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i.
Like all things, storytelling is an art honed only so much through dedication and practice. Whatever those Orlesian bards have to say for themselves (and Maker but do they have a lot to say for themselves), all the training in Thedas means nothing if you don’t have the knack. It’s part voice, part pacing, part psychology, and part sheer, dumb luck. There’s a danger to stories because audiences aren’t half as thick as they make themselves out to be and they know when they’ve got a false story ringing in their ears. They know the difference between a lie that speaks the truth and a lie that serves itself and a list of irrefutable facts that might as well be a lie, for all the good they do anyone. They come to him for a million different reasons and a million more they don’t understand themselves, but he does. That’s his job: to listen and talk but more importantly to understand, to weave the strands together until even the most disconnected listener becomes part of the story by virtue of their listening. Because where would he be without a captive audience? Where would his tales go without fertile minds to give them home, to nurture them with imagination and gossip until they run rampant through the city all on their own? Stories are meant to serve man, after all, and even a self-styled merchant prince and sole heir to a name that means jack shit under all this sky is nothing but a humble servant plying his trade.
There’s no place he’d rather be.
ii.
She doesn’t trust his easy smile and too-smooth voice when they first meet, all swagger as he tosses back the stolen coinpurse and twirls his arrow like a street performer. Neither does she like how her brother warms to the dwarf immediately and accepts his business proposition. They need the coin, of course, because when have they not needed the coin, but that doesn’t mean she has to be happy about it. A year in Meeran’s debt has taught her how carefully she must allocate her trust; she never wastes it, and most certainly not on those who haven’t done their damn best to earn it.
But under vocal flourishes and brazen confidence shines something so real, so unmistakably genuine for all its embellishments, she can’t help but be drawn like a moth to the fire. The dwarf can calm a room with a few soothing words as easily as he can crack jokes in the middle of battle to distract her from the fact she’s fighting for her life. There is so little in her nightmarish life that feels both real and good. By the time she realizes this man has her irrevocable trust she is too far gone to care.
“Hawke tells me,” the dwarf says when they are both deep into their cups, “that you have another brother.”
No word of his is a mistake. The present tense tears at her heart and cradles it at once as she glances at her brother -- the one she has left, the one who has protected her from darkspawn and templars and would protect her from the Maker Himself if he had to -- at the other end of the table, engrossed in conversation with his friends. “He… blames himself, you know. For Carver’s death.” Her twin’s name will never not feel like ash on her tongue. “He never seems to want to talk about him.”
Varric reaches over and places his hand over hers. “I’d like to hear about him.”
And so she tells him. She talks all night, brushing away offers of more drink. She would prefer to remember Carver without blacking out until next morning, thank you very much. She waves her other brother away when he offers to walk her home, nods as their friends eventually stumble out in search of their own beds. When they are alone, and only when they are alone, she allows herself to cry. He doesn’t pity her, doesn’t give her false promises of it’ll-all-be-alrights or he’s-in-a-better-place. Those are nothing more than pretty falsehoods, and lies -- at least, lies like that -- aren’t part of his trade. He gets up and returns, pressing a mug of water into her hands (clean water, as though that were an easy feat in Lowtown) and a damp towel for her face.
“Keep talking as long as you need, Sunshine,” he says as he settles back into his chair with parchment and quill at the ready. When she asks about it he only shakes his head and says, “That’s not important right now. What is important is you.”
She talks until she is thoroughly sick of her strained voice, ugly and harsh in her ears from on-and-off weeping, as though she were the same girl who’d arrived with her family at the docks of Kirkwall more than a year ago. She talks until her head starts to droop and her words slide together, heavy with exhaustion. He replaces the towel with a soft pillow between her cheek and the table before the soft skrtch of the quill over paper resumes.
“There,” he says after several minutes, blowing on the parchment so the last of the ink dries. “Finished. Would you like to hear?” She is nearly asleep but still murmurs assent. He clears his throat and begins:
“Many are the unsung heroes of the Fifth Blight, brave men and women who stood strong in their conviction against unspeakable odds to protect those they loved. Among these heroes was a young soldier from Lothering, stubborn and headstrong as he was loyal and true. His name was Carver Hawke and he has never stopped being loved.”
His voice rises and falls with steady cadence, lips caressing each syllable as though it were prayer. And she supposes it is a prayer of sorts, that even if he’s no more an Orzammar dwarf than she is, ancestor reverence must still run deep in his blood. Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? A naming of the beloved dead, her dear brother who took a piece of her when he died. Varric embellishes but he does not lie, not as he names Carver’s faults alongside his strengths and makes her laugh with the power of her own memories. There, in the back room of the dingiest pub in Kirkwall, for just a moment, Carver lives again.
She barely stirs when a hand brushes the hair back from her face. “Sleep, Sunshine,” his voice urges gently. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
iii.
It is not as though anyone means to fall in love with Varric. And it is not as though he means for them to fall in love with him. It just happens. He likes to think of it as a character flaw, part of storyteller’s glamor that makes him so good at what he does and so devastatingly attractive all at once. Devastating being the key word here; nothing good ever comes from sleeping with bardy types, and he knows himself to be no exception. Those who do fall in love do so with a persona, a voice, a promise steeped in lies that, drained to its dregs, offers some insight truer than truth. With a husky voice and mastery of innuendo that can and has made the pirate blush, or with a soft spark of awe and reverence as he creates the fortunes of heroes, or with a disarming laugh and smile that puts at ease even the most unfriendly of crowds, he has captured and broken the hearts of more men and women than he cares to count.
He continues to rewrite his Ballad of Carver Hawke and tests each new iteration on Bethany. If she makes excuses to stay the night -- no funny business because he’s wedded to his craft and Bianca as long as they both shall live, and anyway he doesn’t think he could fight off a murderous Big Brother Hawke even if he called in all the favors in the world -- or if she stands a little too close to him and a little too protectively in battle, well. She’s young and infatuated and he was like that once, a long time ago, and knows how these things usually play out. She’ll find someone closer to her own age and height and that will be that.
iv.
Varric adds another chapter to his story after the expedition. Sunshine extinguished by darkest night and the sin of all creation; he could not inspire greater poetic irony if he tried.
v.
The mage is bad news, that much is obvious right from the start. What’s also obvious is that Hawke doesn’t know or doesn’t care, that after his sister’s death he throws himself headlong into a dangerous relationship with a dangerous man. Hawke’s problem is he’s a fixer, one of those people who can’t stand by idly and just let broken people be broken. Blondie’s problem, worse than being a fixer, worse than having an incorporeal roommate who makes him glow when a templar so much as looks at him funny, is that he has no sodding clue who he is anymore. He’s lost the thread to his plot and is, at absolute best, a secondary character in his own story.
Varric’s problem is that he’s a storyteller and has an unfair advantage when it comes to figuring people out, one that means he can’t help but root for the underdog and quietly rewrite the tale until said dog becomes a hero. He doesn’t hold out much hope for Blondie, but then again he doesn’t have to because Hawke does. And that’s reason enough for him to drop some influence with the Coterie, to go out of his way to invite the mage over for drinks and cards even if he does decline more nights than not.
If Varric knows his romance tropes, and he likes to think he knows them all, then sooner or later this will all go pear-shaped and leave one or both men crying for better days. Until then he keeps watch and prepares for all eventualities.
vi.
It has been a long time since Anders recognized himself in his own dreams. It has been even longer since he’s felt at home in his own skin. Justice and I are one, he has said more times than he can remember, but it’s a fool’s errand to imagine their union has left Anders with much of his old self to rely on. Even if it is his body they both inhabit. Even if it is his name he keeps repeating at night, trying to convince whoever-he-is-now that he’s still whoever-he-was-then.
He and Hawke crash into each other like cats in heat, all teeth and claws and pent up hormones that only mask a desperate need to cover their own iniquities with the needs of another. He supposes in that way they are using each other to deny their own uncertainty and emptiness. Misery doesn’t just love company, it loves fucking it into the mattress and riding it through the storm until identity dissolves for a few brief moments and it doesn’t matter who he is anymore. He doesn’t expect to fall in love with Hawke. He expects even less for Hawke to fall right back.
Varric’s tales, when Anders is there to hear them, turn without subtlety to tales of star-crossed lovers. Lovers won, lovers lost, lovers scorned, and the people who are left to pick up the pieces. If Hawke notices he says nothing and if Anders notices… well, he supposes it’s the dwarf’s way of showing he cares. Or disapproves. One of the two. His voice is nice though, set at just the right timbre for stories around a table with friends. Here in his room at the Hanged Man (Varric insists on calling it a suite but Anders thinks that’s far too generous by half) his voice is different than out in the main hall, performing for all the tavern. This voice, the voice Anders has come to associate as Varric’s real voice, is full of bright imperfections and bountiful laughs. He slurs when he’s had too much to drink, chuckles at his own jokes before he makes it to the punchline, drops the thread halfway through to bicker with Isabela over what really happened that one time at the bandits’ camp.
It reminds Anders of the strange companionship at Amaranthine, when Justice wore another man’s skin and their Warden-Commander had, for whatever reason, chosen to trust the both of them. It reminds him too of Karl’s room at the Ferelden Circle, though he would never be able to say why.
Varric catches his curious glance one night and lifts a mug in toast. His eyes are dancing with something that might be mischief and something else Anders can’t place but feels warmed by nonetheless.
“To the company of friends,” Varric offers and the others follow suit. Anders is surprised to find himself among them.
Safety, he realizes. Safe in his humanity at Vigil’s Keep. Safe in Karl’s arms after his Harrowing. He has not felt this in so very long.
vii.
Ser Alrik is dead and the mage is to blame. Varric can’t really fault him for this.
Ella is dead and the mage is to blame. Varric tries not to fault him for this either.
Anders is falling apart and Hawke blames himself. Varric tries to remember love is blind as well as stupid. He tries to be patient. He reminds himself that Anders doesn’t want to hear this was only a matter of time, nor does Hawke want to hear there’s nothing to be done in a situation like this. Dead is dead is dead is dead and no amount of grief or guilt is going to change what’s been done.
(Believe him, he wants to say, he knows.)
Either way Anders stops going out, so they come to him.
viii.
It may be Hawke’s touch that draws him from his fugue but it is Varric’s voice that is his guide. It’s a quiet rumble now, soft and sure without being kind because Anders is certain kindness would kill him now. He doesn’t want gentleness, doesn’t want absolution, doesn’t want pity. He just wants to know where he went wrong. He wants Hawke. He wants Karl. He wants to know that someone in this damnable city will remember his name when this is all over, because right now he sure as bloody hell can’t.
Blessed are the weary and the lost, for they shall find their way home.
He can’t say he remembers this part of the Chant or when Varric became the sort of person to slide scripture into his tales, but Anders lets the voice wash over him in quiet surrender. Head in Hawke’s lap, Varric’s calloused hand holding his, he lets them tell the story of who he once was and who he could be.
ix.
As a rule, Varric doesn’t go looking for romance and romance doesn’t come looking for him. It’s easy enough to deflect (“say hello, Bianca!”) and easier still to avoid. He sidestepped Bethany for one, and he knows exactly where not to be when Anders and Hawke start falling silent when he enters the room, exchanging significant looks with each other. (Not that Varric isn’t curious about that sort of thing and not that he’s not flattered, but there’s a certain level of co-dependency in that relationship that just doesn’t seem healthy.) Besides, he knows where he stands in their little social circle and that is firmly in the center, watching everyone else dance by. Someone has to hold down the fort and be both eternal wingman and snarky voice of reason. Just think of the children if he let anything distract him from his sacred duty!
Of course, he knows better than most that some rules are just begging to be broken.
x.
Fenris is learning to read and he hates it. He does not hate reading, what little of it he can do. He does not hate the rather ridiculous swell of pride at being able to write and recognize his own name. What he hates is pushing past the tiny spark of understanding into complete and utter darkness. What he hates, beyond all reason, is feeling the fool.
The words swim out of focus one too many times before he slams the book closed and tosses it across the room.
Varric ducks with all the inborn reflexes of a younger brother as the not-inconsiderably-sized tome cracks just above his head and lands on the floor in a heap.
“Fenris,” Hawke sighs, looking up from where he sits in Anders’ lap. “Not another one.”
“It was mocking me,” Fenris says, lips pursed. He drains his mug and considers chucking that too, if just for the cathartic release only a really good, really public display of anger can bring.
“Maybe you shouldn’t mix reading with drinks,” says the perpetually sober abomination currently kissing Hawke’s neck.
Fenris is about to suggest exactly where Anders can shove his advice when Varric bends down and picks up the battered book. His eyes light up as he says, “Got a first edition on your hands, Elf. Tales and Myths of Central Thedas. You have any idea what this is worth?”
“It was a gift,” Fenris says, inclining his head toward Hawke. “I’ve no intention of selling it.”
“Throwing a gift, like so much unwanted garbage on the other hand -- ow!” Anders rubs his ear and glares at Hawke, who does his best to offer an innocent face.
“I told you about messing with him. Please don’t.”
“I wasn’t talking about gold.” Varric takes his seat at the head of the table and starts skimming through the pages. The book is handbound and handsomely illustrated with the kind of illuminated knotwork rarely seen these days; Fenris feels a late pang of regret for abusing it so. Varric looks up with a grin on his face. “How well do you know your folktales?”
Fenris shrugs, still eyeing the book with some distrust. “What do you have in mind?”
“A little dramatic reading. You’ve heard of the Van Markham family from Nevarra, haven’t you?”
Anders shrugs and Hawke shakes his head, but Fenris cocks his and slowly sets down his mug. Varric flashes him a grin over the book -- what are you doing, Fenris wants to ask -- before clearing his throat and launching into the tale.
Well. The tale plus some embellishments.
Fenris has never heard the story of General Tylus Van Markham quite like this.
xi.
Varric doesn’t know why he does it. That’s the real kicker about all this. For all his bravado he is not, nor ever has he been, a man of impulse. And yet here he is with this story on his lips, spilling out of him before he has time to think. He doesn’t actually need to read the story; he knows this and every other folktale between here and the Anderfels by heart. But it helps with pacing, helps with dramatic tension and significant pauses, and it gives him an air of authority he rather enjoys, all things considered.
It also gives him one elf, staring at Varric in intense silence as though the dwarf were something incredible.
Varric is used to people staring at him like that. He is not used to how he feels now in return.
Emboldened by something he understands on a gut level but doesn’t have time to name, he adds a flourish. Another character, really. Because the general, who would go on to rule the newly established Nevarran kingdom, couldn’t possibly stage a successful coup against the tyrannical Pentaghasts all by himself. He needed companions, stalwart and true, companions from all across Thedas. He especially needed one companion in particular.
“Bound to no man, Lycaon refused to swear allegiance to General Tylus. ‘I did not escape Tevinter merely to enlist in another man’s service,’ he said. ‘If I help you it will be as equals, because I judge it in my heart to be the right thing to do, because I judge you worthy of my aid.’ The general didn’t know what to say, whether to strike the impudent man where he stood, or…”
It is the stupidest, most cliched thing in the history of the world, but Fenris meets his eyes across the room and it takes all Varric’s ability not to stumble over his own tongue.
“...or to thank the Maker for sending him such a warrior on the eve of battle, when he would be needed most.”
Not his most subtle moment, but then again… not all of them have to be.
When the story is over and the lovebirds have made their excuses back to Hightown, Varric and Fenris consider each other over their respective mugs of ale.
“That story,” Fenris says at last. “It was popular in Tevinter.”
“Was it now?”
“Among the slaves. The story of a man rising up to lead his people to freedom.”
“I can see how that would be popular.”
“Though I do not recall this Lycaon from any retelling I have heard.”
“Fancy that,” Varric says, closing the book and sliding it across the table. “Stories have a habit of changing as they travel. Maybe he was a late addition to this edition.”
(Maker help him, but he must be nervous if he’s making puns, of all things.)
Fenris regards the book for a moment before picking it up with exceedingly more care than when he'd thrown it earlier. His fingers brush the spine and Varric finds himself staring, wishing for --
“Will you read to me again?” Fenris asks softly.
xii.
Varric says yes. He reads to him again and again and again and again. He reads until the candles are burned low and his voice is rough with overuse, until it surprises neither of them when Fenris leans over and brushes fingers against his mouth.
“You have talked enough,” he whispers before trading fingers for lips.
xiii.
The city is going to hell in a pretty floral handbasket and the Hanged Man has never done swifter business. Nor has Varric ever been in greater demand. The crowd laughs and cries on his whim and a lesser man might think to abuse his gifts. But Varric knows at this point what he’s all about -- he’s damn old enough at this point, six years out since a little bird dropped on his doorstep -- and he knows the true value of his work. Money would just sully things. Besides, he doesn’t have to charge to enjoy the perks of being bought a round or two a night.
There is so much he wants to tell them, so much he wishes he had the words to say. He looks at how Hawke and Anders sit intertwined yet miles apart and wishes he could tell them that sometimes love just isn’t enough. He looks at an empty seat and imagines Bethany smiling back, wishing he could sing her the ballad that includes her name on the list of their beloved dead.
Tonight is a doozy and the city feels it. Brink of war, tensions high, storm clouds in the distance and they all want to hear something true. And so he gives them something true, on what he later finds out is the last calm night Kirkwall will have in a long, long while. He gives them a story years in the making and it still isn’t finished, still isn’t perfect. But if there’s one thing he knows it’s that perfection is the enemy of good and that sometimes -- just sometimes, he thinks to himself as he catches Fenris’ eye -- good enough is good enough.
There’s a calm before a performance, a really good performance, the kind that only comes about once in a lifetime and even then only if you beg. It’s like being at the center of a hurricane, winds whipping around you, earth sundered at your feet, head turned up to stare defiantly at the sun. This is his place. This is what he was meant to do. And this…
This is their story.