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Varric cleaned his pen and set it in its case, hurrying to tidy up the breakables before the clanking and heavy booted footsteps came through the door. Cassandra had avoided him and their room last night, and even though the Inquisitor told him she had cooled off, he wasn’t willing to bet his writing set on the fact. Even with his doubts, it would be nice to rip the bandage off and see what was still left beneath.
The door opened with the soft creak neither wanted to fix thanks to its defensive purposes. Varric glanced up and down on reflex, Cassandra hadn’t been out on any missions since the last time he’d seen her, but he still checked her for injuries. None of them were good at taking care of themselves, but she was especially bad at it.
“I suppose I should apologize,” Cassandra said, avoiding looking at him as she stripped her gloves and gauntlets before setting them in their place on her armor stand.
“And yet I notice, you still haven’t,” Varric said, retreating to his own wardrobe on the far side of the room even though he’d already changed to his soft sleeping clothes.
He heard the deliberate intake of breath, the extended sigh out, and wondered if he should pull his Bianca down from the display pegs he’d hammered into the wall. But when he looked, the seeker’s back had bowed and she no longer held herself with the inevitability of violence. Watching as she unbuckled her breastplate and shrugged out of the metal, Varric tried not to let his regrets eat at him.
“I am sorry, Varric. The Inquisitor said it was unworthy of me, but I have not felt worthy in some time. I should not have taken my anger out on you when it belongs squarely on my own shoulders.”
“That’s some real narcissism there, Seeker,” Varric said, pulling back the covers from their perpetually half empty marriage bed. “So angry at yourself over everything bad that’s ever happened. As if you could have stopped it. As if you’re not out there every day trying to make it better.”
“Do you think-”
“As little as possible and only in my cups if I have to,” Varric answered, climbing up on the bed. He stayed to his side only, even though after this long it was a particularly fruitless gesture.
“Do you think the Champion would have liked me?”
Out of all the questions that she could have asked, he never would have thought of that one.
“I think you and Hawke would have butted heads at every turn,” Varric said, settling on his fluffed up pillow. He didn’t have to look to know Cassandra’s shoulders were up to her ears, but he continued, “And he would have appreciated your alternate point of view. By the end you would have been batting his fireballs straight into the Arishok’s face.”
Cassandra scoffed lightly, but he could hear the smile in her voice as she finished getting ready for bed. “I don’t know about that,” she said, dimming the light before she pulled back the single blanket on the barracks cot she’d dragged into the room Josephine had assigned them. “Goodnight, Varric.”
“Good night, Seeker,” Varric sighed, but at least she had decided to be civil to him.
“Do you think-”
“Hmmm?” Varric asked, smoothing his hands across the soft sheet and heavy quilt.
“Everyone else has a nickname. You don’t even call me by my name,” Cassandra said, rustling as she turned over to face the wall.
Varric turned himself, and it was quite a while afterward that Cassandra’s soft breathing lulled him to sleep.
-
“Varric,” Cassandra acknowledged him as she strode through the great hall doors, undoubtedly on some important War Room mission.
Saving his place in the book with a finger, Varric glanced up and replied with a simple, “Wife.”
She actually stumbled over her next step, and Varric hid his grin in his book. He hoped that she enjoyed the flowers that he left for her on the table.
-
Back in the Hinterlands. Again. Varric was less than thrilled, but Cassandra hadn’t unclenched her jaw since yesterday when another group of mad templars had ambushed them. There wasn’t much to be done for either of them, not when they were surrounded by bears.
“Wifey, to your right!” he yelled, swinging Bianca around to let loose a volley of arrows that rained down over the beast. Cassandra hadn’t even hesitated rolling to safety before she gained her feet and set up a shield wall.
The bear never stood a chance.
Mostly because they were much faster when running away from it.
-
“Husband.”
Varric sputtered into his ale, foam sloshed up into his eyes and he had to wipe it away to see Bull across from him doubled over in laughter. It took a moment, but when his throat was clear for air again, he asked, “Hello, wife, would you like to join us?”
“I would,” she said, glaring with a raised eyebrow until the Charger seated next to him surrendered his seat.
“I have to know,” Crem said, magically appearing to squeeze in next to Bull with a fresh mug he pushed over for Cassandra. He gestured between Varric and Cassandra, “How did this even happen?”
“It’s a long story,” Varric drawled, trying not to let the press of Cassandra’s thigh against his put him off his game. “It involves a few the Carta, some obscure dwarven politics, and a bullied priest.”
“I did not bully a priest,” Cassandra announced, ignoring the snickers those in the back were brave enough to make.
“I never said you did,” Varric covered smoothly, though as he remembered it there was no other word that would have been as apt for the technique used to gain Chantry support for their hurried nuptials. “That copy of the Chant of Light undoubtedly came with that hole in it. Anyway-” he continued, over everyone’s laughter so he could head off too much enjoyment at his wife’s expense. “Anyway- she saved my life. Sure it was mostly so she could haul me to Haven and make me sing in front of the Divine, but I like to think we now have a beautiful relationship based on not wanting to be eaten by the giant hole in the sky.”
Crem raised his glass in acknowledgement.
“He grows on you,” Cassandra deadpanned into the brief silence of the group, sipping her drink.
“Like a fungus,” Varric injected before anyone else could go for the obvious joke at his expense, pleased that Cassandra felt confident enough to continue.
“Maybe like that pretty fungus we saw in that mine last week,” Cassandra said, her elbow nudging into Varric’s side.
“She thinks you’re pretty, Varric!” Dorian crowed, leaning back into the Inquisitor’s big shoulder. “Why doesn’t anyone ever tell me I remind them of pretty fungus?”
The table quickly turned on Dorian to point out his many flaws from too pointy of a mustache to abnormally deep and soulful eyes, completely ignoring the blush that had crept to Varric’s cheeks or the way Cassandra hadn’t regained her own personal space.
-
Bears suddenly weren’t so terrible when the alternative was a fire-breathing dragon.
Both Varric and Cassandra were still limping when they returned to Skyhold with their grisly trophy. Bull was very excited to help mount the dragon’s head above the fireplace in the Great Hall. Varric only hoped its eyes wouldn’t follow him around the room. He pushed through the door and held it open for Cassandra, groaning at the extra pull on his sore muscles.
“Varric, may I ask you for a favor?” Cassandra asked, sword clanging in uncharacteristic imprecision.
“Of course, my wife,” Varric said, pulling his embroidered shirt over his head and leaving it where it fell. “Ask and the very moon will be yours.”
“What would I do with the moon?” Cassandra made an amused sound, adding her own pleased noises as she shed her layers. “I would like to share the bed with you tonight. I might be getting a little old to slay a dragon and then sleep on such an unforgiving surface.”
“I suppose it’s big enough to fit the two of us,” Varric said after pretending to consider the request. “Would you like-”
“To sleep, only,” Cassandra interjected, voice hard again as the day they’d met.
“I was only going to ask if you wanted one of the good pillows,” Varric said, turning with his hands up. “I’ve noticed that no matter how many times Cole replaces yours, you keep finding that flat yet lumped torture device you insist on sleeping with.”
“I- yes, thank you,” Cassandra said, moving quickly around the room to reach the offered pillow from atop the wardrobe before Varric could get his step stool out. “Once again, I should apologize.”
“I think we’ve come far enough in this sham marriage that we can have a misunderstanding or two without crossing daggers,” Varric said, keeping his back turned while he knew Cassandra was changing. He sat and pulled his boots off, stretching out his toes and rubbing them into the fur carpet while concentrating to ignore the stalkers rumbling in his stomach. “Repeat after me, ‘I deserve small comforts in this world of nugshit insanity.’.”
“I deserve small comforts in this world of,” Cassandra hesitated long enough that Varric turned to look, watching as her elegant neck stretched as she combed out her hair one last time before bed. She caught his eyes and smiled shyly. “nugshit insanity.”
“That’s my girl,” Varric said, figuring in a couple more years she might actually believe it. He circled the room extinguishing most the candles and shielding the thick night lights that would burn until dawn, letting her settle into bed first. It wasn’t how he thought his life would play out, even after he gave up the impossible dream of being with the actual Bianca, but he didn’t think he’d trade it. not for anything.
He woke the next morning feeling more refreshed than he had since the entire sorry story began, with Cassandra’s head on his chest and her hair tickling his nose.
-
“You know when we first started this, I would have thought seeing the two of you holding hands would be the weirdest shit I ever saw,” the Inquisitor said, leaning heavily into Dorian’s side after they had defeated Corypheus.
“Please,” Cassandra said, tightening her hold on Varric’s hand as the others slowly grouped around them. “All this shit is weird, we are no exception.”
“Huh,” Varric said, exchanging nods with Blackwall who looked like he’d gotten the short end of a fight with a rage demon. “I think I just found the title for our book, All This Shit is Weird.”
Cassandra made the most disgusted noise he’d ever heard her make and turned on him. “You would not dare,” she said, dropping to one knee to glare at him harder in the eyes.
“Wife, we just saved the world,” he said, reaching out slowly so she could flinch away if she wanted to before he could grasp her chin. “Right now, there isn’t a thing I wouldn’t dare.”
It might have been their first kiss, but if he had anything to say about it, it wouldn’t be their last.