museyboxy | Soulmate AUs

The world had just turned to ice.

That voice reached through him, taking hold of his heart, threading into his soul, and in less than a moment, he'd gone from wondering at the woman who shared his parents to being unsure exactly where the world was. It was as if he was looking at everything from a distance. Was he going to pass out?

He thought he might.

He didn't even hear what it was that was said. Only that voice that had haunted him for years now, whispering up in his dreams and leaving him with such conflicting reactions that all he could do was drink to make it all fade away while his left wrist burned with the name that he had never been able to excise.

And then she spoke. "I'm sorry it came to this, Leto." And fury ignited. His life, so precariously balanced already, had been upended in one swift move, and she -- she was to blame.

"You led him here!" he growled, shoving into her space, his face inches from hers.

"Now, now, Fenris," came the familiar chiding that had him stepping back out of long-trained reaction, and hating himself afterward. "Don't blame your sister. She did what any good Imperial citizen should."

"I never wanted these filthy markings, Danarius!" Fenris spat, at last putting a name to the man before them all. "But I won't let you kill me to get them."

The man chuckled. Laughed, as if it was all of no consequence. "Oh, how little you know, my pet."

Why couldn't he move. Why couldn't he kill this man?! But beneath it all, he knew why. He knew that there was still a possibility, and Danarius knew it, too, which was why that smile spread over his face and left Fenris feeling defiled and unclean. His left hand flexed. Danarius' eyes began to gleam with certainty.

Leto. Leto.

For his entire life, Varric had been looking at the name Leto on his wrist. Running a gentle thumb over it, memorizing the curves and lines of the lettering, the spelling, everything. When he was young, he used to imagine what 'Leto' would look like- would she be pretty? Would she be a dwarf? Would she have blue eyes, or brown? Or was 'Bianca' his soulmate, instead? Nobody could ever know: some people weren't sure until years after meeting both their wrist-mates.

Then Varric met Bianca, and everything seemed clear. He had his soulmate, despite her being torn from him. Despite her marrying somebody else, they stayed together- they had to. They had to. They were soulmates, after all, and so what if that meant Varric could never move on and never fully heal? He didn't want to heal from losing his soulmate.

Which left Leto the enemy, name hiding secretly under expensive leather gloves and the wrist-guards that were so omnipresent in their society. He had long ago done his research and learned that 'Leto' was Tevinter: therefore, he expected a mage of some kind. Fenris's arrival six years ago had made him wary, lest the fugitive bring in more 'Vints, but nothing came of it.

Then that traitor bitch said Leto and everything Varric thought he knew fell apart at once.

Leto was Fenris? What the- how? Fenris was one of his best friends, he couldn't be his enemy. Everybody knew that the "enemy" name wasn't always straightforward, but... they had shared so much together. He couldn't be his enemy.

Could he?

Then the fucking magister appeared. Varric knew in his bones that this was it: it was now or never. If he didn't act immediately, he would never know the truth. And after all these years, he had to. It almost didn't matter if his best friend was his enemy or- or if he had just wasted fifteen years of his damned life.

Either way, he had to know.

Finally, Varric made his hands move. His sluggish limbs, leaden from shock, whipped into life so quickly that before Hawke could speak, Danarius fell dead with a bolt in his throat and one through his eye. Around them, hired goons started shouting, apparently torn between attack and abandoning the master who couldn't pay them, and Hawke and Fenris both whipped around to stare.

Varric stood there, staring at the crossbow in his hands dazedly, breathing hard.

If it was possible for olive skin to go white, Fenris managed it.

Around him, there was a fight. He could hear it. He could hear Hawke yell and Aveline drew her sword and shield. Even Merrill and Anders joined in, but Fenris--

His thoughts spun into a hurricane of panic. Varric had killed Danarius. He was dead. He was laying there, bleeding from the hole through his neck and the one in his face.

Danarius was dead, and Fenris didn't know what to do. Either his soulmate had just killed his enemy, or his enemy had just killed his soulmate, and he wasn't sure which was true. Years of pain had left him questioning, and this only complicated it all. Years of knowing the love between Varric and Bianca, whomever she was, was inviolable. Years of going over and over everything he could remember about his past, of wondering about his own slavery. The ache in his heart made him want to call Varric his enemy, because what could be more cruel than killing hope? And if that was true...

Oh, Maker, no.

The last mercenary was dead on the ground. Varania was staring at him through the clearing melee.

And Fenris took hold of the door latch that had been pressing into his hip, let himself out of the tavern that had come to be a place of comfort, and took himself to his stolen mansion (if Danarius owned it, was it his now? No, of course not, but it wasn't strictly stolen anymore...) with the longest strides his legs could make, taking no heed of anything around him except the want to be alone and try to decide how perhaps his true enemy was the Maker for letting this happen.

Fenris knew escape. Varric?

Varric knew Kirkwall.

He knew every alley, every nook and hidden cranny, every half-hidden staircase... every shortcut. Every back way or side route.

When Fenris reached the mansion, Varric was already there. Sitting in Fenris's chair by the fire, a bottle of Fenris's wine sitting out. Unopened; he wasn't that rude.

No.

No, no, no, no, no--

His hand shook as he reached behind him, staring at Varric - unable to take his eyes away. He only found the ill-repaired plaster at the door jamb. And through the panic, he found his way to resignation.

And he slowly slumped to the floor. If Varric was his enemy, he was dead. If Varric wasn't, then this was worse than any torment Hadriana had ever put him through. Maybe it was better to get it over with.

Without a word, he unbuckled his gauntlets and stripped off the layer of padding that both kept metal from chafing skin and hid the names that had grown back over the years since Seheron. On the left, there was Danarius De Gallo, written in a flowing, Tevene hand. On the right, in Trade's uniform runic, was Varric Tethras.

And now one of those was dead. Would that name fade now? Leaving the other?

He'd never needed to know before.

Varric had intended to greet him with something incredibly witty, but for once in his life his tongue was slow. Then Fenris started visibly freaking out, and part of Varric sort of wanted to let him finish it first. Maker forbid he interrupt a queen's unfolding #drama. So he sat there and watched with a raised eyebrow as Fenris shook, panicked visibly, then sank to the floor like a fainting heroine.

Off came the gauntlets, and Varric could already tell where this was going. It was more or less his own plan, but Broody, naturally, managed to be entirely Extra about it. Did he think Varric could actually read those little scrawls from over there?

He cleared his throat. "You done, Broody?" His eyes flickered over the elf quizzically. "So much for my witty greeting."

"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."

Soulmate AUs

You know what we're doing here.

prompt 1, for the kids watching at home

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