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Varric was the best pilot in the verse. That’s why Cas put up with him, but, when Hawke first asked him to join the Serenity crew, she had her reservations.
Why did he always play with dinosaurs? Why did they have names? Bianca? Bartrand? Bethany? Why were they strewn around the cockpit? And why did he always make those gorram jokes?!
“Are we really this desperate?”
“We’re not.”
“Good. We can look for someone else.”
“No. He stays.”
“But…”
“No buts, Cassandra.”
“But Captain…he’s insufferable!”
Merrill took to him right away. Of course. They’d hang out in her engine room or play cards in the mess or walk around talking to the old ship like it was a person. The two of them would tinker on it night and day, laughing, making terrible obnoxious jokes, being happy.
“I don’t see what there is to be so happy about,” she’d complain to Cullen.
“Gorram it if I know,” he muttered, never even looking up from the gun he was cleaning. “People like us might be too broken for things that shine.”
Cassandra resorted to making disgusted noises and striding from room to room.
“Tsk tsk tsk. That’s no way to walk through life,” Josie would chide. “You have to cultivate moments of happiness. We have to hold onto the things that are worth living for.”
Cassandra didn’t want to lose anything that was worth living for, so she kept herself from wanting in the first place. What point was there in entanglements. She saw what had to be done and she did it. That’s how she survived.
It was late. She was awake. And she heard Varric scream from his bunk. She bounded up her ladder and knocked on his door. “Tethras. Open up.”
He cried out again.
She tried the latch, and it was unlocked. She slipped down into his room and went straight for his bunk. He was writhing in his sheets, brow sweaty, mumbling incoherently.
“Wake up!” She held onto him, trying to steady him.
“Reavers! No! Bartrand NO!” He sat up and struggled against her. His eyes were open but unfocused.
“Wake up, you’re having a nightmare. Varric! Wake UP!”
Her shouts jolted him back to reality. It took him a moment to focus on his surroundings and register who he was taking to.
“Seeker…”
“Ugh. I have not been a Seeker since before the war.”
“I…shit…that was…shit…I’m sorry you had to see me like this.”
She placed her hands in her lap but didn’t move off his bed. “The name you cried out…Bartrand…he is one of your dinosaurs.”
“Yes,” Varric chuckled, leaning back against the wall. “And he is also…er…was. He was my brother.”
“I…am so sorry, Varric.”
“It’s alright,” he sighed. “We can’t bring them back, yknow. But we can at least keep their memory alive. That’s how I get through the day, anyways.”
“So…the others? They too?”
“Yep.”
What an odd little man. And an odd little ritual. And yet, she found it strangely comforting. Before she realized it, the words were escaping her lips. “I…have lost someone, as well.”
Varric reached out and held her hand. “We all have.”
“My brother. Antoine. The loss…the hurt…it never goes away.
Before she could push him away, he scooted over and wrapped his arms around her. He held her then, held her while silence took the place where once there might have been sobs. She embraced him. And she breathed. And sighed.
The next day, she didn’t mind so much when Merrill greeted her with a smile or when Josie commented on her hair. She sat eating mush with Cap and Cullen, and it didn’t taste so awful. And, when she went to the cockpit to keep an eye out for salvage, she noticed a new dinosaur on the dash. She raised her eyebrow at Varric. “What’s this?”
He grinned and looked down into his hands. “It’s…y'know…for Antoine.”
“It's…thank you…” She picked it up, and smiled.