01. Rainbows and Unicorns
"Bless you," said Varric, not looking up from the notebook he hadn't touched once in the past twenty minutes.
Isabela raised an amused eyebrow. "That didn't even sound like a sneeze," she pointed out.
"No, it sounded like bullshit," Varric said. "No one who wants to stay in business longer than five seconds names their shop 'Bitchy Coffee'."
"And yet," said Isabela, turning her carryout cup around so he could see the logo and gently wiggling it for emphasis. "They have better coffee than your old haunt."
Varric looked up, finally, but with no small measure of sarcasm. "They don't exactly set the bar high. Bartrand found a new species of insect in his the other day."
"I meant when the Hangman didn't suck," Isabela clarified, then added, in response to the silent accusation, "And that was a gummy worm I put in his drink and you know it." She pushed her cup toward him. "Just try a sip."
Heaving a dramatic sigh, Varric obliged, picking it up and bracing for the worst. In the time since Isabela had let herself into his apartment, it had gone lukewarm, but to his amazement it hadn't lost flavor like any sensible coffee would have done. It was, from near as he could tell off a single sip, a smooth dark roast with light cream and... what the hell?
"Why does it taste like sassafrass and peppermint?" he asked, utterly confused. "More importantly, why does it not taste like death?"
"Probably because it contains them," Isabela replied, only a little smug. "And I don't know."
Varric took another bemused sip, and discovered a fruity flavor he couldn't identify. "Oh, come on. What even is this?"
"It's called a Heartbroken Street Magician," his friend said brightly. "Have a coupon." She slid him a scrap of paper that had the shop name and "1 half off coffee! :)" scribbled on it in ball-point pen.
"This is a terrible idea," Varric muttered into his scarf two days later as he dithered outside the storefront, squinting uncertainly into the depths of new coffee territory. He had to admit it looked clean enough, and though someone had stolen the "I" from the sign above the door, someone - possibly the author of the coupon - had painted a lopsided smiley in its place in butter yellow.
He might have stood there longer except it really was cold and he really did want coffee, so with some reluctance, he stepped over to the door and pushed it open. Bells jingled above his head, save for one that just sort of made a thunk noise, and a small woman with flower clips in her dark hair looked up from her book.
"Good morning!" she chirped, hopping up. "You must be Varric, Isabela's friend." At the look on his face, she added, "She told me you'd hang round outside for a bit. And she texted me a picture. You know, she's really very good at photography. Oh! Sorry, I'm rambling. I'm Merrill. What would you like?"
Charmed by her earnest smile despite himself, Varric looked up at the board. He'd thought 'Bela had been joking about the names, but no - aside from "Heartbroken Street Magician", there was also "Fight Me Helen", "Family Drama", "I Dream Of Steady Paychecks", "Get Out The Way", "Disappointment", and "Still Life Of Dog Toy In Snow".
"I'll have a 'Therapy Bill' and a... a 'Rainbows and Unicorns' muffin," said Varric finally, growing increasingly concerned despite his amusement.
"Oooh, good choice," Merrill said, tapping away at the register. "That will be $4.75 please! I know the names are a little funny," she said as he dug around in his wallet, "but Hawke likes to keep things interesting."
"Hawke?" Varric echoed, watching her tiny, birdlike hands count out his change.
"The owner," Merrill said, handing over a few coins. "I'll have your coffee in just a minute! Sit wherever you like."
Varric pocketed the lot and, seein as he was the only customer aside from surly looking man in the back, made a beeline for a booth in the corner. He set his laptop bag down in time to see her poke her head into the kitchen to say, muffled, "Hawke, we need a Rainbows and Unicorns please!"
He couldn't hear the reply, but Merrill reappeared and began making his coffee. There was a lot of espresso, no creamer but probably half a can of whipped cream, and what appeared to be green sprinkles. Varric was mildly horrified, but mostly eager to find out what the monstrosity tasted like.
Merrill brought it out to him with a napkin that was printed with the same lopsided smiley face that was on the sign outside. "Here you go! The muffin will be a few minutes," she said, apologetically. "We opened just before you got here."
"That's fine," he assured her, and as she walked away, took a cautious sip of his coffee.
He set it back down, stared for a minute, then called, "Are there Pop Rocks in this?"
"Nah," said a new voice to his left, and he looked up into sky blue eyes. "It's homemade candy, doesn't melt as quick."
The tall, lanky person dangling over him was paler than Merrill, with short, messy black hair and a faint red birthmark on the bridge of her nose. She set a little saucer with a single, enormous muffin onto his table, then straightened. "I finished the first batch right before you ordered. Luckily for you," she added. "Rainbows and Unicorns takes the longest to prep."
Varric blinked. "Hawke, I presume?" he asked, then took a good look at the pastry he'd just bought. True to its name, the muffin was a swirl of bright colors that probably involved way more food coloring than it ought, and the top was decorated with raw sugar. He broke a piece of the muffin off and popped it warily into his mouth. The woman, who had yet to confirm or deny the name, watched in amusement as his face tried on several different emotions and discarded them all.
"What did I just eat?" he asked warily, suddenly afraid for his arteries.
"A fruit loop flavored muffin with pieces of yogurt candy in it," she replied mildly, lips curling into a pleased smirk. "And food coloring."
"Hm," said Varric, scraping the waxy feeling off the roof of his mouth with his tongue, then grabbed another piece of the muffin. "I feel," he observed, "a little like I'm about to die. Do you have any paper I can write my will on, or should I just use a napkin?"
"You could use the back of your receipt," the woman suggested, handing over the scrap of paper in question. It had a smiley face penciled on the bottom. "If you do die, would you mind stepping out the back to do so? It's bad for business, you know."
Tucking his receipt under his coffee cup, Varric said, "Well, of course. It's the only polite thing to do." He hesitated, then asked, "Actually, can I ask why I'm not dying from sugar overload? This all seems like it would be hard to choke down, but it hasn't been overwhelmingly sweet."
"We don't use a lot of sweeteners - it's about flavor, not cavities. Though," she added thoughtfully, "be careful ordering 'The Twins', because that one is mostly sugar. You can thank my siblings for that one."
The bell over the door jingled, and she nodded to him. "Gotta run. Try not to die too dramatically."
"So as melodramatic as I possibly can?" Varric asked, grinning. "Got it." She disappeared into the back with a slightly worrying chuckle, and he got out his notebook.
02. Lemonade
His third week of being a regular, shortly after having a silent war with a middle-aged clerk over the corner table, Varric emerged from the bathroom to find Hawke and Merrill standing over his seat. A little chalk outline that looked more like squiggle than person was drawn near his muffin, which he'd only nibbled so far.
"What's the cause of death?" Hawke asked solemnly, impassive behind her sunglasses.
"Seems to be a case of Rainbows and Unicorns, sir," Merrill said, shaking her head.
Hawke plucked her sunglasses off, face contorting into what was likely supposed to be grief. "Another tragedy."
Varric, peering over Merrill's shoulder, remarked, "Didn't realize I'd shrink that much when I died."
"Don't worry, Varric," Hawke said sympathetically, patting him, "it's not the size of the corpse that counts."
"What a relief," he said dryly. "What brought this on?"
Merrill dug a scrap of paper out of her pocket. "You forgot your receipt again," she said, "and also, Hawke wants to use you as a guinea pig."
"Taste tester," Hawke interjected smoothly, putting a friendly arm around Varric's shoulders. "I would never call a patron a guinea pig."
"But they're so cute," Merrill said wistfully.
"I'm really just hoping," Varric sighed, "that whatever it is you want me to taste isn't actually a guinea pig."
"Good idea," Hawke said, stroking her chin thoughtfully as Merrill giggled and returned to the counter, "but no." She gestured to the plate on the table, which he had overlooked in favor of the crime scene. It held two mini cupcakes - one rainbow with a shimmery, almost metallic frosting and the other white with fluffy, deep red frosting - as well as a quarter of a bagel sandwich and three small sample cups of coffee. "I'd like you to taste these."
Varric hummed, then picked up the white cupcake. "My napkin will is in my bag," he informed her, "and I want to be buried with my laptop." He took a small bite of the cake by itself, no frosting, and immediately reared back in shock. It was like getting punched in the mouth by a lemon, and Hawke waved her hands frantically to get his attention.
"The frosting, Varric, you take bites WITH the frosting!"
With some effort, he did so, and a smooth, fluffy cream frosting slid over his tongue, turning the lemon into... "Berry lemonade?" he asked, when he had recovered. Experimentally, he crunched on one of the candy pieces mixed into the frosting. "With, what, mint sugar?"
Hawke grinned, a little sheepishly. "Blackberry lemonade," she corrected. "What do you think?"
"I think it should come with a warning label," said Varric, sipping the cucumber water she'd brought as a palette cleanser, mostly to help his still shell-shocked mouth get over the lemon. This time, he took a bite of both cake and frosting, and spent a little longer on flavor. "Maybe if you fill the cupcake with frosting, too. That lemon is pretty overpowering."
Hawke fished a little notebook and a pen out of her apron pocket and started scribbling. "Do you think if I just cut back on the lemon a little it would be all right?"
"Probab'y," said Varric, finishing the cupcake off. He took another drink of water and waited for her to catch up before he picked up the rainbow cupcake.
It turned out to be a hideously sweet monstrosity wherein each stripe was a different fruit flavor(cherry, orange, lemon, apple, blueberry, grape) and the frosting was, bizarrely, cucumber and melon. Varric wasn't really sure how he felt about it, aside from it being way too sweet, which he mentioned. The bagel sandwich was piled high with fresh meats and veg, but it was a little dry. One of the coffees was a heavy, dark brew that was not quite bitter and not quite sweet and tasted faintly of woodsmoke, another was a smoother blend that had lemon in it("I accidentally spilled it while I was making the lemonade cupcake," Hawke admitted), and the last was a combination of coffee, tea, and soy that Varric was pretty sure would get her shot by someone. It was good, though, almost like drinking caramel without the sugar.
Overall, Hawke deemed it a successful batch, though she was going to rework some of them, and Varric was left in peace with his Therapy Bill and his Rainbows and Unicorns.
The little chalk outline was still there. "I may be in over my head," he told it.
A month later, when he walked in and saw little garlic and herb bread rolls shaped like malformed guinea pigs on display, Varric almost walked right back out.
Unfortunately, they turned out to be cheese-filled and delicious, and he was a weak, weak man.
03. Two-Man Punching Band
The more time Varric spent shaping the booth seat to perfect comfort level with his ass, the more familiar he became with the coffee shop's denizens. Aside from Merrill, who was a KU student majoring in Botanical Engineering, and Hawke, who was the shop's owner apparently, there was also Aveline, who worked as a private security guard on nights.
Tall, red-haired and buff had been on her honeymoon during Varric's first few visits, and when she came back, he was genuinely impressed at how quickly she transitioned from glowing happiness to surly acceptance. He supposed the industry had that effect on people.
Aside from the poor schmucks actually working, there was also the quiet grump from his first visit, who did turn out to have a name. This name was Fenris. He was not a KU student past or present, but he wore an old KU hoodie most of the time anyway, with its faded red hood dragged down over his face. He liked to sit in the back and glare at his phone, the only time he wasn't wearing flip flops was when he was barefoot, and apparently, he not only worked nights with Aveline, he also dated her and her husband. Varric was always glad to see him, if only because he seemed to exist just to argue. Normally, his victim was whoever was on the register but sometimes he'd snark at other people. The best ones, in Varric's mind, were the ones where he got fired up about morality, because they almost always ended in screaming.
The other regulars were mostly just randos, nobody terribly interesting, with the exception of Hawke's siblings. Bethany flitted in and out irregularly, charming and soft-spoken as she worked on a Philosophy degree at GCU. Her twin, Carver, was angry and hard-headed and really only visited when he was picking up coffee for his bandmates. They were night and day, except for the steel backbone that seemed to run in the family. And, of course, there was Isabela, who was in the coffee shop every morning like clockwork to banter with Hawke and Aveline and flirt outrageously with Merrill.
Needless to say, it began to feel very home-y.
Or, at least, it had for a minute. Then Anders had shown up.
Anders was relatively new to the coffee shop, and while he was usually content to sit in a corner and mind his own business, or talk to Merrill about cats, there came a day when he got into an argument with Fenris over... something. Given that Varric was preoccupied with choking down a tall order of the Twins(why, oh Maker, why did he think this was a good idea, is there even any coffee in this), he missed the start. What he didn't miss was when Fenris got a paper cup full of tea dumped on his head. Hair plastered comically down over his eyes, Fenris responded the most dignified way he could, which was to pick up his muffin and attempt to jam it down Anders' nose.
"Fuck," Aveline swore, darting out from behind the counter to try and break them up. Merrill absently handed a customer their order as she watched, mildly horrified, and Hawke poked her head out from the kitchen to see what the fuss was about.
Deciding that this was, perhaps, a good time to get out, Varric saved every document he had open and closed his laptop. As he tucked it into his bag, he spotted something flying towards him, and ducked just in time to avoid a hot cup of coffee. Its hellish, foamy contents splashed against the window and stuck there unnaturally long before starting to ooze down, and Varric quickly packed up, ready to get out before cutlery started flying too. The problem was that he was now trapped between a barfight and what was possibly toxic ooze; Fenris and Anders had fallen to the floor and were honest-to-gods scuffling. Hawke, in the background, was laughing hysterically.
Wading gamely in, Aveline whacked at both of them with her broom. "Cut it out now!" she snapped, and when they wouldn't listen, stuck the head of the broom between their heads and started spinning it. Angry swearing immediately turned into confused sputtering, and then the two flung themselves away from the broom and each other. Unfortunately, they knocked Aveline over in the process. Spying an escape route, Varric darted away, ducking in case things started flying again.
Hawke was wheezing by the time he reached the relative safety of the counter. "Oh, Maker," she half-sobbed into her arm, leaning helplessly against machinery that ought not to be leaned on. "I am definitely immortalizing this in a drink."
Varric, who was still just new enough not to be certain, raised his eyebrows at her. "This happen much?"
"No," she gasped, then coughed as she tried to catch her breath. "No, but I can't wait to watch the security footage later. Want to come over? I'll make popcorn." Hawke's big blue eyes sparkled at him, full of mirth, and Varric felt his heart do an odd gymnastic thing.
I should get that checked out, he mused, but said aloud, "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
And then, inexplicably, Anders tripped and fell on him and knocked him clean out. Later, when Varric was past the concussion and had sneezed on several get well cards after being assaulted with bouquets, he watched it on Hawke's TV on her horrifically uncomfortable couch. Neither of them could figure out how, exactly, it had happened. When they questioned him over text, neither could Anders.
(Hawke produced the promised drink a few days later, and Varric begged off for fear that it, too, would give him a concussion. Her sheepish expression did not settle any of his concerns.)
04. Still Life Of Dog Toy In Snow
"I didn't know you had a dog," said Varric a year later, crammed into the back of the shop. The heating was broken, so the only warm room in the shop was the kitchen, which he was not allowed to set foot in. Instead, he was wedged into the hallway between the kitchen and the breakroom, just able to poke his head round the corner and watch Hawke at work.
The dog in question was not actually present; there was a picture of it on the fridge. If he was being honest, it looked less like a dog and more like a pile of wrinkles, but that may have been because it was sitting down. He eyed it uncertainly, hunched over his notebooks and wishing he'd brought a second jacket, and wondered why he'd never seen the damn thing.
"He's new, and was at mother's house when you visited last," Hawke said, poking experimentally at the enormous pancake she was attempting to make. "Guarding, you know. He's a professional. She had a date, or something."
Merrill looked up from her textbook, several pencils tucked precariously behind one ear, to add, "Poppy's a darling, honestly. D'you know he'll chase his tail, even though he's barely got one?"
"Poppy?" Varric echoed.
"His full name is Poppyseed," she said brightly, glancing back at the register to make sure no customers were coming. "Because Hawke bakes-"
"And because she thinks she's hilarious," Aveline said dryly from behind Varric, making him jump in surprise. She stepped into the kitchen and set a paper bag containing several tall bottles on the counter. "Here it is, Hawke. Now will you tell me what you need all the elderflower liqueur for?"
"Nope," Hawke replied brightly, and flipped the pancake. Varric watched, waiting for it to break, and was only a little disappointed when it mostly stayed together.
The bells jingled - except the one - and Donnic, Aveline's husband, leaned on the counter near Merrill, snowflakes in his hair and an arm around Fenris's shoulders. "Look who I found outside," he said brightly. Fenris, who generally resembled an angry cat if anyone so much as came near him, looked only mildly flustered. He mumbled something no one caught but everyone assumed was a semi-polite greeting, and Merrill asked if he wanted coffee.
"Hawke," Aveline was saying, "you aren't making a new flavor are you?"
"Of pancake? Not particularly, no-"
"Of anything. This better not be going in coffee, it's way too expensive."
The pancake was carefully scraped off onto a platter before Hawke turned to properly give her friend and coworker an affronted look. "How dare you," she said, "anyway, it's going in cupcakes."
Varric stared. "Cupcakes," he echoed.
"With lavender frosting," Hawke said, "or maybe rose? I haven't decided yet, I'll have to taste it first. Oh, stop making that face Aveline, it's not for customers, it's for us. Winter holidays are fast approaching, you know."
Shaking his head, Varric wrapped his hands around his mug of Still Life, which had gone lukewarm in the cool hallway. It also appeared to have begun to turn to sludge, which wasn't terribly surprising, considering. "Is this supposed to get a film on it?" he wondered aloud.
A plate was shoved under his nose, startling him into almost dropping his mug. He quickly set it down in favor of grabbing the plate, which was heaped with pancake. It looked distinctly mushy and though he thought he'd seen everything Hawke had added to it, he'd apparently missed a few steps. "I hope those are blueberries."
"Just try it, you big baby," Hawke said, rolling her eyes as she went to inflict the dish on her other friends. On the one hand, Varric was glad that this time, he wasn't alone. On the other, he still had a plate of pancake.
He poked it with the supplied fork, and the pile wobbled and oozed syrup. "I think," he remarked, "that this is all an elaborate ruse, and Hawke is secretly Mrs. Lovett. Does that make you Sweeney, Aveline?"
"I hope not," Aveline muttered, stabbing half-heartedly at her own pancake.
"Shit, wait, I forgot," Hawke blurted, and darted around adding a generous helping of chocolate sprinkles to everyone's plate, except for Fenris, who was given vanilla. Varric's stomach lurched. "Okay, now try it."
No one moved, and she folded her arms in a way that said, loudly, I can outlast all of you. Eat the damn pancake.
They ate the damn pancake.
For one terrible half minute, there was no sound except that of uncertain chewing, and then everyone save Donnic made a mad dash to the bathrooms to throw up.
"I like them a little crispy," Varric heard Donnic say as he ran, "but it's not bad."
"Finally, someone appreciates my genius," Hawke complained.
She did buy them all medicine when they were laid up sick for a week, though.
05. Family Drama
Varric, fed up with his brother's shit and tired of constantly fighting his editor, stomped out of the sleet and into the slightly less damp depths of Bitchy Coffee. Today, the counter was empty, but unlike the other times this had happened, no one appeared at the sound of the door. Wondering if it was closed and someone had just forgotten to lock up, Varric ducked into the back room to see if it was truly deserted, and found it empty. He conducted a quick search, and finally found Aveline out back, in the alley. She was smoking, something he'd never seen her do in the three years he'd known her, and when she looked up at him, she had dark circles under her eyes.
"There you are," she said, sounding as tired as she looked. "I wondered if you'd come in today, it's been a while."
"Editor problems," he said dismissively, waving it away. "What's going on?"
Taking a deep breath and letting it out through her nose, Aveline said, almost reluctantly, "Hawke and Beth were in a car accident."
Feeling rather as if the slushy ground had opened up beneath him, Varric said, with as much eloquence as he could muster, "What?"
"They're alive," Aveline added before his mind could even go there, "Hawke's mostly fine. Fucked her ankle up. But Beth..."
"Shit," Varric breathed. "Where's Hawke?" He didn't want to randomly show up if she was at the hospital, but he could text her at least.
"At home. She hasn't come out for a couple days now." Aveline fished in her pocket, then pulled out her key to Hawke's apartment. It was off the ring already; she really had been prepared if he showed up. Varric took the key, resolving to wonder about it later.
"I'll... text you, I guess," Varric said around the lump in his throat, and almost slipped in his hurry to get back to the street. Not for the first time, he cursed his habit of walking everywhere, and once he got out to the main street, hailed a cab. It took a good fifteen minutes for one to even show up, which was fifteen minutes too many, and when he piled in and stammered his way through Hawke's address, the driver gave him a judgmental look.
"It'll cost you," the driver said, and Varric was so past caring that he just gave the man a Look and settled in for the ride, turning the key over in his hands. The rickety cab shuddered over the torn up streets of Kirkwall, going what felt like two miles per hour, until it finally creaked to a stop outside a familiar apartment building almost thirty minutes later. Varric tossed a few bills to the driver, then booked it into the building, bracing himself for the long climb up to the fourth floor.
He tried to prepare something to say in his head, but by the time he reached Hawke's door, his head was empty. Taking a deep breath, he knocked sharply. "Hawke?" he called.
"Come in," a muffled voice responded, making Varric pause. He'd expected a little more resistance.
Shrugging, he opened the door, and was immediately assaulted with smells. Some of them were very much Not Good, but all of them came from... "Pies?" he asked, unable to help himself.
They covered every available surface, perched precariously on chairs and tables, and he wondered how the hell she had enough supplies to do this when he knew for a fact she maintained an empty fridge and pantry. Poppy the wrinkle dog was splayed out in the corner, belly fat with scraps from meat pies, and Varric gave his ears a quick scratch before he resumed his careful journey to the kitchen.
Hawke, wearing boxers - Wait, were those his? How the fuck - and a tank top, was methodically chopping pears. "Hey," she said briskly. "Aveline send you?"
"Technically, all she did was give me her key," Varric said, jingling it at her. "What's with all the baking?"
"Well, I don't know if you'd noticed," she said, emptying the chopped pear into a bowl, "but I am a baker, Varric."
He leaned on the doorframe and watched in silence for a moment, noting the bandages on her left ankle and the heavy bruising on her arms and back. It had turned yellow. "How's Beth? Aveline didn't tell me-"
"She lost her right leg, and her left one is broken in two places," Hawke said abruptly, voice scarily even as she set the cutting board in the sink. "Her right arm got dislocated, and she had a concussion. But she's alive." Her shoulders trembled, and she braced her hands on the counter. "No thanks to me."
Varric stepped closer and put a hand on her back, and when she didn't shake him off, asked, "How did it happen?"
Clearing her throat, Hawke said, "We were on our way to the movies. You know that intersection a few blocks down from the mall? Someone T-boned us as we were crossing. I should've- if I'd been paying attention and not trying to make stupid jokes, if I'd stayed at the stop sign just a few seconds longer-"
"Hey," Varric interrupted, "Hawke, don't-"
"Mother won't even let me in to see her." Hawke's voice shook for the first time. "Says I should have been more careful, it's how dad died. Carver said she looks better, that she's awake, but her insurance won't cover all of it."
He rubbed her back a moment, then gently took her arm. "C'mere," he said, leading her into the living room, and sat her down on the couch, moving several pies aside to do so. She ran trembling hands over her dry face as Varric looked without any real medical authority at her cast. "Is there something I can do to help?"
Hawke snorted. "Unless you can come up with about $37,000 in the next five seconds, no," she muttered.
Glancing around the room and pointedly ignoring those pies that looked like radioactive sludge, Varric said slowly, "I can't, but I think we could."
She stared at him through her fingers, and he smiled. "Hawke, how do you feel about a bake sale?"
1. The Bake Sale
"Welcome to Bitchy Coffee," Varric said absently when the door jingled, scribbling on his notepad. When there was no reply, he looked uo and saw an older woman standing at the counter, eyeing him thoughtfully. "How can I help you today?"
She pulled a familiar flyer from her purse and placed it in front of him. "Is this your doing?"
It was a flyer for the bake sale, announcing in cheerful lettering that it would be held at the Gallows Circle College Park on the 20th and 21st, from 10AM to 8PM. Merrill and Isabela had designed it, and Fenris and Anders had spent the past week distributing copies all over town. Varric looked up at the woman and set his pen down. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "Were you looking for more information?"
"Of a sort," she said. "I would like to know why my oldest daughter thinks that right now is a good time to start advertising."
Oh, shit. "Pardon," Varric said, "I didn't realize who you were. Varric Tethras." He held out his hand, and after a moment of hesitation, she shook it.
"Leandra Amell," she replied.
"A pleasure to meet you at last. Now, I understand your concerns, but this is actually for Bethany's benefit," Varric explained. "Hawke wanted to help her, but she was so shaken up that she didn't know how. I suggested we raise money to help pay for the medical bills."
She opened her mouth to speak, and Varric added, "Carver's band will be performing, and they took out an ad in the paper for us. Do you think Bethany will be well enough to stop by? We haven't heard much," he added, rather sharply, "since you refuse to let Hawke see her."
In truth, Carver had been giving them diligent reports and smuggling cards in the entire time, but she didn't need to know that.
Leandra flinched like he'd raised his hand to slap her, and Varric sighed. "Look, I know it's hard on all of you," he said earnestly. "That's why we're trying to do something. If you'd like to help, please feel free to."
"I-" she started, looking for all the world like she was going to scathingly refuse, but then her shoulders slumped. "I do. But don't... don't tell Marian, just yet. I don't want to ruin it."
Varric picked up his notebook, licked a finger to turn the page, and said, "How do you feel about tablecloths?"
The afternoon of the 19th, Varric stopped by Hawke's apartment with two cups of regular coffee and a bag of greasy junk food and found himself in baking heaven.
Although her stress baking of a few weeks ago had left residual worries about the state of her home, she was clearly much more put together, now. Most of what she was baking were things that would keep overnight, and a lot of it would get decorated in the morning. Her plan, or what little Varric understood of it, included things like baking throughout the entire day of the sale. Luckily for her, there was a kitchen in the GCC Park clubhouse. Unluckily, since she refused to let anyone else bake so much as a cookie, the bulk of the work fell to her. The only ones allowed to help decorate were Merrill and Donnic, the latter having turned out to have a deft hand at icing. Coffee duty was assigned to Anders and Isabela.
So while there were piles of cookies and breakfast treats and pies tucked safely into containers(which, granted, were still stacked wherever they would fit), there was still a lot more to be done. Hawke was understandably stressed.
"Hi, Varric," she said, easing a cheesecake out of the oven. "Is that food?"
"With enough grease and salt to kill a dragon," Varric confirmed. "Come take a quick break, I think you're starting to turn into dough."
Hawke glanced down at herself, noted that her entire person was smeared with flour and spices, and smiled wryly. "You're not wrong. Let me wash my hands."
"I'll be on the balcony," Varric said, but ended up waiting where he was, because he suspected that if he left her alone too long, she'd start working again. She checked and double checked everything, including the second oven that he still didn't know the origin of, and finally allowed herself to be herded to the balcony. They stretched out on the cool concrete, a soft breeze from the sea ruffling their hair and washing them in the stink of fish and oil, and spent a moment bickering over french fries before settling into a comfortable silence.
"I am never," Hawke said, "doing this again. I don't even want to look at sugar anymore. I'm seriously considering turning in an application to the Blooming Rose."
"Now, Hawke, you know Madam Lusine only likes you for your danishes."
"True. She'd probably assign guards to keep me in the kitchen."
They chewed quietly for a while before Hawke said, quietly, "Thank you, Varric." She gently bumped his arm with hers. "This means a lot."
"Well, hamburgers are pretty cheap," Varric said, and grinned when she hit him.
"You know what I mean," she laughed.
He smiled and bumped her arm in return. "Yeah, well. I'm a helper."
The next morning was hell.
It started off with a blur of preparation, and once everything was set up, continued into a long stretch of nothing. By eleven, only two people had stopped in, and they'd bought one bag of cookies. When they'd only seen a handful of other people by noon and Hawke had shut herself in the clubhouse kitchen, Varric was starting to wonder if he should have booked them for three days instead of two.
He was trying to figure out how to fix the problem when Carver showed up with a woman in tow. "Hey, Varric," he said. "This is Charade. Our cousin. She has some acrobatic friends that can come over and perform."
"Nice to meet you," Varric said, shaking Charade's hand. "I really appreciate it. Hopefully we'll have people you can actually perform for."
"Did you put ads out on radio stations?" she asked curiously, taking out her phone before he could so much as open his mouth. "No? Let me make a couple of phone calls."
She walked off. Varric looked at Carver, who shrugged. "I try not to ask," he said. "The others should be here before long, where are we setting up?" As Varric opened his mouth to reply, it started to rain.
The first day, they only made about $100. It wasn't exactly promising.
The second day started off much the same as the first one had, minus the rain, though they were better prepared now in case it started up again. It was a little more promising, too, since their first customers were a group of KU students who knew Merrill.
Then – and Varric didn't know how it happened – within the next couple of hours, they were flooded with visitors. The strange thing about it was that they weren't leaving. Some of them were, granted, but the majority seemed content to watch Carver's band or Charade's friends fire dance and eat swords or something.
"Here," said one guest, the twelfth such person to do so, as they pressed a box into Varric's hands. "For Bethany."
"Thank you," he said, perplexed, and went to put it with the other gifts. He wasn't sure if these people knew her personally, because he hadn't put Beth's name on the ads and certainly hadn't asked for gifts, but he wasn't going to turn them down. So far, Beth's pile of presents contained things like candy, bathrobes, throwpillows, and canned goods. Eventually, he'd assigned Fenris to go through the boxes and make sure there weren't hidden blades or something. Kirkwall was full of shitheads, after all.
He stopped by the kitchen and poked his head in to check on Hawke. She was busy kneading dough, music blasting from the phone on her hip, and she glanced up to see who it was. Seeing that it was only him, she smiled tiredly in greeting, then pointed, telling him to go check on Merrill and Donnic. Varric nodded, and ducked into the other room. Donnic was slathering pink icing on a two-tiered vanilla cake, and Merrill was carefully doodling whales on another. "All good?" he asked over the soft sounds of the radio.
"Just peachy," Merrill said, "though we may need more sugar soon. Oh, and food coloring."
"And maybe some snacks," Donnic added. "How's it look outside?"
"Sugar, food coloring, snacks. Consider it done," said Varric. "We've got at least a hundred people in the park right now, it's bizarre. Someone set up a grill? Maybe you know him, he's got this beard, and his son is doing most of the cooking-"
"Oh, that's probably Bodahn," Donnic said brightly. "He's a friend of Hawke's. She's been trying to get his son Sandal to tell her his barbecueing secrets for years."
Comforted and also puzzled by this information, Varric waved and returned to give Hawke the thumbs-up. Through a series of increasingly complicated mimes eventually resulting in her pausing her music, he determined that she was good on supplies, so he went to go check on the others. One look at the crowded parking lot, however, had him decide to call his brother for backup. A few gentle, pointed reminders about owed favors and a solid thirty minute wait later, Varric returned victorious to divvy up the goods and went to give Isabela a break from the register.
Around six, the bake sale had more or less turned into a party. Donnic's coworkers – basically, the entire KWPD – showed up, and a surprising number of suits bounced in to buy a bag of five cookies with five hundred dollars cash. Each time they told Varric to keep the change, he felt a little faint. A crowd of broke GCC students swept in to donate bottles of alcohol to the cause and give Varric their contact information so they could come help clean up afterwards.
By six-thirty, they'd broken $17,000, and what felt like half the city was crammed into the park.
At five to eight, at the urging of her friends, Hawke stepped out of her kitchen and onto the stage, announced by her brother, who stepped back a few feet. She approached the mic, hands trembling from exhaustion, and stared for a long moment at the happy crowd. "Wow," she said out loud, and grimaced at the feedback from the mic. There was scattered laughter as she carefully took it from the stand. "Wow, thank you guys so much!"
The crowd cheered, startling her, and Varric grinned, watching her start to relax. She let out a breathy laugh, and said, "Y'know, I'm no professional, but I'm pretty sure this isn't how bake sales usually go. " Hawke took a deep breath, face flushed with emotion, and said, "I can't begin to tell you how much this means to me. As you all know, my friends and I held this to raise money for my sister, who-" She stopped, cleared her throat, and continued. "Who was in a car accident with me about a month ago. We didn't quite make the goal we set, but you guys helped us reach $18,358, and that is fuc-seriously amazing."
More enthusiastic noise started up as she paused, wiping her face on her sleeve. "With that said, I think-"
"Marian!"
Hawke's head jerked up in surprise, partly because the voice was loud and oddly distorted, but mostly because it was Bethany's. Varric turned to look into the crowd, and spotted Bethany in a wheelchair to the side, Leandra with her. Beth looked terrible, if he was being honest. She looked like she'd lost too much weight, and though there was a blanket over her lap, there was no hiding the missing leg. The skin around her eyes was dark and bruised, and her remaining leg still had a cast on it, but as she lowered the megaphone she'd been holding, a beaming, angelic smile spread across her face.
"Beth," Hawke breathed, as if she couldn't believe it.
A handful of people helped Leandra get Beth to the stage, then lifted her, wheelchair and all, up onto it. She was laughing the whole time, waving to friends and people she knew, and when she was firmly in place, Leandra wheeled her over to her dumbfounded siblings. Beth extended a hand, and Hawke wordlessly gave her the mic.
"Marian," she said, "Carver, you two are the best siblings in the world. I love you both so much."
Carver, flustered, ruffled her hair and mumbled something, and Hawke just continued to stare at her sister. Beth smiled at her, then turned to the crowd. "Can I get a big round of applause for everyone who made this happen?"
The crowd went nuts, and Beth handed the mic back to Hawke, who barely had time to put it back before Beth tugged her down for a hug. Hawke returned it carefully, kissing the top of Beth's head, and had barely straightened up before Leandra pulled her in for an awkward but apologetic hug. Varric could see tears streaking down Hawke's face, and gestured to Carver to herd his relatives over. Carver nodded, and within moments, Hawke was safely out of sight where she could compose herself. Beth, too, allowed herself to slump, looking exhausted.
"That took a little more out of me than I thought it would," she admitted to Varric in an undertone as, on stage, Carver promised to wrap up the night with one last song.
"You killed it, Sunshine," he murmured, and patted her hand in lieu of a hug. "It's good to see you."
He slipped off to find Aveline and start calling in those GCC students for cleanup. They all happily took trash bags and plastic gloves and got to work, so he double checked that the money was secure before starting on cleanup himself. On unspoken agreement, they all gave Hawke some time to be with her family until Beth had to leave, at which point an invitation to dinner the next day was extended to them by Leandra. Well, to everyone but the GCC students, but Varric suspected they could come along too and she wouldn't even realize they weren't part of the main group.
Hawke, eyes still red but looking much more relaxed, cleaned up the kitchen and swept until Varric gently took the broom from her hands and bundled her into his car with Merrill and Anders. She passed out in the back seat, snoring into a box of leftover baking supplies.
She startled awake when Varric pulled up to her apartment, and as she got sleepily out of the car, Varric pulled out the money box. He helped her stagger up the stairs in silence, just as ready to pass out as she was. There were several precarious moments where they almost fell down the stairs, but they eventually made it to the front door in one piece.
Hawke fumbled with her keys, fingers cramped and stiff, before finally finding the one she needed and unlocking the top lock. She started on the bottom one, then paused, forehead resting on the cool wood. "Varric?"
"Hm?" he asked, leaning tiredly against the railing. He rested one foot on the money box, which he'd set down while Hawke fiddled with the keys.
"Did you really scold my mother?"
It took Varric an embarrassingly long moment to figure out what she meant, but he managed to reply, "Only a little. Anyway, she started it"
Hawke snorted, turning her head a little to look down at him. "Three years ago, you almost didn't come into my coffee shop because you thought the name was silly." She shook her head. "Where would I be without you, Varric?"
"Still sweeping, probably," he said, amused.
They gazed amiably at each other for a long moment before Hawke straightened up, letting go of the door. She turned fully to face him and hesitated only briefly before leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss to his mouth.
True to form, she had reared back in mortification before he had even finished processing what just happened. "Oh, shit, Varric I'm sorry, I didn't- I read it wrong and now I've fucked it up-"
Varric reached out and caught her hand before she could escape, and pulled her in for a second kiss. She froze, then sighed in relief against his mouth and wrapped her arms around him. It was a slow kiss, nothing mind-blowing, but Varric still felt like he was soaring.
A moment later, he realized this was partly because the ancient railing was holding all their weight and was about to break.
He quickly pushed Hawke backwards, and they broke apart to stare at the railing, which wobbled dangerously from the force of their retreat. They looked at each other, then burst into horrified giggles.
"Is it bad," Varric wheezed, "that my first thought was about how I would've thought your cupcakes would kill me first?"
"Shut up," Hawke laughed, punching his shoulder, then unlocked her door the rest of the way. "Come in and crash on my couch, I'm a little afraid to let you take the stairs back down."
"I wasn't looking forward to it myself," he admitted, picking up the money box, and followed her in, making sure the keys didn't get left in the door and deftly stepping around Poppy, who was wiggling excitedly around their ankles.
In the end, they both fell asleep fully clothed on the futon, the dog sprawled half on top of them.