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“Aveline is going to kill you when she knows you’re here,” Varric sets his pen down, glancing over to the intruder in his office. Hawke looks up from the document they were folding corners of and smiles, leant up against the wall with their legs stretched out in front of them.
“It’s fine,” they assure, and glance up at him from under long lashes. “If I make the Guard-Captain mad, I still have the Viscount on my side,” they jest. Varric snorts, shifting in his seat to angle his body to face them. Their hair is a little longer than when he last saw them. Curling around their ears in a brassy black. It’s longer at the nape of their neck, too, curling over their shoulders and bangs brushed haphazardly away from their face.
Elbow on his thighs, Varric leans forward in his seat, something smug in the grin on his face. “You’re on your own, gorgeous. Even I know not to mess with Aveline- you just have a death wish.” Hawke looks affronted at this, then hastily goes back to folding the document with quick fingers. It’s not long before they finish, and then there's a paper bird flying his way, a sharp point crumbling against his chest when it hits him. When he looks up from the paper bird, Hawke is closer than they were before and smiling. “It’s nice to see you,” Varric admits, and Hawke beams at him, lifts their hand to press their thumb to the crease under his eye. Hawke leans in to kiss him, and no matter how many times they have done it before, it never loses its charm.
Sure, they’ve both gotten used to it- But it's worn like a sturdy pair of gloves, something familiar and homey. Instead of sparks, it's just a moment of; "Oh. This is where I'm meant to be." When Hawke pulls back, some of the kaddis their nose has smudged further. The skin beside their eyes crease, and he notices there is a new scar through their eyebrow.
Hawke leans forward again, knocks their forehead against his own and pushes, a dull ache to remind each other that they’re there. It’s easy to settle into a routine when you’ve known each other so long- reunions don’t need to be so charged. It still doesn’t keep Varric’s heart from beating in head ear drums, or the re-memorization of Hawke’s long eyelashes against the tops of their cheekbones. He thinks, somehow, he was meant to meet Hawke. His life has been so different since they found each other the year Hawke and Carver and Aveline all came to Kirkwall. It’s… odd, how that if not for the blight in Ferelden he never would have met them. Once upon a time he would say the blight had ended before it ever had the chance to affect his life, but he knows now, Hawke’s hair tickling his cheeks, that that’s not true.
“Do you know how my Estate’s been faring? I haven’t had the chance to write Bodahn.” They pause for a second. “Do I still have the Estate? I don’t know the rules on inhabitance.” Hawke pulls away from Varric and stands up, stretches their arms above their head and makes a whining remark about getting old. Varric straightens the papers on his desk, and places them carefully in one of the drawers in his desk.
“I’ll let Bran know I’m going out,” Varric tells them. He wonders if they can sneak Hawke out without alerting Aveline just yet- even worse, alerting Fenris or Isabella or Merrill. Honestly, he mostly just wants to keep Hawke to himself for now, even if It’s a little bit selfish. He’s missed them, after all, and as consequence of the fade scare they had a couple years ago with the Inquisitor and the years Hawke was gone to Weisshaupt following- he feels like they could disappear like sand through his fingertips.
Hawke smiles at him through their stretching, and he thinks that this is what he’s been waiting for.
“Any new stories?” Hawke asks, and they look so giddy to be in Kirkwall again, walking side-by-side like they used to when their makeshift family was all walking distance, like they did when Varric still held weekly games of Wicked Grace, when-
Varric answers their question. Not many, and yet too many. One day, maybe, he’ll write about the Inquisitor, about how they’d stood death in the face and laughed. He might leave the bit about the fade out, or he may embellish it beyond all comprehension. It’s still sore. He talks about his tales of the Champion, instead, and Hawke laughs about how it’s so boring each time they crack it open, about how they expected pages and pages of Varric waxing poetry about them, and instead there is not a single declaration of love for them in his tale. They’ve talked about it before, and in a moment of Vulnerability Varric had told them there are some stories that don’t need to be told- that sometimes, they are worth too much to throw away like that. Hawke kissed him, then. They tease him about it now.
“Who's still left in Kirkwall?” Hawke asks, and Varric thinks for a moment.
Merrill is still in the Alienage. Fenris leaves sometimes, but he always winds up back here one way or another. Isabella still terrorizes the hanged man, sometimes, but she’s not around too often, anymore. She worked for the Inquisition, for a time. She prefers her life on the sea. But there are times that the wanderlust dies down, and she drags Varric to her old room and forces him into a game of wicked grace. He tells them as much, and there’s something soft in Hawke’s eyes. They tell Varric that tomorrow they’re going to see everybody. That it’s been too long. Varric settles a hand on their arm. Hawke smiles down at Varric, eyes full of something so very nameable to him.
They’ve always been sentimental.
When they see the door to their estate, Hawke sprints ahead. They have their keeps gripped tight in their hands, still pristine as they were so many years ago. The door opens, and steps in. Their dog hears them first, comes running into their arms, paws thumping against the flooring, whimpering as she tries shoving her furry head into Hawke’s vision. Hawke is laughing, and then there's a shout and Sandal and Bodahn are there in the doorway, wide-eyed. When he had to call Hawke to the inquisition, he had written Bodahn to ask him to watch over the Estate and Hawke’s mabari. The estate looks nice, and Bodahn grins as Hawke hugs Sandal as tight as they can.
They're asking Sandal about his enchantments, about Orlais, about how their mabari has been and how he's been, and they're grinning so, so wide. Varric knows how much Hawke adores Sandalm and its heartwarming to see them so happy. Bodahn is patting Hawke's back and answering the questions Sandal doesn't. He mentions that Fenris uses the invitation of their library each time he's in Kirkwall, how he is determined to write letters to Hawke himself, and Hawke keeps asking about him, about their best friend, their best friends, because apperantly Merrill still visits to keep Orana company or accompany her to the markets to splurge and spend her own money, or how Isabel still visits from time to time to write crude things in the margins of Hawke's books, or how Aveline stops by every week on patrol.
Orana appears in the doorway moments later, and Hawke lets go of Sandal to hug her, instead. They hadn’t realised how much they had missed them, Orana’s lute playing and the light in her eyes when Hawke would listen and cheer her on, Sandal’s smile and the open-handed way he pets down the Mabari’s back, Bodahn's laugh and the kind way he welcomes them home, as if it has only been hours instead of years. Hawke is telling everyone how much they missed them, is filling in crude, blunt answers about their own travels as if there are not enough words to describe it. The Mabari is running circles around the main room, and even pauses long enough for Varric to scratch behind his ears.
Varric notices with alarm that Hawke has started crying, and offers an excuse to usher them to their empty room upstairs.
It’s a home-coming too long in the making. Hawke clutches him and laughs when they fumble.
“We should get married,” says Hawke, under covers, idly watching the ceiling of their room as the lantern-lights play puppets in the shadows. Varric startles and laughs loud, heartily, and Hawke bites back a grin so wide it threatens to show the gap wedged between their front teeth.
“Was I that good?” Varric teases, and Hawke turns, buries their nose into the junction between his shoulder and neck.
“Actually, you were absolutely terrible. If you marry me, you won’t be with anyone else. I’m saving you and them the embarrassment. You should thank me, actually,” they answer, smug in the way they only are in after-glow. Varric pinches a nipple, and they hiss, biting his shoulder in retaliation before lifting their head to glare at him.
“You are terrible at pillow talk,” they say, and then roll onto their back again. “I do mean it, though.” A beat of silence. “Not just because you're the Viscount now or anything, either. I would’ve married you a long time ago, but… other things kind of took priority.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. He should try writing answers again, sometime. He turns his head to look at them. “We could elope,” he suggests, because he really doesn’t want to navigate a formal wedding as Viscount. Besides, the worst that could happen is Bran bursting a vessel.
“Aveline would kill us,” Hawke answers. “And I think Fenris just might, too,” they add on. “We could invite them. Something private. Family only,” they settle. Their hand finds his own under the blankets, and squeezes brief. Once, twice, three times. They roll over, straddle him with blankets twisted around them both and sweat still slicking their curled hair to their skin. The flush on their cheeks barely drowns out their freckles, and their kaddis has been wiped off. “We’re already practically married,” Hawke says just to be cheeky. “We bicker and laugh like a married couple. You’ve seen how much of a terrible drunk I am. You were there when-”
“You are a terrible drunk, sweetheart,” He grins. “I remember Broody had to carry you home once. I told him he should have left you out in the snow.”
Hawke gasps, loud and indignant. “Actually, I want a divorce.”
“We’re not married yet.”
“I will simply divorce you after , then. We’ll make a day of it. I’ll wear something nice and loose fitting that shows off my tits, and you’ll wear something tight and unbuttoned that shows off your tits, and we’ll do it all in one go.” Varric reaches his hands up to pull their head in by their neck and kisses them. When they part, Hawke’s eyes go wide for a second. “Wait a minute you fucking- you said yet . We aren’t married yet- does that mean you want to? Are you serious, too?”
Varric keeps his hands cupped under their jaw, thumbs pressed to the dimples there as they smile so blindingly. He’s been on the surface his whole life, but he thinks that the sun pales in comparison to how bright Hawke is when they look at him. They close their eyes, an admission of trust so heartfelt. Hawke is always doing that, letting enough of their guard down around him to be a statement. To be something beautiful. Hawke is always beautiful, and he drinks it up like the moonlight across their curtains.
“Gorgeous, I joke about a lot . But I’m always serious about you.”
Hawke leans down, kisses him breathless. He holds onto them as if they might slip into the fade. They hold on to him as if he is not real.
They hold on.
“I love you,” breathes Hawke, and Varric breathes it back.