#andersXcyrusXvarric

[thedragonagelesbian]

[thedragonagelesbian]

Something something second chances...........

“And you don’t have to worry about threatening to kill me if I hurt him,” Anders added. Where he had been sheepish before, he now spoke with that disconcerting certainty that had scared Varric so much so many times over the last year. “If I hurt him again, I’ll take care of that myself.”

Varric could’ve just let the comment go. He was tired enough as is, and Anders had already given him enough grief for a lifetime. It was probably well within his rights to let the self-loathing slip by.

Instead, he sighed and said, “Blondie, you’ve got to stop saying shit like that.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do. That’s why you have to stop. As a storyteller, I get the appeal of the whole tragic self-sacrificing lovers thing. It makes for one hell of a dark romance novel. But as your…” Varric’s tongue stumbled into it before his mind did. For a moment, he actually paused to try to think if he knew a word for the recently acquired partner of his partner who was also once his dearest friend until being directly responsible for ruining their lives. For all his years of wordsmithing, nothing came to mind, and he tried to cover up his faltering with a cough. “Point is, this is real life, not a novel, and in real life, sometimes you hurt people you care about. You have to be okay with that without immediately jumping to this ‘he should want me dead’ shit.”

“After what I did in Kirkwall—”

“We’re not in Kirkwall anymore!” Varric didn’t mean to snap with quite as much vehemence as he did, but there was a hole in his heart where his home used to be, and all the self-flagellation in the world from Anders wasn't going to fill it again. It just reminded him of how much his chest ached. “Cyrus made his choice. He wants you to live. Start wanting it for yourself too.”

Anders had been looking like a kicked puppy ever since he had slunk into the Gallows with his tail between his legs. He had the self-hating pout down to a damn art form, and still he managed to outdo himself then. Head ducked, shoulders hunched, spine buckled underneath the weight of what Cyrus and Varric had asked of him. He'd only look more pathetic if he was sopping wet, and damn it if Varric didn't feel his heart stirring with pity.

“Look,” he tried again. “Cyrus and I have talked about why the two of you separated the first time around. You freaked out because he did his 'please let me die for you' shtick, right? Remember how scary that was to listen to? That doesn't become a fun, cool, normal thing just because you're the one doing it.”

“I…” Anders' voice cracked. “I suppose I see your point…”

“I sure fucking hope you do, because I already have one dead-set would-be martyr in my life. I don't want another.” He paused, shook his head, and let out a rough chuckle. “Fuck, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe the two of you deserve each other.”

“He deserves you,” Anders insisted quietly. “You don't know… It's so difficult to stop thinking like this. It's hard enough for me to imagine starting down that path, let alone making the progress Cyrus has… had, until I… But even then, you were there to stop him from spiraling further. You've helped him so much.”

Varric folded his arms and sighed again. “If you stick around, I'll help you too, Blondie.”

For the first time, Anders turned away from the fire to stare at Varric, his eyes wide and trembling. “Do you really mean that?”

Varric responded with a shrug, as if this was a simple, off-hand matter. As if he wasn't still boiling with anger over all the mage had cost him, had cost Cyrus. Maybe it was. Maybe he wasn't, or at least wouldn't be forever.

“What can I say? I'm a fixer.” He glanced past the fire to the elf curled up on their shared bedroll, sleeping as soundly as he ever did, escaping from all the horror and loss and tragedy, if only for a few hours each day. “We both are.”

[thedragonagelesbian]

happy 1 month anniversary of me losing my entire fucking mind over andersXcyrusXvarric i invite us all to consider:

this but it’s varric, cyrus, and anders. (and bianca instead of a sword. obviously)

[thedragonagelesbian]

Whatever you do DONT think about varric, anders, and cyrus at the hanged man after a long night and cyrus dozes off listening to them banter and playfully bitch at each other, and they carry him back to varric's room together

[thedragonagelesbian]

I gotta elaborate bc i can Not stop simmering it in my mind.......

The narrative doomed one of you so you doomed yourself to save him and despite your inexplicable conviction that the narrative has doomed you too, he chooses to love you and the love saves you and the narrator loves his hero so he loves you too even as the narrative comes crashing down around you, and you both come out the other side "dead" in the sense that as far as the rest of the world knows, you both died during the exalted march, but also "dead" because you both lost such immense parts of yourself in the process (anders separating from justice, cyrus detaching from kirkwall but losing a lot of his strength & vitality & magic resistance/negation) and you're not the same as you were before but you're both. Together. With the narrator who will help you write your new future. Together.

[thedragonagelesbian]

I promise im editing this (and returning to the cyrusXvarric first kiss fic... and working on alistair's bi awakening..........) but for now i have a lot of wine in me and a lot of cyrusXanders feelings, so.............. enjoy some early morning sleepy domesticity

Even now, it was hard for Anders to keep his hands to himself when he wanted nothing more than to touch every inch of Cyrus, at the very least to assure himself that all of it was as he remembered. That all of this was real.

He was about to content himself with simply brushing some of Cyrus' hair out of his eyes whenq the elf's chest rumbled with a low chuckle.

"I can feel you looking at me, you know."

"I'm sorry," Anders murmured. He trailed his fingers feather-light across Cyrus' cheek, slowly tucking the stray strands behind his ear. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't," Cyrus assured him. "You know me. Early riser and all that."

"It's not too late for us both to go back to sleep. Stay in til noon or something wild like that."

Slowly, Cyrus' eyes slid open, blinking the brightness away with a sleepy grin. "And just what will Varric think when he comes home and finds us lazing around like two of the cats?"

"I imagine he'll be so insatiably jealous that he'll kick me out so he can have you all to himself again." Still cradling Cyrus' face with one hand, Anders brought himself down for a slow, gentle kiss. "I know I've enjoyed it."

Cyrus laughed again and wrapped his arms around Anders, effortlessly pulling him on top. Their bodies slid together just as easily, limbs twined and breaths mixing.

"You still have me alone for a little while longer."

[thedragonagelesbian]

cyrus is the perfect size to steal both anders’ cloak and varric’s jacket and he’s always very smug & cuddly about it

[thedragonagelesbian]

cyrus would be so obnoxious after realizing that varric and anders also have feelings for each other and are being kind of stupid about it. we’re talking full-scale romcom wingman shenanigans. locking them in a closet together type shit YES he took varric’s lockpicking kit first this isn’t amateur hour over here this is the single most important thing he’s ever done in his entire life

[thedragonagelesbian]

Cole: The hearth blazes but it's empty. You play the cards but the hands around them are configured wrong. You miss him. Cassandra: Of course I do. He was my friend-- or, I thought he was, anyway. That was probably another lie of his, wasn't it? Cole: Most people are cats. But some cats don't just look dangerous, and you have to keep an eye on them, even when they're purring. Cassandra: So, he was still scared of me? Even after all that time? Cole: Scared of the symbol on your chest. Scared of the sword on Cullen's vambrace. Scared of the Chantry's flames. Keeps the candle lit deep down but the pyre's blinding and the bodies beautiful. Fire can't get through the words. This is how I protect them. Cassandra: 'Them'...? No, I don't have the right to ask. -- Cole: He made me promise not to tell anyone. The first time I scratched his thoughts and he started bleeding red and blue, he went so quiet, all the words burnt up at once, and then he said I had to keep quiet too. Solas: Is this about Varric and Hawke? That must have been difficult for you. Duplicity is rarely in a spirit's nature, but I believe it helped him, for a time. Cole: Part of him was always somewhere else, and now it's gone too far away for the rest of him, and he had to leave us to get it back. Cole: I could've helped him more if he had stayed! If he had let me take the pain away. Solas: It's a fool's errand he's embarked on, but he has to see its end for himself. Cole: The end doesn't matter. He isn't ever coming back. -- Cole: He doesn't fly like a bird should. Traded in his wings for five legs made of chains that won't ever let him go. It's not the Nightmare they have to save him from.

[thedragonagelesbian]

Cyrus & Anders still sometimes get trapped in the escalating 'i would drown us in blood to keep you safe' 'i would burn this world to its core to keep you safe' thing and varric has to be the one to pry them apart and be like 'blondie. go hold a cat. knightly. go tend to the garden' and it works every time.

[thedragonagelesbian]

Im just saying. Its SO shadowgastcore of them.........

[thedragonagelesbian]

wait i have more for 'what if anders lived' :) cyrus letting him live and not knowing WHY in the moment that he did it. rationalizing it to himself a hundred different ways from, 'is it really right to kill him even if he wanted it?', to 'making him see the consequences and not run away'. but in the end he knows the real reason why: he's sacrificed so much and lost people he loved on the way here that in that single moment, even when he knew what he SHOULD have done... he didnt. even if he was hurt by anders pushing him away. even if death is what anders wanted, even more for it to be at cyrus' hands. the fact that no matter how he tries to rantionalize it, the right thing to do, what he should have done, was give anders that 'mercy'. but. would killing him be worth going through all that pain? again? so just this once, in spite of everything, he was selfish.

i need to go dig a hole somewhere and lie in it and W E E P I----

bc. you're so right. killing anders is still service to someone else. there's no catharsis or even justice there, especially as cyrus spends the rest of his life carrying that guilt and that grief around with him, literally dragging anders' corpse behind him in the form of the broken imperial chantry amulet soldered back together with anders' ashes. the pain of that death is another expectation, another weight he's taken and put on his own shoulders. even as anders tried so hard to absolve him of that blame, by asking in the first place--saying I’d rather it be him than anyone else. He’s the only one I trust to tend to the ashes and i'm glad it's you and This way, it’s my sacrifice, not yours and do you want to pay the price for this? // if it's you--the hurt... continues.

to think that cyrus would refuse that ask... that he would allow himself that selfishness...........................................................

here's the meta thing: when i initially conceived of cyrus' solo worldstate like five years ago, i decided that anders would be dead. cyrus existed as such a vague concept back then, and he was initially a much more traditional lawful good. still wary of/antagonistic toward the chantry, but not one to let its explosion go unpunished. furthermore, that he and anders had ANY relationship beyond the canon friendship did not occur to me.

i went into my first playthrough with cyrus so. so curious to see if i was going to change my mind about that. as i built out his and anders' relationship, i thought maybe....... and then i got to the justice quest. the lying, the manipulation, the guilt-tripping, it hurt cyrus so much.

but cyrus' personal pain has never been much of a motivator or a justification of anything, because he views his own suffering as secondary.

the real, key explanation as his creator for choosing that path for them was that anders asked for it. not super explicitly (at least on the friendship path), but between his dialogue in the last straw & one of his act 3 banters with isabela, it's clear that he thinks he should pay for this with his life. he believes that anyone would be well within their rights to dole out that punishment. and if that's the case, why not ask cyrus to be the one to do it.

cyrus would do anything he asked, because cyrus would do anything for his family, and anders is still his family. and because is there anything sweeter in this world than to be redeemed by his bloody, loving hand?

and cyrus says no.

he has grown so bitter and jaded and harsh at this point, and yet he chooses for a moment to be kind to himself.

and in so doing, as he has so many times before, he extends that kindness once more to someone who has taken advantage of it.

to be burnt and to try again, not out of naivety or foolishness but because he needs this for himself. he needs this to survive.

it's not forgiveness at first, it's not forgiveness for a long while, especially for varric, and even cyrus tells him to leave after sparing him. but it's an open door, and when anders chooses to walk back through it, cyrus can't deny to himself how happy he is to see him again.

and when a seeker of truth hunts them down three years later, varric tells her the version of things that keeps both his loves safe: that the champion of kirkwall killed anders that night.

[thedragonagelesbian]

Anders: So, you and Cyrus.

Varric: Is this where we find out that you're the jealous type, Blondie?

Anders: What? No, I... I just wanted to say it seems nice. He deserves nice.

[thedragonagelesbian]

hey. andersxcyrusxvarric makes anders trying to give varric his pillow even sadder. he's knows he's going to hurt cyrus with what he's doing that thinks he's going to die, so he gives varric the pillow. because he knows they'll both miss him and want something to remember him by, and smells of him, but he can't give it to cyrus without hurting him even more. so he gives it to varric to hold onto until the time is right. ^w^

ok before i get to the part where my HEART BREAKS IN A MILLION FUCKING PIECES i need to say: just generally. we as a fandom don't talk enough about the pillow. the pillow is the one piece of his life before the circle that anders still has, and we know per his short story that his mother was the one who didn't want to lose him to the circle. who cried when he was taken while his father was the one who sent him away. he kept it through kinloch hold. through all his escape attempts. through the wardens. through kirkwall. that little bit of connection to someone who loved him unconditionally. even if it's platonic (and... it's not.) that is a gift SUPER CHARGED with sentimentality.

and to give it to VARRIC, who grew up having to take care of his alcoholic mother. who didnt get that love. who inherited nothing more from his parents than a status that bartrand destroyed himself trying to reclaim and an expectation that it was his job to keep everyone happy & fix things. anders doesnt have any of that context bc. varric is constitutionally incapable of talking about his personal life, but it's THERE and it makes it all the more painful. esp when he insists that anders keeps it. bc he knows how rare and special that love is and he doesnt want to see anders lose that connection.

BUT TO THINK. TO FUCKING THINK. THAT HE WANTED TO GIVE IT TO CYRUS, WHOM HE KNOWS HAD A TROUBLED RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS MOTHER. MR. 'YOUR MOTHER WOULDNT WANT YOU TO BLAME YOURSELF/YOU DONT KNOW MY MOTHER'?????????????

THE INTERMINABLE ACHE OF WANTING TO SAY 'I LOVE YOU AND I WISH YOU HAD BEEN LOVED MORE' AND STAYING SILENT BC YOU KNOW ITS JUST GOING TO HURT HIM MORE DOWN THE ROAD.......................

AND TO BELIEVE THAT IF HE GIVES IT TO VARRIC, IT'LL WIND UP WITH CYRUS EVENTUALLY BC VARRIC MAY NOT BE A HEALER, BUT ANDERS HAS SEEN WHAT HE'S WILLING TO DO TO PROTECT CYRUS (debilitator/controller varric build my beloved........) AND HE TRUSTS VARRIC TO TAKE CARE OF CYRUS AFTER HE'S GONE. TO DEAL WITH THE AFTERMATH OF HIS BETRAYAL. TO PICK UP THE BROKEN PIECES. TO GIVE CYRUS A PLACE TO REST HIS HEAD WHEN THE BATTLE'S OVER.

[thedragonagelesbian]

Anders fills an important niche in their ecosystem which is letting varric be a bit of a bitch

[thedragonagelesbian]

You know what varric needs more than one boyfriend whose self-destructive martyr complex gives him constant stress headaches?

Two of them