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Hawke was sitting alone in the Hanged Man for a change, nursing a rum. She rarely went for the hard stuff, but tonight she was just unhappy enough to want a bit more forgetfulness than usual. Varric was upstairs in his rooms, alone, and she should go home. Really, she should. But she couldn't bring herself to face the silence and the darkness. At least here in the Hanged Man she could watch people and be diverted by them, even if she couldn't be with the person she wanted to be with.
A chair scraped across the floor next to her, and she glanced over to see Isabela practically fall into it. "Rum, sweet thing? Good idea." She signaled for another one. Then, thinking better of it, she signaled for the bottle.
"What are we drinking to?" Hawke asked.
"You know what he did?"
Hawke raised her eyebrows. "He?" She'd never seen Isabela drink because of a man before.
"So I said, 'you could become a raider! You could join my crew'! You know how often I invite people to join my crew, Hawke?"
"You never invite people to join your crew."
"That's right. I never do. And you know what he said? That broody bastard? That lanky smoldering delectable tidbit of a stubborn ass?"
"Ah." Hawke nodded in sudden comprehension. "Fenris."
"He said 'you mean, the crew of your non-existent ship'? Bastard." Isabela took a deep swallow of the rum. "I told him 'with that attitude, you're never going anywhere', and I high-tailed it out of that wrecked mansion he loves so much."
"I think that's the point," Hawke suggested.
"What, to never go anywhere?"
Hawke shrugged. "He's found safety—security—now that Danarius is gone."
Isabela glared at her over the rim of her tankard. "You're awfully wise for someone drowning her own sorrows. Our favorite paragon of manliness give you short shrift again?" She giggled. "'Short shrift.'"
"Not me. Merrill."
Isabela frowned. "You want to run that one by me again?"
"She asked him about Bianca. The crossbow. And he refused to answer."
"He always refuses to answer."
"I know, but …" Hawke considered whether to keep going. She had never spoken aloud about her feelings for Varric. Everyone knew, but—saying so was just asking for a broken heart. Still, she was damned frustrated with him. "He's not refusing to answer about the crossbow—he's refusing to answer about Bianca. Who is some woman he carries around on his back all the time, who's not here, who he clings to in order to avoid—"
"Clinging to anyone else?" Isabela finished.
"Exactly."
Isabela reached out her tankard. "To men who don't know what they want."
Hawke clinked it with her own. "And would be afraid to reach for it if they did."
"May the Maker damn their eyes."
"And their cold hearts."
They looked at each other, and suddenly Isabela smiled. "And send them straight to us once someone's walloped them upside the head."
Hawke laughed. "I ever tell you how glad I am that you came back?"
"No, but you can start now. I love flattery."
Bianca had been on Varric's mind all day. He'd been uncharacteristically short with Daisy when she asked about the name … not that she didn't deserve it, because he and Daisy had gone through the same conversation at least a dozen times, but then, Daisy never deserved it. She meant well.
From the bottom of a stack of papers, he took a piece of parchment not in his own handwriting. Why he had hidden it, when no one came into his rooms, he couldn't say, except that he wanted to be extra certain that no one was going to find it.
"Dear Varric, I am going to be in Ostwick next month. Ostwick, which is just down the coast from Kirkwall. Why don't you get that charming ass of yours out of that wretched bar and come meet me there? No one we know will be anywhere near, and you know what that means. Think about it. – Bianca"
Of course it was out of the question. He couldn't leave Kirkwall, Ostwick was hardly 'just down the coast', and the idea that no one in Ostwick knew either him or Bianca was laughable. But what surprised him was how much the tone of the note annoyed him. How dare she assume that he was going to leap at her call? Or that he didn't have anything better to do? Even the memory of Bianca naked, her touch and her kisses, didn't make him want to leap out of his chair the way it used to.
It had been too long, Varric thought to himself. That was what it was. It didn't have anything to do with Hawke's green eyes or the fact that the two kisses they had shared were as vivid in his memory as if they had happened yesterday, while it was increasingly hard to remember what Bianca looked like. It couldn't have anything to do with that, because in the story of Varric's life, he was hopelessly and forever in love with Bianca Davri, and more or less content to be that way. The human who had taken his life by storm and destroyed that contentment was nothing more than a passing fancy. That's what he told himself, because that's what he had to believe. Anything else would be unfair to Bianca and unfair to Mina, in ways that Varric didn't want to look too closely at.
He heard laughter from the bar, Hawke's and the Rivaini's, and he would have given a lot to be down there with them, knowing what was so funny. Except that he had a sneaking suspicion it might be him, and that would just make the whole thing worse.
So for now he would sit here and study this note and try to force himself back into the box he had once fit in so well.