

And Hawke still didn’t. He just kept frowning that weird little frown, allowing this weird little silence. Weirdly.

Varric cleared his throat to speak, to banish the silence himself—

—and winced in pain.

Hawke inhaled sharply at that. His weird little frown deepened; his gaze grew more intent, more intense; his fingers…

Damn it, why—why wasn’t he talking Varric’s ear off like normal? Hawke was always stepping in to take your mind off your misery, when it was Anders healing you. He’d regale Merrill with the exploits of a neighbor’s overzealous guard-goose, back in Ferelden, before Anders popped her shoulder back in place. He’d pick up the thread a well-worn argument of his and his brother’s, about the dubious sighting of some half-seen, half-mythical creature Carver swore he saw on a hunting trip together, as Anders eased an arrow from his leg.

Was Hawke truly this bad at healing, that he couldn’t give Varric something else to think about? Something other than—

…than the nearness of Hawke’s face.

Than the slight, gentle fanning of Hawke’s breath. The sound of it. The feel of it, puffing against his throat.

Than the intensity of Hawke’s gaze. Those dark eyes, made darker with focus.

Than the ghosting touch of Hawke’s fingers, and the… the energy they left in their wake. Trailing. Chasing. Leaping after Hawke’s touch. 

—Varric’s face was burning.

He burned—and he could hear Bianca laughing at him. Could picture, exactly, the grin she’d wear to say, ‘I told you so.’

He burned—and he needed to think of something else, fast, before Hawke noticed him burning.

Hawke was his friend. Hawke was his friend. Hawke was—

Hawke was too close.

So Varric leaned away from Hawke, further from Hawke. He averted his eyes, willing his face to cool.

Hawke withdrew his hand quickly, nearly snatching it back, and leaned away too.

A pause.

Varric could feel Hawke’s gaze on him, searching, questioning, but it—it was too risky to meet his gaze. 

Instead, Varric pointed to the small sideboard opposite his bed. The private one, for his private stash.

Another pause.

Then Hawke rose from his crouch. Stood. Went to the small sideboard.

Immediately Varric could breathe a little easier, and he didn’t let himself think about it. He pointed to one of the drawers.

Hawke pulled it open, all the glass bottles inside gently tinkling. He reached in, grabbed an elfroot potion, and held it up for Varric to see.

Nodding, Varric held out a hand, palm-up.

Hawke tossed it to him. Lobbed it softly, underhand.

Varric caught it with a surge of relief— that Hawke hadn’t walked it over; that Hawke had stayed over there —and he didn’t let himself think about that, either. He focused on the potion. On unstopping it. On gulping it down through the pain. He drank half before he had to stop, and then he focused on that. The pain easing. The potion doing its work.

—A lightweight object hit him on the shoulder, and fell to the bed.

Varric jolted, looked: it was a tin of salve.

—Now, a damp cloth. Hitting his shoulder. Falling to the bed.

“You’re bruising.”

Varric glanced up—

Hawke was touching his own neck to indicate where the bruising was, but he didn’t meet Varric’s gaze. His eyes were… elsewhere. Halfway into the middle distance.

He stayed where he was. Crossed his arms. Glanced down at his boots. Scuffed the toe of one on the floor.

The silence took on a different shade, then: the mood shifting in some uneasy, ill-defined way Varric couldn’t put words to.

Varric’s eyes sank back to the tin of salve.

So.

The thing about the salve.

He’d had a few days to kill in Jader, so he’d picked up a couple of things in one of their bazaars. Why wouldn’t he? There’d been a bracelet he thought Daisy would like. A feather that’d go perfect with Rivaini’s purple hat.

A fancy tin of salve.

It was supposed to be good for the hands. ‘Restorative’: that was the word the apothecary’d used. Must’ve been quality shit, too, because those salve tins had just been flying off the shelves of the stall.

Couldn’t Hawke use something like that? His hands were always too dry. 

And yet Varric had just stood there like an idiot in Jader’s poor excuse of a bazaar, arguing with himself over whether or not to buy it. For too long. To the point where it felt more damning than if he’d just bought the stupid salve without a second thought.

So he’d bought the stupid salve. The way he’d bought the bracelet for Daisy, the feather for Rivaini.

He hadn’t, uh. Found the time. Per se. To actually. Give it to Hawke, yet.

But that’s what it was: a gift.

Varric didn’t want to use the salve. 

…He used it anyway.  

With the damp cloth, Varric wiped the congealed blood from his hands. He unscrewed the lid of the tin. Scooped some salve up with his fingers. Smeared it over his throat halfheartedly, his stomach sinking.

“Who was he?”

Varric’s eyes refocused abruptly.

Hawke was studying the corpse of the assassin, now, standing over it with his arms crossed. With all the respect of a kid poking a dead bird with a stick, he nudged it with his boot.

“Don’t know,” Varric just managed to croak, his voice scraped raw.

Hawke glanced up at that.

Their eyes met, and, for a long moment, Hawke considered him without speaking.

“…Why don’t I believe you?” he asked darkly.

It took Varric aback. Why wouldn’t Hawke believe him? It wasn’t a lie.

Or. Well. It wasn’t a whole lie. Varric knew why the assassin had been hired to kill him, but that didn’t mean he knew who the guy was. His name, his organization, what have you.

Varric turned his face to squint at Hawke sidelong.

In response, Hawke simply gave him a look.

It was a look Varric knew—one he’d seen Hawke use on Junior. Brows mildly raised, unimpressed; eyes sharp, stern, and expectant. The look of a mother who’d had it up to here with your crap.

Did Hawke really think he could pry an answer from him just by looking and waiting? It wouldn’t work.

One second.

Two.

Hawke didn’t relent.

Three.

…Four.

Hawke tilted his head slightly back. Narrowed his eyes.

…Five…

Varric could feel his resolve begin to crumble out from under him, loose sand shifting under his feet—

But it was then, blessedly, that Norah chose to enter the suite and bail him out.

She only made it a few steps inside before Varric heard her sigh heavily. She came into view with her hands on her hips, nodded at Hawke, then turned to give Varric her own unimpressed look.

“Another one? Really?”

Varric rolled his eyes. He polished off the remainder of the elfroot potion, his throat bobbing a touch less painfully.

Norah sighed heavier, put-upon. “I’ll go see if Corff can come shift him, I suppose…”

“No need,” Hawke shook his head, uncrossing his arms. “I can do it.”

—Varric didn’t like that. Oh, no. Not one fucking bit. He felt it viscerally, in his gut, just how—how wrong it would be, to have Hawke cleaning up after him, like—

‘You’re not my Second.’

A hot, sour taste coated his tongue, and it tasted like—

Varric stood, croaking, “Hawke, don’t—”

But Hawke, already crouching to lift the corpse, shot him a glare that made Varric sit right back down.

“Why thank you,” Norah addressed Hawke, laying it on thick to prove a point. “Ain’t you sweet?”

Hawke answered her with a wink. Then he stood, grunting, and lifted the assassin’s corpse with a casual air, as if it were no more extraordinary than a sack of potatoes. Shifted the corpse over his shoulder for balance.

And then Varric saw it.

The wheels in Hawke’s mind turning, turning, as he tilted his head at Norah.

As he decided to hazard a guess.

As he gave Norah that wry, in-on-the-joke-together smile. The one that made people tell him things.

“So, where am I taking him?” Hawke shrugged one shoulder, to gesture to the corpse hanging over it. “There’s, er, a usual place for Varric’s… unannounced guests, I take it?”

Shit.

Norah snorted. She tucked a rag into her apron pocket, and waved for Hawke to follow her. “I’ll show you where Corff stows ’em for pick-up.”

“For pick-up?” Hawke asked conversationally. He hummed. “Organized.”

“Yeah, well, we have to be…”

They left the suite, their voices dimming as they disappeared down the stairs, and, for the moment, Varric was alone.

His eyes fell on the tin of salve.

It was still open. There was a thin line where his fingers had been: a tint of red.

Blood.

The assassin’s blood. Traces left under his nails, on his nail beds.

Carefully Varric stood.

Carefully he went to the dry sink in the corner of his room, and carefully avoided his reflection in the shaving mirror, tacked on the wall above. He focused on the basin. On the water. The soap. The nail file.

Carefully he worked the blood from his hands, and carefully, carefully, he thought of nothing.

He didn’t think about the assassin. He didn’t think about Hawke. He didn’t think about Bianca.

He didn’t hear the echo of Bianca’s laughter. He didn’t follow after.

Not into a memory only a week old, back in Jader.

‘Lie to yourself all you want, but you can’t fool me,’ Bianca had said, chin in hand, eyes bright with amusement. ‘You’ve been all ‘So me and Hawke were,’ ‘So then Hawke said,’ for two days now.’

There’d been a time when Varric wished Bianca was a jealous person. When they were younger, it’d been out of the misguided notion that it would prove he meant something to her. That he was special.

Last week in Jader? More out of the mild irritation he felt from the sheer amount of fun she derived from teasing him.

He’d had a joke all lined up, but…

‘…I don’t think I am lying, is the thing,’ Varric had replied, quieter. He’d smiled at her a little sadly. ‘With Hawke, there’s… there isn’t anything I’d change.’

He’d left the rest unsaid. What would be the point? Bianca already knew.

She’d tried to bring it up, anyway. Tried to talk it through again. But they’d had that conversation too many times before, and Varric hadn’t wanted to revisit it. Not in Jader. Not anymore.

Yeah, he wanted Hawke to be rich. To be titled. To be ensconced in all the safety that provides. And, sure, he’s had some… idle, meaningless moments of… curiosity. About Hawke. 

But beyond that?

There was nothing Varric wanted that friendship didn’t already provide.

He didn’t want Hawke to move in with him. He genuinely liked having his own space, and… when he tossed and turned in the night, when he woke on thin grey mornings… it wasn’t Hawke he wanted to find, there, in bed beside him. It wasn’t Hawke whose face compelled him to make grand plans and grand promises. He didn’t look at Hawke and want to pledge, swear, ask for anything big, like, ‘You and me, just the two of us forever, what do you say?’

Like, ‘Run away with me. I don’t care where we go; I’ll follow you anywhere—’

Varric’s shoulders slumped, the file under his nail slowing.

‘I wouldn’t choose my family over you! I love you! You can’t—’

Varric closed his eyes briefly.

‘Bianca, please, please don’t do this.’

If Varric could just… keep things as they were now. All the gold. All the people. All of the inspiration needing scribbled down.

All the wonder and surprise Hawke already gave him, because that’s just who Hawke was. With everybody. 

Indiscriminately.

Varric opened his eyes.

The water in the basin: tinted pink with blood.

…Yeah, if Varric could keep things as they were now? He’d be happy. He’d be happier than he’d been in a long, long time. 

—Someone was climbing the stairs.

They had a light gait. A little bouncy, a little quick, an almost jaunty rhythm to the footfalls.

Hawke—he was coming back.

With questions.

Varric shook his head to clear it, hurriedly working to draw his guard back up. He relaxed his shoulders. Schooled his expression. 

When he heard Hawke come in, he kept his back to him, picked up the nail file, and acted like he was still using it. 

“…So,” Hawke began in a leading tone.

Varric didn’t have to look to know what Hawke was doing. He could see clearly it in his mind’s eye: how Hawke would be leaning his shoulder against the wall, crossing his arms loosely, nonchalantly, as if he wasn’t angling for something. Even though he was.

Varric didn’t answer; he wasn’t going to help Hawke pry.

A beat.

“This happens often, then,” Hawke prompted.

…Half a beat.

“…Seems that way,” Varric muttered, his voice less raw.

“Someone’s being cagey.”

“Someone’s being pushy.”

A sound between a scoff and a snort.

Irked, Varric glanced at him in the shaving mirror—and there was Hawke, playing it nonchalant, just like Varric knew he would.

Varric turned to face him—

—right as Hawke pushed off the wall with his shoulder, hands held up placatingly, and began to approach. 

“My mistake. I should’ve been more polite,” Hawke said lightly, archly. “Next time you’re being murdered, I’ll knock first.”

A raspy laugh surprised itself out of Varric.

Hawke smiled to hear it, and something in his expression… softened.

It wasn’t fair, how disarming Hawke could be. How Varric couldn’t bring himself to mind, even when ‘disarmed’ was the last thing he wanted to be.  

But Hawke wasn’t done.

He sat on the far corner of Varric’s bed. He leaned forward, and patted the bed’s near corner: the way you do when inviting someone to sit with you. And his smile grew wry. Grew in-on-the-joke-together.

Just like it had with Norah.

“Come on, Varric, just tell me. I’m sure I’ve heard worse,” he cajoled, good-humored. “And if I haven’t, I’m sure I could lie convincingly enough.” 

Varric pursed his lips against a laugh. He didn’t want to fold; he wouldn’t.

Hawke leaned forward again. His smile grew even wryer, more crooked, more conspiratorial. His eyes…

“It’s a losing battle, you know,” he added in a stage whisper, cupping a hand around his mouth to share a secret. “I can be so much more annoying than this.”

Varric drew his lips in over his teeth. 

It wasn’t fair. He’d seen Hawke use that smile plenty of times; it shouldn’t work on him. He should be wise to its—its tricks.

And yet.  

A reluctant, responding smile stole over Varric’s face, anyway. He couldn’t help it. He bit his lip, but it only stole wider as he did.

Smiling, Varric glanced down at the floor with a huff, shaking his head.

Might as well make him work for it.

“You save a man’s life once, and you think that entitles you to his secrets?”  

Hawke must’ve heard the amusement, the yielding, in his tone—he was rewarded with Hawke’s smile deepening, crinkling his eyes.

“Has it really only been once?” Hawke put a hand on the bed; he leaned onto his arm comfortably. “I seem to remember a fight in Hightown—” 

“You mean the one with those fake guardsmen?” Varric interrupted, feeling lighter. “When I dropped that warrior from across the square, mere seconds before he could brain you?”

Hawke clapped a faux-sheepish palm to his forehead.

“Oh, tsk, I should’ve been more specific. I meant the one in their hideout. You remember—you got surrounded by rogues looking for a new pincushion? I showed them all to the balcony?” 

Only four of the fake guardsmen had gone over the balcony; Hawke’s force spell had shot two out of the window, and one hit a wall hard enough to collapse his helmet.

Not that Varric was going to correct him.

He made a show of shrugging noncommittally. “That might ring a bell.”

“You know,” Hawke chuckled, “if you didn’t have that little habit of calling out how many people we’ve killed apiece, loudly, in the thick of things? I might’ve believed you.”

Varric chuckled too… But it trailed off, another silence settling between them…

—and then Varric noticed something.

A bruise.

A bruise on Hawke’s left cheek, by his ear. Slightly raised. Swelling. Recent.

“What’s that?” It came out sharply; his gesture at the bruise was sharper than he’d meant, too. “Is that from—?”

The word ‘assassin’ lodged in Varric’s throat.

Hawke’s brow pinched. He raised a hand to his cheek quizzically, a bit slowly—but once he touched it, his expression cleared.

“What, this old thing?” Hawke’s tone was arch, yet… flat. “Ran into some Friends of Kirkwall.”

He turned his head a touch, as if inviting Varric to assess a new hairstyle. “Don’t you think it suits me?”

Varric ignored the joke. His mind had already run ahead for the intel he’d gathered most recently from Gallard, from his informants.

“Where? Not on the docks; not— The foundries?” He was thinking aloud, working through the puzzle of it as he spoke. “Or closer to Hightown?”

Hawke waved a dismissive hand, even as his eyes fell to the floor. “They’ve the use of their legs, Varric; I’m sure they go wherever they want.”

…Was he being evasive on purpose?

“Why’re y—?”

“Varric?” a new voice interrupted. “Varric, are you—?”

Anders rounded the corner to the bedroom at a fast pace—winded, color high on his cheeks—and Isabela rounded the corner right after him.

“You’ve been poisoned?”

***

Thus began the fussing.

Anders snatching up his wrist to check his pulse; Anders delicately pulling his eyelids wider to check his pupils; Anders tapping his jaw with an order to stick out his tongue, so he could check that too. All the while casting and maintaining a spell to check his insides. The state of his organs, of his blood.

Good thing, too.

Turned out the assassin had nicked him.

“You’re lucky Hawke was here,” Anders said, unnecessarily. “He bought you the time it took for me to get here.”

Once it became clear Varric wasn’t going to die, he moved the party from his bedroom to give himself a measure of dignity. He sat at the low stone table; Anders stood, puttering around him as he worked. Isabela took her leave with a cheeky salute, swiping an orange from Varric’s bowl of fruit as payment.

Hawke remained.

There was a restless quality to him, to his movements.

He helped himself to a finger of whiskey without asking. Even though he always asked, if only for the sake of the gesture, since Varric never told him no. He took a sip. Two. Three. He nipped back into Varric’s bedroom—the sound of glass tinkling. He returned with a slim vial of lyrium potion for Anders—the sound of Anders’ weary thanks…

“…Wait.”

Varric glanced over his shoulder—

—and watched Anders, frowning, reach out a thin hand to cup Hawke’s face; and watched Hawke go still at the touch, his eyes wide.

The air in the room tightened.

One brush of Anders’ fingers… two… and the bruise on Hawke’s cheekbone was gone.

A pause in which Varric watched them watch each other.

Then Anders sighed, softly exasperated. “Should I even try to ask…?”

Another pause.

—and, in a blink, Hawke was on the other side of the table. Smiling a half-smile. Aiming it at the floor. Hiding it in his glass of whiskey.

An awkward puff of air fell from Hawke’s lips.

“I could make up something for you, if you like,” he said. A little airy, a little self-conscious. “What are you in the mood for?—Would you rather laugh with me, or at me?”

“When aren’t we laughing at you?” Varric interjected to quip.

At that, Hawke’s half-smile grew more solid. He waggled his eyebrows at Varric, and…

There was something in it Varric recognized.

Gratitude.

Varric waggled his eyebrows back, and with that, the moment was over.

Anders returned to healing: to puttering, to poking and prodding Varric at intervals, muttering under his breath. Varric returned to being healed: to allowing himself to be poked and prodded, graciously ignoring Anders’ asides about tavern fare and the state of his arteries.

And Hawke remained restless. He was walking along Varric’s shelves, now, the way you do when perusing titles… but too quickly for that. He was pacing.

He was trying to act like he wasn’t pacing.

Varric tried not to watch him, but it was hard not to. Especially when the only other claim on his attention was Anders’ repeated, ominous use of the word ‘purging,’ which he wanted to think of even less.

As Hawke began his fifth pass of the shelves, Varric let out a percussive sigh.

“You’re making me dizzy,” Varric said. “Sit down.”

Hawke turned to face him, mouth pulled to the side in a vague, distracted shape. As he turned, his eyes glanced over a chair—

And landed on something Varric couldn’t see, from opposite side of the table.

Something that made Hawke’s face light up.  

“Oh! I can’t believe I forgot—!”

Setting his glass down with a careless, absentminded air, Hawke went to the chair and picked up a rucksack. Hawke’s rucksack: he must’ve had it when he burst in to fight the assassin, must’ve tossed it in the chair to get it out of the way.  

Hawke came around the table, swinging the rucksack onto the table in a loose, lazy arc. He sat in the chair beside Varric.

Then, oddly— Instead of opening the rucksack— Hawke shoved a hand in his pocket. Took out a coin purse.

Hooked his fingers inside it.  

And, with a showman’s relish, withdrew. Gold. Sovereigns.  

Stacks of them, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

“Tennn…” Hawke said, grinning, as he placed the first stack on the table with a faint clink. “Twennnty…”

Varric felt his eyes widen; he felt Anders’ magic falter, halting.

“Thirrrty…”

Varric felt an excited grin lick across his face; he felt Anders’ magic resume, as if nothing had happened.

“You’re shitting me,” Varric went to stand—he wanted to shoot from his chair—but a tutting Anders put a firm hand on his shoulder and forced him back in his seat. “You absolute fucker—”

Hawke only grinned wider. More crookedly.

Varric felt his eyes catch there.

On Hawke’s lips. On the crooked shape they made. On the O they made to shape the word, “Forrrty…”

“Ooo, hooray,” Anders deadpanned in low tones, half to himself. “Springtime in the Deep Roads. Who needs breezes and blue skies when you could have darkspawn and damp?”  

It jarred Varric; it brought Varric back to himself. He pinned his gaze on the sovereigns.

Forty of them, golden, gorgeous, and gleaming, right here on Varric’s table.

And now, the pièce de résistance: the fifth and final stack—

“Forty-nine.”

…What?

Varric’s eyes shot up, perplexed.

Hawke met his gaze with an amused glitter in his warm, warm black eyes. He leaned back in his chair. Crossing his legs, steepling his fingers—

He was imitating Varric, the smug bastard. And he said nothing. He was waiting.

Daring Varric to say something.

Varric shook his head… but he couldn’t help but chuckle, too.

“Alright, I’ll bite. What’s the deal with the last sovereign?”

It must’ve been exactly what Hawke wanted to hear—because his eyes crinkled at the edges, his grin deepening. 

“That’s why I was here, this morning.” Hawke leaned in, and laid one hand flat on the table: palm-up. “I’ve come to collect it.”

Carefully, with exceeding care, Varric did not look over at his nice oak cabinet.

The cabinet where he’d locked a certain box away. Where said certain box, also locked, hid a cache of sovereigns he—might—have been skimming off the top on jobs he did for Bartrand.

Twenty sovereigns.

Just in case.

It wasn’t like Varric doubted Hawke could get the money. It was just… insurance.

Against Gamlen’s gambling problem. Against any bullshit Bartrand tried to pull. Against anything that might get in the way of Hawke joining the expedition as a full partner.

All the same, these forty-nine sovereigns came as a relief.

He didn’t want Hawke to know about that box. He hadn’t known if Hawke would be too proud. If it would strike Hawke as an insult. Varric hadn’t been eager to find out—not when it’d put Hawke’s nose out of joint, sometimes, when Varric just offered to cover his tab.

So no, Varric didn’t look at his nice oak cabinet. He didn’t get up, unlock everything, and reveal one of those secret sovereigns like it was easy. Like it was nothing. Like this was precisely why he had them stockpiled and squirreled away.

Instead, Varric arched an eyebrow, and let delight tug his mouth open into a toothy grin.

“Is that so? And what, exactly, do I owe you for?”

And that, too, must’ve been what Hawke wanted to hear—because his own grin grew positively shit-eating.

“Remember when you said you’d pay ten sovereigns to whoever found your stolen manuscript?”

A pause in which Varric’s grin fell, shocked. In which he stared at Hawke like a fool.  

“…You didn’t.”

Hawke didn’t reply. He simply stood, and let his self-satisfaction do the talking for him. He slipped a hand into the rucksack and— like it was easy, like it was nothing, like he pulled off impossible tricks like this every day of his life —proved Varric wrong.  

There it was.

The stolen manuscript.  

The sole one: Varric hadn’t copied it out, yet.

Hawke placed it before Varric on the table with unusual care.

The manuscript had been missing for weeks, and bore the passage of that time poorly. Water damage had the edges curling in soft, mildew-scented waves. Stains overlapped in dingy rings where someone had put drinks down. And… was that handwriting?

It was—somebody had left notes.

A lot of notes.

“I haven’t figured out who stole it, yet,” Hawke was saying; his voice came to Varric muffled, as if over a great distance. “Whoever it was, they wrote in the margins. But don’t worry—”

He tapped a gentle finger to the manuscript. “I corrected them.”    

…Yeah, now that Varric was looking for it, he saw two different hands.

One of them had scored their letters deep, as if carving them into a tree. Their criticism was similarly terse. Just a handful of words, here and there; a sentence circled, with an arrow that led to “Dum!” or, “Elfs dont talk fansy. Dum!”

But most of it was in Hawke’s messy, looping scrawl.

Arguing with thief. Mocking the thief. Casting aspersions on the thief’s intelligence, the quality of their eyesight, the quality of their mother. Heaping praise to compensate, over-the-top to the point of comedy: “Br. Genitivi, eat your heart out,” and, “If you don’t publish this, I will, and you’ll have to sit there and watch me be lauded as a genius, knowing it should’ve been you.”   

And more.

There was genuine feedback here.

Varric leafed through the manuscript, and found every page thoroughly marked.

With questions Hawke had about things that confused him, to be edited and made clearer. A large “Ha!” next to jokes that landed; a “You can do better” next to jokes that didn’t; and jokes of Hawke’s own—writing to Varric directly. About a lesser antagonist: “Why do I get the feeling this man shouldn’t be left alone with a goat?” About a character inspired by Daisy: “Fair warning: if anything happens to her, I’ll set your boots on fire. Don’t try me.”

Best of all: passages where, as Hawke put it, “You made me feel a real, actual emotion. How dare you.” And not a small number of them.

Varric was speechless.

Which was sort of funny, because there was so much he wanted to say.

Varric wanted to ask where he’d found the manuscript. When he’d found the manuscript—if he’d held onto it so he could read it—or… just to return it alongside the forty-nine sovereigns. If he only read it on nights too full of snores to fall asleep; if he only jotted down an odd thought or two on days too full of rain to do much else.

Varric looked up, mouth agape, to ask, “How'd you do it?” To ask, “Is there anything you can't do?”

To ask, “Why?”

But, before he could speak, Hawke was extending his hand again. Palm-up, wiggling his fingers.

“Cough up, Messere Riche, I know you’re good for it.”

“…Right,” Varric replied a little faintly. He cleared his throat. “Ten sovereigns, you said?”

Hawke shrugged one shoulder lightly, playfully. “Just the one. You can owe me.”

Varric gaped at him a moment longer—

Then averted his eyes, the better to tuck his awe away.

He took a breath, summoned a wry expression, and aimed it at Hawke.

“What would you say to a party?”

***

That very night, Varric threw a party.

The Hanged Man wasn’t made for parties. It was a dive. A haunt. You went to the Hanged Man for Diamondback, for brawls and bitter laughter, not for music. You went to drown your sorrows, not to dance.

That was the whole reason Varric had set up shop here in the first place.

People came to the Hanged Man to drink away their troubles, and, once the swill loosened their lips, Varric would be right there, ready to listen with a sympathetic ear. Or Varric would be way over there, busying his hands with a deck of cards, but all the while eavesdropping. Gleaning. Piecing together scraps of gossip to recreate a shredded whole.

A year ago? Varric could sit at his usual table and attend to the susurrus of Coterie thieves and Carta thugs, to the hissed grievances of templar drunks and dissolute Sisters, and never once have to strain his ears.

A year ago, one of those sorry souls had been Junior.

Varric hadn’t known him, then. Junior’d just been one face in a sea of faces, one disaffected voice in a whole chorus of ‘Woe is me’ and ‘Fuck all of you’ and ‘When’s it going to be my turn?’

Void, Varric hadn’t even recognized him at first. It wasn’t until he saw him in tavern lighting—when Junior had shouldered his way into Varric’s first meeting with Hawke, post-hire—that he’d realized that semi-regular regular and Hawke’s little brother were one and the same.

Varric was still a little pissed about that, to be honest.

Not about the meeting. About what he’d learned there.

Because, apparently, during their first week in Kirkwall? Junior had claimed the Hanged Man as his spot. Had forbidden Hawke from showing up and stealing his thunder. Because, if Junior hadn’t been such a little bitch? 

…He could’ve known Hawke a whole year sooner.

Yeah, Hawke would’ve been deep in his indentured servitude—Junior, too—but Varric could’ve gotten them out of it. Athenril was small-time. There was a reason she kept trying to lure Hawke back under her power. It was the same reason she never gave Varric trouble whenever he sent her packing.

And sure, Hawke hadn’t exactly minded being barred from the Hanged Man— the scant free time Hawke had, that first year, was spent in faster places, sailor’s places, dockside bars where the music was hot and the dancing was hotter —but Varric could’ve given him that here.

He had, after all.

It took some doing. Corff hadn’t been thrilled about the idea. That went double for Edwina.

But Varric was nothing if he wasn’t charming.

Less than nothing, if he couldn’t back his charm up with something substantial.

So, for a few nights each month— with Corff, Edwina, and Norah making a pretty sovereign each off the increased business —music came to the Hanged Man.

Northern music. Sailor’s blends of Antiva, of Rivain, of more besides. Mandolins, bandurrias, sintirs; rhaitas and flutes; these little clicky things called castanets, those bigger clicky things called qraqeb, and all manner of drums.

Music you could dance to.   

Music that was playing now—tonight—at the party Varric threw for Hawke.

Oh, tonight was going to be a classic.

Varric could tell: everybody already here, already in rare form, already on this side of drunk.

Like the night Junior had stomped into the Hanged Man with a letter crushed in his fist, and shouted at Hawke, ‘I knew—I knew you were fucking Peaches! You were fucking Peaches the whole time!’

Only for Hawke to scrunch his face, genuinely confused, and rile Junior worse by saying, ‘…Peaches? Who’s—?”

Only for Daisy to cut them both off, asking, ‘Why would you fuck a peach, Hawke? Don’t they have stones in them? That can’t feel very nice, can it?’ and, without waiting for an answer, turning to Junior. To poor, flustered, furiously-blushing Junior. ‘Couldn’t you have found your own peach, Carver? Or a plum? Though plums have stones, too… I suppose you have to pit them first?’ Which got Aveline so bad she spat out her ale. Which tickled Rivaini so much Junior still wouldn’t walk within ten feet of a fruit stand with her, months later.  

Like the night the toughest, meanest bunch of dusters Varric had ever seen spent a quarter of an hour eyeballing Blondie from across the bar.

Only for them to approach, with honest-to-goodness stars in their eyes, to ask if the rumors were true. If Blondie had really known Brosca. Archdemon-killer, casteless-to-Paragon legend, the toughest, meanest duster of all time.

Only for Anders to top it. He’d been there. He’d been at the Battle of fucking Denerim. Before he was a Warden—just one of the many healers his Circle had sent to honor the treaty. He’d seen the Archdemon! With his own two eyes! Shit, even Broody had gone still, every bit as spellbound as the dusters, to hear the tale be told. And Blondie had told it with verve, in unusually high spirits… though that might’ve had something to do with the way Hawke had gazed at him: dreamily, cheek in hand, like Blondie had hung the moons.

Or the night Fereldens celebrated their independence from Orlais.

Oh, that—that!—had been a night to end all nights.

The Hanged Man had been full to bursting with refugees. With southern music: flutes high and fiddles sweet and all a little sad, which somehow only served to throw their triumph in starker relief. Only made their jubilation keener.

Blondie had given everyone a glimpse of the man Rivaini once had known— bright-eyed and bold; rakish, even —as the two of them talked over each other, giggling, to recount overlapping misadventures in a brothel called the Pearl. Daisy had listened avidly, thrilled to hear of ‘dirty spells that can make… things… more exciting!’ And Aveline had listened too, rolling her eyes with uncommon good humor before falling into yet another side conversation with Broody about arms and armor.

Even Junior had managed to be tolerable. Laughing at a joke for once. Telling a joke for once. Starting some dull, copper-a-dozen tale about his part in the Battle of Ostagar. Showing off his mabari tattoo; making it ‘bark’… but then reminiscing about his real mabari, Bird-mouth, who’d died fighting the ogre that killed his twin. In that moment, being more endearing than he had any right to be.

And Hawke.

A rare man in rarer form.

Dazzling. Mystifying. Leaping onto a table after he’d donned an Orlesian mask—where did he get that from?—to lead the whole drunken host of Fereldens in a song so blazingly satirical it could scorch the eyebrows right off your face. Playing the villain so gleefully, so mustache-twirlingly evil, and yet so comically myopic you couldn’t help but root for him a little, watching him throw his arms open wide at the end of the song: the better to accept the traditional pelting of soft, rotten vegetables as adulation come due.

And Hawke, an hour or so later, leading the same crowd in a wholly different song.

A ballad full of grief. One the refugees sang along to.

One that made them weep.

Lirene and her neighbors, weeping. Men in town from the Bone Pit, weeping.

Aveline, hastily wiping a tear. Anders, his head held high, his eyes damp and shining. Junior, hiding his face; Daisy, letting her tears stream openly, as if she’d never once thought to be ashamed of them.

It’d been beautiful.

Varric would never admit it, but he’d wept a little too. Later. Alone. In the privacy of his own suite.

…The night to end all nights…

…was one of the nights Arbana had swung by with a bad case of widow’s fire.

Arbana was good people. One of the few dwarves Varric knew who wasn’t ass-deep in Guild or Carta bullshit. She ran the bakery next to Lowtown’s bathhouse, and she’d been deeply in love with her baker husband.

Varric hadn’t met happily married dwarves, before.

He’d liked it. He’d liked being around them, being a regular customer of theirs.

Then her husband died.

And, as time passed… Arbana grew lonely.

What she and Varric had going: it wasn’t romantic, but romance wasn’t the point. It was about grief. About company. If Varric closed his eyes sometimes and thought of Bianca, Arbana didn’t have to know. If Arbana called her husband’s name sometimes when she came, Varric never brought it up.

It was easy, with Arbana.

So when she’d swung by, that night of nights, Varric had been more than willing to oblige her. He’d followed her up to his suite.

But not before Hawke had noticed.

Hawke, arching an eyebrow; Hawke, grinning a slow-spreading grin. He’d glanced at Arbana. He’d glanced back at Varric, taken the time to trail his eyes up, and said, ‘Varric, you dark horse’ in such a low, suggestive, and approving tone, that—

—that—

—Maker’s breath, just thinking about it had Varric half hard.   

Which was bad.

Because Hawke was here. 

Here. In the present. At the party to celebrate the full fifty sovereigns.

Ale heavy on the tongue. Sweat humid in air. Northern music pulsing hot and fast around them.   

Varric tried to slink past him—

“Ah-ah, not so fast!” Hawke shouted a bit to be heard, placing a hand on Varric’s chest to stop him.

Shit, shit, shit—

Varric’s mouth was dry. He swallowed, hoping Hawke couldn’t feel how his heart was hammering; hoping Hawke would move his hand; hoping Hawke wouldn’t.

His mouth opened tackily to emit an awkward chuckle. “What?”  

“A hard day’s work gets a hard day’s drink,” Hawke sing-song’d, like he was quoting someone. “Let’s see, did you work today?”

Hawke did move his hand… but only to take one of Varric’s.

To hold Varric’s hand. To hold it aloft. To study it, turning it this way and that. To run his callused, work-rough touch over Varric’s palm, over Varric’s fingertips, exploring it thoroughly. 

“Just as I thought,” Hawke tsked. “Much too smooth. Didn’t work today… or yesterday, either, if I had my guess.”

Hawke’s eyes were dancing.

He was gazing deeply into Varric’s eyes, as if there was nothing and no one else around—and his eyes were dancing.

Varric’s heart gave a little trill of surprise.

And perhaps it was only the ale he’d already drank—or perhaps it was the fifty sovereigns now safe, snug, and secure in Bartrand’s office—

Or perhaps it was simply gazing into such warm, warm black eyes.  

Whatever the reason may be. When his heart gave that little trill of surprise, for what might very well be the first time in his life…

Varric didn’t think to argue with it.

Instead, he grinned warmly, widely. He held his hands up to Hawke’s face and emphasized the ink on his nail beds, the ink in the grout of his knuckles.

“What do you think this is?”

“The mark of a scoundrel,” Hawke pronounced without missing a beat, “with a scoundrel’s pastimes.”

Varric laughed, delighted—

And Hawke laughed, his eyes crinkling, delighted by Varric’s delight—

And that made Varric laugh even more, feeling a touch light-headed, a touch giddy… 

The party spun on, and on, and on.

They drank, and drank, and drank.

And the world around them became a beautiful, benevolent blur.

At some point, Hawke and Rivaini swapped clothes, and went around doing impressions of each other.

Rivaini had them all rolling; she was a remarkably talented mimic. Hawke… less so. Much less so. But he kept them entertained. Bemoaning his small titties, bunching Rivaini’s dress over his much-flatter chest—exaggerating his walk to make Rivaini’s boots flap comically around his much-leaner thighs—returning from Corff’s backroom with a variety of fruits precariously basket’d in the tiniest skirt in Kirkwall, to ask for help ‘making melons out of, well, melons?”

At some point, Hawke and Rivaini regaled them all with a story about eating bad oysters on the docks. It was so disgusting, so unrelentingly detailed, that Broody stood from the table, strode over to the bar, and, without ceremony, vomited into a can.

Aveline shook her head, sighed, and stood, taking the cue to leave for the night. Daisy rushed over to hold Broody’s hair back, to rub his back soothingly—until she, too, vomited. Junior went green at the gills, but Blondie? Blondie was completely unfazed. The gangly freak didn’t even stop scarfing down his bowl of Corff’s mystery stew; he just laughed at Broody, at poor Daisy, and turned to ask Rivaini about her symptoms with a smirk.

At some point, Varric and Hawke got locked into one of their ‘Don’t-break-character-and-laugh’ games. Three, four, eleven matches…

…and Hawke kept losing, one right after the other.

“I-I don’t know what you g-get out of this,” Hawke choked out through a fit of giggles, wiping tears from his eyes. “You always win!”

“I don’t always win,” Varric countered with a grin. He was leaning towards Hawke, closer to Hawke, soaking up the sound, the sight of his laughter.

“Sure, uh-huh. I’ve won, what, once?” Hawke took a big breath, fanning his giggle-flushed face. “Doesn’t it bore you?—Winning all the time?”

I could never get bored of making you laugh.

“I could never get bored of making—”

Shit—

“—you—”

Make something up!

“—lose.”

Hawke rolled his eyes good-naturedly. He pushed Varric lightly on the arm, but then his hand… lingered, and…

You’re not supposed to think that sort of thing about your friends.

Maybe… Maybe Varric should get some air. Clear his head. Find someone else to talk to. 

Like Elren: he was here, and Varric had been meaning to ask about investing in his shop in the Alienage… Or Lady Elegant and her husband: they were here, too, and Varric did owe them a conversation, after—

Martin was coming down the stairs.

Varric glowered at him over Hawke’s shoulder, eyes narrowed— Martin immediately turned on his heel to scurry back upstairs, like the rat he was— and Varric sat back in his seat, ruminating, rubbing his chin in thought. Reminding himself to give Gallard a bonus. Reminding himself to go have his own little chat with Martin, in person, to really drive the message home about discounts and who to give them to.

As he did, Varric glanced around, and noticed that he could go find someone else to talk to.

Because everyone was here.

There was Thrask, a pint clasped in his hands, conversing with—miracle of miracles—both Broody and Blondie. All three heads bowed, their tones low, their expressions serious and intent.

There was Arianni, a rare smile flitting across her face, listening as Daisy taught her and—oh, what was her name? …Nyssie? Nessa?—the rules to Wicked Grace in her meandering way: pausing every other sentence to make some further, deeper parenthetical aside.

There was Viveka, whispering behind her hand to Jethann—and there was Jethann, slapping Viveka on the arm with a shriek of laughter—and there was Rivaini, not to be left out—and there was Junior, off to the side, still working up the courage to ask if Faith might be coming by.

And everywhere was Hawke.

It was strange. Normally Varric lost track of Hawke during parties, but not tonight.

No, not tonight.

Here was Hawke, beside him at the bar, snaking in a hand to swipe a swig from Varric’s tankard—and learning the hard way why Varric let him do it, this time. Coughing, eyes watering, thumping a fist to his chest…

…and then chuckling, leaning… towards Varric, closer to Varric… and saying, “Ah, so that’s how you got all this hair,” as he grazed a finger down Varric’s chest, swirling a thatch of his chest hair into a curl…

…and here was Varric, trying to keep his breathing steady.

Here was Hawke, draping himself across Varric’s shoulders during a card game—which wasn’t so unusual; Hawke wasn’t what you’d call a subtle or creative cheat—but then…

…lingering, as if he wasn’t there to cheat at all. Lingering, just for the sake of it; tilting his head against Varric’s, just for the sake of it… watching Varric reorder the cards in his hand, catching onto his strategy, and letting out an amused little exhale, just for Varric to hear…

…and here was Varric, trying to keep his breathing shallow. Trying not to take Hawke’s scent deep in his lungs.

You’re not supposed to think that sort of thing. You’re not supposed to…

Or.

…Huh.

Maybe Varric had gotten that wrong.     

He watched Rivaini pour herself into Hawke’s lap, still wearing one another’s clothes, and he wondered.

He watched Rivaini tickle Daisy, tucking her face in the crook of Daisy’s neck as she laughed, and he wondered.

He thought of her and Blondie’s brothel tales; of her jokey admiration for his own chest hair: of half the things she’d ever said to Broody. He watched her extend a hand to Broody, inviting him onto the dance floor…

…and Varric wondered if friends… did think that sort of thing.

Here was Hawke. Here were Hawke’s hands: taking Varric’s hands, drawing him out of his chair. Hawke’s eyes, smiling at him. Hawke’s mouth, smiling at him.

Saying, “Dance with me.”  

Had they ever danced together?

Varric couldn’t remember.

But if they had, it couldn’t have been like this.

Hawke like a flame conjured in his hands. Hawke burning beneath his palms, burning beneath Rivaini’s dress, still wearing it, his sweat making it cling to every line of him. Hawke spinning. Hawke whirling. Hawke laughing, his eyes two live black coals, at once impossibly bright and impossibly dark.

Had Hawke ever touched him so much?

Varric couldn’t say for sure.

But if he had, it couldn’t have felt like this.

Hawke like a flame mere seconds away from catching, igniting, consuming him whole. Hawke’s grin, blinding him. Hawke’s hands, alighting on his shoulders. Gliding behind; meeting at the nape of his neck…

“How’s your throat feeling?” Hawke asked, voice pitched low, as he lightly traced the back of one finger down Varric’s throat. Over the apple of it.

Varric shivered; he couldn’t suppress it in time.  

His throat bobbed; he couldn’t suppress it in time.

“Feels fine,” he rasped, and it came out hoarse, too hoarse; he couldn’t even think of suppressing it in time.  

Hawke’s eyes were such a warm, warm black. They assessed him for a moment; they grew even warmer, favoring Varric with a slight smile.

“Good,” Hawke replied. With emphasis. With weight.

No, Varric would’ve remembered if it’d ever felt like this.

The party spun on, and on, and on, the world around them one beautiful, benevolent blur, and Varric kept finding himself looking at Hawke, and wondering…

Wondering if…

There was this strange weakness in his limbs. Like some kind of slow-setting paralysis, and yet it… wasn’t unpleasant.

It wasn’t unpleasant at all.

And there was this instinct—this instinct to be very, very still. Not unlike that of a prey animal, and yet it… wasn’t an instinct to be overlooked.

No, not to be overlooked.

Varric couldn’t think of anything he wanted less, than for Hawke to stop looking at him.  

Maybe… that’s what the stillness was for.

…Yeah. Yeah, that was it.

It reminded Varric of the way it felt to have a butterfly land on you. No sudden moves. No loud noises. All Varric had to do was keep very, very still, and Hawke would stay on his arm, gently folding and unfolding his wings, just for a moment. Just for one moment more.

And it was then.

As Varric realized this.

That Hawke, suddenly, was gone.

Or, okay—not gone.

Hawke was right over there: standing at the bar with his elbow on the counter, talking to somebody, listening to whatever they had to say. His pose easy. Relaxed.  

Varric was just over here: sitting at a table nearby, but not close, and… somebody was talking to him.

He spared whoever it was a glance—

It was Blondie. His brow pinched, his mouth twisted, a worried cast to his face. Blondie was saying something; Varric should probably be listening.

“…haven’t asked me…? …neither of you… …a Warden… …the Deep Roads…”

Varric tried to listen—

But the party was spinning on, and on, and—

And Hawke was still standing there, at the bar; Varric was still sitting here, at a table; and Blondie…?

He didn’t have a clue where Blondie had gone.

But it could wait. It wasn’t important—and if it was, it could keep.

Because Arbana was here.

Arbana, sitting on his lap.

Her soft, voluminous hair. Her soft, voluptuous ass.

Her hips shifting, grinding that magnificent ass against his cock.

Varric bit back a groan.

“Your Ferelden friend keeps looking over,” she murmured, a flirtatious, knowing lilt to her tone. “The handsome one.”

There was only one person she could mean.

“Don’t—don’t say that,” Varric protested hoarsely, even as he dug his fingers in her hips to keep her there. Even as he canted his own hips to grind against her. Even as he pressed his flushing face to her shoulder, to hide it.

Not that it did him any good; Arbana knew his tells, by now.

She chuckled… and then she hummed, curious.

A pause in which she said nothing.

…Varric couldn’t resist. “What?”

At that, Arbana shifted to look at him over her shoulder, eyes dark with mischief.

With interest.

“You want him,” she dropped her voice lower, “don’t you?”

The groan Varric had bit back escaped him: it was a muddy sound, muddled with frustration, with pique, with abject want.

He buried his face in her shoulder, ashamed. “Dimples, don’t—”

“So, I shouldn’t go ask him?”

A queasy, worried curl in his stomach. “Ask him what?”

Arbana shrugged, wafting the scent of her hair all around him. She leaned back into his chest; she turned her face to his ear.

“Why he keeps looking over,” she said. More lilting, more flirtatious. She dropped her voice even lower. “If he’d like to… join us.”

Varric’s laugh sounded weird, even to his own ears: too abrupt, too strained. “He won’t.”

Arbana moved to look at him more directly. “What makes you say that?”

“He— It’s not—” Varric’s face was burning, burning, on fire. “He doesn’t have sex with his friends.”

Arbana studied him for a moment.

Then smiled wickedly.

“He wouldn’t be,” she countered, leaning closer, breathing into his ear. “You’d both be fucking me. At—the same—time.”

Varric squeezed his eyes shut, and a long exhale shuddered out of him tellingly.

Arbana laughed—

—and suddenly wasn’t in his lap anymore.

Arbana was walking backwards, smiling at Varric, as she made her slow, winding way in the direction of the bar.

In the direction of Hawke.

“Tell me not to ask,” she said, her face gentling, her tone gentling, “and I won’t.”

Varric stared at her. His eyes flicked to Hawke; back to her…

…And there was another version of events, wasn’t there?—A way tonight could have gone, in which Varric said no.

Arbana would’ve let the matter drop with a shrug, and not brought it up again. Varric would’ve gone upstairs with her, or back to her rooms above the bakery. Or he might’ve called it a night, instead. Cooled off alone. Put the whole thing out of his mind.

But Varric didn’t say no.

So Arbana approached Hawke.

Varric wasn’t close enough to hear them. He could only watch as Arbana tapped Hawke on the forearm to get his attention, smiling up at him winningly, tucking a wave of her soft, voluminous hair behind her ear.

Could only watch as Hawke returned her smile in greeting. As he bent a little at the waist to bring his ear closer to her, to hear her better over the music, the crowd.

Varric sat paralyzed in horror—Varric sat very, very still, so a butterfly might land on him. His mind raced to weave a lie, an alibi, a reason why this horribly embarrassing thing happened, something that might leave his dignity intact, that might keep his friendship…

Oh, no—

What if Hawke wouldn’t want to be his friend, anymore?

Unlikely…

Hawke was giving Arbana a quizzical look; he said something, asked something… Arbana was nodding, leaning closer to his ear to repeat something, to explain something…

Unlooked for…

It must’ve clicked.

Unparalleled…

Because Hawke was standing up straight, now… he was looking over at Varric, and—

…undone.

—and Hawke favored him with a slight, enticing little smile.

…What?

In a slow, fluid motion, Hawke crooked his finger once, and left, gesturing for Varric to follow.

One second of shock.

Two.

Varric stood from his chair so fast it fell clattering to the floor behind him.

He had to maneuver his way through the crowd, rushing to reach the stairs— Why were so many people here? Didn’t they have better things to do? Homes to get back to? —and froze.

Stood there, frozen at the bottom of the stairs, to find Hawke up there, at the top. Waiting for him.

Backlit as he was, all Varric could see was Hawke’s silhouette. His angles, his contours. The jut of his hips. The arrangement of his arms: akimbo, aloft, his elbows on either side of the archway as he hung off of them, leaning down. Looking down the stairs. Waiting.

Waiting for him.

“You coming?” Hawke called down with an audible grin.

Varric felt a flash of heat hit his face. Felt a surprised little trill in his heart.

And felt a weak, disbelieving laugh trip over his lips.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.”

Chapter Text

Varric raced his heartbeat up the stairs.

Into his suite.

Around the corner to his bedroom.

And found himself in a place where time moved both fast and slow, where time moved both forward and back. A place where he was rooted in the moment, in his own body… and yet, was… simultaneously… adrift. At the end of a kite’s string, unspooling, unspooling, higher and higher.

Varric threw back a stamina potion—to clear his head a little; to make sure his dick would rise to the occasion—and that only made the distortion stronger.

The candelabra on his nightstand, lit. Soft, sinuous yellow light dancing with shadow over the walls. Over the expanse of his bed. Over Arbana’s face.

Over Hawke’s face.

For there was Hawke, throwing back a stamina potion himself.

And there was past-Hawke: all the echoes of him in this room, wavering and strange, like glimpses of a thing spied beneath a surface of unstill water.

Every time Hawke had thrown back whatever drink Varric had on offer. Tipping his head back. Closing his eyes. The arc of his throat as he swallowed.

Every time Hawke had drawn his lower lip into his mouth like that. Sucking on it a little. Good ’til the last drop.

Hawke was sitting on Varric’s bed, now—and so was past-Hawke: the Hawke of just a few hours ago. Of this very afternoon.

Hawke wry, conspiratorial. ‘Come on, Varric, just tell me.’ Hawke disarming, Hawke unfair, Hawke in-on-the-joke-together. ‘Has it really only been once?’ Hawke patting the bed for Varric to join him, for Varric to…

To…

All at once, every version of Hawke opened his eyes and gave Varric a heavy-lidded look.

His black eyes rich. Arresting.  

And every version of Varric held his breath.

Arrested.  

Andraste, an inner voice sighed. Sighed it low, and long, and shuddering, even as the air in Varric’s throat stilled, unmoving. Andraste, I…

Downstairs, over the dimmed racket of the party, somebody was laughing.

Then the look between them broke— There was a hand cupping Hawke’s jaw, and it was turning Hawke away, turning him towards—

Arbana.

Varric exhaled heavily. Gratefully. For there was Arbana, turning Hawke’s face away, turning his gaze away— and Varric could breathe again.

And there, too, was past-Arbana. Unlacing her dress. Unsheathing her shoulders. Unveiling her breasts. Her lips parting to kiss—

For a brief flash, Arbana and Hawke were gone.

Replaced.

For there was Bianca.

Bianca, and…

…Shit, what had his name been? Agnar? Afrim? The one they’d hired from the Rose? Or that kalna from Gwaren?—the one who’d wanted to live it up a little, indulge in a safe-ish little scandal, before sailing on home?

Regardless: there they were, Bianca and whoever-he’d-been. Kissing, sighing into one another’s mouths, but… all the while stealing glances at Varric, trying to read him. Trying to please him.

Doing it for him.

Varric’s stomach soured sickly.

—there was a movement: a white shape, fluttering—

Was—? Was that Rivaini’s dress?

Varric blinked out of his thoughts, perplexed—

It wasn’t Rivaini. It was Hawke—they’d traded clothes at the party; Varric had almost forgotten; Hawke was still wearing her dress.

Hawke was lifting his arms, now. He was pulling the dress over his head, taking it off…

As was past-Hawke.

Always pulling a shirt over his head on hot days once the work was done. After scrubbing the daylights out of whatever his family had dirtied while he was out. The cookware, the floor, the laundry: the ceaseless, merciless fucking laundry. After killing slavers in the Alienage. After killing raiders on the Coast. Or killing bandits. Or those crazed deserters from the Qun.

Hawke, always peeling a shirt off his slick, sweat-soaked skin.

Varric, always watching him do it.

Always, always watching, wasn’t he? Subtle and sidelong. Always wanting, needing to know what Hawke was doing. Always noticing, trying not to notice, how Hawke looked doing it.

And Hawke always looked good.

The slope of his abdomen. The trail of hair that dived beneath the waistband of his trousers, drawing the eye down. The movement of him— his ribs, rising in chorus with his arms, as he peeled his shirt off —drawing the eye up, up, up over miles and miles of skin, miles and miles of lean laborer’s muscle. Every storied scar. Every amateur, scatterbrained tattoo. The gleam and wink of his new nipple piercings, of the slim chain that linked them: done in imitation of Desire demons.

To think Varric had ever looked at Hawke like a painting. Without heat. Without energy.

Without being moved.

At the end of a kite’s string, he watched Arbana tug Hawke down onto the bed, watched her arch up to capture Hawke in a kiss—and Varric felt a heat, an overwhelming heat, ignite low in his belly.

At the end of a kite’s string, he watched Hawke follow her lead; watched Hawke kiss and lick his way down her neck, her collarbone; watched Hawke flick his lower lip against the hard peak of her nipple—and Varric felt an energy, a wild, coursing energy, flash across his skin like lightning.

Crazy, he could hear himself thinking. Crazy, to think I once… that I ever didn’t…

—there was a touch: a hand, a hand slightly smaller than his own, gently circling his wrist—

Someone was touching him.

Arbana—it was her. She was guiding Varric, pulling him onto the bed. Guiding him on top of her, her hair spilling, pillowing, pooling around her head like a halo. Guiding his face down to hers. Kissing him.

Varric watched that, too.

Voyeur. Actor. Acted-upon.

All three, simultaneously, as Varric kissed her back with a fervor. As she hummed encouragingly into his mouth; as he slid one hand into her voluminous hair; as she took his other hand and placed it, firmly, on her breast; as he squeezed it for her; as she rewarded him with a roll of her hips and another pleased, encouraging hum. As he kissed her, and kissed her, and—

—there was a touch: a new hand, a larger, slimmer, many-callused hand, tentatively brushing a strip of skin where his shirt had ridden up—

Someone was touching him, but—?

Oh!

Hawke, that was— This hand: this larger, slimmer, many-callused hand—

That was Hawke.

Hawke, touching him. Hawke, caressing him. At first so tentative, so slight, almost… shy?… and then a little bolder. Rucking his shirt up another inch. Brushing over the small of his back, over the turn of his hips. This hand making him blush; this hand making him break out in gooseflesh; that—that—was—

Varric broke the kiss with Arbana.

He had to. He hid his face in the crook of her neck; he had to. He muffled the sound he made, the sound Hawke drew from him; he had to. He needed to bury it where Hawke wouldn’t be able to hear it, where Hawke wouldn’t be able to find it. 

Maker help me, he prayed.  

Even as his hips rolled, searching for friction, for someone to rut against, someone to press inside of. Even as he never wanted it to stop. Maker have mercy.

There were—there were so many hands, and Varric couldn’t keep track of them all. How many were touching him? Two? Four? Six, including his own?

Because all those hands were pulling Varric’s shirt over his head, now. All those hands were tugging his trousers down.

He was being undressed. He was being left bare.

At the end of a kite’s string, there was a thought Varric could hear himself have. A question he could hear himself pose, to himself: whether or not he ought to be feeling self-conscious, right about now.

He should, right?

It would make sense to. How else should Varric feel?—being naked and new in the same room as someone like Hawke? Being shucked, shivering, and undoubtedly compared to Hawke? Undoubtedly found wanting? 

Maybe he should. Void, maybe he should be feeling all kinds of things right now.

But he didn’t.

Varric didn’t feel self-conscious at all.

How could he? There was only Arbana, raking her eyes down his chest. Arbana, raking her nails down his back. Arbana, as eager for his body as she ever was. There was only the heat of her breath against his mouth. There was only the heat of her pussy against his thigh. Radiating want, radiating need: slick, and delicious, and ready, and…

…and there was only Hawke.

Only Hawke.

Only Hawke’s lips, sweetly parting in an expression of surprise.

Only Hawke’s warm, warm black eyes, sweetly searing every inch of Varric’s skin as he stared at him. As he stared at him, as… as if…

…As if Varric was a wonder.

As if Varric was a revelation.

As if Varric was some rapturous… something, worthy of cupping his hands around.

Something Hawke couldn’t bear to tear his gaze from.

Varric squeezed his eyes shut.

He had to; he was blushing, burning— he was embarrassed— he was on fire— he felt a pervasive weakness take hold of his body, sweeping down his limbs— he was crumbling, crumbling to ash at the tips of his fingers, the ends of his toes.

Maker save me.

Varric bit his lip, hard, as he prayed and prayed and prayed. Oh, Maker, don’t stop. Don’t stop, don’t ever stop…  

With that, the world began again to blur.

Beautifully.

Benevolently.

And Varric was borne aloft on a wave of beautiful, benevolent sensation. Was carried forth on the coax, on the surge, of a thousand-thousand beautiful, benevolent hands, including his own.

It—it was all so good. It was all so nice. It was all so blessedly, unreservedly kind that for a brief, faintly horrifying moment, Varric thought he might cry.

He eased his eyes back open…

…and stared at the scene before him, because there was—there was just so much to see.

Varric was on the bed, on his knees; and Hawke was on the bed too, was on his knees too, opposite him; and Arbana—clever, wicked, gracious Arbana—she was on her hands and knees between them, moving with a steady, deliberate control to devastate them both.

He watched her with an upwelling of fondness.

Oh, Arbana.

The full cascade of her hair. The soft cloud of it. How it felt in his hand— so light, so airy, for something that looked to be so heavy —as Varric lifted her hair away from her face, to see her better.

How prettily she looked up at him, as he did, from under her lashes.

How prettily she took his cock into her mouth.

So good. So nice. So kind, the way Arbana hummed with relish to taste him. The vibration Arbana sent down the length of his cock, to the center hinge of his pelvis, his entire body, shaking him through.

So pretty, the shape of her shoulders. The shape of her waist. The shape of her huge, magnificent ass, as she—

Oh, Maker…

As she steadily, deliberately, rocked back—and forth. Back—and forth. Back—

Oh, Andraste…

To take Hawke’s cock in her pussy.

Varric—he couldn’t—

He snapped his shut for the space of two, three breaths; when he opened them, he kept them fuzzy, kept them vague. 

He couldn’t look. Not fully. Not really. It would—

‘Can’t be tempted by,’ panted, unbidden, the memory of Hawke. Sand in his wounds. His grin brittle and full of teeth. ‘—knowledge you don’t have.’  

It would be like—

But Varric couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help it. He looked, and…

Oh, Hawke.

…and it was like looking directly into the sun.

Hawke was aglow. Blessedly. Unreservedly. His face so beautifully flushed. His chest, his abdomen, every inch of his skin so beautifully candlelit: a light sheen of sweat shimmering, shimmering. His lips shaping words he was too beautifully breathless to say. His hands gliding, tracing patterns over Arbana’s back, over Arbana’s hips, as he met each of her thrusts with a beautifully careful, beautifully measured one of his own.

It was like looking directly into the sun—and finding the sun looking directly at you.  

Because Hawke—his eyes so beautifully big; his eyes so beautifully round—Hawke. Somehow. For some reason.

Was watching Varric.  

As Arbana rocked back—as her pussy took more of Hawke’s cock—Hawke was watching inch by inch of Varric’s cock be revealed, sliding a little from her mouth, slick with her spit—and he looked dazzled.

As Arbana rocked forth—as her mouth took more of Varric’s cock—Hawke watched every inch disappear; watched every muscle in Varric’s belly jump; watched every pang of pleasure work through Varric’s body—and he looked mystified.

Hawke was trailing his gaze up Varric’s body, and…

…their eyes… met, and…

…and Hawke didn’t look away.

He was gazing deeply into Varric’s eyes, as if there was nobody and no one else around—as if Varric was a wonder—as if Varric was a revelation—and…

…and Varric didn’t look away either. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. He was captured.

Captive.

Captivated.

Somewhere downstairs, over the dimmed racket of the party, somebody was singing.

Somewhere—in the back rooms of Varric’s mind—somebody was reciting a lesson in Orlesian: one of those pat, practiced seductions he’d been taught once, long ago, in the language of prestige. If ever he should need to win a titled human lover for the good of his House.

‘Répétez après moi,’ droned, unbidden, the memory of his tutor. ‘Tes yeux sont comme…’  

Non, Varric interrupted.

His eyes slid shut to reject it, to reject the drift of his thoughts. Non, ses yeux ne sont pas comme des saphirs.

Varric, he—

Ses yeux sont trop vifs pour être des pierres.

—he needed to bring himself back.

Back onto the coax of this beauty. Back onto the surge of this benevolence.

Back into the present moment, blurring past him now in hazy, iridescent waves. Among the thousand-thousand shards of now, brilliant and crystalline, cutting through the fog of pleasure clear

Cutting through clear. Cutting through crisp.

Crisp as snow.

As the first bite of…

No. Varric cut himself off with a strange kind of panic in his chest. With a strange, insistent sense of self-preservation, rising up his throat. No, he—

Varric needed to ground himself. With Arbana; with good, nice, kind Arbana.

The softness of her hair. The weight, the feel of it in his hand.

The tight give of her mouth. The clever, wicked, gracious things Arbana was doing, right now, with her clever, wicked, ever-gracious tongue.

Yeah. Yeah, this’d work. Clever, kind, wicked Ar—

—there was a sound: skin slapping skin, like a spank—

It made Arbana moan—

Made Arbana moan on his cock—

Varric bit his lip harder, tucking his chin to his chest. He couldn’t—he had to keep his eyes shut; he—

His eyes didn’t listen to him. They opened, and—

A glimpse.

A glimpse of Hawke.

Hawke, tipping his head back with his eyes closed: the way he always did, when throwing back whatever Varric had on offer. Hawke, swallowing, swallowing it all down. Hawke, taking, taking it all in. Taking it all inside.

Sweet Maker…

Varric tore his eyes away. He had to focus on Arbana; he had to make this good for Arbana.

He would. He would make this good for Arbana.

She liked having her hair pulled. So Varric gathered the hair at the back of her head, close to her scalp, and gave it a slow, testing tug, to see if she wanted that.

Arbana hummed encouragingly, sending a little shockwave down his cock.

Good, good—what else? What else could he do?

…She liked it when he talked. When he’d lower his voice— with a firm tug of her hair; with a firm thrust of his hips —and talk her through it. Kept a stream of praise and filth going.

So Varric pulled her hair, just so; and Varric met her mouth with a slow, testing, abbreviated thrust of his hips—

And Varric started to talk.

“That’s it,” he rumbled. Low, raspy, just the way she liked it. “That’s my girl.”

Arbana let out a whine; she dug the nails of one hand into his thigh—and that was one of their signals. She wanted to spur him on. She wanted more.

“You like that?” Varric half-stated, half-asked, just to be sure.

—there was a sound: a sharp intake of breath—

It made Varric blush; it made the air leave Varric’s lungs in one sudden, shuddering burst; because that—that—hadn’t been Arbana. That had been—

But Varric couldn’t think about— He couldn’t let himself thi—

Arbana was digging her nails deeper into his thigh; she was hollowing her cheeks tighter around his cock; and Varric focused on that. He focused on the pleasure. On the pain. On Arbana. He had to make this good for Arbana.  

He had to keep talking for Arbana.

“So fucking eager for it,” Varric continued rumbling for her. “Such a—such a good little slut—”

—there was a sound: a half-strangled gasp—

It made Varric gasp, too. Made him blush hotter, flush redder, and—he couldn’t help it; he couldn’t help it; to think—to know that had been—

Arbana flicked her tongue on the sensitive ridge just beneath the head of his cock, and—

—and—

Oh, sweet suffering Andraste…

—Varric couldn’t help it.

“You like it, don’t you? How Hawke feels,” he said, and he shouldn’t— he really, really shouldn’t —but how was he supposed to not? Now, that he was finally saying it?

Now, that he was finally letting himself think it?  

“How big Hawke is… How he had to work you open,” Varric kept going—and he didn’t even know if it was true: he’d been too dazed, too afraid, to look for himself—but he kept saying it, and it kept sounding true. “How much you got to stretch to take him…”  

Arbana moaned, long and low and guttural—

And Varric moaned, half-choked, to feel her moaning tight and hot around his cock—

And Hawke—

—Hawke—

Hawke moaned, too, breathless, fluttery and high. “Oh, fuck, Varric, y-you’re…”  

Varric felt his eyes fly open.

Felt his breath catch.

Felt the sight before him burn into his eyes.

Hawke’s careful, measured thrusts stuttering, his hips slowing, one of his hands coming to rest on the small of Arbana’s back to steady himself. Hawke’s chin dipping to his chest in a gesture of defeat, his eyes closing—

His lips twitching into a weak, helpless little smile.

His lips releasing a weak, helpless little laugh.  

“…You’re going to—” Hawke’s voice curling tight at the edges, like the pages of a book set on fire. “—m-make me cum if you keep talking like that.”

A second of pure, blank shock.

Varric’s brain misfired.

Arbana pulled off Varric’s cock with a groan. “Stone, that’s so fucking—”

And she began to thrust her hips back harder, faster, to fuck Hawke in earnest—

And Hawke gripped her hips as she did, his mouth falling open, his body seizing into one taut line, tightly drawn—

And Arbana turned her head, glancing at Hawke over her shoulder, saying, “Do it— Cum inside me—”

And Varric had to seize his cock in a vise grip so he wouldn’t spend himself, right then and there, all over the bed.

—there was a sound: a desperate, punched-out whoosh of breath, bordering on a groan—

A sound Varric didn’t realize had come from him, that he had made himself, until Hawke’s eyes snapped up to meet his.

And their shared gaze held.

And held.

For another. And another. And another second more. And more.

And more.

Trop vifs pour être des pierres. Être quelque chose qui n’est pas vivant.

Hardly daring to breathe, Varric licked his lips…

…Hawke’s eyes sank heavily to watch him do it…

…and in a low, rough voice, Varric said, “Give her what she wants, Hawke.”

Eyes fluttering shut, swearing under his breath, Hawke did as he was told.

Hawke began to fuck Arbana in earnest: matching her pace, matching her thrusts, harder, faster, filling the room with the sound of skin slapping skin—the sound of her wetness—the sound of her voice, urging him to go harder, Hawke, harder—

Varric had to tighten his grip on his cock as he watched, wondering, asking himself if Hawke had always been so—

“—Beautiful,” Varric sighed roughly, the thought escaping him.

Hawke seemed to flush darker, hearing him—

—there was a… a shift, some kind of change: Varric could sense it, but…?

There. The candelabra on the nightstand: its candles were flaring, flaring sudden and bright, before they dimmed, flickering back down.

Wait, is…?

Could that be…?

Varric had to know; he couldn’t bear not knowing.

“Just like that,” he murmured, keeping his voice just as low, just as rough as before. “Don’t stop.”

Eyes still closed, Hawke nodded for him a little helplessly; his lips were moving silently, as if he were trying to speak, to reply—as if he were trying to hold himself back from speaking, from—

—the candles flared again, even brighter—

Holy… I… I can’t believe…

So Varric kept going, kept talking, kept saying whatever he could think to say—even as he lost track of the exact words now falling from his lips. What did it matter, what Varric said? The only thing that mattered was what the words did.

What they did to Hawke. What they made Hawke do.

Varric said the slightest little thing, made the softest little sound, and Hawke—

—Hawke— 

Hawke bit his lip to hear it.

Hawke exhaled a low, aching sound through his bit lip to hear it.

Inhaled with a hitched breath, one that made his bite release— leaving behind imprints of teeth on that plush, yielding lower lip of his —to hear it.

Breathed heavier, fucked harder, fucked faster— Made Arbana breathe heavier; made her fuck harder, fuck faster; made her call out harder—

Made the candles in the candelabra flare again, and again, without even seeming to realize he was doing it—

All.

To hear Varric.  

It was nuts. It was certifiable. It—it beggared belief.

And it was happening.

Somehow, for some reason, it was all real, and it was all happening, and that made Varric breathe heavier, too. Made Varric lean in, towards Hawke, closer to Hawke, and…

…and Varric wasn’t at the end of a kite’s string anymore.

That inner him— that part of himself always hanging back, watching the world go by and watching himself go by in it; so he wouldn’t miss anything; so he could remember; so he could write it all down, after the fact, and make something out of it —he was here. He was right here. Pressed up against the glass.

Watching the slim chain that linked Hawke’s nipple piercing swing and catch the light. Listening to Hawke pant; listening to the soft scrape of Hawke’s voice beneath every wordless sound he made—

And—

All of it. Varric—all of him wanted all of it. He wanted to see everything, to hear everything, wanted to smell, and touch, and taste—

All of Hawke.

All for himself.

He wanted to experience everything, to know everything, to—

Damn it, he— 

“Cum for her, Hawke,” he rasped. “Cum.”

—the candles flared bright enough to be daybreak— 

And Hawke obeyed.

He came with his eyes screwed shut. With his mouth open in a silent cry. With this… this look on his face, like he was teetering on the edge of a knife. Teetering on the border of agony.

Varric watched him closely. Attended to every subtle shift of Hawke’s face, committing it to memory.

A pause.  

Somewhere, far away, somebody who sounded a lot like Arbana might’ve been moaning.  

Varric couldn’t be sure. He was busy.

Slowly, almost tentatively, Hawke’s eyes opened…

…found Varric’s, and…

…stayed.

In that moment, the suite around them, the Hanged Man below, the entire city beyond these walls, seemed to hold its breath.

Damn it, he heard himself think. Damn it, I w—

But Arbana hadn’t finished.

She was easing herself forward, now, pulling herself off Hawke’s cock with a distracted, panted word of thanks. She was closing the space between her and Varric; she was seeking Varric’s gaze.

Her hand on Varric’s thigh, on Varric’s shoulder. Pushing him gently back to sit on his heels. Straddling him. Her mouth by his ear.

“Can I ride you?” she asked in a needy, hadn’t-cum-yet whisper.

Varric nodded wordlessly, a little distracted himself.

One of his hands settled on her back; the other swept Arbana’s soft, voluminous hair over her shoulder, to get it out of his face. Out of the way.

So he could see Hawke again. So Hawke could see him, again.

Their eyes locked over her shoulder—

And Arbana sank onto his cock without ceremony. Urgently she sank—and rose; sank—and rose—driving, striving, gripping Varric by the shoulders tightly. Her breath loud, her breath harsh, her pussy velvet heat, so—so wet, and…

More than just wet, because—

—the sound of it obscene: lapping, lapping, so fucking wet—

She. Was. Full.

Of.

Hawke’s.

Cum.

Varric’s eyes threatened to roll back in his head.

He clutched Arbana closer, his hands threatening to tremble on him—and she was dripping with Hawke’s cum. He drove his hips up to meet her thrusts, to fuck her, his thighs threatening to quit on him—and she was—

She was fucking him. Him.

With Hawke’s. Hawke’s. Cum.

Somewhere, in a distant, dazed place inside of Varric’s mind, there was a grateful nod of thanks to all the ale he’d drank. Or the stamina potion. Whichever, whatever it was that’d kept Varric from cumming just now. Or a minute ago. Or ten, twenty.

Varric felt his balls start to tighten, again. Felt sweat start to bead down his back. Felt his breath start to grow loud, grow harsh, like Arbana’s— felt her incredible wetness— felt Hawke’s incredible cum— felt himself trembling, vibrating, wondering if it was possible to shake out of your own damn skin. Felt his eyes lidding…

Lidding…

But he didn’t let them close: his eyes were still locked on Hawke’s.

It was a gaze like a touch. A gaze like two clasped hands.

Varric didn’t want to let go.

—there was a sound: Arbana repeating “Paszko, Paszko, Paszko,” to herself in a whisper, over and over, as if in prayer—

…Oh.

Oh, of course.

Varric had… nearly forgotten.  

They weren’t really here for each other, were they? This— all of this; everything that had happened, tonight, in this room —was about the people who weren’t here. The people they could no longer have.

Arbana was missing a dead man. Varric was missing a married woman. And Hawke…

Varric broke their shared gaze, his eyes falling.

Falling—and landing on one of the tattoos Hawke wore on his chest.

The name.

The name Hawke had scored, with needle, ink, and blood, into the skin above his heart.

Elunir.

A pretty name. A pretty scar. A pretty tribute for an undoubtedly pretty woman. She must’ve been. Of that, Varric was certain.

Not that he’d know. She was dead. Most likely, anyway.

At that, Varric’s attention began to… drift…

There was a memory. A lurking memory, hovering at the edges of his mind the way a figure might, just beyond the borders of a campfire.

A memory of camping on Sundermount.

A tent full of night air. The temptation of low voices, drifting in on a cold mountain breeze…

—there was a movement: light and shadow, sinuous, shifting over dark skin—

Hawke.

Hawke here, now, in the present moment. Hawke inching closer, his eyes round as a cat’s.

Watching Arbana ride him. Watching Varric’s hands hold her; watching Varric’s hands keep her hair out of the way, to keep watching Hawke in return.

Hawke was close, now. So, so close, just behind Arbana. Running his hands up her back. Caressing the curve of her neck. Making her skin rise in gooseflesh everywhere he touched.

Yet it wasn’t Arbana, who Hawke was looking at.

His eyes were tracing down the slope of Varric’s cheekbone. Were lingering on Varric’s lips. Were dipping into the bow and yield of Varric’s mouth.

The air between them seemed to thrum.  

His eyes flicked up to meet Varric’s, and there was… something about it. Something in the set of his face, maybe, that made it… seem like a question.

Then Hawke leaned in…

…leaned down…

…and, brushing his lips to Arbana’s earlobe, breathed something into her ear—

—all while holding Varric’s gaze.

Varric couldn’t hear what Hawke said. Not over the thrumming, thrumming of the air between them. Not over the blood rushing, rushing in his ears.

But Arbana heard him fine.

It must’ve been a question. She nodded, sighing out the word “Yes,” and released her hold on Varric’s shoulders.

Arbana leaned back into Hawke’s chest, into Hawke’s arms.

Varric dropped his hands to her hips to steady her— to shift beneath her— to keep the angle good— to keep thrusting, keep giving her what she wanted—

Hawke pinned Arbana to his chest with his left arm; his weaker left hand took hold of her right breast, teasing her nipple—

—and his stronger right hand snaked down to her clit.

Arbana rolled her hips to meet Varric’s thrusts, to meet Hawke’s touch, with a pleased, sucked-in breath.

Hawke, circling her clit with one finger; Hawke, drawing two fingers up either side of her clit in a lapping, beckoning, fluid motion— Again, and—

Again, and—

Again, and—

Arbana, arching her back, eyes closing, brow pinching, mouth wide and agape—

Hawke’s fingers, they were—were dangerously close to Varric’s cock— 

Arbana’s thighs, they were tightening around Varric’s own—her pussy was clenching—clenching— 

Varric bit his lip against a weak, helpless whimper, but it escaped him—

Hawke ducked his face into the soft cloud of Arbana’s hair, obscuring most of his face…

…but not his eyes.

No, not his eyes.  

He was watching Varric—watching Varric—

And Varric could feel it: those black eyes, that white-hot gaze, scorching him everywhere, everywhere Hawke looked. Setting him ablaze. A wildfire spreading. A wildfire at his chest, at his belly, at the base of his cock disappearing, reappearing, disappearing from view as Arbana fucked him; at his mouth, at his jaw—

A wildfire in his own eyes, Hawke gazing deeply into them.

The air between them, thrumming. The very air inside his lungs, thrumming. Thrumming, and thrumming, and—

A coil, low in his belly—curling tighter, and tighter—

Arbana cried out as she came, her pussy seizing him in tight, fluttery pulses—

A heat building, and building, and—

Hawke let out a little moan—

—Hawke moaned; Hawke moaned—and—

Oh, fuck—! 

And Varric came suddenly, came lurchingly, came on a choked, incoherent, garbled little inhale. He came with his fingers digging into Arbana’s hips. He came with a slight, confused crease between his brows…

…he came wonderingly, with his gaze floating, floating all over Hawke’s face.

 And as Varric came—

—there was a sound: an audible, fiery whoosh—

—a flash of light, bright as a grenade—

Before all the candles were blown out at once, extinguished, casting the suite in darkness. 

A pause.

For a small measure of time, nothing happened.

The room was full of things both heavy and soft, both hushed and loud.

Twisting ribbons of candle-smoke. Moonlight, filtering through high, never-washed windows. Deep velvet shadows. The scent of sex. The scent of sweat. The sound of panting: three people trying to catch their breath.

Varric breathed and breathed and breathed. He felt his brain sloshing to one side, tilting ponderously, like a ship caught in a storm.

He closed his eyes for a moment, only a moment.  

There were… things he should be doing. Right? He should… He should be thinking something.

…But what?  

His mind was slow. Sluggish. Thoughts took their sweet time arriving: late, lazy, at their leisure. Unhurried and unbothered.

He… should be cooking something up. He should be… coming up with an exit strategy?

Was that it?—What he ought to do, what he ought to say, in order to… extricate himself? From this, this… situation he’s found himself in. Gotten himself into. As gracefully, as… unscathed as he could manage.

That sounded right. He could do that. He just needed to…

—there was a sound: low, drifting voices. Hawke’s voice, conferring with…

—no, not Daisy.

Arbana. Hawke and Arbana, in Kirkwall.

They weren’t on Sundermount. This was his bed, not a bedroll. This was his suite, not a tent.

—there was a movement, felt rather than seen: his softening cock, exposed to air— 

Varric opened his eyes slowly, a little blearily.  

He found Arbana on her back. The crown of her head was nestled by his knees, her hair spilling around his thighs. Her chest still heaving, shiny with sweat in the moonlight.

Her legs spreading for Hawke, kneeling now in the space she made for him.

Varric’s eyes widened.

Hawke, with his soft, sated cock: thick, and lovely, and too hard to look at for more than a second at a time.

Hawke, backlit, with a wreath of moonlight adorning his hair: a ghostly halo, a silver crown catching the too-early grey in his braids. Glittering like pale jewels. Like tiny inlaid shards of mirror.

Hawke, with his plush lips parting. Hawke, with his focused, fervent gaze.

Easing two fingers inside Arbana—and Arbana sighing for him, shifting her hips for him, drawing him further in.

Brain sloshing heavily to the other side, Varric could only stare.  

Hawke hooked his fingers—and drew them back out, coated with cum. All of their cum. The mingled, heady mess they’d made, all three of them together.

Hawke brought his fingers up to his face, appraising. Admiring.

Then Hawke opened his mouth, and—

Sucked. The cum.

All. The cum. Off his fingers.

Varric couldn’t breathe.

Not when Hawke’s eyes were fluttering shut like that: like he was savoring something too decadent for words, something too sinfully, too unspeakably delicious.

Not when Hawke was humming like that. Deeply. Throatily. Appreciatively.

Not when Hawke was slowly, slowly pulling his fingers from his mouth like that, as if he were loath to let them go—

Only to draw his lower lip into his mouth and suck on that a little, too. Savoring.

Good ’til the last drop.

“Ohhh,” Hawke’s lips parted with a low, resonant groan. “We taste amazing together.”  

With that, Varric could breathe again—but it restarted abruptly, involuntarily, his hitched inhale too sharp for the hush suffusing the room.

And Hawke—

Somehow. For some reason.

—Hawke looked… startled. His eyes snapped open. Flicked up to meet Varric’s, a touch wide.

A pause.  

They stared at each other for a long moment, like two equally skittish animals who’d snuck up on one another accidentally, unawares.

It was… kind of embarrassing, actually.

Varric didn’t know what to do. What to say. He felt himself—his treacherous, untrustworthy body—flushing hot with shame, with…

With want.

And how did that even work? He literally just came, not even a handful of minutes ago. He shouldn’t be this wound up, not already. Not still.

Hawke gave Arbana a quick glance before meeting Varric’s gaze again. His look was questioning. Considering. Almost wary, almost…

He began to move, with that same questioning, considering air. He seemed to keep Varric in his eye as he glanced back at Arbana. As he brushed his thumb, testing, tentative, over Arbana’s clit.

Arbana purred, lifting her hips to chase after Hawke’s touch—

The air in the room tightened.

—a thrumming, thrumming in the air between them—

Hawke’s eyes immediately sought Varric’s.

And it hit Varric: Hawke was waiting on him. Hawke was looking for a word, for some kind of sign.

Mouth too dry to speak, Varric simply gave him a nod—

—thrumming, thrumming, thrumming between them—

So Hawke kept going. Ghosting his thumb over Arbana’s entrance, slick, spilling over with cum. Angling his wrist… Easing two fingers inside…

—thrumming—

Hooking his fingers…

—thrumming— 

Drawing his fingers back out, once more coated with cum.  

The air between them was impossibly tight, now, pulled to its limit impossibly taut.

When Hawke raised his eyes again to gaze at him—to gaze into him, with that questioning, considering look in his eyes—Varric could only gaze back.

Captured. Captive.

Captivated.

If Varric didn’t know better, he might’ve thought Hawke swallowed. He might’ve thought Hawke looked… nervous.

Hawke held his fingers before Varric’s lips like an offering.

“…Here,” he murmured. Hushed, a little hoarse. “Try it.”

And what could Varric do, but obey? He leaned in, towards Hawke, closer to Hawke; he opened his mouth—

—and Hawke’s fingers entered him as an enormity.

Varric couldn’t tell if his eyes were still open. If they’d fluttered shut, in much the same way Hawke’s had; or if they were still locked, still engaged with Hawke’s questioning, considering gaze.

There was only his own lips, closing fast around Hawke’s fingers with a surge of covetous feeling. There were only Hawke’s fingers. Only taste, only texture.

Varric took his time. He wanted to memorize this.

Their salt. Their silk-cream. Their bitter earthiness. The slide, the slip of all three of them together, intermingling once more inside of him.

Beneath that: the fingers.

Their weight. Their shape. How huge they’d become, here in his mouth, in such a small, intimate space. Knuckle. Bone. Fingerpad. Their sensitivity, as Varric searched them with his tongue. How… how tentative they were. He could feel it: every held-back twitch, struggling to stay very, very still—

It struck Varric strangely, the tentativeness of Hawke’s fingers. It was…

Sweet.

So sweet. Such… such a sweet thing about them. About him.   

To notice it—

It made Varric exhale heavily through his nose. It made his eyes lid— they must’ve been open, after all —as a rumble sounded from a place deep and low in his chest.

Because it was—it was just—

Fuck—

Wasn’t it just like Hawke, to have all this subtle, secret sweetness, squirreled away inside? Wasn’t that Hawke all over, to have all these funny, fussy, gentlemanly little affectations, just waiting for someone to need them?—a cigarette to light, a joke to ease, a finger to keep still?

—very, very still, so a butterfly might—

Wasn’t this just classic Hawke, to… to surprise him like this?

Oh, Maker’s fucking Bride— 

Varric sucked Hawke’s fingers for all he was worth.

He swirled his tongue, eyes rolling back in his head. He hollowed his cheeks, sucking hard. He flattened his tongue, laving. He curled his tongue, running the tip down the seam of Hawke’s two pressed-together fingers; he flicked his tongue against Hawke’s fingerpads, like they were— 

—there was a sound: a gasping inhale, gulping down air—

Varric’s eyes refocused reluctantly…

…and found Hawke, breathing hard. Hawke, blinking fast. His eyes big and round, flitting to gaze Varric in his left eye, in his right.

Hawke looked stunned. He looked dumbstruck. He looked…

He looked moved.

Nervous, Varric swallowed on reflex—

Hawke gasped again, and something in his expression seemed to—to crack—

And, with a knowing, flirtatious chuckle, Arbana reached up, curled a finger around the slim chain that linked Hawke’s nipple piercings, and drew him down to kiss her.

Hawke followed her lead, his fingers slipping from Varric’s mouth as he descended…

…and Varric felt their absence with a weird, discomforting pang.

A pang he ignored. 

Varric sat there on his heels, and ignored the lack of weight on his tongue. Ignored the echo of it. Ignored the way it vanished into the distance, the way all echoes do.

There was no reason to feel it. No reason to think about it.

A moment of vague, blank drifting.

—there was sound: a voice saying his name—

It was Arbana, extending her hand back for him, searching for him. Tilting her head back to gaze up at him with a breathless, open-mouthed grin.

Arbana sighing, eyes lidding, grin widening, as Hawke buried his face in her pussy.

Varric met her look with a half-smile, and mentally shoved his own bullshit away.

He swept the cloud of her hair to one side, to give himself a safe spot to sit. He murmured the things she liked to her. Focused on her reactions. Her eyes sinking shut. Her back arching.

He ran light, teasing fingers over her lips, down her neck, her collarbone. He leaned forward to play with one of her nipples, to—

—there was a touch: a hand, bumping against his own—

It was Hawke, of course. Their wandering hands meeting blindly, accidentally, just beneath the swell of Arbana’s breast.  

Varric went to move his hand—to play it off, pretend it didn’t happen—

But. Before he could.

…Hawke took his hand.

Held his hand.

Laced their fingers together.

Varric jolted, eyes leaping up to look at Hawke; he squeezed Hawke’s hand tightly, on reflex—

—and…

…as Hawke gave Arbana’s pussy a long, slow, lingering lick upwards, with a broad pass of his tongue…

…Hawke met his gaze…

…held his gaze…

…and squeezed Varric’s hand in return.

Time passed like that.

With Hawke’s eyes on his. With Hawke’s hand in his. Watching him. Holding onto him. Holding him in place.

With Arbana, hips bucking, cumming between them once, twice, more.

And with a frantic, faraway knocking in Varric’s chest. Someone, some idea, striking a fist on a door he didn’t want to answer, bringing news he didn’t want to hear.

A door Varric firmly kept shut.