museyboxy | Soulmate AUs

A small nod and Fenris braced himself, knowing that he could handle a healing sting better than this constant ache. Deodamnatus, if he hadn't cut off that dathrasi's head...

The temptation was there to go back and cut off his balls, too.

When the poultice touched, again, he hissed, but this time, as the wound healed, a little tension left him. That took away some of his headache as well, it seemed - no wonder, if it healed a head injury.

Eyes closing, Fenris leaned heavily against the side of the tub. Much better. "Thank you," he sighed, "amicus."

Varric patted his head lightly. "Don't mention it."

Beat.

"Now hold your breath."

Once he knew Fenris was doing, well, that, Varric used that same hand to push his head under. All the easier to run his hands through the hair, help the cloud of muck and blood blooming in the water around his messy hair.

If the water had been clear, if his hair had been clean, it would've been a lovely sight, the way it started to fan out and float in the water, the white strands almost looking silver until the blood and dirt obscured them. He could hold his breath for quite a long while, and did - until he had to tap Varric's arm and come up - and not quite all of the muck had been rinsed free. More had, it was true, but not all. The downfall of having grown his hair out as far as it had gone.

The positive was that Varric's fingers in his hair, now, with that wound gone, had felt heavenly. He would, he thought, nearly pay to have him do that again. He wasn't sure he'd go to the length of getting tossed against a rock by a Qunari again, but he'd gladly donate a few sovereigns to the cause of a repeat performance.

"How much extra do you think they'd charge us if I requested to have my meals brought in bed tomorrow?" he asked as he filled his lungs a few times, hoping that his expression hadn't given too much away about how lovely it had felt to have hands in his hair.

Varric didn't see it. He saw a man relieved to be free of eight layers of filth and slime, a man who took pride in his appearance finally feeling water in his hair.

"Eh, it's worth asking. I mean, I'm not actually going anywhere, so I could wait on you, but making those dusters do it just sounds too fun."

Let it never be said that Varric Tethras isn't petty.

"Now, do me a favor, and unplug the drain." The water was murky and disgusting. "We gotta do another pass if you're gonna get clean."

"Good idea." He did as asked, only fumbling a little before he found the drain plug and pulled it, letting red-tinted water and silt go down the drain. He rinsed the worst of it down as best he could, unconscious of how his smalls now clung thanks to the water. At least they were dark instead of white, not quite showing everything, but they showed shape while he moved, still slow, still cautious, but better than he had been.

Once most of the silt was gone, he judged it good enough and plugged the drain again. "Of all Dwarven inventions, running water is the best."

"Yeeeaaap, my people sure did one thing right," he agrees, reaching for the faucet again. "You know, they even have this shit in Ferelden? I hear all the nobles have it- even some of the Chantrys."

Varric noticed the smalls. He also noticed what appeared to be a small mountain lion curled up inside them. However, now was not the time for ogling or noticing anything- his injured friend needed help, and for all his consummate bitching and professional whining, Varric was determined to give it.

"They did similar in some parts of Tevinter," he muttered as he leaned into the water that was pouring in. "Some parts. Others preferred to have their slaves bring water as always."

Oh, Tevinter. Paradise for the magisters. Hell for everyone else.

"That actually surprises me," he remarked. "How much trade they do with the dwarves? You'd think they'd be all over conveniences like that."

With the water high enough, Varric turned off the faucet and got a cloth. They had some nice, expensive soaps here- the good shit made for nobles, the kind that didn't burn like peasant-grade lye crap, the kind that had oils and perfumes and herbs in it that could wash away anything. Varric lathered some of this up onto the rag and picked up one of Fenris's arms, gently, from where it floated atop the water.

"Some are," he said, letting his arm be taken as he watched - and then his stomach clenched. His guards were gone. Months had passed since--

Since Kirkwall.

The scars had mostly healed, but the evidence was still there, the skin having pulled and tugged and gone uneven. The markings had remained stubbornly the same, their lyrium stronger than what he'd put himself through, but the names...

They were only starting to piece themselves back together, the writing having gone blurred and piecemeal from the cauterisation he'd done courtesy of a fire and the end of his sword. It had been his way of freeing himself a second time, erasing the names that had caused him so much pain. And now, Varric had his hands on...

Well.

He'd likely find out eventually, anyway.

"Some like the power and the look of being served," he went on, picking up the conversation where he'd left off.

Varric started by propping that arm on the side of the bathtub and washing it gently, laving the soapy cloth over lyrium-etched skin in slow passes. Conscious of the delicate state of him, the dwarf picked up his arm again after a moment, thumb stroking gently along the underside of his wrist.

"Tch. Like there aren't less stupid ways of doing that."

Something felt wrong. Instead of smooth skin, his thumb kept running over bumps and- were those scars? With a frown he turned Fenris's arm over, then-

Oh.

"Oh, Broody," he sighed, eyeing the wreckage sadly. "I- I'm sorry."

Suddenly, every way they had crossed personal boundaries came crashing back to him. He let go of Fenris's arm, dropped the cloth, and settled back on the stool heavily, staring at that mess of scar and burn. It... felt worse than he would have expected, seeing it.

But Fenris shook his head, looking at it and... he pulled his arm back, drawing up one knee like a stiff old man to rest it against. "I was angry and hurting. And it isn't the first time I tried to erase his name."

Varric's...

Varric's, he'd left. Until the very last, anyway. That arm, he left in the water, unseen.

"It grows back after half a year or so. They never stay gone."

Too late to hide that slip, though. At the word his, Varric's eyes shoot up, meeting Fenris's all too keenly. Then he looks at the other arm, unseen in the tub, and back at Fenris- questioning.

"Did you...?"

His eyes drifted away from Varric's, shoulder lifting in an admission of guilt. "I was angry," he echoed. "And hurting."

As close as he'd get to a yes.

Ah. That was that, then.

His eyes dropped once more, studying some very interesting speck of dirt on the floor. Andraste's tits, what could he even say to this? It wasn't like he could exactly blame Fenris for being angry or hurt- not after what he'd spent a lifetime going through.

And yet.

It still stung to think of: Fenris, burning his name off of his wrist. Fenris, trying to erase him. In all Varric's many long, confusing, heartbreaking years in this life, he had never once tried to erase either of the names that confused him.

It hurt. It stung in the same place that ached when Fenris turned against them, that roared at Hawke's plan for Tevinter, that leaped when Fenris stumbled in covered in blood. He wondered, for the first time, if he wasn't starting to confuse the markings on his own wrists.

In his reverie, he didn't realize he was staring at his wrists. At the names.

It was Fenris who broke this new silence, swallowing tightly before he said, softly, "I think I can take care of it from here, Varric. Thank you. ...For everything." It felt like farewell, for some reason. Probably better if it was.

But it had been so good of late. So perfect. The two of them living like this. He'd loved the balmy evenings, the laughter, the camaraderie. He'd liked how Llomerryn was slotting their lives together. For a while, he'd been able to ignore the damned names and just live, but it always came back to this. Easier, he thought, if he'd never met at least one of the names. There was no way for him to deny Danarius, but if the other had been something far away, something Orlesian or Fereldan--

Then he would've gone to Orlais or Ferelden after escaping Seheron, he reminded himself, instead of the Free Marches. Hope had led him to Kirkwall.

There was no reason to think about those what-ifs. Pointless, in the entire. And now, they'd spoiled something else.

It was the tone of farewell that got him, that snapped Varric out of this reverie.

"Shut up, elf," he said quietly, shaking his head with a quiet determination. "Your arms are falling off."

It took him a second to look up, to deliberately shake off the heaviness of the moment, so he could look at his friend once more. "Like hell I'm gonna leave the armless wonder to wash himself. Maybe an elf could pull it off, but you'd have a hell of a time reaching your back."

With that, he reached into the tub for the fallen cloth and started gently washing Fenris's shoulders.

Screw destiny. Screw the stupid tattoos on their stupid wrists and those stupid legends about stupid soulmates and stupid enemies. Fuck it all. Fuck them. Fenris was his friend, whatever else, and he didn't abandon friends.

Someday, thought Fenris, when he hadn't been thrown like a stick for a Mabari to fetch, when the time was right, and when he felt like he could afford to lose everything (which likely meant never, now that he thought about it), he was going to kiss Varric.

He was going to take the dwarf's face in his hands and he was going to kiss him with every scrap of feeling that had built over the years. He was going to run his fingers through his hair, throw the tie as far as he could. He was going to kiss Varric until one or both of them were blue in the face, seeing stars, and breathless.

Not today. Likely not ever. But his mind took hold of the idea as he sat quietly and let Varric work, lost for words and most anything else besides acquiescence. Because what could he say that would mean anything in the face of what Varric had just seen?

It was a funny thing, seeing someone try to erase him. The evidence of Fenris's attempted rejection and refusal writ large on his scarred skin, the tissue marring what Varric privately considered to be perfection. It seemed to have dislodged something inside him that he couldn't quite understand just yet. Suddenly Varric wanted to see that scar heal. He wanted to see his name bold and black on Fenris's skin, impossible to deny or ignore.

He kept stealing glances at his own wrist, emblazoned with the simple word Leto. With every pass of the cloth over Fenris's smooth skin, it came back into view. Gradually, the sight became less interesting than the sight of soap sparkling over smooth skin, the tactile feel of dragging the cloth in slow, gentle circles. It felt like a labor of love, or maybe worship, to gradually wash away the dirt, the muck, the grime that had marred his skin.

"I don't blame you," he said quietly. His hand gently moved Fenris's hair out of the way, so he could wash the back of his neck in quiet circles. His other hand gripped Fenris's shoulder lightly to brace him. It seemed to Varric that that one simple spot of contact had more feeling than all the nerves in his body.

"I might," Fenris answered quietly. "You've been a better friend to me than I deserve, Varric. You... keep being the only one to come back to me."

And then, more softly, he added, "I don't know what that means."

He doubted anyone did, or could. But true was true. Varric had had opportunity after opportunity to let Fenris walk away - because he had, time and again. He'd walked away, he'd threatened, he'd shouted and insulted. He'd drawn his weapon and, though he would've hated it, he'd been prepared to use it. He'd known himself ready to fight for his own life and his beliefs and, even when that had caused dire conflict, Varric had kept coming back.

Nothing about this was simple, and everything about it hurt. And all he had ever wanted was one good thing.

For Varric, it was simple: his true friends were precious few. He would NOT leave them. After being left or betrayed by so many loved ones in his life, after having suffered so many personal tragedies in his scant few decades on earth, he refused to suffer any more than he absolutely had to.

He let a possible soulmate go once. He wasn't going to do that again.

"I don't know either, elf." For all that, though, he still couldn't tear his mind from Bianca, and how certain he'd been of her status as soulmate. "All I know is history is rife with stories of tragedy striking because of people making assumptions about these names."

He refused to join those ranks. There would be no assuming- just letting things develop. Letting them happen.

Which, right now, meant slowly moving around to Fenris's side, so he could start washing his chest. That felt more intimate somehow, his hand and the cloth disappearing into the water to scrub the crusted blood and dirt from his stomach. His hand, making slow circles over his skin, with only a rag in the way.

Maker, this was getting complicated.

Fenris made a choice. He still ached, and he knew Varric was determined, at this point, to see the task through. But this conversation was only causing both of them pain.

He decided to change the subject. To tell a story Varric had yet to hear.

"I was bathed like this twice before, you know. Within the span of a day."

He wouldn't like part of the story, Fenris knew. But the rest would be an entertaining enough tale that he thought it would go over well. For all he knew, Varric would one day write it into one of his books. Fenris had yet to read them. Maybe someday, he would.

His hand stilled on Fenris's chest. A tumble of implications and recollections and extrapolations rioted through his mind, and the glance he gave Fenris was surprisingly dark.

"I have a feeling I'm not gonna like this story."

"You won't like part. You will like others," he said, shifting so he could meet Varric's gaze. "I had made a name for myself as a bodyguard. The other magisters either disbelieved the claims or envied them - and they wanted to see the truth of the matter."

He shifted himself again, wincing, but making himself easier to reach. "So they held a tournament."

He frowned, but mentally told himself to buck up and kept washing the elf. It was getting a bit, well- strange, now. Each pass of the cloth had him leaning down farther, bringing his face closer to Fenris's, as the cloth moved farther down his stomach. He saw the muck and filth down there, it- it was, unfortunately, necessary.

Listening was a distraction. From the intimacy of it, from the water making Fenris glisten, from the soothing bass of his voice.

"Most people outside the Imperium have only ever heard of Minrathous, and it is the center of the Imperium's little world," Fenris said quietly, "but for this kind of tournament, they held it farther away, to keep it from greater notice. It wasn't exactly legal.

"So they held it in Cerastes. A port city, more given to slave trading - and one of the magisters already had an estate there with a courtyard that could easily become an arena. It took him six months to have it altered, which gave the other participants a chance to choose their bodyguards to try to match me." He didn't often speak so highly of his skills, but that was the point of this entire story. For once, he was using his own storyteller's flair in an effort to not think about Varric's hand.

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