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It was definitely her sunny disposition he noticed first.
When Varric ducked into "BEANS!", To pick up an absurdly complicated coffee order for Hawke, he had done so reluctantly. Varric didn't like coffee as a rule. It didn't agree with him, and he didn't care for how irritable it made him.
Irritable would have been a mild word for the barista.
Her name tag identified her as "Cassandra". Not "Cassie" or "Cass" or even "Sandra". The full, nine letter name was stamped on the plastic tag pinned to her apron.
She was taking orders when he entered; although, "taking" might have been the wrong word. "Barking" would have been much more appropriate. Customers walked away looking sufficiently cowed, and the employees had a general air of panic about them. All in all, the place simply oozed efficiency.
Varric approached the counter with his scrap of paper with Hawke's order written on it. Cassandra nailed him to the floor with her gaze. She had eyes like steel.
"Well?" She asked in a crisp, almost snappish voice.
"Wow, are you this friendly to all of your patrons? Or do you just have a thing for handsome dwarves?" Varric blurted out before his brain could recover from the glare. Said glare intensified as she narrowed her eyes at him.
"Please speak up," she said cooly. "It’s hard to hear you all the way down there."
Varric grinned. Varric had heard all the short jokes before. He had even made a few himself. He could appreciate when one was delivered well.
"Calm down, cheekbones." Varric threw up his hands in an over exaggerated warding gesture. "I've got a complicated order and we're going to have to work together if we're going to finish it within the next age."
"Start talking, dwarf." Cassandra rolled her eyes.
Varric rattled off a lot of words, most of which he only understood in context.
"Is that all?" Cassandra challenged with a defiant lift of her impressive eyebrow.
"You have defeated my shopping list admirably, Lady Cassandra," Varric tried for a bow, but was confined between the counter and the person in line behind him.
'Lady' Cassandra placed the absurd beverage on the counter in front of him. Varric found himself wishing he had a reason to stay, some other thing he needed from her. Besides her number anyway.
But he came up blank, so he saluted her with the coffee and sauntered out the door.
Hawke was waiting for him with grabby hands for the coffee. Varric handed over the coffee absentmindedly, casting a thoughtful look at the coffee shop over his shoulder.
--
He was back. Again.
The short, blond man, with way too much chest hair out with how cold it was. He had been showing up every other day for the past two weeks. It was really starting to tick Cassandra off.
He shot her a smug smile every time he entered, before he went and set up his laptop at his usual table. She was sure he was up to something.
Other than that first day, when he had ordered the most ridiculous concoction of coffee she had ever had the misfortune to create, he only ever ordered a cake and sat in his booth. He hardly even touched the cake anyway, he just sat and poked at it while he stared at his laptop.
It irritated her as much as it intrigued her. Or, it irritated her how much it intrigued her. She wasn't even exactly sure what captured her attention. It wasn't that he was attractive, because he wasn't, not in the traditional sense anyway.
He was short, shorter than her, but then it wasn't hard to be shorter than Cassandra. He had a strong jaw and a crooked nose. He kept his hair pulled away from his face with a loose ponytail. It was the color of red gold, like a heroine in one of her romance novels.
It was his eyes, she decided, that were the most striking. They were intelligent, sharper than the laugh lines around them. He had that kind of face. Like a cat that got into the cream.
Cassandra spent an annoying amount of time staring at the man. He was right in her line of vision from her place at the counter. And she couldn't shake the feeling that he was looking at her when she wasn't watching.
He was definitely up to something, but she had no earthly idea exactly what.
--
Varric still didn't like coffee. Or tea. He liked cheap beer and cheaper wine. Neither were an option, but he had to buy something in order to stay in the shop. So he bought the cheapest pastry on the menu and retreated with his computer.
He told himself it was research. He had been dry for ideas, ever since he had wrapped up the book series that Hawke had inspired. He was researching his next book. He was not trying to work up the courage to talk to a girl like he was some ridiculous high school student.
Cassandra only had the two gears that Varric observed; full throttle and complete stop. She was either doing four things at a time, or one thing with complete focus. Why the hell she was working at a coffee shop and not in a weird, one-woman assembly line, was a mystery to him.
She had an old scar on her left cheek. She didn't cover it with any makeup that Varric could see. He didn't think it detracted from her fierce beauty, but it was large enough that anyone would at least consider covering it up. He wondered why she didn't. He wondered what kind of self-assuredness that took.
The only time he ever saw her relax was when she took her break. She drank a small, and Varric imagined, black as the void coffee, and read her book. Varric had no idea what book it was, because she had one of those cloth book covers college students put on their books, but by the look on her face it must have been fascinating.
Cassandra may have looked stoic while she worked, but when she read, it was a whole other story. A whole rainbow of emotions colored her face when she was engrossed in her book. If Varric hadn't been staring at her anyway, his eyes would have been drawn to the way her face moved.
He saw her look surprised, and angry and then sad. Even the anger paled in comparison to her smile, it lit up her whole face. Varric would kill a man to see what book she was reading. He wanted to be able to inspire that kind of emotion with his writing. The curiosity was burning him alive.
--
He was staring at her AGAIN. Every time her eyes flicked away from her book, he dodged her gaze. It was rude, and a little disconcerting. Cassandra couldn't concentrate on her book with his eyes burning her.
She was just getting to the best part of the book too. All the misunderstandings were about to be cleared up, and the heroine and her paramour would make love on the balcony. Of course, after that, everything would go wrong again and the book ends on a cliffhanger... But Cassandra had read it so many times, she usually just put the book down after the balcony scene.
It had been five years since the book had come out, and the author had written a whole other series since then. Those books had been good too, but nothing could come close to the emotional attachment she had to the first series.
She felt the man's eyes on her again and glanced up only to see him quickly look back at his laptop. That was the last straw and Cassandra shut her book abruptly. Which would have been more impressive, had it been a hardcover, and not the well-loved and well-worn paperback copy Cassandra carried.
Standing, she marched with purpose to the annoying, short man's table. The man in question was trying not to look guilty and failing miserably. Slamming one hand down on the table in front of him, Cassandra leaned down to speak in low, menacing tones right in his face.
"What, is your problem?" Cassandra demanded, her voice sharp as a tack.
"Uh..." Stammered the man.
"If you've got something to say, just spit it out," Cassandra snapped.
"Whatcha reading?" The man blurted out, red faced. It was not quite what Cassandra had expected. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but questions about her literary taste was not it.
"A book." She straightened and folded her arms. "Why?" The man laughed nervously.
"You just look like you're enjoying yourself," he shifted nervously in his seat. "Your smile is magnetic."
Cassandra blinked. And then blinked three more times in rapid succession. Oh. He wasn't mocking her, he was flirting with her. She hadn't expected that in the slightest. He held out his hand to her.
"Varric Tethras," he introduced himself and Cassandra couldn't help her jaw dropping. The Varric Tethras? The author Varric Tethras? It was like a scene out of a novel he could have written. A man comes into a coffee shop every day to see a woman; who, herself, remains oblivious. It was obvious when she thought about it, she could have kicked herself.
Cassandra mustered up the presence of mind to shake the hand proffered to her.
"Care to join me?" Varric asked with a rakish grin.
"Um," Cassandra considered. This conversation was getting away from her. The author of her favorite romance series was flirting with her. She had to play it cool, without playing it cold. "I guess I could." She sat slowly as to not appear eager. His eyes were even more intense up close, warm brown in the afternoon winter sunlight steaming in the large front windows.
"So," Varric said eventually startling Cassandra from her revelries. "Any chance I get a peek at this mysterious book?” He asked.
"No!" Cassandra squawked.
Maker have mercy on her. The Varric Tethras was sitting across from her, after watching her read his trashy romance novel. Apparently with 'magnetic' intensity.
He could never know.
He looked puzzled at her outburst so she tried to recover by asking him a question instead of answering his.
"What was up with that coffee order last month?" She asked. "I haven't seen you ordering it since."
"I was ordering for a friend," Varric replied. "I don't actually like coffee." He confided.
"Neither do I," Cassandra said. "I can only drink it with more cream than coffee." Varric grinned at that.
"I would have pegged you for a black coffee kind of girl," he said. "Tough girl coffee," he added, sounding far too amused and Cassandra sniffed.
"Just because I don't eat raw coffee beans, doesn't mean I am not tough," she said, a little hotly. Varric laughed at that, a real laugh. It transformed his whole face. The laugh lines around his mouth and eyes deepening and his brow wrinkling. It was like his face was meant to be in a laugh all the time. It was, as he would have put it, magnetic.
--
"I'll have to remember that one," Varric said when he stopped laughing. Cassandra was as captivating up close as she was from afar.
He had been absolutely stunned when she sat down. Even now, with her radiant smile pointed at him, he was half convinced she would come to her senses any second. Any second, she should remember she was fire and burn him.
For lack of a better term; You only live once.
"How long is your break?" Varric asked quickly.
Cassandra, caught off guard, answered immediately.
"I'm off now, actually." She glanced at the big fancy clock behind the counter and did a double take. Was she late for something? Someone?
Varric shook off his doubt.
"So would you want to get some dinner with me?" He asked with all the desperate charm he could muster.
She said nothing for a long moment. Varric was sure he had offended her. He just wanted to get to know her in a place that wasn't her work environment. Maybe she thought he was a stalker. Maker, what if--
"I'd like that," Cassandra's voice cut through his racing thoughts. Her usually steely gaze was softer just then, probably a trick of the light.
Varric had to stop himself from blurting out 'Golly, you will??' It would have ruined what little cred he had gained. He did manage to describe a delightful Italian place and got another musical laugh out of her.
Cassandra went to fetch her coat and Varric packed up his computer, on which was written just a single word:
"Magnetic"