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"It's probably good for him. Make him less of a stick in the mud," Garrett says, fiddling with a strap at his armor--tightening it, for once, instead of six years of loosening up, and as long as he drops that line of thought at superficial vanity, it'll be alright.
"Well, you made your bed, Hawke." Varric chuckles, "Literally."
Garrett's smirk softens as he gazes past the door, where he's sure Anders is waiting. "And I'd do it again, exactly the same." He pauses, thoughtful. "Maybe sooner. I was practically a priest for over a year. Do you have any idea what that does to a man, except make his knife grip considerably stronger?"
Varric snorts, but he still fixes Garrett with that knowing gaze, the kind of brotherly concern Carver never bothered with, and oh, that still smarts. "It's a little late for this, I know," Varric says, "but I hope you've thought about what you're doing--"
"The whole possessed mage angle, I know, I've already sorted through that."
Varric's tendency to be impenetrable is in full force tonight. "Possessed of something," he says. "If not spirit, definitely cause."
"Well, it's not like he's all alone in it. You know my feelings." And Varric does. On his bad days, Garrett likes to pretend that if Bethany weren't at the Templars' mercy, he'd have burned the whole Gallows to the ground.
The two seconds of silence are cloying and two seconds too long.
Garrett flops into a short-seated, high-backed chair. "So," he says, ignoring the creak in his knee, "we can keep talking about my swelteringly fantastic sex life, or we can talk about how there's a dragon out at the Bone Pit, and I want to outdo the Hero of Ferelden."
*