Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The night was young, and the bar was full already. The Hanged Man was a dive, but it was my dive, filled with the kind of people you wanted to stay friends with. Loud music drowned out most of the conversations, which was probably a blessing. Girls in short, shimmering dresses flung themselves around the dance floor, moving around their partners with frenetic energy. Colourful cocktails sloshed about, smoke wafted its way towards the ceiling from countless cigarettes. Another normal night at the Hanged Man, until she walked in.

I took a moment to appreciate her. With women like the Seeker, you took risks getting an eyeful, but it was always worth it. She hadn’t spotted me yet, so I took my time looking. The Seeker’s legs went on for miles, her body long and pliant, but sturdy. Her dark hair was cropped too short for fashion, but it only emphasized the harshness of her cheekbones, and her dark eyes, hot as coals. She looked good, in her crisp charcoal suit, but in a joint like the Hanged Man, the Seeker was out of place.

Mine weren’t the only eyes tracking the Seeker’s progress through the bar. Several shifty looking pairs of eyes followed her through the bar’s hazy atmosphere. Most of the smart ones took a quick survey and saw the same thing I saw- messing with the Seeker would get you burned. The others were probably about to learn a harsh lesson, if they tried anything.

The Seeker’s questing gaze finally found me, and there was no more denying that it was me she was after. In retrospect, I thought, going back to Kirkwall had probably been a bad choice. Not if I wanted to stay off the radar.

“Varric.” Short, but definitely not sweet. The Seeker loomed over me, arms hanging loose at her side.

“Cassandra.” I tipped my glass in her direction. “Care for a drink or are we skipping straight to the interrogation?”

The Seeker wrinkled her nose. On anyone else, it would’ve been adorable. On the Seeker’s stern face, it was more the look of someone who’s wondering what that smell is.

“Always charming, Seeker.” I took a drink, slung one arm over the back of my chair, and waited. Either the Seeker would relent, or I’d wind up with a fist in the face.

With an expression of extreme distaste, the Seeker pulled out the chair opposite mine, and sat down.

Silence reigned over our table, interrupted by the waitress, and by several intoxicated dancing ladies shimmying by to say a friendly hello.

I’m a patron of the arts, what can I say?

The Seeker watched all the carrying on with a wary, suspicious gaze. Once the girls left, leaving only the scent of cigarettes and perfume behind them, I couldn’t resist giving the Seeker a wink, smiling as I settled back into my chair.

“What brings you to Kirkwall, Seeker? Up for a little R&R? Wondering how the rebuilding was going?” I laughed. Unimpressed, the Seeker gave me a flat look, and I couldn’t resist adding “R&R, Seeker? Means rest and relaxation. I was wondering if you were familiar with the concept.”

Lightning fast, her face darkened like a thundercloud.

“I am familiar with both, dwarf”, she growled. “I am here on business. On behalf of the Inquisition.”

“That so? What’s so important it merits the Seeker coming all the way out here to chat? Or am I just lucky?” I asked.

I never could get over how every emotion showed on the Seeker’s face. Made you wonder how she’d risen to be Right Hand of the Divine with such a shitty poker face.

“It is a sensitive matter”, the Seeker spat out. “The Inquisitor would appreciate your… help.”

“You know if you missed me that much, you could’ve just said so.”

Being a smartass is going to be the death of me, one day. The Seeker’s desire to shake me like a terrier shakes a rat was written across her face so strongly, you’d have to be blind to miss it.

Subtly, a few bar patrons shifted, prepared for whatever was going to happen next. For a moment, the bar was on edge, waiting to see what the Seeker would do.

“On behalf of the Inquisition, I am to… partner with you and solve our current problem. Quietly.” the Seeker gritted out. “It is a delicate matter. One we do not wish to spread, and one which you have a personal stake in.”

Well. Shit.

Chapter Text

“Is there nowhere we can speak in private?” the Seeker asked, peevishly. Around us, the respectable patrons of the Hanged Man were doing their best impression of people who weren’t eavesdropping.

“I have rooms upstairs, Seeker. If I’d known I’d be having visitors, I’d have cleaned up the place.” I said, watching the Seeker’s frown deepen. She was going to wind up stuck that way, one day.

“How can I resist such a… tempting offer?” I said loudly, standing and smirking at the Seeker. “Sam! A round for the bar, to celebrate!” Our watchers turned back to their drinks, their gambling, and their dancing girls.

The look of poorly stifled rage on the Seeker’s face didn’t bode well for me, but she had never been a harbinger of good fortune for me, anyways.

“Coming, Seeker?” I headed towards the back stairs, trusting that the Seeker would follow me, if only so she could kick my ass in private.

Opening my door, I ushered the Seeker through with a little bow. Her face contorted strangely, as I followed her through and lit the lamps.

Politely, I ignored her expression of disbelief, though it was always a fulfilling feeling to have one over the Seeker. The suite I’d claimed for my own was opulent. Plush carpets, ornate furniture, the works.

“Well then. You going to tell me what all this is about?” I crossed the room and sprawled in the armchair behind my desk. The Seeker took about a half second to adjust her face back to its usual disdain, before shunning the other chair in favour of towering over my desk.

“I have no patience for your usual… impudence.” The Seeker said.

I was pretty sure I could guess what word she’d omitted in favour of impudence. So of course I slouched further in my armchair, and watched as the Seeker’s eyes flicked down to the open neck of my shirt.

“My eyes are up here, Seeker.”

“Must you always be so... “ she gestured wordlessly at my tunic.

“Roguishly handsome? Chiseled and manly? Virile?” I suggested.

The Seeker muttered something unflattering about my ancestors in Nevarran, and sat down.

“Enough of your foolishness, Varric.” In the light thrown by the lamps, the Seeker’s face was even sharper hewn than usual. “The Inquisition has sent me here because of this… and some rumours.”

The Seeker pulled a slim box, about the size of a cigar box, made of metal, and placed it on my desk. I reached over and flipped open the lid. Heavier than I’d expected, and when I saw the small idol inside, I was confused.

“Bringing me presents, Seeker?” The painted idol of Andraste sat in its case, inoffensive.

The Seeker grunted in exasperation.

“Do you never think before you talk, dwarf?”

I dragged the box closer. Still only a small, crude idol of Andraste.

It called to me, somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear the faintest whisper of a song.

“Seeker, tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”

“I cannot. It is the only one of its kind we have found whole. Idols of Andraste, carved from red lyrium.”

“Fuck.” I sat back in my chair, and pushed the idol back to the Seeker. “Why the hell did you bring that with you?”

“As I said, it is the only one we have found whole. Dagna has taken a sample of it, but requires more information.” The Seeker closed the box’s lid, and the singing stopped. “Though she did create the box, a slimmer version of traditional dwarven lyrium containers.”

A wry smile crossed the Seeker’s face, and I was pretty sure I didn’t like it.

“She says it ought to prevent us from the effects of the red lyrium. Probaby.”

“Ancestors.” I trusted Dagna, insofar as you can trust anyone that smart. But red lyrium had done worse to smarter people. “And we’re supposed to just carry that thing around with us?”

“I will keep it, if the idol bothers you that much, Varric.” the Seeker said. “I did not forget the circumstances of our first meeting.”

“Ever replace that copy of Tale of the Champion? You know, the one with the big dagger through it?” I asked.

“I...did not. As you well know, Varric.” the Seeker shifted in her seat, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve said she was a little embarrassed.  “Regardless. The Inquisitor has requested we find the source of the red lyrium, how they’re creating this protective coating, and why.”

“Big job.” Too big for two people.

“The information we’ve managed to gather suggests there is a lead here in Kirkwall. Dagna is certain the protective coating could only be the work of a mage.” The Seeker looked around her, “We are to find whether there is any mage with Venatori sympathies in the city. Past that, it is up to our own discretion, and whether it merits additional agents from the Inquisition.”

I sighed. Talk about your thankless jobs. Seemed not much had changed, since I’d left the Inquisition behind. The Inquisitor was still aiming for patron saint of lost causes. And bees, if Sera had a say.

The Seeker tucked the box back into a pocket of her suit, and stood up. “I will find you tomorrow, Varric. Early.”

“You’ll find me asleep, then.” I retorted.

The Seeker shot me a scathing look, one no doubt reserved for layabouts who weren’t up at the crack of dawn every day.

“Early, Varric. I have no desire to stay in this city longer than needed.” With that, the Seeker turned on her heel and left.

Brusque, as always. Cassandra had no tact. Nice to see some things never changed, I thought. Well, if I was going to spend however long with one surly Seeker, hunting down some crazed assholes who thought dealing with red lyrium was a brilliant idea, I damn well wasn’t going to spend my last free night worrying about it all.

Back in the Hanged Man’s main room, the crowd greeted me with a roar. Amazing what friendship free drinks will buy you. Picking up a drink of my own, I settled in to enjoy the raucous joy of music and dance. One last night before everything went to shit.

Chapter Text

“Varric. Varric!” The Seeker’s insistent voice was the first thing to cut through my sleep, before she tore the covers off my bed.  

“Maker take you!” Was the second thing I heard.

Slowly, I sat up and pulled the blankets back up to waist height. “Good morning to you too, Cassandra.”

It was always a treat to see the usually stern Seeker get her feathers ruffled, but this time the price was a little steep. Still, I’m not so attached to my own dignity that I couldn’t find the whole thing funny.

“I apologize, Varric. I did not think before I acted.” The Seeker told my bedroom door. “There was another message from the Inquisitor waiting for me this morning.”

That sounded like the kind of thing you should wear pants for. Mine were draped on the chair where I’d left them.

“No peeking, Seeker.” I stood up, waited for the noise of disgust from the Seeker, and grabbed my clothes.

“I’m decent, Seeker.” I said modestly, flicking the blankets back over my bed.

“For once.” Cassandra said under her breath.

“Was that a joke?” Gods, it was barely dawn, and the Seeker was cracking wise. Too damn early for that, by far.

“Much as I’d like to go dashing off into the unknown towards certain danger, food might be a good idea. Eaten yet, Seeker?”

Her stomach rumbled in response, which I figured meant she’d appreciate a bit of breakfast.

“I would rather not let this lead go cold, Varric.”

“Man cannot exist on justice alone, Seeker.”

We compromised, which meant neither of us were particularly thrilled with the outcome. Mostly me, since the Seeker’s idea of a compromise was that we’d exist on justice, and I’d be grateful to not eat dirt.

Outside the Hanged Man, a sleek looking black Daimler lurked, surprisingly unmolested by the inhabitants of Lowtown which was a small miracle. A group of ragged looking kids clustered around it, admiring the car’s sleek lines and standing on the runners.

As we neared the car, the kids scattered. One look at the Seeker’s face told me why no one had bothered trying anything with her car. Someone who wanted to risk the wrath of Cassandra Pentaghast was someone very stupid or very confident. Maybe both. I was pretty sure I knew which category I was in.

Cassandra slid behind the car’s wheel, and I couldn’t help but think they’d been made for eachother. Fierce, predatory lines, smooth and flowing, the kind you wanted to run your hands over.

Thoughts like that were liable to get me in more trouble than they were worth.

“Inquisitor letting you drive? Pixie’s got a death wish.” I remarked.

The only response I got was a grunt, as the Seeker peeled away from the curb.

“How’s the Pixie, anyways? Been a while since I had a letter.”

“She is well. As is Sera.” The Seeker’s lips quirked up a fraction, and she darted a quick look my way “They filled my luggage with unmentionable things three times. I had to hide my suitcase with Cole.”

That made me laugh. The kind of things the Seeker deemed ‘unmentionable’ ranged from underclothes to rude looking vegetables. And ostensibly romance novels, if you asked her.

“Not going to share, Seeker? Probably for the best, the truth couldn’t beat what I could imagine.”

“They were… violently red. And transparent.” Cassandra said, that same smile playing around her mouth. “Where they found such things, I do not know.”

“That.. leaves a hell of a lot to the imagination.”

“The same can’t be said for them. I expect I have Bull to blame for that particular ‘gift’. He asked after you. Sends his regards, as does Dorian.” Cassandra carefully steered the long bonnet of the car through the Lowtown streets.

The Daimler purred through Lowtown, the opposite of subtle.

“You know if you wanted to blend in, you picked the wrong time and the wrong car,” I told her, watching Lowtown blur through the window. “Everyone knows Lowtown doesn’t come alive til evening.”

“I know.” The Seeker turned the car around another corner, towards the docks.

“I really hope you have a plan beyond ‘look obvious and hope the bad guys try and shoot us’, Seeker.” We were drawing attention from every beggar, brigand, and sailor we passed. Not that I could blame them, the Daimler was damn sexy.

“Of course. The car was the Inquisitor’s idea.” Cassandra slid a hand along the dashboard, stroking the black leather. “A subtle but strong reminder that the Inquisition is not afraid.”

“I get the feeling you’d like to be alone with the car, Seeker.” I said. Hell, I wanted to be alone with the car. “She got a name?”

“The car? Varric, you are the only one who gives names to objects.” The Seeker gave me some serious side-eye.

I patted Bianca’s holster protectively. “There there, Bianca baby. The Seeker’s just jealous.”

“I am not jealous, Varric. The way you fondle that gun is… obscene at best.”

“Definitely jealous.” I said, tempting fate.

The Seeker took the next corner a bit sharply, and I slammed against the passenger side door.

“I beg your pardon, Varric. The streets here are a bit narrow.” The Seeker’s lips were pressed together tightly, the way they were when she was trying not to look pleased.

“Alright. I’ll can the smart ass remarks. Fill me in on this lead of yours.” I said.

The Seeker made a noncommittal noise, and pulled a slip of paper from her breast pocket.

“This is the note the Inquisitor sent. Does it sound like anyone you might know?”

“Seeker, I don’t want to shock you but it’s entirely possible I don’t know every apostate mage, thief, and pirate in this town.” I said, only a little serious.

The note, in Pixie’s looping handwriting, stated that the Inquisition had received a request from a woman in Kirkwall whose daughter had disappeared from the College of Magi. A mage, studying the effects of red lyrium, and containment methods for it.

“I take it we’re going to talk to the mage’s mother, then?” I studied the note. Sera had decorated one margin with bees shooting out of an arse. “You know she could just be dead. This isn’t much of a lead, Seeker.”

Definitely not enough of a lead to merit yanking me out of bed at an ungodly hour.

“It is possible. Either way, it is the best we can do.” The Seeker gently eased the Daimler into a parking spot in front of a dilapidated apartment building. “We have no other leads, and the timing is too close.”

The neighbourhood was typical of Lowtown, particularly the area near the docks. Run down, but there was a little pride on display. The steps of the apartment block were clean, the doors and shutters had all been painted within the last few years, and someone was trying to raise flowers in small chipped pots arranged along the stoop’s edge. As always in Lowtown, we were being watched. The watchers probably didn’t have any malicious intent, just the ever present curiosity of people who trade on what they did or didn’t see.

Cassandra shut the car down, and went through the motions of checking her gear. Gun, ankle gun, knife, extra rounds, extra knife, and well. That was new.

“Brass knuckles, Seeker? Little low brow of you.”

Cassandra ignored me, tucked the brass knuckles into her jacket pocket, and let herself out onto the street.

My fingers slipped down to check Bianca, lingered on her engraved grip. I wasn’t too worried, but it never hurt to be prepared.

I had a sinking feeling it was going to be a long morning.

Chapter Text

Jane Bourne, the missing mage’s mother, was a washed out, pinched looking woman. In her little apartment, there wasn’t much evidence of more than one person. A small altar to Andraste rested on one shelf, while religious icons dotted the walls between potted plants in varying states of death.

“Auri wasn’t what you’d call consistent. Not by a long stretch.” she said, twisting bony hands together. “Sent me letters on and off, usually for the holidays, or when something reminded her she had a mother.”

“Did she tell you of her studies? Her friends? Anything about where she might’ve gone?” Cassandra asked.

“Not much. Expect she thought it was over my head.” The woman’s thin lips compressed into a line, nearly disappearing in her pale face. “Said something about somebody comin’ to hire her on, but after that I don’t know. Probably forgot about me, haring off halfway cross the country on her own business.”

“That’s a shame. Can’t imagine what would drive a kid to be so disrespectful,” I said.

Cassandra and the mother both shot me looks. The Seeker glared, the mother looked appreciative.

“Exactly! You raise them, you teach them to be upright, obedient, respectful…” Jane snorted, “Then they go off to those schools, and get too big for their britches. Think they know better than their elders.”

“It’s a damn shame,” I said soberly. Sarcasm flew right over the woman’s head.

“I might have Auri’s last letter round here. Give me a minute, I’ll find it for you,” Jane stood, and disappeared into the adjoining room.

“You’ve made a conquest, Varric.” Cassandra sounded disgusted.

“I am immensely charming, Seeker.” I said. “Don’t worry, you’re still the only brusque battleaxe for me.”

I was saved from an introduction to the Seeker’s brass knuckles by the re-entry of Auri Bourne’s mother.

“Here it is. Came round the second week of Molloris.” Jane Bourne held out the letter, dotted with travel stains.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Cassandra took the letter, studied it, and tucked it into an inner pocket of her jacket.

“You figure out where that harebrained daughter of mine is, you tell her to stop messing around with all this magic nonsense. Only gets a body in trouble.” With that, the old termagant stood, clearly we were dismissed.

“We’ll give her your regards.” The Seeker said, and turned on her heel without so much as a nod to the old baggage.

I tipped an imaginary hat at the old woman, and followed Cassandra out of the apartment, and onto the street.

“Steamed, Seeker?” I asked, mostly just to annoy her. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that she wasn’t happy.

Cassandra shot me a glare that would’ve scared ten lesser men. Fortunately I’d been on the receiving end of her evil looks so often, I was immune. Mostly.

“I do not enjoy wasting time.” The Seeker gave the building a dirty look, and I could’ve sworn the paint peeled.  “We have not learned anything new.”

“I don’t know about that, Seeker.” I said, “I mean, look at this morning; you learned that I still-”

“Shut. Up.” Cassandra growled. “You are unbelievable.”

“Why Seeker, I’m flattered!”

“You weren’t meant to be. Get in the car, Varric.” The Seeker opened her door with a little more force than necessary.

The tips of her ears were pink. Smiling, I slid into the passenger seat. “Any chance you’ll let me drive this baby?”

“As soon as you let me fire Bianca” was the answer I got, along with a slight smirk.

“Any chance of breakfast?” I asked, trying a new tack.

“First we send our report to the Inquisitor.” Cassandra said

I sighed. “Then, breakfast?”

“Yes Varric. Then breakfast.”

___________________________

The nearest greasy spoon was a place called “Bo Peep’s”. It was one of the few places in Lowtown offering cheap food that wouldn’t come back to haunt you. Regardless, the Seeker’s gaze roved around the place incessantly.

“Seeker. Venatori agents aren’t lurking in the kitchen, it’s probably safe to eat your breakfast.” I said, stabbing a fork into a pile of hashbrowns.

“It’s not the Venatori I’m worried about, it’s the grease.”  The Seeker prodded her eggs with a fork. “How you’ve managed to eat like this and pass thirty, Varric, is a miracle.”

“When in Lowtown, eat as the Lowtowners do, Seeker.” I said, “A little grease is good for you. Builds character, or something.”

Cassandra clearly didn’t believe me, but that wasn’t new. Distrusted even over breakfast foods. She really knew how to take the wind out of a dwarf’s sails.

Silence reigned over the table while I ate and Cassandra rearranged her food.

“Kirkwall seems to be doing well.”

“That’s a statement, Seeker. Not a question.”

Cassandra exhaled sharply. “Ass.”

We ate in silence, while the Seeker rearranged her thoughts. “How do you find the new Kirkwall?”

“Nearly the same as the old one, Seeker. Just a little newer in places.” I said, shortly.

Cassandra stirred her food around with her fork, dark brows drawn into a deep V. They met with a wrinkle over her nose.

“And your friends?” she asked. There was an emphasis on the last word I didn’t want to think too hard about.

“Scattered. Except for Aveline.”

“The guard, of course.” Cassandra said. “Is that all?”

“Seeker, if you want to know who I’ve been keeping company with, you should consult my secretary.”

Cassandra gave me a look fit to curdle milk.

“And do your friends keep in touch, Varric?”

“Thought you gave up on reading my mail, Seeker. Something about not being your prisoner anymore?” I said, “It’s been a while, maybe it slipped your mind.”

“I have not forgotten, Varric.” Cassandra pursed her lips, and spoke slowly. “Have you heard from Bianca, recently?”

That was a surprise. The Seeker and I had an unspoken agreement- I didn’t pry into her love life, and she left mine alone. The one time we’d broken that rule had been a hell of a disaster.

“Bianca? Seeker, I know I act like she can talk, but Bianca’s a gun,” I said.

“Do not play with me, Varric,” Cassandra growled.

Maker, there were a lot of things I could say to that. All of which would probably get me stabbed, the way Cassandra was holding her fork.

“No. Not since the last time,” I said, sounding calmer than I felt.

The Seeker stared at me, or rather she stared right through me, still brandishing her fork like a weapon.

“Going to have to trust me sometime, Seeker,” I told her. After all the time that had passed, I’d thought things would’ve been different between us. She’d been the first one to scold me for acting like I was still her prisoner, but it seemed that old habits died hard for the Seeker.

“Trust is earned, Varric,” Cassandra said, sounding tired. Her fork speared a piece of egg, and we resumed eating in silence.

Chapter Text

The Seeker dropped me off at the Hanged Man, and peeled away from the curb with a squeal of tires. That more than anything showed how pissed she was. The only thing in the world that woman loves more than Truth, Justice, and the Thedosian way is her car.

It was a petty victory to have Cassandra speeding away from me as fast as she could, and one I didn’t really savour. The whole day had been a hell of a mess. All I wanted was a drink, and all the comforts the Hanged Man had to offer.

Instead, a beautiful woman undulated towards me, a cloud of curly blonde hair floating around her head.

“Varric Tethras?” she breathed, a small smile peeking out from the edges of her bright red mouth.

“I’d say it depended on who was looking, but I know better,” I said, warily.

The blonde pouted attractively, and bent down to rest a plump hand on my shoulder. Platinum blonde hair whispered against my cheek, the scent of hairspray heavy in my nose.

“You’re too close,” the blonde muttered into my ear.

Rich coming from a woman who was doing her best impression of an octopus.

“I love your books!” the blonde said in a girly voice, yanking a copy of Hard in Hightown out from her improbably tiny purse.

I signed the book, and the blonde sauntered out of the tavern, hips swinging.

“Shit, Varric. Tell her to come back tonight, will you?” Some ass at the bar slurred.

“You can’t afford her, and you wouldn’t want to,” I called back, shoving my hands in my pockets.

Paper crinkled.

Goddamn sleight of hand. It’s only fun when I do it, dammit.

Whistling cheerfully, I made my way up to my suite, and lit the lamps.

No one murdered me, or leapt out from the shadows shouting “AHA!” so I figured whatever the blonde had been on about wasn’t pressing.

I settled down behind my desk, and set the note out on the blotter. It was crumpled, which I expected. Sloppily folded, nothing written on the exterior. The name written inside wasn’t one I knew. Something about it suggested Orlais. What it suggested to me was that I should call the Seeker, send a message to Leliana, and watch my back. Whoever sent the bombshell either wanted me to know they were onto us, or was trying to warn us about someone. Either way I had a feeling we were in trouble.

With a sigh, I picked up the phone and dialed the number Cassandra had given me. Knowing the Seeker, she’d gone back to her hotel to beat the ever loving shit out of whatever gym equipment they had. Besides, I wasn’t too keen on talking to her at the moment.

“Hotel Kirkwall, how may I help you?” a snotty voice on the other line said.

“Yeah, I’d like to leave a message for Cassandra Pentaghast in room 300?” I said, halfway through formulating a message that would piss the Seeker off.

Unfortunately, that was when half my suite blew up.

The explosion flared bright white, everything went eerily silent, before a high pitched ringing started in my ears. I dove under my desk, sliding Bianca out of her holster. The explosion came from the half of my suite that served as a bedroom, so whoever it was probably knew I hadn’t bitten the big one.

That meant they were probably watching to make sure their little present had been received.

Maker, the ringing in my ears was obnoxious.

No one stormed up the stairs, which showed a touching lack of concern from the Hanged Man’s staff.

Tentatively, I poked my head out from under the desk. Most of my room was on fire, and a large chunk of roof and wall had been blasted into smithereens by the explosion.

Absently, I noticed that my left arm was hot, and my cheek throbbed. My sleeve was torn all to hell, spattered with burn marks, and it probably matched my face.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, I brought Bianca up to fire, waiting until whoever it was showed themselves.

“Andraste preserve us…” a familiar voice said, in a strange tone of voice.

“Cassandra?”

“Varric!” Cassandra’s voice called out from the hallway.

“Clear, Seeker,” I said, tiredly.

“Maker, Varric. What the hell did you do?” Cassandra snapped, lowering her gun.

“I redecorated!” Andraste’s ass, why the hell was everything my fault? “What do you think I did, Seeker? Blow up my own damn room just to piss you off?”

Cassandra growled, and grabbed my arm. Soot smudged her face, and it was almost as an afterthought that I remembered the tavern was on fire.

“The desk clerk was having a fit when I came in! Babbling about an explosion and a message for me,” Cassandra started dragging me out of the Hanged Man, down a back set of stairs I was pretty sure she shouldn’t have known about.

“I could see the smoke from where I was. I-” Cassandra cut herself off, and glared at me.

“Look, next time I almost die, I’ll be sure not to leave cryptic phone messages for you,” I said. Not my best retort, and Cassandra knew it too, if the look she gave me was any sign.

Cassandra kicked open the door at the bottom of the stairs, which was completely unnecessary since it unlocked from the inside. Still, if it meant she took her irritation out on something other than me, what the hell did I care?

In one smooth movement, Cassandra flung the Daimler’s door open, and flung me inside. Slamming the door, she slid in behind the wheel and brought the car roaring to life. We tore out of the alley like a bat out of hell, hapless pedestrians leaping out of the way as the Seeker pulled out onto the main road.

“You could’ve died,” Cassandra snarled, sending me another glare. As if I’d done it on purpose.

“I know you didn’t do it on purpose, Varric,” she said, fingers white knuckle tight on the steering wheel. I was in worse shape than I figured, if I couldn’t tell when I was thinking and when I was speaking.

“Do you mean you don’t normally say the first offensive thing to cross your mind? I am surprised,” Cassandra said.

Andraste’s sainted asshole.

“Blasphemer,” Cassandra said, almost fondly.

I looked at her, and could’ve sworn she was smiling a little.

My head was swimming, but at least the ringing had stopped. Unfortunately I was becoming acquainted with all the little injuries I’d sustained in the explosion.

The burns on my arm and face stung, and I felt similar aches along my left side. Nothing serious, but uncomfortable enough taken with the headache I was getting.

“Hey. Seeker, this is the road out of Kirkwall. What the hell are you doing?” I said, sitting up so fast my vision grayed out.

“You were nearly blown up. It was time to go, Varric. There was nothing more to learn,” Cassandra said calmly.

“Like hell! I was almost killed! We should stick around, see who comes nosing around to see their handiwork! We should-”

The Daimler shot through Kirkwall’s open gates like a bullet, and with that we were on the open road.

“We are leaving. An agent will keep an eye on the Hanged Man while we are gone. Kirkwall has seen enough explosions, I think. It does not need more,” Cassandra said.

There were a lot of things I could say to that, but I was too busy trying to keep my head from splitting in two.

“The mage at the College is as good a lead as any. We’re going to follow her trail, talk to the other students and faculty,” Cassandra told me, darting a quick glance my way. Not that she needed my approval. We were doing things her way no matter what I thought about it.

“Road trip, huh? Sounds like fun,” I said, feeling every bump in the road rattling my brain about.

Cassandra grunted in response, and I decided to see if sleep would fix any of my problems.

Chapter Text

Sleep did not improve anything. We were still blazing down the road away from Kirkwall, away from whoever had tried to introduce me to the Maker. The Seeker was her charming self, which was a relief. One of the few things you could count on in life was the Seeker’s sunny disposition.

“I refuse to argue with you any longer. We are going to the College. That’s the end of it,” Cassandra snarled.

“You know if you let me drive, you could get some sleep. Or are we just going to keep driving until you crash?” I asked.

We hadn’t stopped in hours, and night had already fallen like a ton of bricks. The countryside was my least favourite place to be, even my time with the Inquisition hadn’t cured my city boy ways. I was hungry, tired, and singed. We’d put more than enough space between us and Kirkwall. Any sane person would’ve stopped for the night hours before.

In the country, it was pitch black. There were few lights aside from the moon and the stars, both of which cast a cold, silver light through the windshield. Silver was too harsh to do the Seeker any favours. In the moonlight she could’ve been carved out of marble, or ice. Cold and untouchable, which was probably how she liked it. Gold suited her better, brought the rich warm tones of her skin and eyes to life, vivid and vital.

“Seeker, I know you don’t consider it a good day unless you’ve defied death at least three times, but I’d really-”

The Daimler jerked sharply and sent a wave of gravel off into the night as Cassandra steered us onto the shoulder. I bounced off the passenger door as Cassandra slammed the car into park.

I could’ve said a thousand sharp tongued, sarcastic things, but by the grace of the Maker, I didn’t. One look at Cassandra told me that silence was prudent.

The Seeker’s entire face, lit up by the cold moonlight, showed signs of strain. Her dark eyes were a little wild around the edges, mouth pressed into a thin line. She was clenching her jaw hard enough I thought she’d splinter her teeth. One hand was still wrapped around the steering wheel and, as they’d been the entire drive, her knuckles were bone white.

All in all, she was as far removed from the fiery, professional Seeker I knew as I was from being a giant.

“Cassandra,” I said into the quiet.

“You could have died,” she bit out, every syllable rendered sharp by her accent.

“Par for the course with us, if you haven’t noticed,” I shrugged, as though my near brush with death was just an everyday occurrence. It had been, once. Now I was settled into my normal life, and I had to admit (if only to myself) that the explosion had rattled me.

“I did not want-” Cassandra started, and when the hell had I started thinking of her as Cassandra again?

“I didn’t want it to be you,” she said, as though it pained her.

That was a damn weird thing to say, and while I was trying to work through what exactly she meant, Cassandra kept talking in a torrent of words.

“I saw the smoke, and when I had the message from the front desk, I thought that you were-”

Dead hung in the air, unspoken.

Cassandra’s hand tightened around the steering wheel, and I could’ve sworn the leather creaked.

“I was frightened.” The admission was delivered softly, whispered to the driver’s side window.

That was a scary thing. In all the time we’d spent together, I’d never heard the Seeker confess to being afraid. The almighty Seeker Pentaghast, fearless and undaunted, nigh inhuman. I’d seen further past her walls than most people, probably further than anyone except Pixie. But even this was something I hadn’t realized.

“Cassandra,” I said, leaning across the seat to peel her fingers off the steering wheel. Her hand was freezing cold, and stiff. I folded it in one of my own, felt the delicate bones of her hand shift as her fingers gripped mine tightly.

How the hell I’d gone so long without seeing her, without touching her, was a mystery.

She turned to look at me and Maker help her, Cassandra had never been able to hide her feelings. Her face showed everything. It was why she was so bad at Wicked Grace.

With a tug, I pulled Cassandra across the seat, and wound my arms around her stiff shoulders. She stayed rigid for a moment, and then gave way all at once, her face buried against my shoulder, her free hand wrapped around the back of my neck.

“I could not bear it. Not again,” she mumbled against my throat, breath warm against my skin.

I couldn’t string a sentence together, not with the warm weight of Cassandra pressed against me, with her scent in my nose, her soft hair beneath my fingers. I pressed her closer, tightened my arms around her until I was sure I would remember what she felt like.

I nuzzled my face into her hair, felt her heartbeat jackhammer against my chest.

There wasn’t anything in the world I wanted more than to kiss her. With her face tucked into the crux of my neck, her shirt gaped slightly, exposing the tan skin of her shoulder. That was what I kissed, feeling the warmth of her skin against my lips, her pulse shuddering.

I felt it when she drew back, when she switched from Cassandra to the Seeker, and untangled herself from my arms.

“There is a town coming up, we will stop there for the night,” the Seeker said, all business. She brought the car back to life, and carefully navigated back out onto the road.

“Cassandra-” I tried, but Cassandra wasn’t there. In the moonlight, there was nothing but the Seeker, cold as ice and hard as marble.

“A moment of weakness. We will not speak of it again, Varric,” the Seeker said harshly, eyes fixed on the road.

“Like hell we won’t, Cassandra,” Ancestors, I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten what it was like to hold her. “You can’t just say you were scared I’d bitten the big one and then pretend you don’t care!”

Cassandra didn’t react, except that her lips thinned and her hands had a death grip on the steering wheel.

“What the hell do you gain by playing hard to get, Seeker?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, dwarf,” the Seeker sneered.

“What, so you fling yourself into the arms of every guy you save?” I said, watching as the Seeker’s temper frayed further. Good. Maybe she’d finally stop hiding away.

“I have no interest in second place, Varric,” Cassandra said quietly, and that was that.

There wasn’t any smartass response, nothing I could say, promises of how she would never be second place. I couldn’t swear to things I wasn’t sure of. Thick, heavy sourness pooled in my chest, and we drove on into the night.

Chapter Text

Morning came far too early, particularly since I hadn’t found any rest until the early hours. The motel bed was scratchy and possessed of several odd lumps I wasn’t willing to investigate. The bed Cassandra had occupied was already vacant; wherever the Seeker had gone, she didn’t need me. Something she’d made abundantly clear the night before.

The motel room door opened with a click, and a rusty sounding squeal. If I hadn’t been awake before, I certainly was now. The Seeker sidled through the door, two white paper cups emblazoned with the logo of the off brand coffee favoured by our motel in her hands. If she was surprised to see me up, she did a damn good job of covering it. She crossed the room in a few long strides, and held out a coffee cup.

I decided I could be uncivil after coffee, and took a careful sip.

She remembered how I liked my coffee.

The Seeker busied herself tidying the motel room, straightening the bed linens, folding towels. Her hair was still damp around the ends, curling wetly at the nape of her neck and around her ears.

“You have time for a shower. We leave in half an hour,” she said crisply.

“Yes ma’am,” I said, feeling a little more myself after a cup of coffee. Heaving myself free of the motel bed, I picked my shirt up off the floor. It was a little worse for wear, having been through an explosion. Being crumpled on the floor hadn’t improved it any. It still smelled of smoke, too.

In the corner of my eye, I caught movement.

The Seeker stared me down, gaze challenging. As though she hadn’t just been watching me.

Of course, I’d been watching her, too.

After the previous night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that gauze had been stripped away from my eyes. All this time looking at the Seeker, and until last night I’d forgotten. She’d just been another person.

Realizing Cassandra was still beautiful was not a revelation I wanted to have, today of all days.

The fact that I thought she was more than beautiful wasn’t something I wanted to address either.

Instead I hopped into the shower, and decided to pretend the last twenty four hours hadn’t happened.

I was frightened.

Cassandra’s voice came floating back, determined to make me miserable. Maker’s breath. I hadn’t wanted to remember the smell of Cassandra’s hair, the warmth of her body against mine. I’d done a damn good job of it, too.

Shit.

I showered quickly, lathering up and ignoring all my other bits, which were happily remembering Cassandra.

“Varric! We leave in fifteen minutes!” the Seeker called from the other side of the door.

I was fairly sure this was not what they meant by having a problem with authority.

Luckily for me, cold water and a rough motel towel were more than enough to fix one of my problems. Pity the rest of them couldn’t have such a simple solution.

Dressing in yesterday’s burned, smoky clothing did a lot to dull my mood. Nothing like the reminder of your brief brush with death to calm your raging hormones.

Maybe I could convince the Seeker to go shopping. She had no more than the clothes on her back, and whatever weapons she stashed on her person. If we were going to properly represent the Inquisition, we had to look the part, after all.

“Seeker? Think we could find a clothing store, find me some clothes that don’t smell like eau d’explosion?”

The Seeker sent me a flat look, and sniffed.

“You have a point, Varric. I do not want the Daimler’s upholstery smelling like an ashtray,” she said, “But we do not have time to spare.”

“Think of the Daimler, Seeker. All that beautiful black leather, reeking of smoke?” I wheedled, crossing the room to give the Seeker the full benefit of my smoky stench.

The Seeker’s brow furrowed, and I could see her trying to do the right thing and sacrifice her car for the greater good. Fortunately for me, the Seeker was a woman who really loved her car.

“Fine. One hour, and then we leave for the College,” the Seeker gritted out, one hand curling into a fist.

***

One hour and fifteen minutes later, the Seeker and I were both outfitted with new clothes, on the Inquisition’s dime. Turned out we had a budget, though it had taken some creative reasoning on my part to convince the Seeker to spend some on our clothes.

Cassandra had picked up a carbon copy of her other outfits. Charcoal suit, white shirt. The woman had never broken the habit of uniforms. I wondered if she did it on purpose.

The drive to the college was spent in silence. The Seeker cracked a smile maybe once, and no amount of cajoling on my part could convince her to visit one of the many roadside attractions we drove past.

Silence is reputed to be golden, but I was fast tiring of it. Silence meant that I had more time to think about what had happened. I’d had a busy few hours, after all.

There were a lot of things I didn’t want to dwell on. The explosion, for one. Cassandra for another.

Of the two options, thinking about the explosion was safer.

Whoever’d tried to blow me up hadn’t stuck around to finish the job. Which meant it probably wasn’t a serious attempt on my life, and was instead a warning. Why try and chase people away, rather than kill them outright for getting too close?

Could be one of the cartas, but more than likely it was someone operating on their own. The Cartas wouldn’t have sent such an obvious warning.

Someone wanted to be personal about things. Couldn’t think of anyone I’d pissed off lately who’d go so far as to plant explosives in my room. The type of people likely to have a grudge against me were the type to express it obviously. With their fists.

They weren’t the kind of people to mess with lyrium, or Andraste for that matter.

Ruling out the cartas still left a hell of a lot of people to suspect, and didn’t do us any damn good.

Rolling, arid looking hills flew past my window, starkly and unrelentingly beige against the bright blue of the sky. It was nice enough, probably picturesque by someone’s standards. I prefered to get my fill of nature from a distance

Looking out the window wasn’t helpful either, seemed like there wasn’t anything to do but stare at my own navel. Unless I wanted to talk to the Seeker.

Andraste preserve me when that seemed like the only option worth a damn.

Covertly, I took a look at the Seeker’s profile. Stern as always, and about as unmoving as marble. Forbidding, definitely. Beautiful?

I hadn’t thought about that in so long, I’d fooled even myself. Now that I remembered, I couldn’t stop seeing it, and that spelled trouble for us both.

Well. Just for me, really.

The Seeker cracked her window open. Cool, fresh air blew through the car, bringing me the soft smell of her, cheap motel shampoo and Cassandra.

Hell.

I’d forgotten her once before, made myself believe it was nothing more than a fling. I couldn’t forget again. If she still felt the same, if there was a chance Cassandra still felt anything more for me than friendship, I’d-

That was the problem, wasn’t it? I’d what? Tell her she’d never take second place to a married woman? Tell her that she and Bianca had never left my heart? Cassandra had said it herself. She didn’t want anything less than to be first, and I couldn’t promise her that. With Cassandra, it was all or nothing.

The Daimler merged seamlessly onto a little dirt path, and purred into a parking spot near the door of a greasy spoon. Possibly the ur-greasy spoon.

“Seeker?” I asked, raising a brow.

She smiled at me, small but with a little hint of humour about it.

“Lunch, Varric,” she said, “I assume you’ve heard of it?”

With that, Cassandra left the car and sauntered into the diner.

How she could make a suit look that sexy was a mystery to me. One I hoped to unravel, if she gave me the chance. If I deserved it.

I slammed the car door, and strode into the diner.

Chapter Text

Lunch had been strained, and being crammed back into a car (even one as nice as the Daimler) was hell. It felt like we’d been driving in circles.

We crossed into Nevarra at nightfall. Not that I’d have noticed, without the sign pointing out that the bare, desolate wasteland in front of us was different from the bare, desolate wasteland behind us. The biggest tip off was that Cassandra’s shoulders hiked up to somewhere near her earlobes.

“Never thought you’d actually drag me into Nevarra, Seeker,” I said, watching as we neared the lights of what I hoped was a town. “Have to say I’m disappointed by the lack of skulls on everything.”

Cassandra snorted.

“I’m sure we can arrange a tour of the Grand Necropolis, Varric. It would be a shame to leave without having seen the pride and joy of my country.”

I was fairly sure she was being sarcastic.

We drove into the town, which boasted one diner, a gas station, and two motels. We picked our motel by choosing the one that was closest.

The buzzing neon sign proclaimed it to be the “Hav-A-Nap Motel”, and it looked the way I felt. Cramped, dirty, and sullen.

The motel clerk handed us a chunk of wood, attached to a key.

“Well, if we can’t unlock the door, we can use this as a battering ram,” I said.

Cassandra laughed, which probably meant she was too exhausted to remember she didn’t like me much, at the moment.

She liked me much less when we opened the door to room 12.

The double bed sat in the middle of the room, sagging and covered in the chintz bedspread all motels have in common.

I moved forward, letting my exhaustion cover how nervous the damn bed made me.

“It’s one night, Seeker. Think you can keep your hands off me for that long?” I winked, and Cassandra’s face puckered in a frown.

“I’ll even keep my clothes on,” I added.

The tension went out of Cassandra’s body in a rush, and the look I got was mostly derision with some fondness mixed in.

“Thank you for the incentive, Varric,” she said, dumping her bag to the ground.

She swayed once, twice before pulling herself up into that rigid soldier’s posture that was second nature. As though I didn’t know she was tired.

Hell. I was tired, too. It had been a long car ride, a long day, a longer week.

A long year, learning to pretend I didn’t miss her.

The motel room’s dingy yellow light wasn’t flattering to either of us. Cassandra’s luminous skin was sallow, the shadows under her eyes pronounced. She needed sleep, and I didn’t want to debate about the bed.

“Just, come to bed,” I said, gruffly. Settling onto my side, I felt Cassandra lower herself onto the bed, stiff as a poker. “I don’t bite.”

“Liar,” Cassandra said.

“What was that?”

“Fire,” Cassandra said. “You still smell like it.”

“Good cover.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Cassandra answered primly. “Good night, Varric.”

“Good night, Seeker.”

We rolled onto our sides, each pretending to sleep. I stared at the ceiling, finding patterns in the water stained tiles, listening to Cassandra’s impression of a sleeping woman. Trying to ignore the voice that said I’d made a huge mistake. Mostly because I figured it was probably right.

“Varric?” Cassandra propped herself up on one arm. I felt her, more than saw her; it was pitch black in the motel room. Just a sliver of golden light streamed in through a crack in the blinds, gilding the patch of darkness that was the Seeker.

“Weren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” I asked.

“I- yesterday, in the car.” She stopped, and heaved an enormous sigh. “What I said. It was the truth. I don’t want to be second place. But I do not wish for it to affect our relationship.”

There was a rather embarrassed sounding pause.

“Our working relationship,” Cassandra clarified. She sounded a little mortified.

Served her right.

“It’s forgiven, Seeker. Now try and get some sleep, will you? Long day tomorrow, after all,” I said. My tone was more severe than I wanted. But then, I wanted a lot of things about this night to be different.

Cassandra stayed poised on one elbow for a few more seconds. I wondered if she was thinking of ways to strangle me and make it look like an accident, or if she was thinking what I was.

Namely, what had brought us to a motel room the last time we were together. All the times we’d shared a bed.

They flashed before my mind’s eye in vivid colour, all the little sounds magnified tenfold.

Cassandra might’ve been able to separate our past from our present, but I was having a damn hard time of it. The simple weight of her in our bed, the warmth I could feel from her body, every bit of it was torture. Maybe before the explosion I could’ve faked it, pretended to feel nothing. Pretended the woman next to me was nothing more vital than a sculpture of Andraste.

Shit.

For a glorious few moments, I indulged myself. Imagined a hell of a lot of things that couldn’t happen. Rolling over and kissing the nape of her neck, the softness of her skin, the heat of her body. Feeling her respond, the slight hitch in her breath, the way she arched into my touch-

Cassandra rolled over, and sighed. It sounded melancholy, to me.

Andraste’s sainted ass.

I rubbed at my eyes, wishing I could sleep and wondering how I’d wound up here, thinking inappropriate thoughts about a woman who’d flat out told me I didn’t stand a chance. While we shared a bed.

That was low, even for me.

Moving to the farthest edge of the bed, I made myself as comfortable as I could, and waited to sleep.

My imagination treated me to one more fantasy- me rolling over to tell Cassandra she’d never be second place.

How could I ask her to believe something I wasn’t even sure of? Besides, it would only cause problems. Better to do as she’d said, and not do anything that would affect our working relationship.

Sleep finally drew me downwards sometime far beyond midnight, and I spent a few fitful hours in its grasp.

***

“Mmf”

I woke up a little unsure of where I was, curled against the warmth of another person. All of a piece, the knowledge of just who I was cuddling hit me like a bucketful of cold water.

I took a breath, savoured the warmth of Cassandra’s body curved against mine, and slowly moved away. I hadn’t woken her up, and the urge to lie in bed and wallow was quickly squashed by the urge to exploit this vulnerability. I never woke up earlier than Cassandra did. All that Seeker training was in her favour.

After the first few thoughts were discarded as moronic (draw on Cassandra’s face? Immature, and likely to be more to my detriment than hers), I gave up on pranks and decided I’d be better served by surpassing her expectations than by living down to them.

Instead, I snuck out into the cold, grey Nevarran morning and searched out the diner I’d spotted last night.

The motel we’d wound up in was located in a small spit of a town, a group of houses collected around the kind of conveniences passing travellers would want. There was the motel we were staying at (better than the other motel, where we’d be guaranteed to get fleas, the clerk had told us), the gas station next door, and a diner.

The plate glass windows were clean enough, with a faded sign declaring that help was wanted, and a hand painted sign inviting people to spend their Friday night at the local dance. A flickering neon sign declared that the place was called “The Short and Steamy” which seemed more hilarious than it probably was.

Since the sign in the door told all passerby that the restaurant was open, I walked in. The thick scent of coffee hit me right in the face. Just the smell of it was enough to make me jittery.

There had to be some kind of universal law that proclaimed you needed to be either tired and bored looking, or sassy to work at a diner. Didn’t matter where I went, what greasy spoon I found myself in. Maybe they were a whole family who shared the same traits and worked in every diner in Thedas. Stranger things had probably happened.

“What’ll it be, mac?” slurred around a toothpick held very tenuously between the man’s lips.

A fine example of the ‘tired and bored’ type; been there, seen it all, enormously unimpressed by it.

“Two coffees, to go,” I said, stepping back to look at the neatly printed sign hanging above the man’s head. “One special, with bacon, and an egg sandwich with fruit salad and hash browns. Thanks.”

The guy turned to holler our order back to the kitchen.

“Pair o’ drawers, one dry, one regular. One blue plate with pigs, stick Adam and Eve on a raft and wreck ‘em. Spike on an oval, sorry we don’t got fruit salad.”

This last was directed to me.

“S’alright. Figured it was a long shot. Orange juice instead?”

“Add OJ!” the clerk barked. “That everything, bud?”

The counter boasted a pastry case, where several doughnuts and danishes glistened.

“Yeah, half dozen doughnuts,” I said.

“Half dozen life preservers, gotcha.”

The clerk (his name tag read “Beau”) tallied up our order, and once paid went back to chewing on his toothpick.

Ominous clanking, clattering, and cussing issued forth from the kitchen.

“Busy day?” I asked. Mostly out of boredom. It was damn early still, and the diner was empty.

Beau shrugged, and switched his toothpick to the other side of his mouth.

“Just y’rself, for now. Been slow, after the war.”

I grunted, and Beau nodded in approval.

“Get a lotta folks passin through here. On the way to most places,” Beau jerked his head to indicate the town.

“That so? Lots of strange people about, now that it’s safe to travel.”

I sat at the counter while noises and an occasional spurt of smoke drifted out from the kitchen. A little idle chatter never hurt anyone, and though the odds of Beau having anything relating to our case was slim, you just never knew what you might need to know later. Or when it would help to have someone kindly disposed to you in a diner.

Beau snorted.

“Don’t think I don’t know that. All kinds of weirdos make their way through here. On their way to the College, probably.”

Expressing his opinion on the College and its mages by spitting, Beau squinted at me.

I shrugged. “Dwarf. Magic’s not my thing.”

That seemed to be more than enough for Beau.

“Messin’ round with things that ought best be left alone.”

“Have to agree. Never know what they’ll do,” I said.

Beau seemed to think I’d be waiting a while, and would make a good audience for his anti mage speech. With a wink, he set out a mug and filled it with dark coffee.

He cocked a hip against the counter, with the air of a man setting into a comfortable tale.

“Had a pair come through a couple weeks ago. Man and a girl. Pretty little thing, great long curls of hair, copper coloured. Had a helluva figure on her,” Beau made a gesture with his hands to elaborate.

“Argued a bit, over in that booth there. Girl said somethin her fella didn’t much approve of. Told her to think of her mother, and Andraste. Shut her up quick.”

“Isn’t that a helluva thing? Don’t see what it has to do with the mages, though,” I said, sipping my coffee.

Maker, the stuff looked ready to eat its way out of the mug.

“Well now. That’s the strange thing, there. They got outside, and that girl? Called a storm down,” Beau said. “Flooded a couple houses. This place don’t get much rain, y’see.”

“Girl ran for it, but the man she was with called out somethin. No one knows what, but it stopped her dead in her tracks. She turned back and walked towards him, her face white as paper and all that red hair hanging in her face,” Beau said, leaning forwards. “They got in a big car, and left town after that. The rain stayed for two days.”

I whistled, and shook my head.

“Mages.”

Beau nodded, and spat again.

I was starting to reconsider ordering food from this place. At least Beau wasn’t in charge of cooking.

“Any idea where they were headed? I’d prefer not to run into them,” I said.

“Nah, drove straight outta town,” Beau replied.

The clanking and swearing from the kitchen had almost stopped. After a companionable five minutes of silence with Beau, a be-ringed hand plopped several take-out containers on the ledge.

Beau put all the food in two plastic bags, and wished me a safe (mage free) trip.

Feeling much better now that I knew that someone fitting Auri Bourne’s description had passed through, and having picked up breakfast, I walked back to the motel. For the first time since we’d hit the road, I felt things were going to get better.

I was wrong, of course.

When the motel door swung open, I was looking straight into the barrel of a gun.

Cassandra’s gun.

To say she looked mad was like saying the Exalted Marches had been a camping trip.

“Where have you been?” Cassandra snarled.

Her gun slid back into its holster, and without it staring me in the face, I noticed a few things.

Cassandra’s shirt was buttoned wrong, only half shoved into her pants. Some of her hair was still flattened against her head, while the rest of it stood up in spikes and swirls. There were even crease marks on her face from the pillow. Her cheeks were flushed. All in all, she looked pissed, and worried.

“Breakfast, Seeker. Most important meal of the day? You may have heard of it,” I said, brandishing the bags and the tray of coffee.

If looks could kill, the one Cassandra gave me would’ve scorched me and all my ancestors off the face of the earth.

“I cannot believe-” Cassandra’s hand cut through the air, “What am I saying? Of course I can believe you would do something so foolish as to leave without a note!”

I set the food down, far away from the Seeker. Not that I thought she’d throw something at me, but it was better to be on the safe side.

“What does it matter, that someone tried to kill you? That they tried to blow you up. What was I supposed to think?” Cassandra stormed, pacing through the room like a tiger.

Before I could even blink, she was standing in front of me, in a towering rage. Her hands clenched around the collar of my shirt. I rose up on my toes a little.

Our eyes met. Lines were engraving themselves around Cassandra’s eyes. Shadows darkened her delicate skin. She looked tired, and a little scared.

I laid my hand against her wrist.

She stopped dead. Deflated, and let go of my shirt. I didn’t let go of her wrist until she pulled herself away. Out of arm’s reach.

I wanted to yell at her, to say something sarcastic and biting. I couldn’t. She’d been afraid. I couldn’t have said anything pithy to save my own soul.

Maker, I thought my heart had broken years ago. I had to add that to the list of things I’d been wrong about; it broke the second I saw the shimmer of tears in Cassandra’s eyes.

Not that she would’ve really cried. She was wound too damn tightly, and the last few days had been nothing but stressful for both of us. This was simply the last straw.

“Excuse me, Varric,” Cassandra bit out. The bathroom door slammed behind her.

When she came back out, everything was in order. Her shirt was buttoned all the way up and tucked in. Her hair was immaculate. She looked every bit the tough, capable woman she was.

The tough, capable woman I loved.

I’d been trying not to think the words, and so I’d been thinking about it since the night of the explosion.

I loved her. I loved her fierceness, her strength, her softness. Her enormous and selfless heart.

I loved her, and it was futile.

She’d never believe I was through with Bianca, and I couldn’t promise her that. Bianca had a way of dragging me back into her problems before I could even blink. She’d always be a part of my life, there was no fighting that.

I wanted to tell her how I felt. I wanted to tell her what she meant to me, and how sorry I was about the whole damn mess. Instead, what I said was:

“We should eat. I don’t think any of this will taste better cold.”

While I unpacked the food, I told Cassandra what Beau had said about the girl who looked like Auri Bourne.

“Then we are only a few weeks behind them!” Cassandra exclaimed, looking ready to bolt back into the Daimler. “This also means Auri Bourne wasn’t involved in the explosion at the Hanged Man.”

“Didn’t know she was a suspect,” I pointed out.

Cassandra was eyeing my hashbrowns with something very close to lust. I dumped a couple forkfuls into the takeout box she was eating out of. She pretended to ignore that, but she ate the hashbrowns anyways.

“It is possible she joined this enterprise of her own free will,” Cassandra pointed out. “Her mother seems very religious. She does not seem to think well of mages, either.”

“Trafficking red lyrium is a helluva way to rebel,” I said.

“It is not unlikely,” Cassandra said simply.

I had to admit she was right. Much as I didn’t like the thought of some kid willingly messing with red lyrium just to get back at her mom. Said a lot I didn’t like about the world we lived in.

“I don’t get it. Red lyrium makes you crazy. Why distribute it? You can addict people to it, but you can’t really control them. It isn’t like other drugs,” I said. “So why go to all the trouble of making statues of Andraste out of it, then making it look like it’s normal stone?”

“They could wish to simply sow discord, now that the Inquisition is secure, and Divine Victoria is on the throne. Perhaps they are extremists?” Cassandra said, sounding unsure.

“It isn’t doing anything, though. There’s no evil plan here, no cackling villains bent on becoming gods or kings. Just statues,” I said.

“Not every villain wants to be a god, or rule world,” Cassandra pointed out.

“All the ones we run into do. These ones probably aren’t different,” I told her, picking at some bacon.

Cassandra poked at the remains of her breakfast. I caught her peeking at the bag I hadn’t opened.

“Figured we could use a little spoiling,” I said, opening the paper bag and tilting it towards her.

The Seeker’s eyes went round as saucers. A small smile started at the corners of her mouth, and spread. It was a good look on her. Girlish happiness. Maybe a little mischief.

“May I?” she asked.

I pushed the bag to Cassandra’s side of the table, watching as she sorted through the doughnuts. Her teeth caught her lower lip, and I almost laughed. Her indecision was written right across her face. The normally so assured Cassandra, brought down by doughnuts.  

“Here, I’ll help you out,” I said, plucking a sticky doughnut from the bag.

Cassandra refrained from rolling her eyes at me, and picked a doughnut covered in little sprinkles.

We sat together, eating our doughnuts and coffee. It was comfortable. Easy, in the way that it had been before everything had gone to hell the year before. Or at least that’s how it felt to me. I couldn’t claim to know Cassandra’s feelings. Never really had known them, anyways. She always played things close to her chest. So did I.

Cassandra finished her doughnut, and the consternation on her face was hilarious. One look at her and I could tell she was debating whether to eat another, and which one she would pick. On top of that, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to eat it now, or save it for the road. It was damned cute. Damned annoying too, that I could tell how she felt about food but not about me.

I couldn’t guess how she felt, but I knew how I felt. For better or for worse, I loved her.

Had loved her, did love her, would always love her.

“Let’s get this show on the road, Seeker,” I said, dusting icing sugar from my hands.

I couldn’t stay still, couldn’t sit across from Cassandra without feeling restless. Without wanting to ask her how she felt, and too damn uncertain to ask.

We hadn’t bothered to unpack last night. We’d just tossed our bags on the motel room floor and collapsed into bed. That made things easier. I picked up both bags and shut them in the Daimler’s back seat. Cassandra took the key and its log back to the motel clerk, with a bemused expression on her face. I watched her go, and felt foolish. We had a job to do, and no one gave a damn about my bruised heart but me. I had no business bringing up all that shit when it seemed Cassandra and I were finally almost friends again.

Once we solved the case, our working relationship was over. Cassandra would return to Skyhold, and I’d go back to Kirkwall.

Chapter Text

We arrived at the College to find everything going on as normal. Normal for a College that had only just escaped being razed to the ground during the war. Students laughed and chattered as they strode through the quad, which was elegant and well manicured. Everything from the grass to the buildings looked impeccable. Not a speck of pigeon shit on any of the statues depicting the noble founders of the college. That screamed weird to me. Then again, what the hell did I know about higher education?

Cassandra seemed more at home there than I did. Not really surprising. The Seeker’s approach to everything was to storm in like she owned the place.

We passed through the crowd of students without anyone bothering us. They were all complaining in hushed tones about essays past, present, and future that seemed to plague them like the common cold. It was hard to imagine that the red lyrium statues might have originated here. Everything seemed so innocent. The College operated on its own inner logic, beat to a rhythm that was different from the outside world.

It seemed a nice place to be, if you had a gift and parents who’d send you.

Cassandra clipped down the corridor, her shoes clicking on the marble floors. Even in this place, the sea of people parted before her.

Dean Polk’s office was a cheery looking, academic sort of room. Her secretary, a pretty woman with a bored expression, waved us through without a second glance. Or a first one.

The dean herself was a small, birdlike woman. She sat behind her enormous desk, stacks of paper billowing and sagging off it like snow from a mountaintop.

The birdlike impression continued when she cocked her head to one side.

“Auri Bourne?”

Cassandra’s look would’ve scorched the eyebrows off a lesser woman, but despite her fragility the dean was clearly made of sterner stuff.

“Yes. The young woman was from Kirkwall. A mage, studying red lyrium,” Cassandra said again.

The dean’s expression said a lot about her feelings on Cassandra’s interpersonal skills.

What she actually said was more helpful.

“Ms Bourne vanished from her room in the Queen Anora wing, nearly a month ago.”

Cassandra’s eyebrows rocketed upwards.

Hell, even I was shocked. The kid had been missing for over a month, and people were acting like she’d gone off on a wild weekend to Val Royaux.

“This is a school, not a daycare Ms Pentaghast,” dean Polk said primly. “The authorities were notified, but beyond that?”

The dean shrugged her thin shoulders.

“What has been done with Ms Bourne’s room in her absence?” Cassandra asked.

“All her possessions have been left as they were,” the dean said. “School policy says we can’t move them until the student reappears or their legal guardian requests it. Otherwise we’ve got to wait until a full month has passed.”

That was the only good news.

Cassandra stood abruptly, her chair squealing back across the wood floor.

“What room?”

The dean sputtered, face turning a shade of red that was probably unhealthy.

“What. Room.”

“1408,” I said.

Both women turned to look at me. The dean with outrage, and Cassandra with longsuffering amusement.

In my hand was a sheet of paper I’d rescued from the avalanche on the dean’s desk. A sheet which had Auri Bourne’s room assignment on it.

“Shit.”

Cassandra gave me a flat look.

I waved the slip of paper at her as I bolted out the dean’s office.

“It’s a request for the cleaners to come in!”

The swift clicking behind me quickly became swift clicking in front of me, as the Seeker caught up and overtook me.

We’d passed a building with Queen Anora’s name out front. Our only hope was that the memo hadn’t been sent yet, or our lead on Auri Bourne was going to be deader than a Deep Roads dance party.

Luck was on our side. Or rather, my side. The Seeker’s luck was out- the argument she was having with the student in front of room 1408 looked to be vicious.

When the dwarven spitfire turned her ire on me, I was already well prepared. Compared to the Seeker, she was a wyvern trying to be a dragon. Of course, I had notoriety on my side along with Lady Luck- being a published author had more perks than a bear had hair.

The girl’s eyes widened like saucers.

“Varric Tethras,” she exhaled. “I have all your books, I’ve-”

She seemed to remember I wasn’t alone, and darted a suspicious look at Cassandra.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“Checking in on Auri Bourne,” I said.

Cassandra turned her scorching gaze on me, but to little effect. I’d been burned too many times to start caring now.

“Auri Bourne knew Varric Tethras?” the kid said, still looking at Cassandra.

“Auri Bourne has friends who know Varric Tethras,” I told her. “Don’t pay attention to my body guard. No sense of humour.”

Cassandra bristled, but my excuse seemed to satisfy the kid. Her easy acceptance of the more or less truth made me nostalgic for my own youth. Had I ever been that young, that gullible?

The girl laughed, and blushed. Her fingers tangled round the ends of her hair, which hung in loose waves down her back. When she sidled closer, her smile was coy.

“I’ve read all your books, Mr Tethras. I’m a huge fan of yours.”

Behind her, Cassandra looked ready to throttle both of us.

“So you said. Any particular favourite?” I asked, while giving the Seeker a stare I hoped she’d interpret as go search the room while I distract the kid and not please look the other way while I seduce an 18 year old.

From the look of it, Cassandra had settled on the former but decided to do the latter. No doubt I’d hear about it later, but really where had she developed such a low opinion of me?

“Hard in Hightown,” the girl said, putting what she clearly thought was subtle emphasis on the first word.

I needed to talk to Cassandra about hazard pay. Or whether I was getting paid at all, come to think of it.

***

“Seeker, for the love of the Maker would you slow down?”

Her long legs ate up the distance between us and the car, and in other circumstances I wouldn’t have minded the chance to admire both their rear ends. But she hadn’t said a damn thing to me since we’d left Auri Bourne’s floor, and she’d caught me autographing all of that dwarf girl’s copies of Hard in Hightown. Not that there was anything wrong with that. You’d think she’d found me offering to show her my pen.

The Seeker showed no signs of slowing down, and I’d had it with the indignity of scurrying after her. If she wanted to sulk, she was free to do so.

Instead I started to stroll through the school grounds.

Whatever reprieve I’d hoped for, I wasn’t about to get. Cassandra stormed right back up to me, mouth pursed.

Stalking at my side, she sent me the occasional dirty look and muttered to herself. She’d reverted to Nevarran, which was always a sure sign I was in it up to my eyeballs.

“Seeker, I take offence to that last one- my mother was a paragon!”

The look she gave me was one my future children probably felt.

After that, Cassandra held her tongue until we’d reached the Daimler and she’d lulled me into a false sense of security- one she promptly shattered when she slammed the car door.

You could always tell Cassandra’s mood by the way she treated her most beloved, and today the Daimler had been through the wringer.

“Do you not wish to go back and finish seducing your admirer, dwarf?”

“You’ve got it backwards, Seeker- the only virtue in any danger was mine!”

She didn’t laugh. Wasn’t really a laughing matter, but what was I going to say? No, I don’t because it’s you I want to seduce?

“Seeker-”

Cassandra didn’t look at me. But we peeled out from the College parking lot like Corypheus himself was on our tail.

“I found something in Auri Bourne’s room,” Cassandra said.

She was back in Seeker mode, and we had work to do.

“Hopefully it was a detailed explanation of why she’s mixed up with a bunch of red lyrium smugglers, and a map pointing out the location of their evil lair?”

Cassandra gave me a look.

“You’re shitting me, she did?”

I waited, but Cassandra said nothing. She did pluck a beat up looking workbook from her jacket pocket and toss it across the seat. It didn’t look like much- the sort of workbook that comes five to a package for a couple pennies. This one was stained and foxed, but it bore Auri Bourne’s name in blocky script across the first page.

While I looked through the book, Cassandra drove back to the motel.

There wasn’t a lot to go on, but what there was told me one thing-

We were fucked.

Chapter Text

Someone was on to us.

Don’t ask me how I knew, but the bullet that splintered into the wood next to my head was a pretty good clue.

Cassandra’s body collided with mine at a speed normally reserved for small vehicles. We rolled away from the door and along the cracked cement sidewalk. Before my head cleared, she was already up and moving, gun at the ready.

Another shot cracked through the air.

Someone swore.

Behind me, a man in a gaudy floral button down pulled a gun out and aimed it at the back of Cassandra’s head.

He went down limp, a neat bullet hole through his forehead.

I kept Bianca at my side, and went to go check on the Seeker.

The dead woman sprawled on our bed looked at me, sightless eyes mostly obscured by blood.

Next to my head, Cassandra clicked the safety on her gun, and reholstered it.

Her white shirt was spattered with blood, and torn at the neck. Long scrapes raked down from her neck to her sternum. The hand that rested on the grip of her gun boasted several bruised knuckles.

“Someone does not approve of our being here,” she said through a split lip.

“You had to get shot at to figure that out?” I asked, “No wonder I couldn’t get rid of you when we first met.”

Crossing the room while Cassandra glared at my back, I looked down at the dead woman. Her picture was probably next to the word ‘non-descript’ in the dictionary. The only remarkable thing about her was the blood coating her face. Well, and that she was dead in our motel room.

I hoped there was something in her pockets that would be more helpful.

Of course, I was disappointed. Nothing but some lint, and a matchbook that bore the logo of our motel. We had to get the most unhelpful assassins out there. It was just our luck.

I threw the matchbook down in disgust, and spun around to find Cassandra stripping out of her bloodstained shirt.

“I wouldn’t complain about the view, Seeker, but is this really the time?”

She threw a wet washcloth at me. It reeked of alcohol.

“You’ve been holding out on me!” I gasped theatrically.

Some day, some smart mage was going to figure out how to weaponize Cassandra’s glare and end all conflicts. Meanwhile, I had to rely on my high tolerance to keep me from being vaporized on the spot. Cassandra sank heavily into the desk chair, and slipped the strap of her bra down from her shoulder.

Black lace, with the barest promise of translucency.

The dead woman’s gaze bore accusingly into my spine.

“This is going to hurt,” I said.

Cassandra rolled her eyes and said something in Nevarran.

One of these days I was going to hunt down a Nevarran to Common dictionary and figure out what the hell she was mumbling.

She hissed when I pressed the cloth against the gouges along her neck. I licked my lips, and let my other hand rest against her shoulder while I dragged the cloth downwards. The ragged line of scratches trailed off somewhere mid sternum, and oozed blood. Beneath my hand, Cassandra’s pulse sped up.

I couldn’t look her in the eye. Instead, I turned the cloth over and started again at the top of the wounds.

Neither of us said a word.

The cloth swept a path down her chest, over the soft curve of one breast.

Cassandra’s hand caught mine, stilled it over her heart.

“Clean enough I think,” she said, her voice thick.

Our eyes met. Cassandra’s tongue darted out to wet her lower lip.

“I-”

“My mouth,” she said.

“It’s a nice mouth,” I said.

Her lips curved up in a smile.

“The split, Varric,” she said.

Her hand guided mine up to her mouth. I obliged, and dabbed at the small cut with a clean corner of the cloth. Her breath ghosted over my fingers.

Maker. This close to Cassandra, it was hard to remember there was a dead body in the room with us and another cooling on the sidewalk.

Like that, the mood (whatever it was) shattered. I drew back from Cassandra. She blinked, licked her lips again.

Wrinkled her nose at the sharp taste of alcohol.

“Whoever sent them will soon know they’re dead,” she said. “If- Varric if what Auri Bourne wrote in her journal is true, we must hurry.”

Already her swift fingers were buttoning up a new shirt, identical to the last.

She was right, of course she was. I sent the corpse on the bed a dirty look.

“Let’s get this show on the road, Seeker,” I said.

*****

The Daimler’s tires squealed as Cassandra threw it round a corner at top speed. The back wheels fishtailed as we straightened out of the curve. Cassandra was driving like Corypheus himself was on our tail, the car was a black and chrome blur on the road as we wove in and out of the sparse traffic.

Far from criticising the Seeker’s insane driving, I kept my mouth shut for once and focused on making sure we weren’t going into this fight empty handed. I didn’t think Cassandra had given me all the weaponry secreted away on her person, but I wasn’t about to pat her down. Unless she asked nicely.

Judging from the way she flung herself into every movement of the car, I wasn’t about to bet on her being nice to anyone.

I slid Bianca’s magazine back in, and made sure I had plenty of spares stashed in my pockets. Cassandra’s guns were already safe and sound back in their holsters.

There was something frighteningly sexy about how she’d checked the job I’d done loading them with one hand, and steered the Daimler with the other before tucking her guns away.

I finished sharpening the last knife.

“Where’s this one go?” I asked.

Mercifully, we were on a straight stretch of empty road, since Cassandra decided to just gesture at her ankle in response.

“You’re not serious.”

She grunted, and urged the Daimler to go faster.

“Madwoman,” I said.

Leaning across the seat, I bent over and slid her pant leg up to reveal a sheath strapped round one shapely ankle. The knife slid home, and I sat back before Cassandra could send me flying into her lap.

Not that I’d ever complain.

The further into Nevarra we drove, the uglier the terrain got. Spires of rock chewed at the sky, grey and heavy with clouds.

Bullets spattered the road like rain. Cassandra cursed, swerved, and shot a look at me.

“Just like old times, Seeker!” I swapped Bianca out for something with less finesse.

Rolling the passenger side window down, I stuck the muzzle of the tommy gun out and let loose. Wind whipped my hair. This had the promise of a wild night, despite the danger or maybe because of it, my blood was up.

“Varric!”

I pulled my head back into the car just as a bullet sang by.

Cassandra and I shared a look.

She always hated when I did this. Looked like time hadn’t changed that.

I opened the passenger side door, and slid down onto the running board. Four shots rang out, three went wild and the fourth hit the door with a metallic ping. Cassandra sighed in disgust.

“Sorry Seeker, I’ll try and get in the way of the next one.”

She cursed in Nevarran. I didn’t have to know the language to know that.

“Woman, my mother was a paragon!”

Whoever was shooting us had no appreciation for witty banter. Another shot smacked into the Daimler.

“Come to papa!”

I squeezed the tommy gun’s trigger, watched as two shapes toppled down the hill top.

Cassandra jerked the Daimler left, and I sprawled inelegantly into the car.

“Was that necessary?” I looked at the underside of her jaw.

“Absolutely,” Cassandra deadpanned.

“Easier ways to sweep me off my feet, Seeker.”

“None so fun, Varric.”

“Cruel woman.”

I sat upright, and stuck the tommy gun back at my feet. No one had shot at us in at least three minutes, so I figured it was safe to entertain some thoughts about Cassandra’s smirk.

Mostly, how much I wanted to kiss it right off her mouth.

She shot me a look, and for a split second I worried I’d said something out loud.

“Reload,” she said tersely.

“No one’s out there, Seeker.”

The look I got told me I’d said something stupid out loud.

I reloaded.

Checked all the knives again. With the exception of the ones strapped to Cassandra.

No one shot at us.

“That’s not unsettling,” I said.

Cassandra stared out at the road, gaze scouring the horizon.

“Either we are on the wrong path, or they have lost interest in us,” she said. “Or they are remarkably confident that we will lose.”

“Could be a trap.”

Cassandra considered this. Frowned.

“If so, there is little we can do now.”

We drove in silence, which grew until it was another passenger wedged between us.

We were driving towards people who hadn’t hesitated to kidnap a young woman, who meddled with red lyrium and sent assassins against representatives of the Inquisition. Whether they planned to catch us in a trap, or were just over confident, we were blazing headlong into danger. Turns out that facing your potential death really brought things into sharp perspective. There was so much that Cassandra and I had left unsaid, things I hadn’t told her. Hadn’t apologized for.

The Daimler slowed.

Cassandra pulled off the road, parked behind a large outcrop of rocks.

Bruised twilight light flooded the car, soft despite the promise of violence in the air. Even the sky looked ready to burst.

Cassandra’s fingers tightened round the steering wheel, before she unclipped her seatbelt and turned to face me.

“The house Auri spoke of is in the little valley below us. We go on foot from here.”

She paused. Rubbed at a chafed spot on the steering wheel.

I thought she was about to say something, and waited. But she said nothing more.

We opened the doors onto the desert quiet.

****

I followed Cassandra through the scrubby desert plants, Bianca at my side. We zig-zagged through the wide open space, taking cover where we could. The little house from Auri Bourne’s notebook butted against the cliff face, commanding a view of everything in front of it. We hadn’t met a single sentry, and that was probably why. That, and the outcrops of red lyrium which tore out of the earth. The whole place felt wrong.

Cassandra stopped behind of a large clump of red crystals. We were close enough now to see that the house’s windows were luminously, poisonously red.

I hated that colour.

Scattered lumps of white dotted the land in front of the house. Some of them had broken, and the shattered ends glowed sick crimson.

Maker I wanted this to be over with. Whatever waited for us in that house wasn’t good.

“Can you get in through that window?”

Cassandra’s words jolted me out of my thoughts. I leaned around her, took a peek at the window she meant.

I nodded once.

“Go in through the window. I will-” Cassandra stopped, smiled.

It wasn’t a nice smile.

“I will provide a distraction at the front door.”

“Gotta be about two more floors, Seeker.”

“I am aware of the risks, Varric.”

I didn’t like any of this. Hadn’t liked any part of this since Kirkwall.

Cassandra checked the house again. Then checked her weapons. Chewed her lip.

“Seeker.”

She looked at me, and I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t say any of the things I wanted to. Couldn’t apologize.

I was sorry for never taking her to Rivain.

For never tearing her gauzy lingerie off when I had the chance.

I wanted to tell her that I hadn’t loved anyone more.

Instead I said:

“Be careful.”

Cassandra’s mouth parted, but I was gone before she could take a breath.

Chapter Text

The house smelled of blood and herbs, heavy in the air. I drew closer, and the smell got worse. Thicker. Much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what was in there, I couldn’t. More than just red lyrium and a missing girl.

There are some odors you don’t forget.

I barely had to look through the grimy glass to know what had happened.

Red lyrium makes you strong. Makes you tougher, faster, deadlier.

It makes you crazy.

Brown smears covered the walls, wide arterial sprays that rose halfway up the ceiling. Lyrium throbbed red in the corpses.

I shoved the window open, fell back coughing at the rankness of the escaping air.

Someone had written Andraste watch over us across one wall in staggering letters that turned into the Canticle of Trials.

What you have created, no one can tear asunder.

The corpse beneath the words belied them.

Deep in the house, something moved. Slowly, laboriously. I could feel it breathe.

Lyrium whispered its song in my heart. I could taste it in the air, feel it in the bones of the old house.I couldn’t remember how long had it been since I’d entered. I couldn’t remember crawling through the window. It felt like I’d always been there, that the lyrium had brought me home.

I was tired, so tired. The air was so heavy and warm.

The house shuddered. The lyrium cried out. Afraid. Gunshots thumped far off, and I had forgotten something. I was supposed to do-

Supposed to go somewhere.

I was supposed to. Go.

Rivain with a beautiful woman. A woman with eyes that sang and shone.

Gunfire and rain.

I had to find her.

I breathed in. Breathed out. Lyrium dark as heart’s blood spilled from my mouth.

Cassandra. Heart’s blood and gunmetal. Cassandra waiting for me.

She wasn’t in Rivain.

In the house. She was in the house.

I moved through it slowly, corpses rotting spears of red lyrium jutting from skulls and hearts and-

Something bellowed.

Cassandra.

The house’s front door was gone.

Clean air wound its way through the house.

Two men staggered out from a side room. Blood mingled with the lyrium erupting from their skin.

“Varric!”

I knew that voice.

Glass shattered, and the lyrium’s call ebbed.

“Cassandra.”

Bullets slammed into the two men. They kept walking. Their lips moved, but they didn’t speak.

It was damned creepy.

One man dropped, lyrium pouring out of his open mouth. The other didn’t stumble, didn’t even blink. Just walked forward. Red erupted across the wall. It slid down into the lyrium, feeding it. Becoming it.

“Varric?”

I didn’t remember taking Bianca out.

“Varric. Put Bianca away,” Cassandra said.

When had she moved in front of me?

Lyrium dripped from a slash across her forehead.

Not lyrium. Blood. She was bleeding and I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t staunch the wound. So much blood, red and dark slipping between my fingers pooling beneath her. Each heartbeat was weaker than the last. Desperate scared eyes fixed on mine, face streaked with tears.

“Varric.”

We were out in the field, past the spires of lyrium and the rocks.

“Varric!”

Cassandra’s fingers fumbled at the collar of my shirt.

“S’posed to go to Rivain,” I said.

She laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound.

“We were supposed to-” Cassandra stopped, sighed.

I always hated it when she was sad.

“I- you did?” she looked surprised.

The fresh air was clearing my head a little.

“Always did. Y’r the Seeker. Cassandra. Not s’posed to be sad, you’re fierce,” I said.

That’s where my memories fade in and out. There are some things I know happened, and some things I’m not sure about because there was only the desert and  myself to witness them.

What I do know is that Cassandra left me there, propped up against a rock far enough from the house that I couldn’t hear the lyrium’s song.

She was gone for so long it started to feel like I'd imagined her. At least this time I knew it was the lyrium talking.

When she finally came back, there was no one with her. When I asked about Auri Bourne, her mouth thinned into a flat line. That told me all I needed to know. The poor kid never stood a chance. Too much lyrium in the house, Cassandra told me later. There'd been only one man still clinging to scraps of himself.

She'd understood enough of what he said between the mad raving to fill me in on what they'd been trying to do.

The story went something like this:

A long time ago there were some Orlesian nobles, fallen from grace. During the war, the last surviving son had fought for Grand Duc Gaspard, and seen firsthand what red lyrium could do. Rather than fear it, he saw the potential it had, and came up with a scheme.

Infect people with red lyrium. Fan the flames of fear that still lingered, and then swoop in like an avenging angel. After that, he planned to use his newfound position as 'hero' to ascend back to where he rightfully belonged in the Orlesian court.

Not a great plan, but that's what you get from years of inbreeding.

He'd kidnapped Auri Bourne, a young mage who'd been experimenting with ways to safely contain red lyrium, using some kind of herbal concoction mixed with clay to insulate it. That was how they began making the statues. The protective coating Auri invented worked well enough, but it wasn't a long term solution. Eventually, it would wear off and the red shit would worm its way out, corrupting whatever was closest.

They'd have gotten away with it, thanks to her. But the nobility don't respect anything but themselves. They acknowledge no power but their own. So it never occurred to them that the lyrium and Auri Bourne might betray them.

She had done what she could, out in the middle of the wildness of Nevarra. Saved a lot of lives. Except her own.

When we staggered back to the car, dawn was curling rosy fingers over the edge of the earth, and I never wanted to see Nevarra again.

“Varric?"

Cassandra leaned against the Daimler's hood. She was tired, blood spattered, and reeked of lyrium and smoke.

She'd always been the most beautiful woman I'd ever known.

"Yeah?"

I slumped next to her, feeling like I'd been put through the wringer and back again.

Her hand groped for mine, and before I could really figure out what was going on, she'd dragged me into a fierce hug. I felt a couple ribs creak.

"Do not ever... I was- I was afraid," she said against my hair.

She was so solid, I trusted her reality more than I did my own. Cassandra the immovable object, the unstoppable force. When I wrapped my arms around her, she sagged like a rag doll. I groped for the handle, and managed through some miracle to get Cassandra and myself into the Daimler's backseat.

"Always said this was more of a bed than a seat," I said.

Cassandra and I were wound so tightly together I couldn't breathe without moving her.

I could feel every beat of her heart, every breath she took whispered against my skin. Her whole body pressed against me, and I pressed back, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other wrapped around her waist, holding her close. She was alive. So was I. Nothing else mattered but making sure she never left me again.

We fell asleep like that, in the Daimler's backseat, and didn't wake until sometime in the afternoon, when the scorching heat of the desert turned the car into an oven.

Cassandra uncurled from my body, and didn't spare me an extra glance until we went back to the house.

It was worse in the daylight, with the pitiless sun baking bodies and shining off the red lyrium.

"You do not need to-" Cassandra began to say.

I lit the first crude molotov cocktail and lobbed it through one of the broken windows.

"Gotta see this thing through, Seeker."

She smiled thinly, and threw her own bomb, which arced and crashed through a window on the upper floor.

"Show off," I said.

Cassandra's mouth softened, curled into a real smile when she finally looked at me.

"Only when you're around," she said.

She slipped her hand into mine while we watched the house burn.

“Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost,” Cassandra recited.

Flames licked at the house, wind whipping them into a great fire.

“I am not alone. Even as I stumble on the path with my eyes closed, yet I see the Light is here,” I said. “Come on Seeker. Time to go.”

We walked hand in hand through the desert, back to the Daimler

Chapter Text

The night was old, dawn sneaking pale fingers over the city’s edge. The Hanged Man was still a dive, still populated by the kind of people who liked short dresses and long drinks. The music wound down, the dancers swung their hips a little slower, and through the miasma of smoke the Seeker drifted towards me. I took my time watching her, lingered on the long lines of her legs. She was knife sharp, with eyes that burned through the cloudy air like hot coals. No one in the bar paid her much mind, eyes elsewhere like the scarred bar top and brass taps were new to them.

There was always a risk, when it came to getting an eyeful of a woman like the Seeker.

I’d never been able to resist a bit of danger, and Cassandra was more than a bit.

Her lips turned up at the corners. Her long fingers tugged at her tie, unbuttoned the top buttons of her shirt. Whatever had happened to her coat and waistcoat, she was better off without them. Then, so far as I was concerned she was better off without a lot of things. Mostly clothes. Her eyes caught mine, and the heat in them changed. Deepened. She drew up to my table, stood in front of my chair and watched me with that strange half smile of hers.

“Varric,” she said.

Her voice rolled over my name. Almost foreign. But then, she’d been gone a long damn time.

“Cassandra,” I replied. I tipped my glass in greeting, and she stole it from my fingers.

She took a healthy swig, and set the tumbler back down on the table with a loud clack. Her gaze flicked down my body, slow and sure.

“Been looking for a man fitting your description,” she said, leaning in.

“Helluva coincidence. I’ve been on the lookout for a woman like you,” I said. Leaned up.

“Helluva coincidence,” Cassandra agreed.

She tilted her head, and closed the space between us in a kiss that had the crowd cheering.