Work Text:
[A crumpled letter found half buried in the dirt, at the base of a ruined pillar in the Deep Roads]
To Warden-Lieutenant Hacklebolt,
That doesn't say a thing about what you were to any of us
Hey Hacks
I'm
Murray said you were okay by the end. I know you told me not to come, but I came with you all the same, in my head. Every night for at least two weeks. Lay there in bed walking down into the Deep Roads with you, all the long way down. Don't be angry. I listened to you and stayed back, so let me have this.
I hope you
Maker's tits. Don't look at me like that, it's like I can see you rolling your eyes even when you aren't here.
But I'll never know how or when you go. Or even if you're still down there, turning into nobody even knows what.
It should have been anyone else. That's cruel, I know you'd tell me not to say it because I wouldn't want it to be any of the others either but… you should have outlived us all, Hacks. The Calling shouldn't have come for you for at least a hundred years. You had so many more stupid recruits to deal with. Maybe a few more glorious rescues. You'd like to come swooping in like some knight out of an old story, I know you would, even if you grumbled and groused the whole time.
What are we supposed to do without you?
[Some of the writing has smudged a little, as if a single drop of water had fallen onto the paper]
It should have been m
I'm sorry.
I should have been faster. Or smarter, stronger, something. With you, with Rose. Some nights that's all I can think about. What I could have done, if I'd made different decisions, how I screw up everything I touch, so it doesn't even matter if I'd chosen different but I think about it anyway. Half convincing myself that if just just one extra step I missed.
Would you still be here? Would she?
You were the father that I nearly convinced myself I didn't deserve.
You were the mother who should have stood by me. The brothers I never got to watch grow up. And after Rose, the closest thing I'd have to feeling like the world could turn inside out and you'd still know what to do. That you wouldn't let me go even if I was hanging off of the edge of Thedas. Not even if it meant you'd fall too.
In all that time none of them wrote me, not even once. So I guess that's why I'm writing this, even if I can't send it to you. You and Rose are the only family I'd want to write to. That I want to hear from. I'd give anything to hear you both again, but I guess that's just not how magic works.
I'll probably tear this up and set it on fire once I'm done writing. Or maybe I'll keep it for next time we go down to the Deep Roads, leave it somewhere. That feels right. At least it'll end up in the same place you are. It doesn't really matter. But it'll feel… not good, but it'll feel like something.
I miss you, old man
Red