Everyone sings hallelujah
when my boy walks down the street
Life just kind of dances through ya
from your smile down to your feet
- The Magnetic Fields, 'when my boy walks down the street'
The Hanged Man lay in the prime location in Denerim City, where Ostagar Street and Highever Lane intersected. It was an old pub, some say older than the city, and throughout its long history it had had multiple owners. At the present, it was in the ownership of a dwarf named Varric Tethras. It was rare to see dwarves this far to the south - most of them preferred to stay in or around Orzammar - but Tethras was a well-known face in and about the town. In addition to running the most infamous pub in the country, he also wrote some very interesting novels called "Hard in Hightown", which were marketed as crime fiction but had just enough smut in it to make everyone read them. Alistair had, too, and he had blushed more than he cared to admit over some of the racier scenes.
Varric Tethras himself, as he stood on the doorstep, was of average dwarf size. In other words, he just barely reached Alistair's waist. He had a worn red velvet cloak that was open in the front, resulting in Zevran having a hard time to keep his eyes off the chest hair. He had a jovial smile and cheery nature, but the gaze he levelled on the detectives was very sharp. He also had a heavy gun strapped to his hip.
"I expect you have a license" was the first thing out of Alistair's mouth.
"Naturally." Varric patted the gun fondly like an old friend. "I'd never insult Bianca by making her illegal. Now, I take it you aren't here for drinks. If you are, you're going to have to come back in a few hours. Permit doesn't kick in until five."
"No, no drinks" Zevran said distractedly, still staring at Varric's chest. "Detectives Arainai and Theirin, we need to ask a few questions."
Varric sighed, but let them into the locale. It was much smaller than Alistair had expected, but Zevran moved as if he'd been there before.
"Alright, what do you want to know."
"We need you to tell us about Caelan Hawke." At Alistair's opening, Varric's bored gaze turned sharp.
"Hawke's a good man. Whatever you've been told is nugshit. Has something happened? He never showed up last night, and that's not like him."
"Did you hear there was a battery last night?"
"Yeah, some sucker got his brains bashed in." Apparently, the grim looks on Zevran's and Alistair's faces were enough for Varric to make the connection.
"Hawke" he groaned, "Ah hell kid, who did you piss off now?"
"He pissed people off?" Zevran asked while Alistair got his notebook and pen ready.
"Look he... Hawke's a goody two-shoes, alright? But he's got principles, and a bit of a temper. He'll break your nose if he thinks you're an ass."
"Anyone he thought was an ass lately?" Zevran quipped, and finally managed to tear his eyes away from Varric's magnificent chest hair.
"The usual. Drunk idiots who thought Sera was easy pickings. I keep telling him that we have Ashaad to break chairs over people's heads, but it doesn't stick."
"Do you have names?" Alistair asked.
"No, sorry. But your buddies down at the station should. We called the guards on them. I know Aveline Vallen, so she always makes sure to get your boys down here stat when I call."
Alistair wrote TALK TO AVELINE and underlined it twice.
"Anyone else?"
"Not that I know of, no. But if you stick around for a bit, you can ask Ashaad and Sera. They'll show up within the next half hour or so. The big guy always gives her a ride in. I called them in early since… well, since Hawke didn't show up."
As it turned out, Ashaad was not just a big guy by dwarven standards. The qunari stood at least two feet taller than Alistair and was about two and a half of Zevran width-wise. He had dark, coarse skin that spoke of a lot of time under the harsh sun of Par Vollen, and his heavy horns curled around his head like those of a very old, very battle-hardened ram. Next to him, the blond elf that had to be Sera looked like a strong breeze was going to knock her over.
"I get the qun" Alistair muttered out of the corner of his mouth, recognizing the gleam in his partner's eyes.
"You never let me have any fun" Zevran muttered back, but sauntered over to Sera.
Alistair approached Ashaad at a slower pace, feeling a bit intimidated by the fact that the qunari had hands that probably could break him in half without making an effort.
"Detective Alistair Theirin" he introduced himself, "I need to speak to you about last night."
The large man nodded slowly, and led the way over to a corner of the pub.
"What's up, detective? Is it about that idiot that thought no meant yes and got handsy even after Sera emptied his drink over his head?"
"No, sorry. It's about Hawke." Something flickered in the qunari's stoic face.
"I saw the obstruction outside. He's not-"
"Not dead, no." Not yet, anyway.
"Good. He's a good man." was the short reply.
"I need to ask a few things about last night." Alistair said and turned to a new page in his notebook. "But first I need your information."
"Ashaad, Cernunnos." the other male said and proceeded to rattle of his address, social security, civil status, and job without prompting. Alistair wondered how often he was questioned by guards.
"Where were you last night?" he asked once he had gotten everything down.
"Here. Until closing, at 11. Varric told me to go home since Hawke was going to help with the delivery and clean-up. I dropped Sera off on the way. She doesn't like me, but likes my bike."
"Bike?"
"Motorbike. Need the license?"
"No, that won't be necessary. Where did you go after that?"
"Home. It was late."
"Can anyone confirm this?"
"Yes. My husband Cole and his boyfriend." Alistair looked up. He hadn't been expecting that.
"Your husband and his... boyfriend?" he asked for clarification.
"That's right. Krem Aclassi, he's a nurse at Andraste's Grace. That's Aclassi with a C. He's tevene."
"To check I got this straight - Krem, your husband's boyfriend, and your husband Cole was home. And you were all watching TV?"
"That's right. Cole Ashaad. He's a psychiatrist."
"Can I have his contact information please."
"I'll do you one better" the hulking qunari said as he pulled out his wallet, rifled through it and found a worn business card.
"Thanks" Alistair said as he pocketed it.
After having given the requested information, Ashaad stood to leave.
In the doorway, he turned to Alistair.
"You don't seem to be judging us. It's a nice change."
Before Alistair had managed to get his brain to come up with an answer, though, the other male was gone.
"As if it's any of my business what you do in the bedroom" he muttered as he picked up his cellphone to call Cole. His instincts told him that Ashaad had nothing to do with the attack, but the faster he could confirm the alibi the better.
"Well, that was a bust" Zevran muttered crankily as he adjusted his seat belt.
"On the contrary," Alistair said, "we know two things. One; the victim was not supposed to be at the Man last night, so that rules out premeditation. Two: we can eliminate anyone working at the Hanged Man. Oh, and we have a new person of interest."
"Fenris Hawke? Don't rule out premeditation just yet. It might just be the timing that was unplanned."
"Fair enough." Alistair agreed and started the car. "What was your impression of Sera?"
"Grouchier than an egg-sick varghest. She didn't like me much. Then again, I don't think she likes anybody." Zevran snorted with laughter and pulled out his phone.
"Possibility?"
"Doubt it. Bitchier than a starving dog, but she's all bitch, no fight. And not liking someone much isn't a motive."
"it is for some people" Alistair quipped, but removed Sera from his mental list of possibles.
"Have to give her points for being observant, though." he added after a few moments.
"In my experience" Zevran said, not looking up, "waitresses usually are."
"What do you say, lunch or tracking down the ex?" at Zevran's blank look, he added "the female one."
"Both. There's a decent café next door to her place of employment."
"Right" Alistair said, "give me the directions. I suggest we eat first, though."
After a lunch consisting of surprisingly tasty sandwiches and unfortunately bland coffee, Alistair and Zevran headed into the next door flower shop to speak to Merrill.
"Hello" Alistair said politely to the elderly elven woman making an arrangement of roses in a wide vase. "We are looking for Merrill Talas?"
"In the back" the woman said, not looking up from her work.
Merrill Talas was a young elf woman, mid-twenties if Alistair had to guess, with a nervous air and mousy brown hair. When they told her why they were there, she sank down on a nearby bag of soil and cried.
"My Caelan" she sobbed, "my Caelan, my Caelan, oh gods. My Caelan."
Zevran and Alistair exchanged looks. That was an interesting turn of phrase. From what they knew, Caelan had left Merrill nearly eighteen months ago, the day after having met Anders at the vernissage. Eventually, Merrill calmed down enough to be coherent.
"I loved him" she sniffled, "we were going to get married and have children, such beautiful children. Then he… he just walked away. Said he... He had met the one. But he was my one! I don't understand!" She looked up at them with devastated eyes.
"How could he leave me?" she pleaded.
"We don't always know why people do what they do" Alistair said carefully. He was crap at talking to crying women. He always wanted to sit down and cry with them.
"I was so mad" she sobbed, "so angry with him. How could he just… waltz off with someone else? I saw them around town. They looked so happy. He was supposed to be happy with me!"
"Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt him?" Zevran asked carefully. Merrill shook her head vehemently, then thought about it.
"Sebastian" she finally said. "Sebastian Vael. He used to be engaged to Anna. I think he beat her."
Alistair and Zevran looked at each other again. There was that name once more. Anna Hawke. And the name of a man Caelan had suspected to have hurt Anna Hawke. Exactly how protective of his sister was he?
At the Denerim city precinct, Alistair managed to find Aveline immediately. To be fair, she was waiting for them in the reception area.
"I heard about Hawke" she said, not bothering with greetings. "It's awful. Have you talked to Anna?"
"You know Anna Hawke?" Aveline gave him a withering look.
"Only for ten years" she snarked. Then her face softened. "She got me through some rough times." Alistair couldn't help but think of Aveline's husband Wesley, who had been killed in the line of duty several years before. Actually, he had been Alistair's partner before he got moved to homicide. Wesley Vallen had been killed when attempting to stop a robbery, and it was tracking down and arresting his killers that had gotten Alistair catapulted into his current position. Some days he still wished with all his heart to be back on the beat, if he could just see Wesley smile again.
Alistair was about to say something encouraging, he didn't know what, when Aveline added;
"You can take Vael off the list. He's a drunk bastard, has been since Anna finally told him to go fuck himself and said yes to Fenris' proposal, but his alibi is fool-proof."
"And this alibi is-?" Aveline rolled her eyes at him, then shook her head hard enough to make her sleek red bob shake.
"Me. I arrested him yesterday afternoon and he spent the night in the tank."
"Thanks, Aveline."
"No problem. Let me know if there is anything else, I'll be at Anna's." With those words, she stalked out the door like a sergeant on her way to whip a group of unruly recruits into shape. Zevran watched her go, full of admiration.
"If Duncan ever retires, remind me to get on her good side" he said.
"Stop flirting with her and you're halfway there" Alistair said in as sagely manner as he could as they got into the elevator.
"Can't help it. She's my type."
"Cis-female version of Bela?"
"Pretty much."
Alistair rolled his eyes at his partner.
"Keep your pants on, Arainai." He said fondly.
Alistair slammed the phone down and let loose a series of expletives that would have made Beatrice slap him if she'd heard.
"That bad?" Zevran didn't look away from the large whiteboard he was currently drawing lines on.
"Some people are too nosy for their own good and completely oblivious where it counts!" Alistair snarled.
"I take it getting the third degree about your bloodline was the highlight of your day?"
"And no idea where her room-mate has been for the last twenty-four hours."
Zevran shrugged and wrote "AWOL" under the name Karl Thekla.
"Do you want the thankless task of finding him or do we put some poor rookie on it?"
"i thought we could dump it on Aveline" Alistair snarked, making Zevran laugh.
"I'd like to see you try to dump anything on Aveline." Well, he had a point. Few things in this world were scarier than a pissed off Aveline.
They stood in silence for a few moments, looking at the board. Names of everyone that had cropped up so far were spaced out at regular intervals in some sort of pattern that only made sense to Zevran, and Alistair had the distinct impression that it was only a matter of time before the entire thing was going to be drowning in arrows. But that was how his partner rolled - Alistair freaked if he didn't have his notebook to make long complicated notes in, Zevran drew arrows. On everything. "Who do you want to talk to first?" Alistair finally asked, "Fenris or Kallian?"
"Fenris, I think. If he had an argument with Caelan mere hours before the attack, it'd be good if we could catch him before he gets his head on straight." Zevran drew a completely logical arrow from Anna Hawke to Fenris, and then a less logical one from Anna Hawke to Merrill Talas.
"Good point. Who drives?" Alistair pulled his coat back on.
"Me, I expect." Zevran replied as he put the marker back in its holder.
Fenris Hawke was elven and blond, but there ended all similarities between him and Zevran. Zevran's blondness was the warmth of the antivan sun, but Fenris was a frigid wind roaring around the northern pole. The horrifying scars curling over all parts of him that Alistair could see did not help matters in the slightest. In addition, the scars slid in under his clothes in a way that hinted at covering parts they could not see. His chipped, black-painted nails drummed an unending staccato against the worn dining table in the kitchen of the house he shared with Anna Hawke.
"Yeah, Hawke and I had a disagreement. Why?"
"Witnesses say it involved fists." Zevran drawled, not hinting at the fact that so far they only had one witness and they weren't completely sure how reliable she was. Anna made a frustrated noise from where she stood by the counter, chopping some sort of vegetable Alistair could not identify from this angle.
"He struck first" Fenris muttered, petulant like a child.
"Knowing you" Anna's voice was frigid, "he had good reason."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean" Fenris snarled, his skinny hands curling into fists.
"Oh just that lately, you're a jerk on a good day" she snarked back, and Alistair wondered if he and Zevran were about to witness a domestic incident. "on bad days you're a-"
"Shut UP Anna!" Fenris bellowed, his fist connecting with the table. Anna's eyes were blue fire, but she stayed quiet.
"You're not doing yourself any favors" Alistair pointed out, not unkindly.
"Look, I was home all night last night. Watching TV. Had a couple of beers." Anna made a noise that could have been interpreted a multitude of ways, but said nothing. Fenris ignored her.
"Anna got home, when was it babe?"
"Ten. I got home at ten." She said, staring down at the cutting board as if it held all the answers in the world.
"That's right. Then we stayed home all night. Together."
"Right" Anna echoed. "Together."
Alistair and Zevran looked at each other. It was clear they weren't getting anywhere with these two at this moment in time.
"Right" Alistair said as he stood up, "thank you both for your time. We'll be in touch." Zevran said nothing, and together they left the house.
"He's lying" Alistair said the moment the car door closed behind him.
"Yes" Zevran said, turning the key in the ignition. "But about what?"
Back in the kitchen, the silence was so heavy you'd have needed a whole tribe of qunari to lift it. Fenris stared down at his clenched fists, wanting more than anything to beat the ever living shit out of something. Preferably fragile and breakable.
"Damn you." Anna finally hissed. "Damn you, you bastard."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Fenris glared at his wife. Didn't she know what he was going through?
Anna's voice was shrill as she slammed the knife down on the cutting board hard enough to cause the cheap plastic to crack.
"It means that it'd be a lot easier for me to help you lie to the guards investigating my brother's attack if I knew what it is you don't want them to know!"
"I did not attack him!" Fenris' fist struck the table so hard it caused an inch-deep indentation. He panted harshly from the exertion.
"Then where were you?" Anna screamed, her voice cracking. There was silence.
"Where were you?" She asked again, this time her voice barely more than a whisper.
Fenris turned his face away. Could not stand to see her cry.
"Where were you?" Anna sobbed. Fenris stood up from his chair, walked across the kitchen and put his arms around his wife. She struggled against him at first, but then sank into his embrace like she was shattering.
"You swore you'd never lie to me" She said quietly. He said nothing, just hugged her harder.
Anders sat very still on an uncomfortable chair, staring at Caelan's face. He looked so still and peaceful, as if he was only sleeping. But the thick bandages covering his head and the thick brace holding his neck ruined the image. He had sat there for over an hour, but still couldn't understand it. It made no sense whatsoever. How could the man who danced to bad pop songs in the kitchen and talked baby talk to their cat lie here now, still as if dead?
And he still might die. He had done all he could, and so had the rest of the staff. Now, all they could do was wait and monitor. As a healer, Anders had seen his fair share of the dead and dying. But it was impossible to accept that his Caelan might soon be one of them.
"Come back to me" he begged helplessly. "Please, love, come back to me."