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In Good Hands	By : KyeShgall Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 4955 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Bioware owns Dragon Age and all its characters. I own nothing and make no profits.

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On a typical day he would never have offered her dinner. Just the beer. And he would have only offered it with the tacit understanding that she would never actually collect on the debt. That was the way things worked. Sometimes she got him out of a tight spot and he claimed to owe her a pint. Other times he saved her sorry ass with a well-placed bolt and then he crossed one beer off the ledger. The bookkeeping was never done with a great deal of accuracy, but by Varric’s best guess, he owed Hawke about eight pints at present.
She didn’t actually care for the fine beverages served at the Hanged Man. Not that he blamed her—it was vile stuff all around and he himself drank as little of it as dwarvenly possible. And as for the food, well, there wasn’t a whole lot of good to be said about a tepid pot of overcooked rutabagas, seasoned minimally and ladled over greasy chunks of whatever mystery-critter-of-the-moment Edwina had found squeaking in the back storeroom before she’d butchered it in a fit of entrepreneurial zeal. So, in fact, it was more of a favor to Hawke than a detriment that Varric’s offers of the Hanged Man’s finest routinely went unfilled.
But tonight was different. It’s true he was ragged and weary from the day’s fun little excursion to the countryside. And he wasn’t wearing any of his favorite clothes because he’d sent them out to be washed a few dozen times in hopes that would be enough and he wouldn’t have to burn them after all. But he was clean. Two and a half hours of scrubbing and a small of fortune in soap were all it had taken to remove the lingering perfume of gooey innards and the really disturbing crust of spider splooge that was never again to be mentioned.
Oh, yes, he was clean. And if cleanliness really was akin to godliness, then he was all set, because his plan for the evening hadn’t changed.
He was willing to grant that it may not have been the wisest of plans. Putting the moves on one’s best friend rarely ever was. Present circumstances didn’t extenuate much, either. Ever since last night, Hawke had been acting less like his favorite companionable smartass and a whole lot more like a blushing Chantry sister. It was unusual and disconcerting and yes, okay, insanely arousing, but since he had absolutely no idea why she was acting so strangely, it was probably better to rein in the arousal just a bit, at least until he had coaxed a few answers out of her.
The trouble was, he wasn’t really sure what the right questions should be. The few that came to mind didn’t seem expansive enough. Did you… eat a bad mushroom? Lose a freaky bet to Rivaini? Get possessed by the spirit of awkward puberty? Want to go to bed with me now?
He went with something safe. “Did you have any trouble finding the place?”
Hawke narrowed her eyes in an expression that bridged bemused and bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
“This exquisite, high class tavern, of course,” Varric said, his gaze sweeping the room as he cast one hand in a wide flourish to encompass the entire lower level of the Hanged Man. “So different from the hovels we usually frequent. When I buy a lady dinner, you should know I go all out.”
Hawke pulled up a chair and took a seat beside him, all the while shaking her head. “You’re not really going to make me eat here, are you? Is this supposed to be some kind of punishment?”
“Oh, come now, my dear, they say the stew here is delicious…”
“So long as you eat around the meat and the rutabagas, yes, I’ve heard that one a few thousand times already,” she said.
Varric was watching her closely. She sounded almost like her normal self again, but the stilted body language of the previous evening hadn’t gone away and she seemed to be having just as much trouble sustaining eye contact. Something was wrong and, regardless of his newly realized desires, he owed it to her to help if he could. That’s what he did, after all. He helped Hawke.
…
In retrospect, he really should have seen this coming sooner. There were an awful lot of warning signs he hadn’t heeded. The fact that he routinely saved up stories for her appreciation alone was not exactly damning evidence against him. But it did start to look pretty suspicious when combined with a few other things—the way he always looked up hoping to see her whenever the door of the Hanged Man swung open, the way he secretly admired the view whenever he walked behind her for any great distance, and, of course, the fact that he could readily identify his favorite among Hawke’s typical facial expressions.
Maker, was he ever daft for this woman, because he hadn’t even realized he had favorite Hawke facial expressions until just this moment when he decided to ask her an embarrassingly personal question at the same exact instant she took her first bite of the horrible stew he had somehow convinced her she was hungry for after all. It wasn’t really fair of him and his intent was not actually to embarrass her. Rather, he hoped to see the adorable but fleeting panicked look that crossed Hawke’s face whenever she was torn between conflicting urges: in this case, the impulse to speak in her own defense versus the overriding, well-mannered impetus to finish chewing before she did so.
Prolonging the difficulty for Hawke was the fact she had just taken a bite of the meat and the act of chewing it to a state of sufficient tenderness took her about a minute and a half, her expression in the meantime passing twice into the realm of puzzled thoughtfulness and once—right at the end—into marked displeasure. When at last she swallowed, she immediately reached for her mug and drank from it deeply.
“You’re wrong,” she said, setting her mug down on his table with a careless thunk. “On both counts. I am not acting strangely. And I’m not on the—it is not that time of the month. And even if it were… Maker’s breath, you are infuriating sometimes.”
“Careful lest you wound me,” Varric said, pressing one hand to his heart. “I’m a sensitive man.”
“See, there you go again,” Hawke protested. “All smooth and irresistible one minute, then boorish and crass the next. How am I supposed to finish this awful stew when I never know if you’re going to try and make me laugh in the middle of one bite or make me blush in the middle of the next?”
“Irresistible?” Varric said, his curiosity fully piqued. “Do tell.”
But there it was again, the frightened look, shutting down any further line of inquiry. It was the prime example of Hawke acting strangely. And yet she denied it.
Well, that settled it. If questioning her outright wasn’t going to gain him any insights, then his only recourse was to pursue other methods. And if those other methods just happened to further a particular agenda, well, shit, who could blame him?
“How’s the hurt shoulder?” he asked.
“Stiff,” she said. “Not as bad as yesterday, but still sore. Though it’s fine enough it doesn’t need any more of the special herb treatment from you.”
“You know,” he said, “not all herbs attract spiders.”
“Perhaps not,” she said, “but you have no idea which ones do.”
“Duly noted,” he said and tucked into a bite of rutabaga. It was vaguely bitter and he wondered what part of a four-hour simmering process could possibly impart that unfortunate undertone.
“So no herbs this time?” he said after washing away the broth’s sour aftertaste with a swig of ale. “Just a pair of strong dwarven hands to soothe your aching back?”
“Oh,” she said, shyly looking down at her own hands. “I guess that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
And he thought he saw the faintest hint of a blush.
“You don’t even have to take your shirt off this time,” Varric said, then waited until she looked at him again before adding wickedly, “unless you want to.”
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In Good Hands