I got a heart full of trouble, a house full of sin.
And things are bad as they ever been.
If trouble were money,
I'd have more money than any man should.

Etta James- "The Blues Is My Business"

CHAPTER 2

He's My Very Best Friend

9:41 Dragon
21th Firstfall

The Free Marches
Kirkwall

40 Days

Anders stood stock still for a moment, mouth agape, blood draining from his face.

He shocked gaze slowly fell from Varric down to where his left hand was now connected to the wall that separated the foyer from the living room. A single silver bolt had passed cleanly through his palm and implanted itself into the stone beyond.

"You-you…" He tried to get the words out, looking at his hand in horror. "You shot me!"

Varric rose from his knee, keeping Bianca trained on the mage. "Yeah, it was a long t-"

"You shot me!"

Varric began to slowly sidestep across the living room. "It was a long time com-"

"You dick!" Anders lashed out with his right hand. A bolt of lightning arced past Varric's face, singeing the small hairs on his neck.

The dwarf, surprised, reared back and accidentally pulled the trigger again. The tense strings collapsed on the second bolt and it shot out, piercing Anders in the meat of his right shoulder. He howled, "Agh, blessed, sweet mother of tits and knickers, you bloody dwarf!"

"Shit, that one wasn't on purpose," Varric said over the whir-thunk of his repeater reloading, "that was an accident, I'm sorry, you took me by surprise-"

Barely able to raise his right hand, Anders grimaced and pointed his fingers at Varric once again. "You're a dick!"

Varric eyed the fingers warily. He shook his head. "Anders, don't! Wait… time out!"

"Oh, time out. Now that I'm a pincushion, you want a time out," Anders snarled.

Varric continued, his aim wavering, "Don't do that. Just stop- STOP wiggling your fingers! We'll talk!"

"Talk?! I'm stapled to a wall, you shit! This-this is incredibly painful!" His voice was reaching an octave Varric had never heard. Anders sniffed.

Varric suddenly lowered the crossbow, staring at the mage. "Anders, are… are you crying?"

Anders shot him a withering, though admittedly teary-eyed glare. The air crackled around his fingers for a split-second before-

This time, the lightning found its mark. Varric was blown off his feet, his fingers and toes clenching. He crashed into the large, mahogany bookshelf behind him, the shelves splintering, cracking and bursting from the sudden pressure. He fell to the floor amidst over two-dozen heavy, leather-bound volumes that had been double-stacked.

Dazed and bloodied, with a cut on his forehead and a thin trail leaking from one of his nostrils, Varric tried to shake some sense back into his head. He felt Bianca, still in his hand, firm and unbroken.

The first thing he heard was Anders hyperventilating.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," he said as if it were a chant, repeating it with every breath.

Varric squinted at him across the room.

Anders was staring down between his legs. There was a bolt embedded in the groin region of his robes. Apparently Varric had shot off one more accidental bolt when he'd been hit.

"Okay, okay, time out. Time out!" Anders panicked.

Varric shakily got to his feet, side-stepping books and brushing loose pages from his shoulders. He stumbled to where Anders was bolted to the wall, laying Bianca on a table as he went. He eyed the last bolt fearfully, then glanced up at Anders. "Is it…?"

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, check, check."

"Wait, what do you mean you don't know?! Is it… you know, is it in there or not?!"

Anders made a face, taking several deep breaths before speaking again. "The lightning spell, it… numbs the body for a few minutes after a powerful surge."

Varric bristled. "You hit me with a powerful surge?"

"You shot me!" Anders responded through his teeth.

"And what do you mean by, 'check'?"

"Like I said, I can't tell if it hit or not, please, for the love of Andraste, just check to make sure it's alright!"

"Blon-", he shook his head, "Anders, I'm not looking at your-"

"Please, it's my favorite part of me, been together through the best and the worst of it, we have. He's taken me to some very nice places; comfy, snug, happy, velvety places, please, I know every man says it, but really, Varric… he's my very best friend." He stared at the dwarf with big, pleading eyes.

Varric sighed, bunching up the thick, silk and polymythril-mesh robe in his hands and peeked beneath with one raised brow for a split second. He quickly dropped the robe.

Anders squinted. "How bad is it? Is he… he's-"

Varric grabbed the bolt between Anders' legs and gave it a solid tug. It popped out from the wall. "You're fine. Both of you."

"Oh Maker," Anders said, laughing, "thank you, thank you, bless your-"

Varric reached out to the other two bolts in Anders and yanked simultaneously, freeing them from the wall, and with a bit of shredding, from the mage as well.

Anders' eyes bugged out and he collapsed to the floor. "Fucking balls!"

Varric chuckled, turning and wobbling back to the table Bianca sat at. He shakily sat down next to her, still feeling the effects of the lightning bolt. "Well," he said, "it's not every day the Maker has his balls blessed, I'm sure he's pleased. You want to tell me what you're doing here?"

Anders grimaced at him, holding one trembling hand over the other. A dull blue light began to shine from his palms as he healed the flesh. "You want to," he took another deep breath, "would you mind telling me why you shot me first?"

Varric slid open a side compartment in Bianca's stock and pulled out a small, square, silk cloth. He began to clean the blood and debris from the bolts he'd retrieved. "Are you really asking me that?"

"Yes."

Varric eyed him with disbelief. "Like I was trying to say before, it was a long time coming. Orsino went crazy and we killed him, then we killed Meredith. Then when we took off and reached the city limits, you ran away and-"

"I didn't-, that's not fair."

"You ran away, Anders."

"Marian said if she ever saw me again she'd-"

"Oh, piss on that, human. Hawke was angry, she was belligerent, sure, but if she'd really planned on killing you she would've done it when you obliterated the chantry and every living soul inside of it, and you know that! Sebastian made it very clear that it was your life or Hawke's honor, and she chose your life. You weren't running away from Hawke, you were running away from what you'd done. You could've taken the fight you had coming and you chose not to. I never got to tell you how much you'd screwed us over. And that was my telling you. Well, it was mostly Bianca, but I'm happy to say I helped."

His left hand healed, Anders tentatively placed it on his right shoulder, hissing at the pain from contact with the wound. "I just thought you'd be able to see my side of it, Varric."

Varric nearly shot him again. He sneered, baring his teeth, making a fist around the bolt he was cleaning. "You don't get it! You… you just don't listen, do you? Hawke was right; you never did. So busy being oppressed, being the martyr for all mage-kind that you- you didn't see what you had, what the rest of us, all of us could've…" He closed his eyes and wiped the blood from his nose, sniffing. "Forget it. You stopped having a side worth seeing when you did what you did. You've made it very clear that you don't give a damn about your friends, and that's why I shot you. Just tell me what you want and be on your way."

Anders was quiet for a while. The only sounds were the scrubbing of cloth on steel and the hum of healing magic. Anders laughed a little.

"What?" Varric asked.

"I came here…" Another giggle escaped Anders, "I came because…" And another, as if forcing its way past his lips. He cleared his throat and straightened his face, attempting to stop. He failed, though, and soon Anders fell into a steady stream of laughter.

"What's the matter with you?"

Anders shrugged, smiling sheepishly and giggling still. "I, I don't know. I came because I'm worried about our friends."

Varric stared at him a moment, then laughed as well. The two of them found they could not stop.

Once they'd calmed down and the hearth was relit, they sat together near a long, oak table, upon which Anders presently placed a large, oddly-shaped, black stone.

"What is it?" Varric asked.

"It's called a portent stone."

Varric's brow arced. "And its purpose is self-explanatory?"

"To the best of our knowledge, yes."

"Who is 'our'? You mean you and Justice?"

"No, he… he's gone."

The fire in the hearth crackled as a gust of wind fluttered in from somewhere and the small flames of the candles around them flickered, belying their fragile lives as several danced and went out. The dwarf stared at Anders for a while, searching his eyes.

"When?"

"That night. I knew it was over as I watched the Chantry crumble. Like… I don't know, like waking from a nightmare, I guess." He sniffed, glancing around the room. "I shouldn't say that about him. Like waking from a dream, more like. A dark dream, with… little bright spots; brilliant, crystalline bits of violence and clarity."

"How did it happen?"

He shrugged. "How am I to know? I never truly could grasp the nature of our being in the first place. I had blackouts, did I ever tell you that?"

Varric shook his head.

"Yeah. Before that night. Months before. They got worse as things progressed, as he got angrier. For the longest time, I blamed him for what I did and I thought that was what had killed him. But then I realized it was what I wanted in the first place."

"You wanted people to die?"

"I wanted people to know. To change. I just wasn't strong enough to change them, not on my own. I think the power of helping me, of carrying me that last bit, I think it drained him. I think it killed him at the end. …but what do I know, maybe he'd simply gotten what we wanted and ceased to exist. It's a nice thought, but I doubt it all the same."

Varric frowned, looking at the stone. "So, if you didn't mean you and Justice, then I have to ask again; who is 'us'?"

Anders eyed the dwarf warily, his glance shooting to Bianca for a second. "Er…"

Varric sighed. "Great. More mages. You've allied yourself with-"

"Well of course I did, Varric!" Anders said loudly, standing and throwing his hands up. He began to pace before the table. "…What was I supposed to do, throw myself before the mercy of the Circle? The Templars or the Chantry? Or perhaps go into exile, hmm? Find some forgotten nook or cranny, one of the Alamarian isles-"

"A little bit of self-reflection might've been nice," Varric began in retort.

"Don't think for a second that just because I didn't vanish from Thedas that a moment's gone by where I've forgotten the price freedom cost." Anders cut him off, pointing a finger at him.

Varric chuckled. "Is that what you did? Bought your freedom-"

"Let's not get into this again."

"Why don't you go back outside and introduce yourself to one of the night guardsmen on patrol, see what freedom feels like?"

"Enough!" Anders said, rubbing his cheeks. "I didn't come here to argue."

"No…" Varric agreed. He gestured to the stone. "You came because of that."

"Yes. It, we're still not sure of how it does what it does, exactly."

"What do you mean?"

Anders sat back down, staring at the stone. "Once the chantry and the Templars lost their grip on the Circles, we began forming groups. I… with a number of the contacts I had left from my days in Kirkwall-"

"The ones who didn't become abominations. The ones we didn't kill."

Anders gave him a look. "Yes."

"Must've been a short list."

"Again, yes. You're very clever, can we move on? We each made our way to Tevinter, met up in a small parish northeast of Solas by the name of Chadlock. It took a while, mages coming in, groups of two or three at a time, each with more news from the Circles; the Chantry had lost power in one place, rogue Templars slaughtering everything remotely magical in another, things like that. Soon, we were large enough as a group to begin working."

"And the citizens of Chadlock?"

Anders smiled. "It's Tevinter, Varric."

"Which I guess means the Imperium was everything you'd hoped it would be."

"And more. Within a few months, we had done more for the community, mages and non-mages alike, then any of the Circle towers outside of the Imperium could've accomplished in a decade."

"Why not just go to one of the actual Tevinter Circles?"

Anders shrugged. "I'm still a wanted man. Many of us are. We didn't- we don't know how the Tevinter authorities would respond to any requests for retribution from the south."

Varric gave him a once-over. "You don't seem to have gone for a lack of food or shelter."

The mage grinned, looking over the manse. "Nor do you. Funny, I never thought you'd go Hightown soft on us, Varric."

"Yeah, well," Varric grumbled. He pointed to the stone. "Why don't you just tell me about this thing?"

"It's from the center of a lyrium vein."

Varric's eyes widened.

Anders nodded. "Chadlock has some mines in the outlying areas that lead down to the Deep Roads. We cleared one of the tunnels out, blocked it off and began mining, studying."

"But the lyrium dust-"

"It was only a problem at the beginning. We hired on a number of surface dwarves to bring out the larger loads. Eventually, we'd built up a steady supply of materials to begin experimenting with. This was one of them," he said, nodding to the stone.

Varric picked the stone up from the table and examined it. It was large, about twice the size of his fist, and almond-shaped, perfectly smooth and flat on one side, with the back side rounded. It looked like a giant, black tear-drop that had been frozen into stone and cut in half. The surface of the flat side was glassy, reflecting his curious expression back at him through the face of the dark stone. "How does it work?"

Anders glanced between Varric and the stone, his expression unreadable beyond a clear, growing excitement. He reached out his hand and touched the tip of the stone with his bloodstained index finger and whispered, "like this."

Magic flowed from his finger into the portent stone, which lit up and began to glow a dull, dark blue.

Despite this, Varric still saw his own face looking back at him, though now clearer in contrast.

"…it's not working," he said.

"Just give it a moment."

And indeed, a moment longer was all it took.

His face vanished as smoke seemed to swirl within the face of the stone and as the smoke cleared, Varric saw the moon shining back over a dark plain covered in patches of snow with woods in the distance. "You gotta be shittin' me," Varric said softly.

Soon a figure appeared at the edge of the forest, a dim shape Varric could barely make out. It was moving quickly, though… his brow furrowed and he leaned closer towards the stone. He needn't have. The figure was running towards him, so to speak, and as it neared the face of the stone it came into greater detail. By the time it had cleared the forest's edge and made its way into the snow-dappled valley, Varric could tell that it was wrapped in a heavy, dark cloak, possibly wool or fur. It was hobbling as though wounded, running with a limp, and it was carrying something very large in its arms.

The figure continued to approach, desperately quickening its pace and Varric could swear he was beginning to hear labored breathing. Then, as he began to make out a pale face-

"Wait," he said, leaning closer still. He felt a hand at his chest, pushing him back.

Anders. The mage shook his head solemnly. "Don't."

Varric looked back into the stone. "It's…"

"Yes."

He was sure of it now, as the figure was only a few dozen yards away. It was-

"Merrill," he said, a slight tremor in his voice. It couldn't be. It was impossible. Not after Tantervale.

Her pale features were illuminated under the light of the moon. She was carrying a body that was also wrapped in heavy furs; limp, arms dangling.

Breaths. Quick and sharp, from pained lungs. He was certain he could hear it now, Merrill was gasping for air, limping desperately towards him as if there was safety beyond the face of the stone. She was so close. Sweat and blood covered her beautiful face in equal amounts, running in thick rivulets along her vallaslin, covering her cheeks, slicking her bangs to her forehead underneath her hood. Her eyes were wide with equal parts terror and bleak determination.

She was a stone's throw from him now. The hood slipped from her companion's head, revealing long, dark hair, head lolled back, eyes open and unblinking-

"No."

The next moment unfolded in a violent blur. Figures, more than a dozen of them, appeared at the edge of the forest. They shifted and floated, black and amorphous, ghosts perhaps, or wraiths or-

There was a thunderous boom, twin strikes of lightning arcing out over the field, Merrill screamed as hands, black and gnarled and clawed with rotted flesh exploded from the ground around her, some of them eight or nine feet in length; they surrounded her, engulfing her. With Hawke's corpse in her arms she was pulled into the earth, right before his eyes.

The thunder faded to silence. The wraiths vanished back into the forest and the earth settled, pushing itself back into place, snow and all, as if nothing had happened.

Light and life faded from the stone. Varric's own visage stared back at him once more, looking pale and frightened.

He took a tremulous breath and wiped his face, finding wetness on his cheeks, though from sweat or tears, he couldn't tell.

He placed the stone back on the table. It tapped and rolled on the wood from the shaking of his hand.

Varric looked to Anders. "It's a trick."

The blond man tilted his head to one side, his expression still unreadable. "Is it?"

"I don't know how you did it, I-I don't want to know- just get it away from-"

"Oh, piss off!" Anders said. "You're saying I did that? Cast an illusion? It doesn't work like that."

"You want to find Hawke, just like everybody else. You've cooked up some little-"

"Brilliant. That's lovely, Varric, thank you."

"You bring me this, this bullshit, sneak into my house in the middle of the night-"

"I couldn't very well have snuck into Kirkwall in broad daylight, could I?"

"You expect me to believe this?!" Varric shouted, standing, not caring about the quavering in his gravel-shot voice. "You expect me to believe that you and your little group of do-gooder mages-"

"I never said-"

"-in Tevinter, Tevinter of all places, and don't think I'm soon to forget that fact, just happened to stumble upon a rock-"

"It took us years to sort through everything, Varric, we didn't just find it all of a sudden," Anders said softly.

Varric continued to talk over him. "A rock that just so happens to show, of all of the terrible things in the world it could've shown to you, it just so happens to show you that?!"

"No. If you'll just let me explain-"

"Fuck you."

Anders, stunned, sat back, looking up at the dwarf. Varric had never, in all the years he'd known him, said that in complete seriousness. It seemed a bigger shock to him than the bolt through his palm.

Varric wiped his mouth with a trembling hand. "Fuck you… fuck this. I'm sick of it. I was sick of it years ago. Idiot mages and idiot Templars, the constant bickering and the suffering, the total abject fucking misery, I'm sick of it..." His eyes shifted around him. "I'm sick of this ugly house and its ugly furniture."

He walked to the destroyed bookshelf and stared at the mess of books on the floor. "I'm sick of telling the same old stories to people who only listen out of pity or some sense of fading respect."

He stepped over the mess to the adjacent bookshelf and, gripping the edge against the wall, pulled.

Anders shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. "Varric."

The bookshelf toppled over with a crash, the sides bursting from the frames, books spilling out at either end.

Varric immediately jumped to his writing desk and, muscles straining, lifted it. Quills, inkwells, loose and crumpled pages rolled off just before the table lifted from the ground and the dwarf, showing a strength he hadn't felt in years, chucked it across the room.

The hundred-plus pound table sailed over the couch, a shocked Anders diving from his seat to the floor below. The table hit the wall beyond and exploded into thick chunks, fragments and splinters of wood.

Anders lifted his head. "Varric, stop!"

"I'm sick of drinking it all away; every nightmare, every bad memory, while people I care about are off in Maker-knows-what kind of danger." Varric kicked the liquor tray at the kitchen's entrance and sent two dozen varying bottles, and the cart with them, smashing into the kitchen, the sounds of breaking glass and splashing liquid echoing through the manse.

"Varric, it's not too late!"

The dwarf, not listening, clambered onto the dining room table. "I'm sick of living like my Stone-blighted brother!" He leapt from the table and grabbed the tapestry that hung above it. The Tethras family insignia sagged, shifted and finally, with Varric's weight against it, tore from the ceiling. Dwarf and tapestry fell together, back onto the table which immediately gave upon contact, snapping in two.

Varric slumped in the wreckage, breathing heavily, the tapestry fluttering down on top of him.

Anders waited in the following silence. The bundle of cloth in the middle of the broken table didn't move. "Varric."

The dwarf didn't respond.

"We were trying to break the stone's secret. We tried for months," Anders said quietly, stepping around the couch and slowly approaching the dining room, still wobbling on his feet from the earlier assault. "No success. Nothing worked. We could sense that there was a tremendous amount of magical energy in it, but nothing worked. We poured so much lyrium, all of the elemental magicks, dragon's tears, every formula and potion we could think of… we put everything into it, but it just ate it all up and gave nothing back. Eventually, I… I got desperate. I thought of Merrill, of how she would've handled the situation."

The bundle shifted. The tapestry pulled away and slipped to the floor, leaving a miserable looking dwarf, sitting dejectedly on his rear end, looking up at the mage. "Blood magic."

"A small cut. Right across the palm."

"Blood magic."

"Fuck you, friend," Anders said, smiling a little. "I was sick of not knowing. And I would think that having a large group of mages all huddled around a stone for months, in Tevinter, as you so kindly pointed out, without anyone even considering the use of blood magic, would've been a good thing."

"Again," Varric said, "it just so happened to show you-"

"Varric." Anders interrupted, though with patience clear in his voice, "I was desperate. I thought of how Merrill would've solved the problem."

"That still doesn't explain-"

"Varric… I was thinking-"

It sunk in. Varric's eyes widened. "You were thinking of Merrill!" And just as suddenly, a look of blind panic crossed his face. "Then it's real-"

Anders shook his head. "It's a portent stone. I mean, that's what we're calling it. It hasn't happened yet. Like I was trying to tell you while you were… redecorating, there's still time."

"How could you know that?"

Anders gave him an admonishing look. "What do I look like to you, a novice? Toying with my first fireball and setting scorch marks in the carpet? I'm a mage, and a Grey Warden, for that matter. I've beaten the best of them, run with the Warden-Commander and the Champion of Kirkwall." He held out his hand.

Begrudgingly, Varric took it.

Anders pulled him to his feet. "I performed a scrying ritual, not minutes after seeing what you saw."

"And?"

Anders paused. He gave Varric a sheepish smile and scratched the back of his neck. "And… it kind of worked. I think they're safe… for now, anyway."

Varric hobbled back into the living room, beginning to feel the results of his breakdown. Anders followed behind him. "What do you mean, it 'kind of' worked?"

"Well, it showed me where they were, or are, just… where they are- it, it can't possibly be where they are."

Varric grabbed Bianca from the table she rested on and slung her over his shoulder, fitting her snuggly into the holster across his back. His lips thinned in a grimace. "You mean the map suggested they were in the sea?"

"Yeah…" Anders said slowly. "Good guess."

Varric grumbled, picked the stone off the table and tossed it to Anders. "In the sea in a little spot just off of the island of Estwatch. Southeast?"

Anders caught the stone. His brow furrowed and his mouth dropped open. "How in the blight did you know that?"

"Cause I've been lying to everyone. It's what I do best."

"I don't-"

"You scryed for Hawke, not Merrill. Cut out the candles and the hearth, would you? I may hate this place, but I don't want it to burn down while I'm gone."

Anders, still looking bewildered, stuffed the stone into a side-pocket of his robe. "I- wait, what?"

Varric winced, pulling a splinter from his thumb and limping to his bags in the center of the living room. "The fire?"

"Right." The candles and the fire in the hearth snuffed out all at once, and the two waited in the dark as their eyes adjusted to the moonlight pouring in through the oversized windows.

"You scryed for Hawke. Why didn't you scry for Merrill?"

"I didn't… have anything of Merrill's- listen, how do you know all of this? I thought nobody could find Hawke, that she and Merrill were off in parts unknown."

"Like I said, I lied. Honestly, I don't know where Merrill is," Varric replied, bending down to his satchels and opening one of them, "but she's not with Hawke. Hawke, thankfully, is right where I left her, it seems."

"You left her in the middle of the ocean?" Anders asked dryly.

Varric pulled a tin flask from his satchel and shook it, smiling at the sound of the mead sloshing within. "In a manner of speaking." He stuffed it back into the bag and stood up, grabbing the satchels and swinging them over his shoulder.

"So she isn't going to be very happy to see you, I take it."

"Well, let's put it this way," Varric said as the two of them limped past the destruction towards the foyer and the exit of his mansion, "however much I want to hurt you, Hawke wants to hurt me twice over. And however much that is, she probably wants to do three times what she'd do to me to you. So," he continued, his voice fading as they stepped outside and into the night, "if she kills me right out the gate, I'd brace myself, Blondie, because we both know how she likes to go for the groin first, and you're very best friend could be in some serious peril before she's done with-"

His voice became muffled as he shut the door, leaving the manse in a relative state of peace once more.

Had anyone still been in the living room, they might've seen the line of alcohol leaking from the kitchen enter the living room. Even if they'd missed that, they probably would not have missed the alcohol touching the last dribble of liquid fire from Varric's grenade that Anders hadn't put out, or the resulting spark of flame, and how it made its way back into the kitchen.

The next morning, no one in Hightown would miss the sight of smoke billowing from Varric's windows as the roaring fire devoured the mansion from within.

It wouldn't be a problem. Varric, though he was unaware of this at the time, would never see the inside of the mansion again. Nor, in fact, would he ever again step foot in the city of Kirkwall.

Thanks to Skeasel for her continuing and tireless Beta support.