"Varric, why didn't you ever tell me about her?" she asks, agonized, hands outstretched, pleading. "What am I supposed to think?"
"I don't know," he mumbles, turning away from her.
Cassandra's mouth thins into a line as she drops her hands. "I thought this—us—meant something to you. Maybe not a lot, but something. Instead, this…Bianca shows up, and calls me a…a…" she casts about for a word, starting to pace.
"She practically calls me a whore, and you say nothing, just…stare at her! As if the sun rises and sets out of her backside!"
The silence stretches between them until she can't bear it anymore. And still, Varric doesn't speak, doesn't turn around.
Finally, she grabs his shoulder and spins him around, and lowers her face to his, cupping his jaw in her hands. She puts all the care and patience she can muster in her voice. "Varric…tell me I'm wrong. Or, Maker preserve me, tell me I'm right. But," and here her control slips, "For Andraste's sake, say something!"
He looks into her eyes, and for a second, she thinks she has gotten through to him. But then he swipes her hands angrily away and looks down at the floor.
"It's complicated," he says.
"Am I too stupid to understand?" she asks, disbelieving.
He looks up into her eyes again. "No, but—"
"Then tell me! If you care for me at all, tell me, please," she begs, again reaching for his hands, at the limits of her patience, but damn it, she is not going to leave without at least fighting for this.
Something seems to break in him. "Fine! You want to know so badly, I'll tell you," he growls. He stalks to his desk and sits, pointing at the seat across the table from him, perhaps to put some space in between them. "But don't blame me if you hate it. It's a shitty story."
Cassandra perches on the chair, waiting, staring at him, waiting for what he has to say and dreading it.
Finally, Varric begins to speak, looking down at his hands; his loud, rich, storyteller's voice is thin and soft, so soft she has to strain to hear him.
Imagine, if you will, a boy that wasn't supposed to be born. A boy born to parents who neither wanted nor needed him, parents who already had a son, and didn't very much want another mouth to feed.
Imagine, too, a heated debate over a squalling newborn, with the stakes nothing less than his life, but which ends with his mother winning, and clasping the baby to her, and his father storming out of the house to drink.
And as the years go by, the boy grows, but not very much, because he was always the littlest and weakest. Anyone bored and looking for some fun would look for him, and mock him, and tease him, because it was easy and he was different. He would stand there, and cry, and take it. And his older brother, who used to stick up for him, got tired of taking his punches, and in the end, became the ringleader of the bullies in order to protect himself.
His father would berate and beat him constantly for being a disappointment. What use was a son who couldn't fight? A son who couldn't command respect? A son his neighbors mockingly called "Tethras's beautiful little girl" because of his delicate features, milky skin, long reddish hair, and green eyes hidden behind tangled lashes?
So after his father would get done beating him, and go out to drink, or black out and collapse (because the most dangerous times were both before and after his father got done drinking) the boy would dream.
He would dream of different things, but the one dream he would always come back to would be a hero who would protect him. Someone who would stand up to his father, and could level him with a punch. Someone who could take on all his bullies. A friend who didn't want him to be any different than he was.
Dreams don't usually come true, but perhaps fate, or his ancestors, take pity on him, because this one does, at least partially.
He's hiding in his favorite alley in Lowtown. He had seen the look in his father's eye when he came home earlier, and the boy has become adept in reading his father's moods. If he stays home, he'll regret it. There will be something, some excuse, and his bruises still haven't healed from last time. So, despite the coldness of the day, he needs to leave.
It is his favorite spot because it's a dead end, back in the warrens of Lowtown, where people would bring their garbage. It smells so foul that no one wants to go near it if they have a choice. So that is where he hides, and after he had carved himself out a spot to sit, and his nose becomes deadened to the noxious odors, it really isn't too bad. Maybe a bit cold, but he can daydream all he wants, and no one bothers him.
He was just in the middle of a particularly good idea about a prince slaying a dragon. When he closes his eyes, he can almost see it. A dragon, black as night, as big as the Viscount's palace, scales gleaming in the sunlight. And opposing it would be a noble prince in bright armor, fearless and good, with a brightly painted shield, and a long, silver sword. Or maybe it would be a princess instead of a prince—that would be unexpected and interesting—he thinks on it, when his musings are abruptly interrupted by the presence of someone else.
His heart falls. He wonders if his father has really tracked him out here. But when he looks out from his hiding place, he sees her. Bianca. For the first time.
She doesn't look very scary. She's a dwarf, about his age and size. He decides to take a chance and say hello.
She flinches when she hears him, but when she sees him, her faces softens into a smile.
He finds out she's just moved here, and was scouring the junk pile for material for her inventions. She tells him she's going to be a famous inventor.
He nods at that, as a child does, a child who still believes in a future of possibility, of tomorrows better than depressing todays.
And he pauses, and takes a deep breath, and tells her his darkest secret, a secret that he has hugged to himself, the only precious thing in his life, and he offers it to her. He tells her that he wants to be a writer.
Unbelievably enough, she doesn't mock him. She tells him that that sounds nice. It's quite possibly the kindest thing anyone has said to him.
He wants to tell her that, but instead he clears his throat, and helps her scour the trash for what she's looking for, because this is his territory, and he knows everything in it better than anyone else.
And in the long silences between searching, he tells her one of his stories. And she listens, and at the end, she gives him another smile and tells him she enjoyed it.
And when he goes home that night, he doesn't dream of heroes or dragons, but a friend with freckles and a smile who thinks he can be a writer.
"There, Seeker!" He flings the words at her, now that he's done his story. "Was that maudlin enough for you?"
He sneers, but his body is stiff, and pain is etched on every line of his face.
She sits there for a minute, staring at him. On the face of it, it's unbelievable. Snarky, cynical, self-assured Varric? That little boy? But she had heard the unmistakable ring of truth in every word.
She wants nothing more than to take her in her arms and tell him she is sorry, so sorry, and even if she has her own sad stories, she's never doubted that her family loved her, wanted her, would be with her today if they could.
But she knows somehow he doesn't want her pity, however honestly offered.
She chooses her words carefully, reaching across the table to grasp his hand. She closes her eyes and offers a brief prayer to the Maker, asking for the right words, or at least not the wrong ones.
"I always respected you, Varric," she says, looking into his eyes, hoping he could see the truth of her words. "But I respect you even more today. That was…a lot." And in her head she curses and wishes she was more eloquent. A lot, indeed. Maker, please let him understand, even if my words are insufficient.
"I—thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me."
He's still not quite looking at her, but at least he hasn't withdrawn his hand from hers, but instead is gripping it nearly to the point of pain.
She rubs her thumb gently along his knuckles, putting all the tenderness she can muster into the light touch.
"I love you." She's never said the words out loud before, but she says them today, with no expectation that her feelings will be met and returned, but it was important, somehow, for him to know, and for her to be honest. As honest with him as he was with her.
She tries. She tries so hard to master her racing thoughts and her inept tongue, but so many thoughts crowd around, appropriate and inappropriate, and she finds she cannot say anything. You're brave, Varric- I couldn't have gone through that- I wish your parents were still alive so I could kill them all over again- If I had known this, I wouldn't have said half the things I did, forgive me, forgive me.
So she does what she always does when words fail her, and acts. She stands up and crosses to his chair, and kneels in front of him and tentatively and slowly wraps her arms around him, so he can protest at the touch if he wants—she doesn't want this to be another violation. But although he's stiff, he leans into her, and she becomes more sure, and tightens her embrace, and brings him closer to her until his head is tucked underneath her chin, and she only says his name.
"Varric."
And he shudders, and seems to come undone. He's weeping into her shirt, not soft, gentle tears, but loud noisy sobs that cause him to gasp for breath, and his chest to heave, and he repeats her name, "Cass, Cass," like a mantra as she holds him, and strokes his hair, and kisses the top of his head.
And then, unbelievably enough, he is apologizing, in between his tears, "I'm sorry, Cass, so sorry."
And she wants to tell him, yell at him loud enough to obliterate it from his mind, that it isn't his fault, and it's obscene for him to apologize. But instead she settles for stroking his hair and telling him it's ok, that it's going to be all right, and shhhhh.
Eventually, eventually, after long minutes, or hours, he has cried until he has no more tears left to give, but still she holds onto him, and his fingers clutch onto her back as if he can never let her go, hard enough to leave marks and bruises, and still she doesn't move.
Finally, he lifts his head up from her shirt, and looks up at her with brilliant emerald tear-stained eyes, and a face blotchy and red with crying, and she recognizes as his face turns into the slightly self-depreciating sneer, knows he's about to mock himself or laugh, to turn the moment, but before he can, she cups his face once more in her hands and says, again, "I love you."
He turns his face into one of her palms, and she feels his beard stubble scrape her hand, as he reaches up and takes her other hand, clasps it in his, and gives a long shuddering breath, and only says to her, simply, "Stay with me. Please."
She nods. Anything, Varric. Anything that will help. "For as long as you need."
"I'm tired," Varric says. "So tired."
So they move to the bed, taking only their boots off, and she holds him in the bed, wrapping herself around him, as if she can shield him somehow, a foolish notion.
And Varric falls asleep surprisingly quickly in her arms, giving off gentle snores that make her smile in spite of herself, and she studies his face in his sleep, seeing there the scared, frightened boy he had been, and her heart aches for him.
It takes her considerably longer to fall asleep, but as she does so, she finds herself thanking the Maker for Bianca, and that Varric had found her when he had.
