#i just started a playthough with a default m!hawke who is 100% purple

[gremlinquisitor]

Varric & Hawke (or Varric/Hawke, if you like): 31. “How do we keep getting into these situations?” “Eleven years of friendship and I still don’t know.”

for @dadrunkwriting and @diemarysues. I had to fudge the number of years for the timeline, but I think we’re okay. c:

~950 words, Varric & Hawke, no ships, good for most ages, one dead dragon

Read it here on AO3

ko-fi

There’s no stopping him, because at this point he thinks he can’t be stopped. Varric’s heard the story of how they met Flemeth at least five times by now, which is the only logical explanation for why Hawke strolls forward, staff in hand, and tries to talk to the dragon.

“I delivered your necklace!” He waves his staff over his head, and Varric can hear the grin in his voice.

“Oh, Hawke, no. That’s not the same dragon!” Daisy calls out to him as if that will make any difference at all. That she can tell the difference between two dragons is a discussion for another time, preferably one with no dragons present for comparison.

Predictably, the dragon does not thank him for running someone else’s errand, and instead chooses to scream so loudly that all of them - Varric, Hawke, Daisy, Choir Boy and Broody - are knocked back on the ground.

And then comes the fire.

The fight is long and messy, and when it’s over the ground that’s not covered with dead dragons glitters with crushed glass from potions, crunching under their feet when they approach the body of the great beast. Everything smells like wet or blood or burning, with bushes still crackling along the path they took to get here. Varric can already feel where his shoulder is going to stiff in the morning.

Choir Boy - pristine armor splattered with red and one end of his heirloom bow blackened - sets a foot on one of the legs, bracing himself to start pulling out arrows. He doesn’t stop muttering the whole time he works his way back towards the tail, and Varric can’t tell if he’s praying for the dragon, or about the dragon. Not that it matters either way; it’s definitely dead. But if anyone could pray hard enough to get a high dragon sent to the Maker’s side, it would be him.

Broody is sitting off to one side, already wiping down his sword and glaring at the body like he expects it to come back to life, and Varric can’t blame him. A fight that long, it almost seems strange that it’s over, and there were a couple times when he thought that this would be what he spent the rest of his life doing.

“Hand me a flask, will you, Merrill?”

Varric steps carefully over the bulky tail, setting Bianca on his back only after he’s sure the damn thing won’t twitch. Hawke and Merrill are by the head, and even if he’s positive the dragon’s dead, he isn’t about to walk past its face if he doesn’t have to.

“How do we keep getting into these situations, anyway?” He calls out as he strolls along beside the beast’s spine, picking up coins that could have come from their pockets, or from some other unfortunate soul that visited the Bone Pit earlier.

“Eight-- years of friendship, and I still don’t know,” Hawke replies, not without a considerable amount of effort for a man with nothing left to kill for the moment.

Varric rounds the curve of the dragon’s shoulders and comes to a stop at the sight before him. “Maker’s breath, Hawke, what are you doing?”

Hawke is standing a still-steaming pool of blood, elbow-deep in the side of the dragon’s neck. Daisy is next to him, pushing corks into flasks of what can only be even more blood, then setting them gently in her pack.

“We can make runes with the blood--” Hawke grunts, and there’s a wet snap from inside the dragon. Its jaw twitches and all three of them hop like spooked cats, Choir Boy yelling something from the other side.

Hawke pulls his hands out, some fleshy bit caught between them, and if the blood was steaming, this is billowing, almost invisible through all the white that rises from it into the cool evening air.

“And this is the fire gland. That merchant at the Gallows will give me a pretty penny for it, I bet.”

Varric opens his mouth to ask how Hawke even knew that that would be there, but thinks better of it. The man loves dragons. Some things don’t need to be more complicated than that.

Hawke casts about for some way to preserve the thing until they get back to the city, smiling gratefully at Daisy when she holds up an oilcloth. After a moment’s consideration, he strips off his bloodsoaked gloves and sets them in the cloth as well, rolling the whole package up into a ball and stuffing it into his own pack.

“Anything else you got on your shopping list? Scales, horns, teeth?” Varric sighs. He regrets the question immediately as Hawke’s eyes light up and hustles over to the dragon’s head. A puff of smoke comes out when he tries to peel back the upper lip, and he pulls his hand away, shaking his bloody fingers before sticking them in his mouth. Choir Boy makes a face, and Varric hates to admit that he’s pretty sure he’s making the same one.

“Maybe we can come back tomorrow when it’s cooled?” It’s one of those Daisy suggestions that is somehow brilliant and a little mad at the same time. With people sure that they’ll die out here, it’s unlikely anyone will loot the body overnight, but Varric doesn’t relish the idea of day-old dead dragon, either.

Hawke is pouting, but he hums and nods, gesturing with his head towards the path back to the city. Broody is already there waiting for them, shuffling and impatient, though he looks at Hawke’s hand with concern when they approach.

The walk back to Kirkwall is an enthusiastic replay of the battle courtesy of Hawke, complete with arm-waving and roaring, under a starlit sky.