"You want a piece of- Ooph!" Varric's breath escaped him in a large whoosh as the Hawke's slim figure flew backward into his arms.
Sheer luck had caught him without his finger on his beloved crossbow's trigger, but reaching for a new bolt instead. Two seconds later and he would have impaled his de facto leader - most unwillingly, but surely enough - upon the end of Bianca.
There wasn't time to push her away. Working around Hawke, the dwarf shoved the bolt into place and fired into the gut of the oncoming hurlock. That part wasn't luck at all. With the speed and size of that thing - not to mention proximity - it was a bit like hitting the size of a large and very smelly barn.
Still encircling the woman in his arms, Varric jerked the bow upward, releasing a second shot into the darkspawn's throat while Hawke completed the decapitation with a well-placed slice of her blades. As it went down at their feet, the dwarf thanked his ancestors that his clumsy leader wasn't a larger woman or fancied small-ego compensating plate armor. He'd never have been able to get his arms around her then.
The lithe woman moved aside as Varric reached for another bolt and both stood at the ready, just daring any of the gore-soaked creatures at their feet to so much as twitch. They didn't.
"Well, that's two more for me," Varric grinned as he slipped his crossbow into the holster at his back. "and negative two for you. You're just lucky Bianca likes you."
"Right. I could feel just how much she likes me," Hawke groaned exaggeratedly as she rubbed her lower back. "And that's one for you and one for me." Her eyes twinkled as she wiped her bloody blade along the sleeve of her companion's coat.
"Now that's just plain rude. How am I supposed to hold an audience when I smell worse than The Hanged Man?" He chuckled, but didn't look at her. The bolt in Varric's fingers came free with an audible thock as he plucked it from the downed corpse. No need to waste inventory. He twirled it in his hand as he advanced on Hawke, grinning now. "Unless of course, you smell worse."
Across the cavern, Bethany and Isabela exchanged a questioning glance.
"Well aren't you just a little ray of sunshine." Varric smirked at the irony as the large thug advancing toward him literally blocked out the sunlight that had been streaming down upon the dwarf's face.
Point for him. Without all that damned light, Varric could finally make out the man's chest without squinting... and all those beautiful vital organs that lay beneath it. He crouched just a little lower and patted Bianca. His little love promptly skewered the thug's rib cage just as something shiny ripped through the air over him And sharp, he realized as he patted the top of his head.
"Hey Hawke, that makes thirty for me!" Varric called into the din of battle, having no actual idea where the woman had gotten to.
"And thirty-one for me." Her voice was a self-satisfied whisper just behind the dwarf's ear.
"Sodding nughumper," he muttered as he turned toward the voice and spotted the two Coterie corpses at his heels. Varric looked directly up at Hawke and lifted his crossbow.
"What?" she purred. "Bianca not like me anymore?" But her gaze was no longer reminiscent of a sleepy cat's. Peering down into the dwarf's eyes with her head canted to the side, Hawke slipped her blade behind her, just to the left of her waist. At the same moment, Varric fired twin bolts over her right shoulder.
Three bodies hit the ground, surrounding the comrades in a mound of dark decay. "Tie," Varric smirked.
Hawke grinned in response as she watched Sebastian and Aveline dispatch the last of the thugs. "The usual?"
"First one on their back loses."
Varric and Hawke sheathed their weapons and fell into step as they walked toward The Hanged Man. The others would just have to catch up on their own. After all, they weren't injured and had two good feet. Plus, they'd probably protest if they knew just where they were going.
"Three Red-headed Slatterns, two Sweet Releases, and a Damsel's Kiss."
"Child's play! Three Wallbangers, two Cucumbers, and a Rusty Screw."
"You just had to throw the Rusty Screw in there."
Trailing behind, Aveline and Sebastian were determinedly not listening.
"...two Maker's Sighs and a Holy Smite." Hawke's eyes glinted deviously as she stepped into the tavern.
"Now you're talking!" Varric laughed jubilantly as he wedged himself in at the bar. "Three Holy Smites, Corff!"
"Three? What about your share?" Hawked chuckled as she clapped the man across his broad shoulders.
"That is my share! You order your own." He grinned widely while offering her the first of many drinks.
Isabela looked down at the dwarf without so much as fully opening her eyes. From her vantage point at - or more specifically on - the corner edge of the bar, she watched the two trade shots for hours. It was hardly a fair match, but Hawke was stubborn. It was only when the woman's coloring became an almost permanent shade of rose that the Rivaini started tempering Hawke's shots with water.
Tonight's match lasted longer than any of the night's previous, long enough to begin to bore the onlookers and see Varric nearly fall out of his seat. It wouldn't be long now, but she was growing impatient. With a cocky smirk, Isabela raised her glass to the woman across the room. Bethany's smile was impish in the faint glow of her discrete spell.
No, it wouldn't be long at all now.
Varric awoke to the smell of salt water and stale rum. Was that right? Could rum be stale? Whatever it was seemed acridly strong with a hint of sweetness. To breathe the air was to taste it and... as he considered a moment, he thought it wasn't entirely foul. He could get used to it.
But where was he? The dwarf ran his hand down the curved wall closest to him. Wood and moving. Definitely moving. Minute shafts of sunlight spilled in from above bringing with it droplets of seawater. He knew two things then. He was a on ship and he had some definite debts to collect from the Rivaini now. Or perhaps he could just let it slip that she'd been in Anders' clinic a week past... No, she deserved more than that. He grinned. Much more.
By the time the lump on the floor - the one he'd assumed to be yet more cargo - moved, Varric had determined that he was definitely locked in a ship's cargo hold and no one outside could either hear or care less about any strange noises made within. The lump startled him though. It hadn't moved when he was creating a racket or shooting at the hatch lock. No, it chose to move just when he was standing right next to it and near-sodding stopped his heart from beating.
"Varric?" The lump said in a foggy voice.
It was Hawke. Of course it would be Hawke. They'd both been too stupid last night to pay the wench pirate any heed and thus they both must suffer. Of course, if this were a story... He shook his head. Nah. "Yeah, Hawke."
"Why do I smell wet sugar?"
After Varric detailed the extent of their capture, he watched patiently as Hawke worked through the ship, cursing when her slim fingers just couldn't quite reach the lock that held them in.
They were just long enough though to catch the slip of parchment that hovered in the sunlight just below it. Once she had removed the bolt from the sheet, Hawke began reading. "'You two have been making me sick for far too long. Get on with it and if it's dirty enough for my satisfaction, I will let you out. - Isabela.'"
Hawke blinked in silence.
"Well, that shouldn't be too hard to fake. You take that end of the hull and I'll take the other. Between us, I'm pretty sure we can come up with a performance that will burn her ears off." Varric held absolutely no faith in his plan, but at least it kept things sunny.
"There's more," Hawke murmured. "'P.S. Hawke, Varric has been watching your bottom incessantly. He's also been reported to like his women like he likes his whiskey - slow and sultry with a hell of a burn. Varric, Hawke-'" She stopped reading abruptly and crumpled the parchment. "When I get out of here," she seethed, her cheeks flushed, "I am going to lock her in the Chantry with Sebastian for a full week.
Though tickled at the thought of the Rivaini seated at the foot of Andraste while being ever so kindly counseled on her wicked ways, Varric was still unable to contain his curiosity. With one hand, he reached up and snatched the damned note. "'Hawke has repeatedly turned down Anders and Fenris. While I can't blame her there. I suspect she's been without for almost as long as Aveline if time is any indication of priggishness... From what I can tell, she likes her men shirtless - don't think I didn't see you drooling over that templar, Hawke - and smart. I think you can put two and two together.'"
Hawke stared ahead as though there was some porthole in the hull she could peer out of. Varric stroked his chin. "Huh. Well, that was completely unhelpful."
"You aren't actually considering any of it are you?" Hawke's tone was icy and she crossed her arms about herself as though her armor simply wasn't enough of a visual shield.
"Not when you put it that way. Come on." He gently tugged at her arm, "Let's talk this out and I'm sure we can come up with a solution. Had one for every other bit of crazy that's happened, haven't we?"
And so they sat and talked...and talked.
"It's night..." Hawke remarked from her make-shift bed as the dark interior of the ship became that much darker.
"Anyone expecting you?" In the back of Varric's mind, hope sparked for a potential rescue. But then why was he hoping she said no?
"Not tonight." For a moment, she opened her mouth as if to elaborate, but there was only so much talking that could be done before the thought of it was simply tiring. Instead she settled for, "Do you really?"
Varric turned from the really very comfortable pile of straw he'd been fluffing under his head. "Yep. I really do have daggers bigger than Rivaini's ever seen."
Hawke snorted and slid one foot closer to herself while clasping her knee.
"What? How else did you want me to answer that?" Varric chuckled as he carefully removed straw from where it had become tangled in his chest hair. "Do I really frolic naked through the fields when no one can see me? Nope, sorry. That's Daisy."
Hawke laughed, but there were sober undertones in the sound. "Do you really watch my arse when I walk?"
"Well..." Varric considered for a moment. Then shrugged. "Yeah. Between your shoulders and your knees, I'd say that's the most pleasant vantage point I can have without getting a crick in my neck."
"Do dwarven women like that?" The moonlight had begun seeping in the cracks, casting Hawke in shadowy profile.
"Don't know if you've noticed, but there aren't a whole lot of those on the surface." Damn straw. There was one piece he just couldn't get...
"That hardly answers the question."
"Well, there's a whole context that would need to go with it. I'm not about to start a story right in the middle without any sort of prologue. You know me better than that." He grinned, certain that even though she couldn't see it, she could hear it. "Besides, it's your turn."
"How can it be my turn when you haven't finished yours?"
"Because..." Varric smirked. "I said so. So let's have it... " His smirk grew." Do you really?"
Hawke laughed, "I see now how absurd that is. Do I really what? Lick lampposts in winter?"
Varric grinned widely enough that he could feel his teeth brushing the edge of his lower lip. "Do you really turn down blondie and broody on a regular basis?"
"It's certainly not on a regular basis. Perhaps once or twice."
"Why?" Varric rolled to his stomach and rested his chin in his hands. More straw to clean up later. Damn.
"Oh, where do I begin? 'Oh please Hawke, let me just use you to collect these herbs, free these mages, get revenge on my evil master, and completely validate my self worth...'" As she spoke, she alternated her voice between Anders' sober sincerity and Fenris'... Well, when she tried to drop her voice as low as his, both of them broke out in side-splitting laughter. "I mean," she breathed as she tried to reclaim her words, "didn't they hear the fairy tale romances about rescuing damsels in distress?"
"You're hardly that sort of damsel, Hawke," Varric snorted.
"Ah, but you can take the girl out of the story and still not take the story out of the girl."
They were quiet a moment then.
"I think..." Varric began, "that men would be more familiar with those stories if they had more battles in them. Just a hunch."
"Fighting dragons not good enough for you men-types?" Hawke's voice was lazy and amiably mocking.
"Not when you've actually fought them. Writing your story alongside you is never dull, Hawke." Varric returned to laying on his back, staring at the deck above and trying desperately to ignore the stalks of straw that still clung to him.
She laughed. "That is most certainly true. I should probably thank you for that."
"No... no need for that. The last time a lass wanted to thank me I ended up getting a kiss that was swiftly followed by a slap from the... other lass who wanted to thank me." He grinned and waited for the continuation of her laughter.
"Well then," Hawke's voice was quiet as she moved closer. "I promise I won't slap you." Leaning down, she plucked a single stalk of straw from his chest and pressed her lips against his.
"Hrm..." Varric murmured as he caught his breath and slid his hand over his favorite vantage point. "The plot thickens."
Daylight... days later found Isabela at the hatch to cargo hold of the borrowed ship, yelling down, "If you two don't come out now... I'm going to join you."
. . . .
A/N: Now edited and updated. Thank you to RICARD for the corrections.