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“No way.” Bull shook his head in disbelief.
“I’m telling you, Tiny, I could do it.” Varric raised his tankard and winked over the rim.
“I’d pay to see that!” Krem piped up from across the room.
“Pay to see what?” Stitches whispered to him.
“Don’t know, but if it involves the two of them, it’ll be worth it.”
“There is no way you could bench press me, dwarf. I’d flatten you.”
“Wanna bet?” Zaryn asked, and it was on.
Krem took charge of the betting. Odds were heavily in Bull’s favor. When Zaryn placed a sizeable bet on Varric, his eyebrows shot up but he didn’t comment. Word got out, somehow, as word usually did, and more and more folks started wandering in.
Zaryn sidled over to Varric. “Take your shirt off,” she murmured, not looking at him as she spoke. “It’ll drive the bets up.”
“It’s cold in here,” Varric grumbled, but he started picking at the knot on his sash. At the sight of his biceps, a hush fell throughout the room, and then someone whistled.
Cabot grumbled as Rocky and Dalish moved one of the trestle tables to the center of the room, but he sidled over to Krem and placed his own bet as they cleared the tankards off the table.
“Wipe that down, while you’re at it, will you?” Varric called out.
“Yeah, don’t want to get that pelt sticky!” Krem shot back as he made another round. “Last chance!” He took a few more bets as Varric hopped up onto the table, laying back with a grimace.
“Okay, Tiny. Lay it on me.”
“One dwarf pancake, coming up. No grabbing my ass now.”
“How can I not? There’s so much of it!”
Amid a chorus of hoots and whistles, Bull started to lean back, arms folded across his chest. Varric set one hand in the small of Bull’s back and the other between his shoulder blades. Silence fell as he took a series of quick breaths and braced his feet on the table, then started to push.
When his elbows left the table the collective exhale of breaths would have extinguished a raging fire. As he continued to straighten his arms, excited murmurs broke out. When he reached his full extension and locked his elbows, someone swore. With only a faint tremble, he lowered Bull again.
Before the cheers could start, Zaryn shouted from her place on the stairs. “Double or nothing he can do three.”
“I hate you!” Varric shouted, but took another breath and pushed again. When he lowered Bull the second time, his face had turned a red brighter than his tunic and a vein pulsed above his right eye. A disappointed hum ran through the crowd as his elbows left the table for a third time, only to drop right back down again.
“Two’s the charm, huh?” Bull asked.
“Shush, you. I don’t have the breath for a witty comeback,” Varric gasped out.
“You can do it!” someone cried from the back of the crowd, and he did. On this last rep he held Bull up for a full count of five before lowering him for the final time. Rocky and Grim each grabbed one of Bull’s hands, pulling him up and off the table and Varric sprawled out, a very flat and triumphant dwarf, as the cheers lifted the rafters.
Hopping down from the stairs to the table, Zaryn offered him a hand and he took it, using it to pull himself into a sitting position.
“Congrats. We’re rich. Well, richer,” she told him and he grinned.
“Your turn again. Next bet’s on you.”