Work Text:
Isabela’s silhouette disappears quickly into the night, from where Hawke lingers in the doorway, obscured by his puffs of breath in the surprisingly chilly air. When he’s sure she’s gone without any of his stuff, Hawke closes the door, returning through the dark into the main hall, lit only by a roaring fire.
The armchairs cast long shadows on the freshly painted walls; Hawke casts longer ones on the evidence of earlier visitors.
“Rivani snatch anything on her way out?” Varric’s voice asks, unseen but amused from the depths of his chair.
“No, but I’m counting on you to check her rooms for anything that might have strayed there inadvertently.”
As Hawke returns to his seat by the fire, Stinky perks his head up. Warm ale in one hand, Hawke idly scratches Stinky’s ears with the other. Varric eyes the mabari over his whiskey, still mistrustful.
Considering his options, “Will I get payment for re-thieving?”
“Think of it as a gift for First Day. Besides, don’t you refer to most of what you do for the guild just short of petty theft?”
Varric shrugs unconcerned, “That’s business. Speaking of which, I’ve put inquiries in for finding staff for this place.”
Hawke groans. This discussion again. He hears enough of it from mother.
“Didn’t I say –?”
“Leandra requested –”
Resigned, “Wonderful. You and my mother are conspiring behind my back.”
Varric chuckles, “Just the first of many attempts to get you up to respectable speed with Kirkwall’s elite.”
“Says the dwarf living in a Lowtown tavern. With no staff.”
“They are the Hanged Man’s largest rooms: a perfectly respectable residence for a second son.”
Hawke winces where Varric won’t. The pair of them: now only sons, or as good as.
Hawke retreats to his ale. Even with the gold to buy it, Kirkwall’s ale still tastes like shit, but drinking it is a point of pride. Neither the ale nor the laughable cold snap could make Hawke truly imagine himself back in Lothering.
Stinky settles on Hawke’s feet with a huff and the crackling of the dying flames echo in the cavernous hall.
“You’ll need staff to keep the fires going so you don’t have to disturb the dog,” Varric observes, trying to make a point.
Eyebrows raised, “You do it yourself if you’re so cold.”
“I don’t have your personal experience with fire.”
Fully intending the entendre, “Or wood.”
Varric nearly spits his whiskey, “Andraste’s tits, Hawke, I know you’re a walking Ferelden cliché but –”
“An apostate’s got to put on a good front of not using magic around town. I happened to be the biggest and strongest in the family, so chopping firewood was up to me.”
(Never mind how bent and stooped father was in his final years.)
“You get a lot of swooners falling for that?”
Flashing a grin, “It worked.”
“No shit.”
“You would know all about that, or I should say Donnen Brennokovic would. Hard in Hightown, really?”
Pouring a new glass, “A compromise between my publisher and myself. You don’t care for it?”
“It’s a little obvious.”
“No shit.”
There’s a different look in Varric’s eye, unfocused and no longer directed at Hawke.
Hawke doesn’t pretend to not like flirting with everyone; it’s simply who he’s always been. Flirtations bounce off Aveline and Merrill. Isabela cackles and calls him ‘kitten,’ unable to take him seriously, but there’s a comfort in it. Anders evidently took him too seriously and for the first time, Hawke cut himself off from flirtations entirely. Fenris is too guarded and Hawke isn’t sure Fenris even likes him as a person; but Varric…
The last time Hawke flirted with someone this brazenly and had the flirtations returned as nearly rapidly had been Allison a lifetime ago back home. He was young; she hadn’t been five miles beyond the village. That burned out the second Carver found them behind Dane’s Refuge, red in the face.
(“I don’t see what you’re so upset about, you interrupted me.”
“I like her!”
“Carver, you’re twelve.”)
There’s no chance of Carver interrupting anything now, thank the bloody Maker.
The obvious break in Varric’s own bravado is new; it sparks something inside Hawke as much as it makes his insides churn in unknown dread. Or that could be the piss-poor ale.
In spite of the bad drinks, Hawke is here to stay. He’s willing and ready for the journey with Varric too, wherever it goes.
Nudging at Stinky with his boot, “Come on boy, I have to warm our thin-skinned friend from Kirkwall up.”
Stinky’s snores even seem to be in protest. Hawke moves about; Varric stays put.
To Hawke’s crouched back, he grumbles, “It’s bloody cold outside and you know it.”
Brushing the dirt and soot from his hands as he rises, “Now who’s the very cliché of a Marcher?”
Varric grins, though still not entirely himself, “And proud of it.”
Hawke reaches for his tankard before he sits, but Varric puts out a cautioning hand, “No, now it’s time for my second attempt to teach you how to be a model aristocrat. Forget the ale.”
Hawke warily hands over the tankard, which Varric promptly dumps out on the tile floor.
“Hey!”
Archly, “Oh, that isn’t what you do in Ferelden taverns when you want a new drink?”
Miffed, “Please, we’d toss it out the window. Otherwise we’d have to mop the mess up.”
With the newly emptied tankard, Varric begins pouring the whiskey he’s been sampling out for Hawke.
“They’re more likely to have this at whatever Leandra drags you to on behalf of the viscount and I don’t want you embarrassing me in front of the higher ups.”
Hawke scoffs, but takes a large swig. The ferocity of the burn takes him by surprise, for someone who’s always been rather willing to play with fire.
Varric nods sagely, “This is why you need practice. You can’t chug twenty-year Kirkwall whiskey like it’s that yeast and water shit you and Aveline are inordinately fond of.”
Varric sips his own drink and once he’s stopped coughing, Hawke follows suit. It still burns like hell, but now it’s seeping in, warming him inside out.
Voice creaky, “I have to admit, this wouldn’t have been half bad on a winter night in Lothering.”
Varric smiles, raising his glass in toast, “Now you’re getting it. To 9:32; may it continue to provide Hawke with what the Age has promised.”
“To 9:32; may Varric no longer be embarrassed by my mabari.”
They both guffaw into their drinks.
Varric puts his glass down, “I’ve got to get going – guild business in the morning and all that.”
Loosened by liquor, Hawke almost, almost offers a room for the night. It isn’t like they’re hurting for space in the Amell estate.
Instead he pushes the bottle of whiskey at Varric, but Varric declines. “Since none of our other friends were so courteous, consider it a housewarming gift, or whatever’s left of it.”
“Thanks.” Hawke is taken aback and he is baffled at his own surprise.
He stands to follow Varric out; Stinky hounding their heels.
“Worried I’ll steal something too?”
Voice steady, “You are a notorious liar.”
“I didn’t lie about the money that expedition would make you.”
Hawke rubs at his forehead, in consideration, “No, you did not.”
Varric pulls his coat closer on the steps of the estate as breath curls behind him. Hawke swears he hears him mutter, ‘Bloody ridiculous.’
Quietly to Stinky, “What do you say, boy? Think we’ll let him stay? At least he isn’t rude to you like Gamlen.”
Stinky whines in agreement.
(At their first Wicked Grace game of the new year, Hawke orders a glass of whiskey and the ale closest to tasting like home.
Varric shoots a look only Hawke catches.)