Work Text:
He hadn't moved.
Varric left Sebastian in the Skyhold tavern. He took his time, getting the sense from the Prince's statue stare that he wasn't in a mood to talk. When he came back with the cask of ale he'd been saving, the bar had emptied out. The last few stragglers were gone, leaving Sebastian sitting in smoky orange light. Aside from one twitching foot, not seen but heard against the creaking wood panels, he was motionless. Lips clamped shut, arms folded on the table. Eyes like cold glass, fixed on the wall across from him.
The Prince of Starkhaven was visiting the Inquisition base on official business. To see the progress of his investment, was the claim. Utter horse shit, is what Varric knew it to actually be.
The storyteller took a deep breath, gathering every particle of bravery in his gut, and walked into the tavern. With a bounce worked into his step and a slapped-on smile, he threw himself in Sebastian's line of vision.
"Hey there, Choir--err, Sebastian," said Varric. Despite his fumble, his voice maintained a jovial tone. "Or should I be calling you Prince Sebastian? Your Highness? Your... Princely-ness?"
"Sebastian will suffice," his answer slipped through the space of his lips, small and dry.
"Err, right, sure. Quite a trip, huh? We're a long way from the Free Marches. You find the place okay?" He forced a laugh, something to fill the tepid void between them, but the joy was quickly dying in his throat, seeing Sebastian perpetually stony visage, not a single shift of the brow or crinkle on his nose.
A drip of sweat tripped along the wrinkles in Varric's forehead, when the clunk of liquid against its casing gave him relief from the awkward silence. "Oh! I have something you might like. I was saving it for the Inner Circle's next game night... but I think you'd appreciate it more." He hoisted up the cask and it thud against the table. Varric waited for Sebastian to detect the toasty smell, or even see the Kirkwall symbol on the container. When no response came, he answered the unknown question. "It's the exact ale they served at the Hanged Man! Can you believe I got a hold of a guy willing to ship it all the way out here? Obviously I wouldn't crack it open for just anything... anyone."
Again, no answer. Desperate not to wade in silence, the storyteller jolted to the bar area and scavenged the shelves. "It's been a while since either of us had this, I bet. Funny to think about it, how we used to drink this all the time for years and then just stopped. Well, more me than you. Your vows didn't allow it or... well, ale and vows just don't go together, anyway. Here..."
He came back to Sebastian's table with two empty glasses. "Yeah, now I remember," he said as he poured. "You never drank, but you always came to the Hanged Man with us. You didn't even mind that the rest of us would make complete asses of ourselves. You were just happy to be there."
He filled one glass to the top, white foam inching over the brim, but just enough that it wouldn't spill over. He gently slid it across the table, in front of the Prince. Sebastian sighed and took a sip; whether it was from pity or thirst, Varric didn't care. The twist in his gut was loosened by getting a reaction--any reaction--from his former travelling companion. "I remember this one time. Isabela and you were talking. You mentioned that you used to go to places like the Hanged Man all the time, drink and gamble, all that. The good Captain didn't believe you, so she challenged you to a game of Wicked Grace."
Seeing Sebastian put his glass down after one meager swallow, Varric started to pour his own, just to focus on the sound of flowing bubbles. "Of course she wanted to make things interesting, but when did Isabela ever not want to do that, right?" He pushed a chuckle from the bottom of his gut, not even bothering to wait for an answer. "So she made you put something on the line. I think she gambled a... bottle with a little ship, I think, and you had a... what was it? A dagger, or a pen, or... something. The important thing was it wasn't important. She knew you didn't really have any possessions, and shit, neither did she."
Varric studied his own pour. Against the flicker of the lone candle on the table, he could see a tiny space between the ale's head and the top of his glass. He lifted the cask again to rectify it. "So you two had your game, and you lost. You didn't seem to mind, you were just having fun, but Hawke was determined to win back the thing you lost. Knew she couldn't beat Isabela in Wicked Grace, though, so she tried to beat her in a drinking game. You told her it wasn't necessary, I told her she had even less chance than in a game of chance. But she wouldn't hear it."
Varric looked back at Sebastian. He had maybe taken one more sip from his glass while he was pouring his own. For Varric's own sake, he assumed Sebastian did, and just preferred to appreciate the mediocre brew, flavored by nostalgia. He chugged down as much as he could, hoping to taste bravery in the familiar swill.
"She lost, of course. By the end, she could barely stand up. And you carried her home."
Sebastian brought the glass to his lips, but he shut his eyes, the hands trembled, the ale rocked in his grasp. He put it down, but his fingers lingered on the handle. The creases of his brow seemed to deepen, lines of wither and age drawn around his eyes, as if Varric's words were sucking the youth from him.
But Varric had nothing but words and this shitty ale, so he took another gulp and kept talking. "I just... I think that was the moment I realized just how much she cared about you. That she would make a complete ass of herself just to win you back some little trinket. I just... shit. It hit me so hard, so fast. Part of me didn't want to see it. I'd brush off all the times she made you laugh, and all the times she insisted you come along with whatever we were doing. Like a jackass, I ignored it when she lost her mother and you were the only one who even knew what to do and say to make her feel better. But I couldn't pretend anymore, after seeing that. Hawke really loved you."
For the first time that evening, Sebastian looked directly at the storyteller. He pursed his lips to speak, but bit them back. His nails curled along the table.
Varric downed the last of his ale. Whatever feeling was boiling in his gut, it was as close to courage as he was going to get tonight. "Look, Sebastian. I was shitty to you, back in Kirkwall. I wanted to believe there had to be something wrong with you. I wanted to think Hawke brought you everywhere because she felt sorry for you, but the truth is you made Kirkwall... home for her. In a way that I couldn't. That city took and took from her, but when she saw you, she was happy. I know I can't just make years of me being an ass to you go away with an apology and some shitty ale. But you used to say we're not that different, so maybe we could still be friends. I think that's what Hawke would want. So maybe.... for her sake, we could start over."
Still nothing, worse than nothing. Sebastian's lip quivered, the beginning of a sob choked back down. The floor boards cricked louder against his tapping. He pushed the glass of ale away, as though the sight or whiff of it would make him sick, and his fingers retracted into fists.
"Andraste's blood, Sebastian," Varric begged. The guise of joy and fondness of fading memories ran dry, his voice raspy, wringing of desperation. "Say something, anything. I'm begging you."
Sebastian collected himself, realigned shoulders, hammering down his nerves so he could sit still. "It was a ring," he murmured. With every word that passed, his voice became louder, balled fists tighter, eyes glassier. "With my family crest on it. I was... mad at myself. I was sure I could never take my lands back, be the Prince my people needed. I threw the game. I know cheating as well as Isabela does. I could have won, but I didn't want to, I didn't deserve to win anything.
"But Hawke... she saw how distraught I was, saw it was my way of giving up again. Isabela had no intention of keeping the thing, but Hawke was determined to win it back for me. Because she believed in me. For all the time I faltered, and doubted, and questioned... she never stopped believing in me. I'll never know what someone so wonderful saw in a wretch like me."
Varric's jaw dropped. For once, words weren't churning out of him. He tried to find something comforting within him, but Sebastian blurted out, "You left here there,".
"What? No! We were all running... me, the Inquisitor, the Warden, Hawke... there was an opening at the end. But that thing, the demon, we couldn't kill it. We had no idea how much time we had. So we just kept running. And there was a flash, and we fell. Next thing I knew, I was back in Adamant Fortress, and the Inquisitor was giving some speech to the Wardens about how Hawke did what she needed to do..."
"But she came here because of you!" His body jerked, feet slammed against the floor, grabbing the end of the table to stop his body from shaking again. "She'd done enough, she didn't need to involve herself in all this, but came anyway, to protect you!"
"I never made her do anything! She insisted on coming! If you really think she would be content playing Princess all safe in a castle somewhere, that's on you, not me!"
"Oh, of course, Varric," Sebastian's brogue grated against his guttural retort, his words lashed like fiery whips. "Because you're the only one who ever truly understood her! How could I ever compete? I supposed you were right about me all along! It's so fitting that Anders should take Elthina and the Chantry from me, then you, his dear friend, should come in and take all I have left!"
"For shit's sake, don't bring up Anders! He's the reason I'm hundred of miles from home, on the ass-end of nowhere! Do you really think this about you? In case you haven't noticed, that Magister Hawke killed came back stronger than ever and ripped a demon-spewing hole in the sky! Even if we beat him, who knows how long it'll take to settle this whole mages and templars shit and get everything back to normal."
"Nothing will go back to the way it was. Are you so blind you cannot see that? You think your Inquisitor can just patch up the sky, and you go back to Kirkwall like it was never torn asunder? Do you have any idea what it even looks like right now?"
"See, this?" Varric grunted, gesturing to the space between himself and Sebastian. Displaying the invisible spikes of anxiety and anger between them. "This is exactly why we never got along. Every time you got challenged, you just flipped it around or said a line from the Chant, like you were above it. I could never just talk to you normal."
"I was nothing but kind to you, and you threw it in my face!" The Prince snapped through clenched teeth. He stood up, his arms wobbling under his own pressure, eyes inflamed. "And now you don't have Hawke to hide behind anymore."
"Look, I know you're in a lot of pain, but so am I! I loved her too, okay? You don't get to treat me shitty just because this is hard."
"Hard?" Sebastian trembled, heavy breaths between words. His eyes blinked in rapid succession, to shutter away forming tears, and to distract himself from his own anger. "Varric, I was going to marry her! We were going to change things! She was the only person in this miserable world who didn't treat me like I was a mistake! She was everything to me, and you think you can just give me a halfhearted apology, and all this will go away? No, no... I won't let this all go just because you feel bad."
Varric dug his fingers into his temples, eyes bouncing around the tavern, trying to find a filter for his weakening sympathy. "What, you think this is easier for me just because our relationship is different? She was my best friend, I knew her for years. And I watched it happen! I'm the one who has to live with this."
"That's the true reason we never got along. You don't think I can experience pain as the rest of you do. You think, between being a Prince and being in the Chantry, I'm just above being mad and guilty! You couldn't see me as a regular person."
"What do you think I'm trying to do here? Like I don't know you came all this way to yell at everyone involved in losing Hawke. I'm just... " Varric gave an exasperated, rattling sigh. He looked at the Prince with dry, reddened eyes. "I'm trying to reach out to you."
Sebastian shook his head, scorning the storyteller's plea. "You treat me like dirt for three years, and now you're sensitive? You think soft, boring Sebastian is going to lie down and take all your abuse because you got stale piss ale and told me a half true story that I was part of? You think you can just talk your way out all your problems, don't you? You spin a few lies and kiss arse and pretend to be everyone's friend, so you'll never be to blame for anything?"
"What happened to anger not coloring everything you do? You really think this is how Hawke wants you to act? You really think I don't hate myself for not doing something--anything--different to save her?"
"But you didn't! You didn't save her, I didn't stop her, and no amount of regret will bring her back. If I have to live with this, so do you!"
Varric shrunk in his seat, under the weight of Sebastian's blaring blue stare. "So what, then?" he said with defeated shrug. "You want us both to live in guilt for the rest of our lives? What do you want me to say, Sebastian?"
Sebastian hung his head, suspended by his shuddering hands against the table. Every word dripped from him like trudging bile. "I don't want you to say anything. I don't want to hear it. I used to think we were alike, but... all we really had was our love for Hawke. And now she's gone. Now there's nothing."
Whatever else the Prince thought to say, he choked it down. He fell back on the chair, limbs flopped on impact like they'd turned to jelly. He turned from Varric, staring at the dying candle flame. "I'll be going back to Starkhaven in the morning. Until then, I want to be alone."
"Sebastian, come on..." Varric begged, but got no answer. "Really? You're going back to the silent... shit. Fine. Just... goodbye, Choir Boy."
The storyteller got up and left, tried to muffle the sound of sobbing behind him with scuffing his boots and shutting the tavern door.