undwarfy | Open post

"No you won't. You wouldn't dare damage both our reputations by doing something like crying at me. And no, it's not the thing at the Rose. Though, thanks for that." It's not like going to a brothel would really do much to damage her, except maybe in a few people's eyes. Half the city goes to the Rose. If her mother were still alive that might be another matter, but as it is, anyone else who wants to judge can go to the Void for all she cares. So long as Varric himself doesn't.

She looks up at Varric briefly, then grimaces, resigned. Clearly, he's not going to let this go. She takes a deep breath. "There's this...person. Who I fell for. But they're not available, so I'm stuck. That's it. Shit happens, and all that."

The fact that this doesn't really explain much, particularly not why she's been avoiding him specifically, is something she's really hoping he'll overlook. Though she doubts it.

Varric wasn't sure if it was the Rose thing, but it was the first thing that popped into his head. Her actual answer is... a surprise, to say the least. In fact, it's so banal that he almost laughs.

He doesn't. There's a ghost of a smile as he says, "That's why you've been avoiding everybody? Well shit, Hawke, I'm exactly the person to talk to about that."

With that, Varric thumps a hand on the table and orders another round of drinks from Corff. "Sounds like we should talk to some ale about this."

"Not everybody," she mumbles, then regrets it. If he hasn't noticed that the only person she's been actively avoiding is him, good. She might yet get out of this with some semblance of dignity intact.

To say nothing of their friendship. Hawke really, really doesn't know what she'd do without that. It's such a cliche that it's laughable, but she doesn't. Otherwise she'd have tried her luck and to hell with the consequences. But what would she do without Varric to quip with and snark at and talk to? Whatever other stuff her heart (or the rest of her anatomy) wants isn't as important as that. At least, she hopes not.

But she takes another ale, because why not, what could go wrong, don't answer that.

Another person might not have caught that; the distraction of ordering ale and the noise of the tavern may well have easily carried that mumble away. Varric is a professional listener, and it gives him pause.

So. She isn't avoiding everybody. He'd tossed that comment out as a way of giving her cover, and possibly as a fishing line: seeing what he could reel in from her in response. He hadn't expected something quite so revealing.

Time to be an asshole. Okay, no, but it's time to be his usual nosy hilarious (in his opinion) self, with only a slight ulterior motive.

"So, I gotta ask- what did Denier do? Did he have bad breath?" He leans in, an amused glint in his eyes. "Did he ask you to call him Daddy?"

The drinks come and he slides it over to her, letting their fingers brush just a little.

Hawke looks briefly disgusted at the call him Daddy line. Ugh. No, no, no, ugh. The slight brush of fingers makes her pause enough for that look to fade, though. Her mind goes very briefly blank.

Then she shrugs. Nothing happened. Moving along. "Too much beard. It itched. Should've asked for Jethann."

What? That reveals nothing. The idea of her not liking beards is an old joke between them. They've spent lots of time making fun of outrageous Dwarven beards. Especially Bartrand's, of course.

Varric kept taking in information and evaluating even as he carried on the conversation. Typical disgust at the daddy line (as was intended): check. Typical reaction to an accidental touch: ...not check. The pause was brief but there; a flickering, hitching thing almost buried.

Interesting.

He wanted to do it again, just to see what she'd do. The fact that he spent most of his time wanting to touch her had... only a little to do with it, really. Probably.

"I guess he wasn't working that night," Varric shrugged. He happened to know for a fact that Jethann WAS working that night. "You probably made poor Beardy cry."

If Denier had ever had tear ducts, you wouldn't know it. He was the kind of guy who probably cried rocks.

"Why? He still got paid, and it's not like he had any more interest in me than I had in him." Hawke knocked back a long swig of her ale. "That's why I left. It wasn't what I wanted, and I knew it, and I couldn't pretend it was even if I wanted to." She shrugged. "So I left. Nothing more to tell."

Partial truth. It'd mostly been the beard. She didn't actually have anything against them in general, but it was impossible to close her eyes and pretend for even a second that it was Varric she was with if there was that blighted beard around. Also he'd smelled wrong. And talked wrong. And wasn't Varric.

...damn.

"Hmph," Varric grumped good-naturedly. "I hate a boring story. But I suppose I'll just have to cope, since this one isn't getting spread around."

He knocked his tankard against hers and took a long pull before changing the subject slightly.

"So! Unrequited love, torments of the heart, star-crossed whatever," he began, rubbing his hands together in apparent delight at such excellent literary fodder. "Tell me, who's the lucky person? Or should I be saying oblivious moron?"

Because that was the only way someone who rejected Hawke could be described. Obviously.

Hawke shot him a glare. Oblivious moron definitely was nearer the mark, and his amusement at her expense wasn't helping. "Knight-Commander Meredith, obviously," she drawled. "I'm just desperate for her affections, but she's too in love with that sword she's got stuck up her ass."

She took another drink and leaned back in her chair. "You were going to tell me a story."

"Was I?" he shot back, noticing that glare with some satisfaction. "I recall saying no such thing."

He put his feet up on the table and leaned back, settling in. It was Hawke's play now, Varric had no intention of dropping this. "Out with it, Hawke. I can't imagine anyone refusing you anything."

Shit, maybe he was overplaying his hand here.

It was an unsubtle hint, but Hawke was annoyed and frustrated and a little drunk. Subtlety was more wasted on her than usual. "Oh? So that means if I asked, you'd drop this and let me get drunk in peace, hmm?"

"Nope," he smirked. "Not a chance. You've been avoiding me, so I'm gonna keep prying until you tell me why. Also, torturing you as revenge."

Driiiink.

"So no one can refuse me anything, except for you? Figures."

She downed the rest of her drink and pointed at him. "You wouldn't be being so smug if you hadn't put it together. Fine, your ego is stoked, how nice for you. Enjoy that."

She was actually pissed at him, for once. First time for everything. But blight it, he didn't have to rub it in her face like this. She'd leave if she thought she could do it without looking ridiculous. More ridiculous.

"I- what?" Now Varric was actually off-balance. No, he hadn't put it together. He put together that she was lying off her ass, and using her crush on someone unavailable as a cover for the real reason she was avoiding him. He also figured that while her unrequited love was probably part of her problem, it probably wasn't the reason she'd been avoiding him, and that there was something she wasn't telling him.

Now, though, he gave her a very strange look. Hawke was clearly genuinely angry, and under the impression that he'd had some grand revelation. "Are we not still talking about the fact that your crush on someone is 80% likely to be a lie you pulled out of your ass?"

Varric didn't usually just lay his underlying assumptions out on the table like a hand of cards. It showed how confused he was. The truth had occurred to him once, a few days ago, but he was dead-ass convinced that it was impossible. His touching a few minutes ago was just to test a reaction, and he'd thought the reaction was based on still being weird about something, or their friendship being on the rocks somehow.

The odd look he gave her painted a different picture from what she'd assumed. The anger drained out of her. Hawke groaned, then folded her arms on the table and rested her head on them, muttering various curses under her breath.

After a minute of that, she sat up enough to rest her chin on her crossed arms. "No, I'm afraid that wasn't bullshit, it was entirely true. And you were going to tell me why you're exactly the best person to talk to about being smitten stupid with someone you can't have. At least, that was implied. Feel free to make some shit up. Bonus points if you were as much of an idiot about it as I feel right now."

By the time Hawke met his eyes again, Varric look downright alarmed. Well, alarmed might be the wrong word. There was a wary intensity in his eyes, like he was about to jump into a fire, or possibly was handling live bees. Or like he actually was starting to come to a realization.

"That remains to be seen," he said softly, wondering how much of an idiot he'd actually been. "Hawke, who is it?"

She chose a dwarf. She'd been avoiding him- only him. She thought he realized something, something that would puff up his ego. Would- no. No way, never.

All the same, he had to know. Just in case. Hopefully she could hear him over the pounding of his heart- which he was convinced was loud enough to drown out the room.

He gets The Look.

That's it. Just The Look. The patented, trademarked, I'll just wait here while you think about how the answer to what you just asked is blitheringly obvious, take your time, I have all day Hawke look. It gets used a lot, though this might be the first time it's been turned directly on Varric.

Funny thing had happened during the card game: Merrill had sat here, and Fenris there, and then Fenris complained about being next to the witch, and between it all somehow Hawke and Varric wound up next to each other.

So he didn't have to go around the table when he got up. It only took him two steps to get close enough to kiss her.

Hawke was too stupefied to react, much less enjoy it. Varric kissing her was quite literally the last thing she'd expected. It was such a surprise that her mind went blank. She had absolutely no idea what to do. She was off script.

Then a hoot from nearby caught her attention, catcalls, Norah shouting about how Corff owed her twenty coppers and if he didn't pay up she'd haul him before a magistrate. All of that sank in, and with it all the pennies dropped.

Hawke stood up, grabbed the collar of Varric's shirt, and hauled him off to the rooms he kept in the back, completely ignoring the further catcalls. They'd have a lot to deal with later on that front, clearly, but she was not continuing this conversation in public, whatever else came of it.

As soon as they were in (relative, no doubt people would try to listen at doors) privacy, she--found she still had absolutely no idea how to react. She paced. "But...Bianca!" she exploded, waving her hands vaguely in the direction of the crossbow. "You have hello, I'm still in love with this other woman from my past and never going to get over her written all over you! You flirt more with your crossbow than me! In our first conversation, even! I've been trying to seduce you for years and every time it's always pity I'm not into humans and sorry sweetheart, I'm a one-crossbow-dwarf and Bianca's the one story I can never tell, and, and--"

She was practically sputtering. Anger and relief and all other emotions weren't yet relevant, she was still just too damn confused.

Edited 2018-01-30 12:04 (UTC)

He couldn’t argue. Hell, she was right about all of it, even if she was missing half the story.

At a loss, Varric stood on his tiptoes and kissed her again. For a lack of any real idea of how to proceed, it was honestly the thing he wanted to do most.

It had the advantage of stopping the ranting, if only because it derailed her train of thought again. But this time after another moment of shock the rest of Hawke's brain kicked in, took the part of her that was confused, and booted it out of the way for a little while so she could just close her eyes and kiss him back.

After a few minutes of surprisingly chaste if deeply heartfelt kissing, she pulled back just enough to grumble. "You are a nug-fucking idiot, Varric Tethras."

“Agreed,” he nodded sincerely. “For the record, you’re right about everything you said.”

Varric pulled out a chair for Hawke and sat down in his own with a sigh. “I thought I was still, you know, pining away for Bianca. I don’t normally go for humans- you look like spiders in skirts.” Judging by the way his eyes raked over Hawke, she clearly seemed to be an exception. “But come on, Hawke, I know how things go. I’m the loveable sidekick- the supportive best friend.”

His mouth twisted a little. “You think I would’ve said anything? You already have every head case from here to Antiva throwing themselves at you- and they aren’t a species most people consider hairy stumps.”

She sat, but the glare she gave him could melt a hole through the Gallows. "We're not Maker-damned characters in one of your books, Varric. I'm not the hero, you're not the sidekick. Real people don't fit that neatly into categories." She frowned even more at the completely unexpected lack of ego. "You've been watching me for years. Even if there are these hordes head cases pining after me, and I can't say I've noticed if there are, when have I ever, even once, shown even half the interest in them I do in you? Did you need me to paint it on my backside? Hey Varric, I pine and yearn for you and all those pick-up lines are real, love and kisses, Hawke's ass."

Varric could only shrug. “Maybe I just never thought someone like you would ever....”

“Never mind,” he cut off abruptly. Too real, no thanks. “So I’m an idiot.”

She would've liked to dig in deeper to that, but it didn't seem like it'd lead anywhere useful. Another time, maybe, once they were past this initial mess.

"And Bianca?" That question came out more quietly, and with a lot less heat. Bianca was, or at least had been, much more serious business than mix-ups over dwarf vs human attractiveness and years of not-really-in-jest pick-up lines and retorts. Hawke had never asked about Bianca before, not even to tease him. She knew when there were 'No Entry' signs up about someone's past.

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past tense god damn it

whoops sorry

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