museyboxy | Soulmate AUs

"Just kill me, Varric," he said quietly. "You've already found your soulmate, and I know what that makes me."

He might not know so much of the world as Varric did, but he'd had years of experience by now, watching Varric, hearing his loving praise of Bianca. But never had Varric mentioned Fenris. Not in that way, at least - though now he knew why. His real name was on Varric's wrist. The name even he hadn't known until Varania said it.

"And that makes Danarius my soulmate. I don't want to live with that knowledge, besides. I don't want to live with what that says about me."

Varric's mouth was already open incredulously at that kill me bullshit, but then Fenris says something that makes him lean forward in jaw-dropping shock.

"What did you say?" The dwarf stands and goes to his friend, seizing his wrists to see for himself. There it is: Danarius de Gallo and Varric Tethras.

After an incredibly long moment, he manages a stunned reply. "Sweet Ancestors. I hope this place has smelling salts. I might actually faint."

He'd been so sure that Bianca is his soulmate: it was a truth he'd never doubted for a moment since the day they first said I love you. It was a certainty he'd organized his life around. Only the depth of his friendship with Fenris had brought even a flicker of doubt, but the alternative seemed impossible.

Until now. Because as much as Varric Tethras knew Bianca was his soulmate, he knew with an even deeper conviction that Fenris had to be wrong about this. His soulmate couldn't possibly be the son of a bitch that enslaved him.

It couldn't.

"I won't fight, Varric," he said quietly.

His soulmate was dead. His heart ached. He'd hoped for so long that this wouldn't happen. That he could keep living the pleasant lie of friendship, that the heartbreak was the true enmity between them. The tease of the life he could've had. The life he'd wanted.

But now he kept seeing Danarius bleeding on the floor, Varric's arrows having taken his life, and he knew that the real enmity was caring for the person who killed his soulmate.

There was a lesson to be learned. Fate cannot be escaped, no matter how much effort goes into the running.

"There's a knife at my belt. You can use it."

I won't fight. Those words, more than anything, shook Varric from his reverie. The thought of Fenris ever giving up a fight shocked more than Anders marrying a templar, or Merrill sprouting antlers.

He looked up at the elf, horrified at the resignation in those wide green eyes.

"Shit," he said softly. Living with his own name on his wrist for all those years, obviously convinced that Danarius could be his soulmate, hearing everybody asking about Bianca. Shit, and the one time Fenris asked about Bianca- it hadn't been simple curiosity, he realized sickly. It was a desperate man trying quietly to figure out what kind of life he could have.

No wonder he was broody.

Varric's hold on the elf's wrists gentled. "Shut up, Broody. I'm not gonna kill you." The thought was absolutely baffling, and it showed. "Until we count running up my bar tab as an act of war, you haven't done anything wrong."

He wasn't going to kill him? He...

Oh, Maker, truly? So he'd get to live with the pain instead?

Was this... Could he really make him...

"Why? Why would you..." Why would Varric make him live like this.

But why was he holding on to hope in the first place?

A choked breath and Fenris nodded, his head lowered in defeat. Fate was unescapable. He'd lived this long without knowing. Now he knew. Maybe he could find some sort of resolution in it all. He'd have to. As he told Sebastian, killing oneself is a sin in the eyes of the maker. He couldn't just take it into his own hands.

"Very well."

"For shit's sake."

Varric hauled Fenris up by his stupid pauldrons and shoved him into a chair. Any attempt at resisting or getting up would be met with a truly bone-chilling Dad Glare. Before Fenris got any stupid ideas like talking, Varric popped open the bottle of wine and poured them two obscenely large glasses, filled way too full for polite society.

"Tell you what, Broody. You have a drink and take a minute to pull your head out of your ass. Then we can talk."

With that, Varric plopped into his own chair, miraculously without spilling a drop, and sipped from his precariously full goblet.

The heaviest thing about Fenris was either his armour or his sword. How he counterweighted them, who knew - but he wasn't exactly fighting being hauled around. He was too soul-tired to fight now, in any way.

With wine in front of him, the best that could be said was that he was confused. What was Varric intending? After all of this, Varric expected him to be able to drink?

"You'll pardon me if I don't want to make an already horrible day worse by pulling a wine-haze over my eyes," he muttered, deciding instead to slump forward until his head was rested against his hands.

Varric made an irritated noise.

"If you haven't noticed, elf, I'm trying to drink my feelings. We've had kind of a fucked-up day, and I thought sharing a bottle with one of my friends might help."

Another drink, this time deeper and almost sharper, like he was aggressively drinking at Fenris.

"Or should I say it slower so you listen? F-R-I-E-N-D. Friend. As in, what I thought we were, before I knew you apparently thought me the kind of guy to shiv someone over a name." Varric shot him a pissy, slightly hurt look. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, by the way. The way you expect murder from me really warms all my cockles."

"You killed my soulmate," Fenris said, no tone left in his voice. A statement of fact because he felt it had to be true. "Unless the Maker is even more cruel than I'd thought before. Either my soulmate is a man I hated, who made me into a monster, who is now dead, or my soulmate is a man who has already found his soulmate, and I am doomed to be alone. I would rather be dead than live with the pain of either option, but I am forbidden suicide.

"What, pray tell, would you rather I do. Live every day knowing that either my soulmate was a beast of a man who practically flayed me alive to make me valuable, or you, who has given his heart elsewhere and has made himself untouchable? Giving someone this much pain can only be enmity."

But with that said, he drained the glass. Maybe it would numb him. Or at least start him on the road to unconsciousness.

"Well excuse me," Varric returned, sarcasm less barbed than usual. "Clearly I should have let the creepy magister with rape face drag you back into slavery."

He took a deep drink from his glass.

"That son of a bitch was a monster. He mutilated you, took your memories, and let his bitch sidekick torture you. He wasn't your fucking soulmate, he was your owner."

Then Varric took off his jacket, his gloves, pushed up his sleeves, and finally removed the ever-present wrist guards, a match to his tunic in slim-fitted gold-embroidered red. The names on his wrists surprised no one: Bianca Davri in stark Dwarven lettering, and a simple scrawl of Leto that bore remarkable resemblance to the scroll of his lyrium marks.

He stared at the wrist reading Bianca. The name there contradicted everything he had just said so passionately about Danarius, and yet- "Bianca can't be my enemy, but... he can't be your soulmate. Not possible."

"Then the Maker is cruel." There was no other option. Varric was given elsewhere. If Danarius wasn't his soulmate, then that meant... what? "I refuse to trail after you like a lost pup. I've been doing it for too long."

Years now. Hoping against hope. Against evidence. Loving the moments when he could forget about names and their meanings and simply drink and laugh and enjoy the few touches as they came. A hand on his shoulder. An elbow to his side. There was much to admire in Varric Tethras, and he had. But if the dwarf was his soulmate, but Varric's soulmate was elsewhere...

"Better if I leave the city and move on. No hunters will be coming after me now. Perhaps I'd make a suitable pirate."

He massaged a spot on his temple. Andraste's tits, he had a hell of a headache coming on.

"Would you listen to yourself? You sound like there are only two options here."

The shift in position, the way he swirled his wine lazily in the glass, something in his eyes: they all spoke of Varric slipping into storyteller mode. Not entirely, but there was a thing that happened to his body language when he started drawing on stories and tales in his thinking.

"Jumping to conclusions based on skinmates never worked out well for anyone," he pointed out reasonably, using the borrowed Avvar term. "Either the Maker's a jackass, you're soulmates with a dead slaver, or I wasted fifteen years of my life. Doesn't mean we need to go jumping on ships or getting drastic haircuts or anything."

There was only one thing Fenris cared to say as he reached out and took hold of the wine bottle.

"You would look ridiculous with short hair."

Years of drinking his troubles away gave him a tolerance that was either a blessing or would one day decimate his liver. Either way, he drank deep of the bottle and stood to approach the fire.

He seized on the subject change more gratefully than a dying man offered water.

"I don't know, I thought that de Launcet kid had a stylish look."

Once his glass was drained, Varric had no choice but to join Fenris by the fire, if only to snatch the bottle and take a drink of his own.

"You'd look great with Meredith's ringlets."

"Yes, I would."

He grabbed the bottle back.

"Though I'd have to let Merrill braid it."

He snorted unattractively.

"Shit, can you imagine? She'd be happier than her little frolicking heart could take."

"She'd explode." And that thought had Fenris snorting, too, because he could just imagine the sound that would come out of her. Some sort of high-pitched 'eee' before she frolicked herself into her own doom.

That pulled a real laugh from him. Few things got to him quicker than Fenris's unexpectedly dry wit, a pleasant surprise every time. When he took the bottle back, he was gentler about it.

"While we're at it, we should get something pierced. You can't have a good rebellious makeover without at least two ill-advised piercings." He tapped his own pierced ears. "And I'd have to get creative."

"At least I have both ears. A ring on each tip might not be so bad." And then, with a sidelong glance and a smirk that was starting to ease (wine was good for something after all), he added, "Just don't tell me to get a tattoo."

"Flowers," he declared immediately. "Little flowers lining every single marking. Maybe some cute little bunnies- the dots could be their tails."

Deadpan af. He took another swig, leaning against the wall next to the fireplace easily. Damn, how could Fenris not see how easily their friendship fit together? Fuck their stupid destinies, they didn't need to change anything.

"For me, I'm thinking tramp stamp. Right here." He hiked his tunic up and showed off his hairy lower back helpfully.

And of everything, Fenris couldn't help his eyes wandering before he stopped himself, because that was the first time he'd ever seen that skin, and he'd known his own attraction since the first time he'd seen Varric - and now--

He didn't blush, but he did have to glance away and clear his throat to bring himself back to reality.

"I would already have enough flowers in my hair," he managed, voice holding an odd croak.

If Varric noticed anything, he didn't say, only lowered his shirt with a stupid melodramatic wink and grabbed the bottle. There were many reasons for Fenris to act strangely; it was a strange day. Varric preferred to keep the conversation flowing and try to prevent this friendship from dying.

"Exactly, it'd be a whole look. Going from dramatic and spiky to covered in flowers would be exactly your type of rebellion."

"I'll have to resign myself to dressing like an Antivan, won't I." Better to think of that than--

Than the line of thought he didn't need to follow.

"You'll have to pay my tailor bill."

"Hey, it's your angst-fueled makeover, not mine." He examined his nails nonchalantly. "I'll be too busy growing a beard and getting Legion tattoos."

Because Varric's version of rebellion could only be something dwarfy.

"Festis bei umo canavarum - you really would run me into exile doing that," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "I'd have to go traipse around Thedas with the damned Dalish, pretending I believed a word they said. Following a mage."

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