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Come here for musebox stuff, PSLs, or post-captcha meme continuation. Put the verse or PSL or whatever in the subject line plz.
Hit this up if you know me and have an idea. Hit me up if you don't know me, we've never interacted IC or OOC, and you have an idea. Hit this up for any and all reasons. I welcome everything.
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They drink in silence for a few minutes. "She wouldn't give me details," she says finally. "Which tells us all we need to know, really."
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It's his turn with the flask again. He considers asking what happened to Justice, but even hearing that name makes his stomach turn. So instead, Varric stretches his arm out, flask over the sand, and speaks softly.
"To Anders of, ironically, Ferelden. Mage, Warden, smartass."
His hand tips, pouring some incredibly expensive Ferelden whiskey onto the sand- Anders' favorite drink, before Justice stopped letting him.
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She watches the thin line of liquid pour fall. It's a good tribute, a good elegy, very Varric. Anders would have liked it. Hawke smiles a little at the thought, and realizes suddenly that the main reason this all feels so strange is that she always assumed she'd end up running across Anders someday and having to do the deed herself, finish the job she'd left undone in Kirkwall. She doesn't know if she's glad or sorry to have it taken out of her hands.
"It would kill me to lose you." She can still hear him say it, so clearly, still remember how certain she felt when she promised him that he wouldn't. Hawke closes her eyes briefly. Anders, love...I'm sorry.
She stays like that for a minute, until he hands the flask back. There aren't any tears. She shed her tears for Anders long ago, wore out her heartbreak long ago, if not the guilt. A new layer to that, now that the question of whether or not it was her keeping him sane is a bit more definitively answered. The question of whether or not she ever could have prevented this, if it'd even been possible...that one will just stay a question.
But she's too tired to dwell too much on might have beens. Hawke's not prone to those in general. If she ever started, she'd drown in them, and to what end? Her choices were made, and there's no going back on any of them.
"Did you ever find out more about who he was?" she asks. She remembers Varric being determined to do it, hasn't ever asked if he did until now. Anders hasn't exactly been a popular topic of conversation in the letters they've written each other over the years. She could have asked the Hero, no doubt, and maybe later she will. Not tonight.
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"A little," he answers softly. "By the time I was able to send letters, the Circles were already shaking up and the Wardens were getting squirrely. In the end, I had to resort to following our lady Paragon around Skyhold. She kept pestering Chuckles with questions about spirits."
Speaking of spirits, Varric has to take a long, long drink of the whiskey and recuperate from the huge number of words he just said. It took a lot out of him. Times like this- he, for once, doesn't actually enjoy the sound of his own voice.
"She saw me following her and then it was my time to strike."
It's said without his usual flare; the melodramatic wording falls flat and empty without it.
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It's one comfort of Hawke's life, that in the end, whatever's happened, it always seems to end up with her and Varric sitting side by side. Fuck only knows what she'd do without that.
"Still can't believe you gave Solas my nickname. Though it suits him better than it did me." It's not much of a dig, but it's better than the strain they're fighting.
If he wants to continue, he can. If not, well. She's here, anyway. They've known each other so long that most of the time hey don't need to talk, they just enjoy it. Usually. She reaches to get the whiskey back, though.
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Mostly, though, he just likes the company. So does she, he suspects. He suspects she prefers to be the person giving comfort to getting it, and that she gets her comfort through comforting others. So, by leaning on her, he hopes she gets something out of it. His beautiful messed-up Big Damn Hero.
"Chuckles was just a stopgap for you. I'm still looking for the right one."
He hands the whiskey over and, in the moment when their eyes meet, gives her a daring little smirk and a deliberate snuggle into her chest. It's a spark of his normal Gentleman And A Scoundrel thing that he does.
"Aannnnyyway, as I was saying." No, he most certainly was not saying, but he might now. It's easier to talk like this. "Apparently he used to be a dick- the funny kind. His favorite curse was Andraste's knickers. Sometimes even knickerweasels."
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Right, back to the hard subjects. But then she laughs. It's short, aborted halfway through, but it's there. "He said that around me a few times. I'd actually forgotten."
It's...strange, to have a good memory back. It's not that she's only remembered the bad things, it's just that so many of the good memories are edged. "He told me he used to be something of a peacock. Pierced ears, lots of jewelry. Tevinter robes, even, the ones that are more an excuse for showing off your abs than actual clothing."
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Maker's breath, it's comfy here. And for once it has almost nothing to do with proximity to breasts- it's just about comfort, and closeness, and the steady drum of her heartbeat softly thumping away in his ear. The weight of her arm around him. Comfortable.
He leans the flask awkwardly over her chest to take a drink. "I asked him about the earrings once, after Isabela mentioned them. He said some kid tried to mug him his first night in Kirkwall. Blondie felt so bad for the little twerp that he handed the earrings over. Apparently they were real gold."
I hadn't lost it, just gone oddly blank? But have some BS
Well, there's Teo. There's always Teo, and thank the Maker for her lovable incorrigible hound. But that's different.
"Spill that on my chest and there will be pain," she says, almost absently, as she notices the precarious way he's drinking near her cleavage. Hazards of the position. "That sounds like him. I still think it was blighted miraculous that he was able to survive in Darktown at all, living as he did. Even with your help."
She knows what kept the Carta and Coterie and quite possible some of the Templars away, Varric.
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A stupid comment, but easier than responding to Hawke's other comment. Thinking about how Blondie survived Darktown would just make him think about how he didn't.
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Thank Andraste for that, especially now.
"Besides, this sand gets everywhere and you'd probably grate your tongue off." She swipes the flask back and takes another long drink. It's starting to burn, in that pleasant way really good whiskey does. "I never did find out what his name used to be, did you know? Never even asked. Wish I had, though I don't imagine he would've answered. What do you suppose it was?"
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He settles into her a little more, staring out at the sand. "Then you'd have an Anderfels last name- like Hermann or Martin. Maybe Schrieber."
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Varric must know enough of Anders' history to understand why the mage would reject his name after that. Anders always claimed that the Templars wouldn't call him anything but "that Anders boy" at first, until finally he refused to answer to anything else, but Hawke suspects his father is the real reason. And that's a subject that was even more rarely discussed. There was always a large Do Not Enter! sign barricaded across Anders' life before he entered the Circle.
Not that she blamed him.
The subject of names in general reminded her of something else, and she laughed a little more. "I remember walking in on the two of you discussing once why people never named places things like Kittenmarsh or Shinytown. Given that and what he named his cats, we should probably be grateful he went for Anders in the end, and not something more absurd. Sparky the Wonder Mage."
It was possible the whiskey was starting to go to her head a little bit.