Chapter Text
Madam Lusine stood poised in the doorway, arms crossed, as she watched her girls work. “Shall there be anything else for you, Master Dwarf?”
Grinning, Varric lazily waved a hand in the direction of the Bloomin’ Rose’s proprietar as her three ladies moved about the room. Every bone in his body felt as if someone had liquified them right in his skin and, by the stone, he’d never felt anything this good.
“My lady, my dearest lady, I believe that I have everything that I need right here,” he said happily. “In fact, I might just end up sleeping right in this very room.”
She chuckled at that as Sarah passed by her, Varric’s clothes piled haphazardly over one arm. “You would not be the first, Varric, nor the last.” Lusine nodded her head at the laundry pile. “My suggestion to you is to have those burned.”
The clothes that he’d worn almost every day while making his way back from the Deep Roads, stuck underground with no source of uncontaminated running water. Varric shuddered. “Burn the lot, with my blessing.” He opened one eye fully. “Except …”
“Except the jacket, of course. I do know the needs of all my clients.” She hesitated as the last girl left the room. “Speaking of, are you sure …”
“Madam, never let it be said that the jewels … oh sod it, sorry, Lusine, I’m just too fucking tired to pontificate. Another time, I promise.” He didn’t see her leave, just heard the door closed, as he sank deeper into the giant - and more importantly hot - bath.
The Rose was good for many things to many people but only a select few, the favorites and the ones that never took advantage, were allowed to pay for the rights to use the ladies giant tubs for bathing and soaking. He knew for a fact that other things than bathing happened in this room but he was too exhausted from the trip back from the Deep Roads to do anything but get clean and soak.
And maybe soak away some of the burning anger that he felt towards Bartrand. He and his brother had never been the most loving examples of siblings but they were brothers. Bartrand screwing him over was nothing new but leaving him to die, well, that was a new trick.
Varrick grunted and sank up to his chin in the water. Soak now, remember what clean was like now, worry about skinning Bartrand later.
*
After three actual baths, Varrick had spent the last hour simply soaking in a freshly drawn, steaming tub. He was probably never going to not be wrinkled at this point but considering how encrusted he’d been when he’d first walked into the Rose, Varric decided he was perfectly happy walking around like a prune.
He wasn’t so exhausted or so relaxed that the voices coming down the hall didn’t rouse him from his half-doze. They were low enough that he couldn’t make out distinct voices but there were at least two stopping outside the door to the bathes.
Resting his arms along the sides of the tub, his hand grazed Bianca’s handle - he might be naked and soaking wet but if it was an attack, they wouldn’t find him defenseless.
But it was only Lusine opening the door, though she looked far less pleased than she had when she’d left a few hours before. “I know you rented this space for as long as you needed it,” she said stiffly, “and were not to be disturbed, but …”
She was interrupted by a voice in the hallway. “But this is important.”
He gave the madame a lopsided smile. Hawke. It was always Hawke but he never seemed to mind.
“Hawke, to what do I owe -” Varric’s voice dried up in his throat when Lusine moved to the side and Hawke stepped through the door. They’d arrived early afternoon in Kirkwall and had gone their separate ways almost immediately - him to first make sure Bartrand hadn’t come crawling back and then to the Rose. He’d assumed that Hawke had gone home, met up with the family, cleaned up and then slept like the dead. Anders and Isabella had also immediately separated, heading off to find clean … everything, really.
But from the look of her, Hawke hadn’t seen anything resembling clean clothes, water or a bed since he’d last seen her. And if someone who hadn’t worked closely with her for so long had looked at her, they would have seen the filth and some of the exhaustion but they would entirely miss the haunted look that hadn’t been in her eyes just a few hours ago.
Varric looked at Lusine and she nodded, leaving them in peace.
The tub was big enough for him to stand in without showing her what the Ancestors had blessed him with, so Varric waded to the other end and braced himself for bad news. “Hawke? What’s happened?”
Scattered around the room were chairs of various shapes and sizes; Varric watched, concern building, as Hawke stumbled to the one that was seated nearest the tub he was in. She sank into it and he noted that her hands had started to shake
“They came for her, Varric. The Templars took Bethany.”
Of everything she could have said, it seemed that cut that the deepest. Varric braced himself against the tub side as Hawke continued softly, telling him what she’d found when she’d returned home, what she could gather had been happening while they’d been stuck in the Deep Roads; the words just poured out of her and Varric realized even the always strong Hawke had her moments where she just couldn’t be strong any longer.
While she talked, of words said by her mother and the aftermath, Varric snagged the nearest towel as he pulled himself out of the tub. He didn’t bother to dry off, just wrapped it around his waist so he could stand in front of Hawke. She’d stopped talking at that point and was simply staring off into the distance, exhaustion and grief warring for dominance.
He watched her face, saw how she struggled to bring herself back from that brink, close the walls and strap on the armor again. That might have been fine a different time but Varric knew that some things were better let out than hidden.
She didn’t protest when he picked up her arm and started to carefully pull off the armor she still had on. It was filthy and, if possible, even dirtier than his own clothes had been. Hawke was always in the middle of the fight while he stayed on the outskirts, picking off enemies with Bianca; the extra filth and injuries on Hawke made a lot of sense in context.
Hawke let him take off the braces and boots before she roused herself enough to ask him what he was doing.
“There are things, Hawke, that even I can’t fix,” he said, grimacing as he gingerly placed another piece of armor on the pile next to his feet. “And sometimes, believe it or not, even I run out of words to say.”
Stone’s Breathe, but he’d always had a soft spot for Sunshine. Bethany hadn’t deserved the Gallows and Hawke didn’t deserve the pain that went with it.
“I can, however, help you scrape off the Deep Roads, dark spawn and whatever else you happen to have in your hair. I did rent out the bathing rooms for as long as I have need of it - it would be selfish of me not to let you have a turn.” His nose wrinkled. “And trust me, it’s a favor to everyone else, too.”
Hawke scoffed and pulled away from him. “I appreciate the thought, Varric, but I don’t …”
He laid a hand on her shoulder, gently but firmly, and nudged her chin up with the other so she was looking at him. “Hawke. It’s sometime after midnight and the entire city is asleep. Well, except for villains and charming rogues like ourselves. If you’re thinking of ways to go after Sunshine sometime in the next few hours, you have to realize it’ll be a suicide mission. The Templars will be expecting you.”
Now, a few days from now, years even but he didn’t voice that. Hawke already knew. The look in her eyes told him that she already knew that far too well.
“There’s nothing you can do right now except take a bath and …” Varric squinted at her. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Don’t answer that, I think I know the answer. I’ll get the girls to scrounge something up from the kitchens, even if it’s just toast or what passes for stew here.”
Hawke turned her head away but not before he saw the hint of a smile come and go. “Why do I even bother trying to argue with you, Varric?”
“Hawke, I honestly have no idea. Perhaps one day you’ll just magically come to your senses and just agree with me on everything. Until that day, I’m going to say something that poor Anders has probably been dying to since we first walked into his already rather bizarre life - strip.”
His words startled a second of brevity out of her. She snorted in laughter and covered her face for a moment; he didn’t know if it was an attempt to stop laughing, crying or finding the patience not to kill him. But since Hawke stood up a few moments later and started to remove the remaining pieces of armor, Varric wasn’t going to complain.
Except maybe about the smell.
Ancestors, had he really smelled like that? No wonder they almost hadn’t let him into the Rose.
While she divested herself of armor and clothes, he wandered over and cracked the door open, inwardly giving himself a gold piece when he startled a young woman hovering outside the door. “We’ll be dropping off another pile of clothes to be … dealt with,” Varric said, straight faced, as if he hadn’t caught her eavesdropping. “Armor as well but no burning, not if you’d like to keep Hawke happy. Send it out somewhere or cleaned in-house still earns you some extra coin.”
“Of course, Varric,” she said, though her eyes had drifted above his head and to where Hawke was. “Such a pity that she only picks Jethann …”
At Varric’s pointed look, the girl winked at him and darted off. No doubt, he thought as he closed the door once more, to spread rumors that Hawke and her trusty business partner were knocking boots in the bath. Let them talk. Varric knew she’d prefer an amusing rumor over them talking themselves about something more real than imagined trysts. Sleeping with someone only added spice to her reputation; vulnerability, however real, would only damage it.
It was clear as he went back to her that Hawke had no real concerns regarding body modesty. She’d balled up the clothes she’d worn under her armor and tossed them as far away from her as possible reaching down to unstrap the hidden daggers that she kept stashed in various holsters..
Considering the circumstances, he didn’t let his eyes linger as she finished and finally stepped into the bath, taking a deep breath as she sank into the water but it was hard not to note the lithe muscles; the long limbs; scars that he’d been around when she’d received them and ones she’d spun tales about over drinks; sun-kissed skin only where armor and cloth didn’t lay and pale white underneath …
Gorgeous but sharp and as deadly as her namesake, he noted, knowing those details might make their way into a future story.
Varric laid his hands gently on her shoulders as she sank into the hot water and, with no comment to the shudders he felt under his palms, said, “Well then, Mistress Hawke, let’s see if we can’t do the residents of Hightown a favor and get you cleaned up.”
She hesitated. “Varric?”
“Yes, Hawke?”
When she looked at him over her shoulder, dirt streaked face dripping with fresh tears, Varric nearly choked up himself.
“Just … talk to me? Tell a story, anything you want.” She pressed her fingers against her forehead as if to press back a headache or the tears or both. “I need you to talk over the voices in my head.”
“Anything for you, Waffles,” he responded, dropping a quick kiss to the cleanest part of her head that he could find. There was more he could do - like present Bartrand’s head on a platter - but not tonight. If all he could do was help get her clean and tell her stories, he’d talk until he lost his voice and scrub until his skin fell off.
Varric owed Hawke that much.
He owed Bethany, too.