Chapter Text
Three weeks, and the word Varric would choose to describe them would be ‘barbed’. The fact that the three day journey back to Kirkwall from the nightmare that was Chateau Haine had taken just over a week had not, unfortunately, as it turned out been enough time for the diplomatic hysteria to die down.
They’d managed to keep their return unknown for an entire day, arriving via a Darktown ‘dock’ that even in the bad old early days together in Kirkwall had been a venue of last resort. Bhodhan and Orana had willingly met all callers with polite, helpful and utterly stonewalling hospitality, delaying Hawke having to deal with any of the Keep’s ‘ambassadors’ for another day.
None of the others had argued with Varric’s statement that Hawke needed a couple of day’s downtime; contact-free. They hadn’t pressed for the details he hadn’t given although he could see the questions, and concern, in their eyes. Anders had been by once, briefly, to finish the remaining minor healings on Hawke’s ankle and ribs. And in a case of ‘do as I say, not as I do’ Varric hadn’t been able to stay away entirely; turning up late on the first morning after their return despite nursing a hangover that almost made him wish whatever they’d been drinking last night had been poison.
When they’d reached Anders’ clinic in the small hours Hawke had turned aside at the hidden entrance to the Amell estate cellars; the only anonymous means of returning that didn’t involve more rooftops than any of them were up to dealing with.
“Get some rest, all of you, and try and stay out of trouble for a few days. Killing a foreign Duke has to be some kind of personal record, even for us.”
The weak attempt at levity couldn’t hide the fact that this close to home and actual defensive walls, the shadows were back with a vengeance, tearing down the mental ones Hawke had thrown up to get them all home.
“Varric…I’ll see you at the Hanged Man.”
The words attempting to be casual, using up the last shreds of the mask of leadership even as the look that Hawke turned to him pleaded for the chance to go to ground from everything for a while. Varric nodded, intending to offer a touch light, non-threatening; and wanting to offer a patented dwarven bear hug. As if sensing his thoughts Hawke slipped back from his intended movement, vanishing up the passage into the dark.
When Varric opened his eyes after a long moment, glancing over to Isabela in the grim silence that lingered he saw the unspoken agreement that they weren’t going to bother making it back to the Hanged Man to carry out the only ending a mission like that just gone warranted. She’d looted several bottles from the nearest Darktown drunks, demanding Anders check them to make sure they weren’t actively designed to kill people as they’d commandeered a space in the back of the clinic to get down to the business of getting blackly, stinkingly drunk as fast as possible.
Anders had slightly disapprovingly commented that there wasn’t much in it concerning the bottles’ contents, but he hadn’t stopped them; leaving the clinic closed for the few remaining hours until dawn. He’d actually joined them when at some point the evening degenerated into telling the filthiest, most disgusting stories they had; and as a healer had produced some stunners. It was possible he might have won if anyone had been capable of that much comparative thought by that point.
Varric had dragged himself round to issue orders concerning repelling all comers; hoping it was a good sign that Hawke hadn’t emerged yet when he forced himself to leave, Anders’ own orders sitting in his head.
“If you go up there you’d better have the best bloody reason ever for not giving him the space he needs for the next couple of days. He’ll come to you, no matter what you might think, if he trusts you. Don’t force it.”
-o-o-o-o-o-
The healer might have been right, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. As a distraction the next two days had been spent determining which rumours he needed to quash, and which ones he needed to spread; and implementing the results with grim efficiency.
Around the third day Hawke had met the sixth, or possibly seventh envoy, right about the time they’d decided to send an actual ambassador not just a messenger bearing a summons. And provided an entirely sincere and impressively untrue account of their uneventful and enjoyable attendance at Chateau Haine. They’d taken their leave of the Duke early in the morning, an old friend from Ferelden who’d happened to be visiting with a passion for hunting and an unexpected business opportunity that had delayed his return from Orlais. And he was interested himself in the rumours concerning bad business at the Chateau.
Qunari? Well not that they’d noticed and he’d had practice. And assassins didn’t seem like their style, their methods tended more towards the brutally direct in response to threats or betrayal. But what military interest would the Qunari have in murdering an Orlesian Duke, Orlais being a signatory to the peace treaty…
For all that Hawke had never had an interest in playing the nobility’s political games and a bluffing ability that tended to be erratic at the card table; on a battlefield it was unerring, as was his instinct for sensing them. And politics was frequently only one very small verbal misstep away; right now it was a dance of bluff after insinuation after counter-bluff. But while they had no proof of the truth they knew about events at the Chateau, neither did the Orlesians. The rest of the witnesses to the final confrontation were dead, with one exception they were fairly certain wouldn’t be making an appearance anytime soon to enlighten either side.
And if Corvais was too experienced a player to believe the story given to him was the whole or even partial truth, he was willing to pretend; and to take the warning behind Hawke’s words as well as the political bone. Apparently such insinuations concerning Qunari, and Orlesian, motivations hadn’t been Hawke’s alone, and opinion seemed to be that when it came to it the Orlesians would be willing to let the matter lie when a sufficient level of pontificating had occurred in both directions.
Varric had gleaned some of the facts, and heard the rest along with the others, in a conversation at the Hanged Man that had eventually shifted to his rooms as a kindness to Corff; on the grounds that the glares directed towards anyone venturing anywhere vaguely resembling that corner of the pub were bad for business. Hawke had told it as the final chapter in catching everyone up on the sorry business; most of it. Casually; as if Varric might want to use it as starting material for his write-up. Since the status quo concerning that thrice-damned list was probably ever so slightly better than its presence in Orlesian hands, that smallest of victories was enough that even Sebastian had refrained from any form of commentary on the ill-advised nature of that particular job.
Varric was too busy being glad of Hawke’s presence to even make much of a pretence at a few desultory notes on a tale that would likely never see the light of day in any form for the foreseeable future. And along with everyone else he pretended not to notice the tension that ran through Hawke’s uncharacteristic subduedness and abysmal performance at the card table, behind even Anders and Merrill. Admittedly that might have been due to his lack of partaking in the dubious fortification that was the Hanged Man’s alcohol, another oddity let pass without comment.
-o-o-o-o-o-
They could have kept the game of ‘keep away’ with the Powers-That-Be going for a lot longer if they’d been working out of the Hanged Man. Since Leandra’s death Hawke had tended to end up there more than half the nights of any given week, regardless of whatever hours Varric was working. Other times, well, there was a certain attraction to having luxuries available on tap when they wanted them, even if he’d never admit to it in the common room.
And damn if it didn’t amaze Varric sometimes how much he’d come to love reaching his rooms at some unholy hour to find a certain human lounging in a chair, idly scribbling ‘notes’ through whatever draft Varric had accidentally-on-purpose left lying around; or sprawled asleep across a bed now about as tidy as if a nug had taken a dust bath in it. Or the evenings of Hawke leaning over Varric’s shoulder, purring creatively lewd suggestions in his ear. These inspirations would have been far more helpful if they weren’t frequently offered when Varric was battling Guild paperwork; which came into the category of an enemy that you could shoot, it just wouldn’t die. “…and those forms will have to be redone; in triplicate…”
For the last three weeks however, Varric felt like he’d been trying to negotiate a labyrinth where the walls kept shifting, frequently without warning. While hauling it across the wilds of Orlais more nights than not Varric had gently backed off, giving Hawke the space he wouldn’t ask for as he’d tried to hold the pretence that everything was fine, tried to hold back the flinches that anything more than the most casual of touches brought. Since their return to Kirkwall Varric had been sleeping, badly; in a bed distressingly unrumpled. And while he intended to walk this maze for as long as he needed to, would never abandon Hawke, he’d had to draw more than was pretty on his ability to wait for a plan to come together; to ignore the helplessness of watching his lover in pain, lost in the same maze. And officially the monster in the middle that you had to kill to leave was already dead.
Oh none of this meant that he hadn’t seen Hawke. That night at the Hanged Man had been followed by close to two gruelling weeks, a reminder of those frantic months before the Deep Roads when, within certain limits what had mattered most had been turning over jobs as fast as possible to keep the coins coming in. Back then Varric had been happy to frequently offer, and help with the work; wanting their agreement to succeed even as he’d been impressed with Hawke’s resourcefulness. Now it was supposed to be one of the perks that they took on that sort of work far less, and by choice rather than necessity.
The pace that Hawke had set had amounted to a relentless assault on the predators in and around Kirkwall that walked on any number of legs. They’d killed so many exotic creatures that even the Bone Pit seemed temporarily cowed, and Sol had insisted several times, slightly desperately, that there really was nothing he needed collected by way of ingredients.
Slavers, bandits and the remaining gangs still determined to work the streets against Aveline and the Guard had also not had a good time of it. Even if Varric suspected that several of their late night excursions had stretched the definition of ‘job’ more towards ‘passing idle comment’. He wasn’t the only one; Sebastian had frequently contrived to be elsewhere and more importantly, so had Aveline several days in. That conversation had walked closer than usual to the line of things being said that couldn’t easily be taken back, concerning where ‘assisting the guard’ ended and ‘vigilantism’ began.
-o-o-o-o-o-
“And yet you’ll take the ‘off the books’ help when your lot can’t handle things, as long as everyone dances along to your own special moral tune.”
“I’ve spent the last six years building up the Guard to make Kirkwall a city where the law means something; I thought in spite of everything that meant something to you as well. But this, this isn’t like you Hawke.”
“Still trying to cram everyone into your worldview through the power of denial Aveline? ‘This’ seems to have done me fairly well so far, and you once upon a time. But if you’re suddenly squeamish about lightening the hangman’s load, feel free not to come. We’ll try and leave something nice and easy for the Guard.”
“I won’t help you do your best to get yourself killed; and break Varric’s heart into the bargain, you ass. And this won’t help with whatever’s wrong; I hope you figure that one out before it’s too late.”
For all they fought like cats and dogs Varric knew there was genuine concern in her attempt; unfortunately ultimatums were a high-risk, high-failure tactic. And he could have strangled her for the loss of a frontline fighter; there was a reckless edge to Hawke’s battle presence that was giving Varric worse sleepless nights. He silently gifted Fenris a week, possibly even two of sarcastic retort-free brooding for his unquestioning willingness to cover that gap. In another gift of small miracles the triangle of bickering between him and Anders, and Merrill, that flared up whenever two of them were in each other’s presence for more than five minutes had been kept below a level where Hawke usually felt compelled to step in, despite his opinions on the subject of blood magic, and wrangle the party back onto the day’s misadventure.
And over the days Varric had watched worry war with exhaustion in all of their eyes whether they knew, suspected or wondered at the reason for the shadows that haunted Hawke in the infrequent unguarded moments.