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runningwolf62 · 21 days ago

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Sounds, Echoing Around

So for everyone not in DMs with me and @wardencommanderrodimiss my boy Brennan has ADHD and that now manifests, in part, as a sensitivity to magic. Namely, that he can hear it as background noise, the way a lot of people with ADHD hear electricity. So that's the idea we've been going feral over today. So here, Brennan as companion, dealing with auditory parts of ADHD. Some of Ena's dialogue is Roddy's, all of this is self-indulgent as a guy who can hear the fridge at work hum.

“Hold up,” Brennan called, turning his head at a familiar sound. The group stumbled to a halt, Ena and Esti waiting immediately, Cassandra and Varric were a bit slower to halt, while Solas had already stopped when Brennan had started looking around.

Ena turned to him curiously, “something wrong?”

“There’s a shard here.” Brennan examined the bush a moment, decided it wouldn’t give him a rash if he climbed around in it,and shoved through it, following the soft hissing until… “Found it!”

He emerged holding it triumphantly, “that’s all.”

The entire group was staring at him, Brennan slowly lowered his arm, looking to Esti and Ena for support. “Uh, what?”

Cassandra sighed heavily, “can you just find them now?" It was some mix of curiosity, and Brennan thought, scorn. He flinched back, he knew Ena was curious about them so he’d gone after it.

"Well now I know what they sound like." He explained hesitantly, “so when I heard this one I thought I’d grab it, so we don’t have to look around for it later.”

Cassandra stared at him blankly. "... What."

Solas stepped forward, to take the shard from him, and give him a curious look, "please explain, Brennan."

Brennan looked between all of them, "the shards whisper, ya know? That's all I've got for you. Can’t you hear them?”

The dead silence that met his question was answer enough. “Oh.”

Solas moved to hand the shard over to Ena, while Varric massaged the bridge of his nose, Brennan had the sinking feeling he’d somehow done something wrong. He needed to fix it, before it blew up in his face. “I- I just wanted to help.”

Ena watched him, confusion and concern slipped from her face into her words as she spoke. “So… these shards, which people set up the skulls of murdered Tranquil to find, whisper to you and only you. …I’ve got nothing. Solas? Should we worry about Brennan?”

“I didn’t know it was only me!” Brennan burst out, “I mean, now that you put it like that, I’m concerned too, but I thought you all could hear them too.”

The murdered Tranquil still bothered him. He’d remembered them from his days in the circle, how they seemed so empty. Too still, too… like statues. Like some horrifying mockery of living. It unnerved him, that he’d be expected to have the power to do that to someone. He still skittered away from the ones Mineave had brought with her. He’d been grateful to see them alive, especially after the horrifying discovery of the piles of skulls, because even if it was a twisted way of it, it was still living. It wasn’t… whatever this was.

He’d thought it had been cost effectiveness. That those who had done this hadn’t wanted to scour wide fields like this to possibly hear the whispers.

“Did the Templars do something to me?” He asked, panic starting to sink in, as everyone shared uneasy looks.

“Now, now hold on.” Varric stepped forward, raising a hand, “easy there Stargazer. How long have you been able to hear this whole, whispering thing?”

“Since we first found the shards.”

Varric nodded slowly, “alright. And, this is important, are they telling you to do anything?”

Brennan shook his head quickly, “it’s, I think it’s voices but they’re not- distinct. It’s not words at all, and not even to me. I’m just overhearing it. Not… being commanded or anything. And it stops when we touch them.”

“Curious.” Solas mused, clearly thinking, while Varric looked relieved.

“Alright. They start making sense, you tell us. Right away.”

“Of course!” Brennan nodded rapidly, “I’m not- I mean I know I probably sound stupid, but I really didn’t know-”

“Brennan.” Ena said gently, “no one’s mad. We don’t think you were stupid, or knowingly hiding anything from us.”

Esti piped up now, “yeah, we trust you Brennan.” She flashed him a grin, “just makes finding shards easier.”

“I wonder…” Solas was still musing, “Brennan, you and I were discussing the Fade, and you mentioned, you’ve always had very vivid dreams?”

Brennan nodded, “yes.”

“Perhaps Brennan simply has some connection to the Fade, unseen before.”

“But then, why the Tranquil?” Brennan asked, swallowing hard, “the entire point is to cut them off from the Fade, if I’m the opposite, why can I also find them?”

“You’re also alive.” Varric pointed out, and muttered something about spirits and magic.

Cassandra spoke, “the Seekers of Truth pull our abilities not from magic or lyrium. Perhaps, you likewise have an alternative source. It is strange, but what isn’t these days?”

“Cheers to that, Seeker.”

Brennan nodded, and pursed his lips before speaking, “I- there is something else.”

Varric visibly tensed, but Ena and Solas regarded him with a calm curiosity.

“If it’s quiet enough, because it’s not a particularly loud sound, I can hear spells as they’re being cast. First noticed it in the Templars. It was the one thing my teachers liked. I was the first to respond to a spell being cast.”

“Had to make it weird, didn’t you?” he kicked himself, with Maxwell’s voice, as he looked around at people he’d thought might come to like him, all giving him strange looks.

It was Solas who spoke finally. “When I get a chance, I will seek out spirits, those who have interacted with mages and see if something like this has ever been seen before.”

Brennan swallowed, and nodded in thanks.

Esti fell back as the group started moving again, to bump into his shoulder. “What does magic sound like?”

“It’s this quiet hum. That’s why I can’t usually hear you all cast when we’re fighting, but if it’s quiet? I can hear it as you prepare and cast.”

“Sounds neat.”

“It kind of is.”

“Plus we have you to find shards now.” Esti grimaced, “rather than skulls.”

“We should still look for the skulls,” Brennan remarked quietly. ��I don’t know if we could ever identify them, but we shouldn’t leave them out here on fence posts and tree stumps.”

Esti nodded in agreement.

---

The conversation came up again a few times, but only in passing. They joked about not needing a mabari when Brennan could track down shards as well as he could.

Ena had playfully asked him for help tracking down artifacts for Solas, only for them all to discover that Brennan could find them. Or at least the area the noise was coming from which helped them narrow down searches.

And then things had started happening, rapidly.

The confrontation at Redcliffe, and the strange spell.

(“Did that have a sound?” Solas had asked him later, Brennan had shaken his head. “I don’t know. There was so much, I couldn’t- I wasn’t listening for it. I’m sorry.”)

The sealing of the breach, and celebration. Brennan’s attempt to flirt with Dorian cut short by the subsequent attack on them.

Esti screaming at him as he pulled her away, as he silently tried to promise Ena that he’d take care of her, whatever happened.

A desperate flight from Haven, and an ensuing avalanche, that left his ears ringing from the echoes of collapsing snow.

Brennan wished his hearing was better for something like this, he’d thought, as he and Esti had stumbled back out into the snow for look for Ena, Esti refusing to believe her sister wasn’t following them, and Brennan unwilling to not let her look.

The wolves and wind howling around them was all he could hear though.

“Ena!”

Esti’s voice rang out, and Brennan all but leapt through the snow drifts to reach her, ignoring the crying of voices behind him, to reach the two who’d offered him more than anyone else in his life ever had.

Ena was collapsing, but Brennan caught her, to prop her up.

“Hey. Hey, you didn’t make it this far to collapse on us now.” He nudged her, “Ena. Ena, please.”

Her response was something he couldn’t make out through everyone speaking at once turning into a wall of noise around him. “Come on.” He nearly elbowed the person who tried to take her from him before realizing it was Cullen.

“I’ve got her.” Brennan thought that was what he said, the cacophony was still undecipherable to him. He nodded jerkily, and fell back, to let Esti hover around Cullen as he carried Ena to their temporary camp.

Brennan had fallen back from the crowd, to where Solas stood, both of them frowning as the song echoed off the mountains.

“It’s a beautiful song.” Brennan remarked absently, Solas turned to look at him from the corner of his eyes, “I did love singing when I was in the Chantry.” He folded his arms and braced against the wind. He’d loved how the songs sounded in the Chantries, how the stones made the voices echo, the harmony. He did not offer his voice now, no longer forced to play the role of dutiful and faithful.

Solas nodded slightly, so Brennan continued, “but this… It gives them hope. What does it give Ena?”

“A group of people dependent on her. That idolize her.”

Brennan scoffed slightly, “I’m not singing for that.”

Solas smiled faintly, and Brennan let him slip away to talk to Ena, while he looked for Esti.

As he crossed the camp, he paused, eyes falling on a young man, who looked up, hat obscuring his face, and seemed surprised at Brennan’s eyes on him, where he stood next to Chancellor Rodrick.

Brennan gave him a small nod before continuing, until he found his friend, who immediately embraced him in a hug.

“Your shem songs are weird. How do they all know all the words?”

“Chantry song, but it would burn my heretic tongue to sing.”

The sound of Esti’s laughter, in his chest, he heard quite clearly.

The trek to Skyhold was a rush, Ena often calling on him to scout ahead with her. He wasn’t sure why she didn’t pick someone like Harding, but with Solas’s instructions, Ena guided them all forward.

“One of the wagons in the supply caravan makes a weird noise when it moves,” Brennan remarked, coming up on Esti, where she was speaking to her advisors. “I think the front left wheel is rattling.”

“You couldn’t hear me speaking to you last night, but you could hear that?” Cullen asked, staring at him, Brennan shrugged his shoulders.

“I was lost in thought. Sky is so clear up here.” His breath billowed around him, “I’ve never gotten such a view of the stars before.”

Ena smiled faintly, “Cullen, leave him be. But do check that wagon wheel.” Cullen bowed slightly and left to do that, Brennan turned fully to Ena now.

“Orders for me?”

“Get some rest. I need you in the front, you’re one of our best scouts, I can’t have an avalanche hit us now.”

Brennan nodded, and then paused, “Ena? Who’s the-” His mind went blank, thoughts of whoever he intended to ask about gone.

“Brennan?”

“Nevermind, I just… completely forgot what I was going to ask.”

Ena’s smile was slight, but it was fond. It was not Maxwell’s sneer, Evelyn’s rolled eyes. Their parents disgust that he could forget mid sentence.

“Well, if you remember, you know where to find me.”

“Will do!”

---

It was only once they were well settled into Skyhold that the problem finally came to a head.

Varric had organized a Wicked Grace game that’d turned into a gathering rather than anything else. Brennan and Josephine were exchanging stories about one particular family from the Free Marches, Brennan leaned against Dorian, who made no move to dislodge him as they talked, when a different conversation suddenly included him.

“Brennan, I have only just remembered something.”

Brennan turned his head to look at Dorian, “hmmm? How dashing you are? I thought you were quite aware of that.”

A warm chuckle came from the man, “I heard a rumor, that you can hear the shards?”

Brennan went still, as eyes turned to him, conversations ending to see what this was about. “I- yes. We don’t know why.”

“I think I do.” Dorian looked around, “where did he- Cole?”

“He’s next to Solas, on the side not between him and Ena.” Brennan nudged him and pointed. “I don’t know how you all lose him so easily.”

“I stick to you, in ways I don’t for others. But I don’t stick for you the ways I do for others. Easily seen, but easily forgotten. Things slip from your mind, I can slip with them when I want.”

Brennan frowned slightly, “I think that’s the nicest way anyone’s ever said I’m forgetful.”

“I’ve met guys like you, actually.” Bull spoke up, “couldn’t remember where they left the stein they just had, but could recall the most obscure detail about things they cared about. Often times they could do a job perfectly, if you knew the job to give ‘em.”

Brennan didn’t want to admit he didn’t know where he’d set his drink down while he’d been gossiping with Josephine, “was… was there a way to fix it?”

“What, you mean like the reeducators?” Bull shook his head, “nah. They’d teach you how to think, but there’s something off about how your thoughts work. Wouldn’t work.”

“Thoughts race, jump, like rabbits, or fennecs. Cole looks like a fennec, his hat flaps like their ears. Small, quick. Quick with daggers. Why do daggers work on spirits? Is it because they believe they should? Fennec slips away, out racing dogs, Cole slips from thoughts.”

Brennan winced slightly, Cole also flinched. “No. That’s not right. It hurts, and your thoughts scatter. One grabs the hurt and won’t let go, and you try to distract it, all while listening. So much to listen to, Dorian’s warm against my back, breaths steady, Varric’s boots scuff the floor, Sera’s chair creaks, she can’t sit still, her leg bounces, yours must.”

Brennan frowned at Cole, as his leg began to bounce, “Cole, I try not to bounce my leg.”

“Because the Templars hated that you did it. That you couldn’t sit still.”

Brennan nodded and shrugged his shoulders, which slid against Dorian’s shoulder, where Brennan was resting his back against him. “It’s just how it is. I’m not good at doing things right.”

Vivienne leaned forward slightly, “my dear, do your thoughts always race like this?”

Brennan nodded and gave a little shrug, “I mean, when I’m focused on something, they don’t. When I’m reading or studying about the stars. But I can’t always focus like that.”

“Maxwell sneers at a blurted out comment, you can’t correct fast enough. You still feel him staring as you stop to talk to Harding, saw a buck in rut want to remind her to let the scouts know to watch, conversation, but you can hear the merchants, hear Cassandra training, hear Sera on the roof, warn her about the lose shingle, Meryden sings, the words blend together, Krem’s armor, you know without seeing he’s standing on the chair again, Hardings words blend, you have missed the question. You ask her to repeat it. Halfway through, you blurt out the answer over her. Maxwell would disapprove.”

Brennan shook his head, and flushed in embarrassment. “Yeah. That happened earlier.”

Dorian’s arm snaked around his waist to keep him from moving, Brennan went still, half out of his chair.

“I didn’t ask to unearth all that. I asked because Cole made a comment earlier, and I had a thought.”

Brennan gestured with one hand, “out with it then.” He stared at his legs rather than anyone.

“Hang on, that’s normal though, innit?” Sera chimed up, “to hear all that? It’s not like the courtyard’s quiet. And I know about the loose shingle, don’t worry, gonna kick it at the head of the next uppity visitor. But Brennan, that’s all normal stuff. Everyone thinks like that.”

“My dear, most of us do not.”

Brennan sank into his chair slightly, definitely unable to meet anyone’s gaze now. “So, there is something wrong with me.”

“Darling, at no point have I ever believed that.” Vivienne’s voice was firm, but not harsh. “You make missteps, but you are quick to correct them. I think I speak for everyone at this table when I assure you, whatever might be different about you, it is not a flaw.”

“Sheesh, you never say stuff like that to me.”

“I don’t show her my ass Sera.” Brennan fired back, unable to stop himself, Sera blew a raspberry at him.

“A shame, yours would be finer viewing.”

“Dorian, that’s just encouraging her to steal my pants.”

“His belt at least. Gift it to ya, add it to yer collection.”

“What was the thought you had, Dorian?” Brennan cut in, shifting to try to pull away from him, “so we can move on.”

“Cole, you mentioned you can hear the fade around us when we cast, yes?”

“It whispers, and sings, of things far away, and dreams of things that could be.”

“Yes, that.” Dorian released Brennan, shifting around behind him until he could make Brennan look at him. “And it made me remember that I’d heard you can hear shards and spells. And I was wondering, is that what you hear?”

Brennan shook his head, “not- maybe? I think I’ve heard that, or something like it. But usually it’s this… It’s hard to explain. Like…” he gestured with his hands, before staring at Dorian, “I don’t know how to explain it. There’s this hum. I can just hear it. The shards whisper. Magic has this humming to it. It’s not unpleasant, and it’s not really distinct. Like you can’t tell bumblebees apart. Maybe, if I only listened, I’d hear something different eventually or that would be me losing my mind more than I already have.”

Dorian’s hands found his wrists, and Esti’s hand was on his shoulder, and Ena got up to come over to him.

“They don’t think you’ve lost your mind,” Cole spoke, “they just want to understand.”

Brennan let out a heavy breath and looked at Dorian, “I don’t know.”

“And that’s alright. We know it’s not dangerous, to you, or us.” Dorian spoke but Ena squeezed his shoulder.

“It seems to be, I suspect, a mix of something about the way you perceive the world, and a natural affinity for the Fade.” Solas finally spoke, “it is nothing dangerous, inherently. I imagine it does make life difficult at points.”

“It calls to him, like all sounds do. Like how it calls to everyone, but he heeds it. You hear it because you listen for it.”

“Fade shit’s weird enough Stargazer. This is just a bit of being a person weird with being connected to the fade weird.” Brennan turned from Dorian to see Varric at the head of the table. “You’re fine.”

Brennan blinked, and swallowed and nodded, not sure he could speak right now, as others confirmed the same.

“And if yer crazy, I am too, and we crazies gotta stick together.” Sera punched him lightly on the arm, “even if yer fade crazy.”

“Right.” Brennan managed, and offered a smile to the group. “But I’m guessing we’ll be doing some experiments?”

Ena squeezed his shoulders, “only if you want to.”

“You’re one of us, Bren. That’s all you need to be.” Esti gently poked him in the back so he’d turn to look at his best friend. “Weird fade stuff or not.”

“Right.” Dorian had released his wrists, but Brennan touched his arm now. “And thanks. For thinking to ask. That’s… a relief, really. To know it might just be I can hear things other people don’t. And not… Maker, I’ve been wondering if something happened to me in Templar training or something.”

“That, I can put to rest.” Cullen had been quiet until now, “there’s nothing the Templars do that would make you more sensitive to the Fade. You simply are.” He sighed softly, “once I would’ve never said this, but, there’s nothing wrong with that. It just is.”

“I mean, as long as I’m not at risk of being possessed?” Brennan looked to Solas, who shook his head quickly. “Right. Then, uh. This has been… a lot. Can. Can we talk about something else for a bit?”

“Sure. Here, I’ve got a story for you all, I’ll even tell one about Hawke, just for you Stargazer.” Varric settled back in his chair, “let me see. I think the dragon fight might be a good one.”

As Bull cheered for the choice, Esti leaned into Brennan, and Dorian rested his hand on Brennan’s leg.

And oddly, the specter of Maxwell, that so often loomed when Brennan felt emotionally drained, seemed to have no power, as Varric began his tale.

#Brennan Trevelyan #Companion Brennan AU #Gee Cassandra why does the Maker let you have TWO inquisitors AU #When you don't even have a diagnosis but you DO have supportive people in your corner for when your audio processing goes to shit

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