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The sun was just peeking over the edge of the horizon and turning the leaves overhead into a cascade of yellow-green jewels when Varric sagged against the trunk of the nearest tree. It held him up just as well as any cavern wall had supposedly held up his ancestors, at least at first. He let a rough cough of a laugh escape him that stained the bark in front of his face a dirty, rusty brown when his vision started to blur, and tucked his trenchcoat tighter around himself.
The fear demon had surprised him, catching him with a blow to the side that admittedly wasn't glancing so much as a full on unselfconscious stare of a hit, one that spun him around and knocked Bianca out of his arms and into the dirt.
Now, he didn't like surprises, as a rule, and this one could've done with a signed r.s.v.p., which he would've returned unopened.
Varric laughed again, and turned his face so that the smooth, pale tree bark rasped against his stubble. "Never thought I would ever be the one saying a merchant guild pleasantry makes a lick of sense," he said faintly.
He didn't jump so much as twitch when a familiar, throaty chuckle answered him. Varric looked up blearily. The soft-edged shape of a muscular woman leaned against the tree beside him, head tilted so the dark mass of her hair shifted in and out of his view. "If you're going to throw a pity party, you are going to need at least one guest. Mind if I hang around until they get here?"
Varric's grin tasted metallic, but he didn't care. She always had that way about her of making everyone forget their troubles, or at least set them aside for a while. "For you? Any party would be thrown in your honor, you know that," he said in an even quieter hush.
His eyes were beginning to droop a bit, and he forced them open when he thought he heard her moving closer, but instead it was to see that Rubelynn Cadash had stepped up to him, eclipsing his view of Hawke and the battlefield behind her. "Varric?" She said, and he got the very distinct sense that she'd been saying it multiple times.
He sketched something resembling a smile. In the general neighborhood of one, anyway. Something that might fool Rubelynn, but would never fool Adelaide Hawke. He knew just from watching the smeared outline of her forearms cross behind Rubelynn that he hadn't, never would, and his smile grew even more strained. "Could you make this quick? I do have other people to see, other stories to collect aside from your own, inquisitor."
"You always do," Adelaide said, or maybe it was Rubelynn, because the other dwarf was frowning. The blurry shape of ellipses at the corner of her mouth were dark. Then she surprised him by reaching out and tucking a flyaway strand of his hair behind his ear. He could only stare at her for several long moments before she broke away, shuffling a few steps away with a shrug. "You're my friend. And for a long time there I'd say you were my only friend. If you need a minute by yourself I'll give it to you, but…" She wavered, then blurted out, "You've been worrying me, okay? You talk like everything's fine, but you aren't."
"Ruby-" He started to say, but she barreled on.
"How could you be? I saw it. We all did."
"Don't," Adelaide said suddenly from behind her. He could still see her standing there, the wavering blur of her standing far above Rubelynn. It was easy and easier still to look at her, instead. Getting a bit easier to see her, too, the longer this went on. He noticed it with relief, and nodded his head in answer to a question nobody had asked. Adelaide's eyes flashed at him. "Don't do what you're thinking of doing," she said.
"And what is that?"
"Varric, no. You can fool everyone else, but don't try and pull that stunt with me," Rubelynn answered him, and he frowned distractedly at her, lifting his head a bit to do so from where it rested against the tree.
"Now isn't a great time for this, Ruby." But he was still looking past her, at the lavender eyes of Adelaide Hawke and the way her scarred brows drew down at him. Couldn't look away. "Come back later. Or better yet, don't."
"Varric," both women said in time, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut as the world throbbed around him.
"No," he croaked. "Whatever you're going to say, I don't care. I don't. I just want to stay here and soak in the breeze and maybe manage for forget this blighted shitshow for five minutes-"
"Your best friend died, Varric. I'm not going to let you push me away about this the way you are everyone else."
Varric stopped and he frowned, and he shook his head. "Don't go wasting our time, inquisitor," he said again, stressing the title in an attempt to get her to leave because something was squeezing tight around his chest like the iron fist of an ogre. It was hard to breathe, all of a sudden, and he brought his eyes flickering up at Adelaide, who was clearer than ever while Rubelynn was getting harder to focus on. "We've only got so much of it, right…?"
Rubelyn was saying something else, but then it changed halfway through when he lifted his wet hand away from his side to attempt to wave her away. Her voice sounded like it ought to have been a shriek, but to him it sounded gentle as the hand Adelaide laid on his cheek. "You're being an idiot," she told him. "You can't stay here with me, no matter what you think. If I wanted a tagalong, I'd go dig up Carver with the wardens again."
"Good thing it's not up to you then isn't it?" He replied, or thought he did, but it was hard to focus on everything but her face just now as the ground rushed up to meet him.
There was a sigh, or maybe that was the gentle spring breeze on his cheek, and then that, too, was gone.