#the bashful giggling of a history maker

[drysaladandketchup]

100 Assists for Connor McGiggles

EDM vs. SJS || Apr 15, 2024

[baejax-the-great]

Aches

Fenris x Hawke (G)

1850 words of banter about old injuries between even older friends. Mentions of alcohol, spiders, and aging.

Read on AO3

~

When Bethany summoned ice from thin air, Varric reflected for the umpteenth time what a fantastic waste locking up all the mages had been for all those years.

“Thank you, Sunshine,” he said while scooping it into a handkerchief.  It would soak through eventually, but it was going to get the job done.

Hawke watched him with a raised eyebrow. “Was I the only one who thought the ice was for our drinks?”

“Ice in wine? Yes,” Fenris replied.

“I don’t know, it might have been nice to try it cold. Something new?”

Fenris shook his head.

“I’m an old man now,” Varric explained as he tied a knot to hold the ice in, “I have aches and pains, and in my time in the charming south, ice helped.”

“What aches?” Bethany asked.

“My wrist,” he replied. He rolled his eyes at Hawke’s failure to hide a childish smile. “There’s a cranking motion I have to do for Bianca and—”

Hawke was no longer pretending to listen seriously, giggling to herself, and Varric put his hands back on the table, regretting his choice to act out the motion in the air for more than just the predictable pain that came with it. He set the ice to do its work.

“Tell me more about how you crank Bianca,” Hawke said with a flutter of her eyelashes.

He shook his head. “I know I’m not the only one here suffering. Come on, Hawke, you’re practically a walking bruise at this point. Maybe you’d like to be put on ice for a bit.”

She grinned. “Well there was the old shoulder injury. And the knee injury, of course. Every time it rains it starts creaking. And I really did roll that one ankle too many times. It seems always on the verge of rolling again.” Bethany quietly began summoning more ice as she spoke. ”And, well who could forget my back that one time, except that the answer was all of you forgot my back or nothing would have happened to it in the first place…”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Bethany tied up the ice and handed it to her sister, who only used it to gesture in the air as she said, “Honestly, at this point I take a healing potion prior to fighting just so I can make the stabbing motion without wincing. And I’m still not half as fast as I used to be.”

Fenris raised an eyebrow. “I thought that was whisky.”

“You thought I was getting drunk before fights?”

He nodded. “I was worried about you. Now I know you are in too much pain to hold a blade. That’s much better.”

“Not after I take one of these,” Hawke said, wiggling a small vial in front of him. She seemed to remember the ice in her other hand at that point and after some consideration she balanced it on her right elbow, her smile fading into consternation. “And then take three more the minute we’re done, or I’d have to make you carry me home.”

“Give me that—” Bethany said, snatching the vial before Hawke had the chance to protest. She swirled it in the light, popped the cork to delicately sniff it, then sighed. “You really shouldn’t be taking four of these in one day.”

Hawke snatched it back with her tongue stuck out. “It’s better than taking a knife to the gut, but I’ll keep that in mind. Not all of us can shove healing magic into our shoulders after every fight.”

“Maker, don’t remind me. All that twirling has taken its toll.” She sighed. “And Alistair—all that plate mail on his big body—his knees are practically dust at this point. I think magic is all that’s holding them together.”

Hawke laughed and offered her elbow to Bethany, who prodded at it a bit with some magic. Fenris was conspicuously silent through all of this, and Varric just couldn’t help poking.

“What about you, elf?” he asked, “Where’s your worst pain? No, don’t tell me. It’s either the shoulder or the elbow, and my money’s on the elbow.”

Fenris took a slow drink of ale, and Hawke, to her credit, didn’t shout out the answer. “I may not know my age,” Fenris drawled, “But I am now certain I am younger than all of you. My joints are fine.”

Hawke laughed. “Maker, but you were a haggard teenager when we found you,” she snickered.

“Bull shit,” Varric replied. “And here’s how I know it’s bullshit and that it’s your elbow. I haven’t seen you do that over-the-head hack move in two years. Now I know you’re strong enough to lift that enormous sword of yours, but I’m guessing your elbow won’t let you do the follow-through.”

Fenris shrugged. “It was an inefficient maneuver,” he replied simply to Hawke’s giggles.

Bethany, who had prepared yet another handkerchief full of ice, turned to Varric and asked, “Should we play pin the ice pack on the elf? Honestly I’m guessing there are no wrong answers.”

Of course, with her time spent healing, she had an eye for these things. She leaned over and whispered in Varric’s ear.

He grinned. “Alright Mister-Younger-Than-The-Rest-of-Us, let’s have a demonstration of your peak physical condition. We’ll start with something nice and easy. Put your hand all the way up in the air, as far as it will go.”

Fenris rolled his eyes and started to raise his hand.

“The other hand,” Varric and Bethany protested at the same time.

Fenris considered the hand currently holding his cup of wine. “No.”

Hawke accepted the ice pack from Bethany and placed it on his shoulder for him.  “I really thought I’d be much older when all my conversations devolved into what hurt where and how bad,” she said, Seems like a conversation for people with white hair.”

Fenris gave her a very pointed look.

“I mean like Varric,” she sighed. “He’s not nearly gray enough for this conversation.”

“Thanks, Hawke.”

“Any time. Anyway I suppose we’ll really be lost when we start arguing over whose pain is the worst.”

“It’s you,” Bethany said simultaneously with Fenris’s “Yours is.”

Varric, who might have enjoyed a great sympathy for his poor wrist that started the entire conversation, had to agree. “We all saw—”

“Don’t bring up the Arishok,” Hawke interrupted flatly, “I’m so tired of talking about the blasted Arishok—”

“That golem-looking thing in the Deep Roads that crushed your foot,” he finished.

“I was going to say that time a Maker’s Fist blasted her right off a cliff on the Wounded Coast,” Bethany said, “I think she hit every shrub on the way down.”

“I was thinking of the Arishok,” Fenris said.

Hawke elbowed him.

“We all had our fair share,” she said, “What about that time Merrill got that spider bite and we had to carry her home?”

“That was nothing,” Varric said, “She was fine by the time we got back, but I think she was enjoying the ride. Void, she probably weighs less than Bianca, so it wasn’t some big imposition or anything. Whoever had to carry her staff got the worse end of that deal.”

“What about when Isabela got that nasty burn? I can still remember the smell,” Bethany said, scrunching up her nose.

“But you healed that in about a minute,” Hawke said, “She hardly suffered at all.”

The rest of the evening was spent arguing over not over which injury was the most grievous, but which injury was the stupidest in their history. Isabela’s hand blowing up twice its usual size because of what turned out to be a very infected splinter was right up there with the time a crab snapped Fenris’s bare toes and refused to let go until Varric bolted it. Varric personally felt that while Isabela’s injury was more serious, Fenris deserved the crown because he could have just done his lyrium thing at any moment to get away, but instead hopped around like an idiot for a solid minute before Hawke got him to hold still.

Regardless, the ice eventually melted, leaving them all a little soggy, a little nostalgic, and definitely ready for bed.

~

In their bedroom, after their slow, verbose goodbyes to friends and family that involved Hawke hugging everyone at least three times, including Fenris who was going nowhere, Fenris asked Hawke, “So what happens now?”

She frowned. “Well I was going to peel off this shirt and toss it in the hamper, and then normally I would take two more of these so I could go to bed, but Bethy just told me to limit myself to four.”

Fenris stared at the potion in her hand. “You’ve already had—that is not what she said—”

“Maybe a bath?” Hawke continued as if he had said nothing at all, “With those fizzy salts. That should help, right? Everyone always says those help. Have a bunch stored in a drawer somewhere.”

“No, I meant…” They had slowed down. Fenris had been mostly joking about the whisky, but he hadn’t really registered the extent to which Hawke was in pain. They were both in pain. “Are we…?” He didn’t even know how to phrase the question. What were they if not mercenaries, champions, and warriors? “Are we done?”

“With fighting?” She tossed her shirt away with a small grunt. “Maker, yes. That’s done. We’re old, it’s over, you couldn’t pay me to pick up my blades again, which no one does anymore anyway. May they rust wherever I dropped them last time we came home.”

He nodded, though he couldn’t quite tell if Hawke was serious or not. “Just like that?” he asked.

Hesitating a little, her flippant attitude smoothed into sincerity as she walked over to him and rested her arms over his shoulders.  “Do you remember that time you got bashed over the head?”

“Not really, no,” he replied very honestly.

“Right. Of course. I do, though, and after tonight’s conversation, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The slower I get, the stiffer I get, the greater the chance it happens again. Only this time I might not finish off our assailants on my own, or get you to the healer in time, or be able to carry you at all if I have to.”

Fenris rolled his bad shoulder. That thought had crossed his mind once or twice, that should extraordinary circumstances occur as they often did around Hawke, there was less certainty of them prevailing. Still, he didn’t know what a future of quiet peace looked like.

Perhaps it looked like Hawke, slowly undressing as she spoke.

“So I’m done,” she continued, “Didn’t realize it until tonight, but I am serious. Someone else can clean up Darktown or mend the Wounded Coast. I’ll be in the bath, with my salts.” She tossed the rest of her clothes and sauntered toward the bath, pausing to look back at him. “Are you coming?”

Questions of the future aside, what could Fenris do but follow? She had certainly led him to worse places before. “Always.”

[holmjanson-blog]

Philadelphia rolls out the rainbow carpet to celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month with a lively parade and festival happening Sunday, June 9.

The PrideDay LGBT Parade and Festival is now in its 31st year, and 2019 gives revelers something extra to recognize: the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the multi-day protest that’s credited with skyrocketing the LGBTQ rights revolution.

PARADE AND FESTIVAL FAST FACTS

Philly’s 31st annual Pride Parade and Festival takes place Sunday, June 9.

The parade kicks off at 11 a.m. at 13th and Locust streets.

The 1.5-mile route runs from the Gayborhood to Penn’s Landing.

The festival at Penn’s Landing costs $15 and runs from noon to 6 p.m.

This year’s Pride Parade and Festival promises to be the largest celebration of its kind in Philadelphia’s history, with a record number of parade participants, vendors and live performers.

(Photo by J. Fusco for Visit Philadelphia)

Stake out the perfect spot along the Pride Parade route along Locust Street or Market Street.

The Parade

The Philadelphia Pride Parade — an absolutely free event — is one of the liveliest public celebrations to happen in Philly all year.

The 1.5-mile procession begins at 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 9, at 13th and Locust streets in the Gayborhood.

From there, it moves east along Locust Street to Washington Square and through Old City to conclude at Penn’s Landing around 1:30 p.m.

Spectators can expect vibrant floats carrying drag queens, scantily clad go-go dancers and local dignitaries; canons blasting rainbow confetti into the air; and club anthems blaring from rolling DJ booths, keeping the festivities at a 10 from start to finish.

Where to Watch

Parade-goers can enjoy the show from anywhere along the route, but smart cookies arrive early to find a spot near one of the five performances zones, where drag queens and marching bands perform for the crowd.

Find those along Locust Street at 13th Street, 12th Street and 11th Street, and on Market Street between Fifth and Sixth streets and at Second Street.

At the judging stand on Market Street between Fourth and Fifth streets, panelists eye up the presentation and dole out awards to participants in categories like best theme, best float, best performance and more.

(Photo by J. Fusco for Visit Philadelphia)

Philly’s PrideDay Parade celebrants include local community leaders, longtime activists, drag performers and more.

Don’t Miss

Philly’s Pride celebrations this year commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots for LGBTQ equality. For the 2019 parade, the Philadelphia Pioneers On The Road To Stonewall float hosts local activists and carries messages of hope and love.

Anyone can stop by Cherry Street Pier for a Visit Philadelphia-sponsored decorating party on Saturday, June 8, to write a message on a rainbow ribbon and tie it to the float, which will also be featured in the NYC Pride March and Philly’s Independence Day Parade.

The Festival

The parade concludes at Penn’s Landing, where a lively daylong festival keeps the party going through the early evening.

Attendees can purchase a $15 wristband to gain access to the bash, which lasts from noon to 6 p.m.

Once inside, guests can browse more than 150 vendor booths and enjoy live entertainment from the main stage, which hosts a lineup of local and internationally known comedians, singers, drag queens and more.

Performances

As part of the Stonewall commemoration, this year’s festival boasts not one but seven headliners.

Out comedian Fortune Feimster (Chelsea Lately, The Mindy Project) and transgender funnyman Ian Harvie (Transparent) provide giggles during two standup sets.

Musical entertainment comes courtesy of Broadway diva Frenchie Davis, former En Vogue songstress Dawn Robinson, and an impressive trio of reality show contestants: Vincint (The Four), Brian Justin Crum (America’s Got Talent) and David Hernandez (American Idol).

Spectators can also expect a handful of regional performers, including Donna Summer tribute artist Rainere Martin, Cher impersonator Steven Andrade, and Kemar Jewel and his Xcel Dance Crew.

Celebrated Philly jewelry maker Henri David returns to reprise his role as master of ceremonies.

More Pride Events

Hardcore revelers can find tons of other ways to celebrate LGBTQ Pride leading up to Sunday’s parade and festival and throughout the rest of the month.

There’s a rainbow-flag raising and open-air bash at LOVE Park on June 6 and a lively block party in the Gayborhood on June 7 that includes carnival games, food trucks and a chance to grab discounted Pride Festival tickets. Plus, the Philadelphia Dyke March on June 8 to elevate marginalized voices during the annual protest.

Check out the Philly Pride Month guide for more event details.

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