𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓶𝓹𝓲𝓸𝓷

"Well, there was that one time with the Wardens--" He rambles to fill the quiet, as if the quiet was unbearable. Which it was. With them, the quiet was never good. The quiet enveloped all the points of precipice that both knew that there was no return from, for good or for bad. The silence was the inbetween of the words they say and the words they meant. He craves the noise, the hubbub of Low Town and the Hanged Man, and the lack of peace marking every breathing moment of his day. He'd take that again over--

"But Carver probably told you that, didn't he? You two chat a lot for people who can't stand each other." He nudges Varric with his bare elbow, his skin ashy and cracked from a lack of care. It's been a tough few daysmonthsyears for him-- for them. Still, he's laughing to fill the quiet, barking a sound at the silence to make it back up. His hands twitch, antsy and flexing, quietly wishing Cookie was by his side. She would have been all up in Varric's business too, demanding his perfect behind the ear scratches as she drooled and licked at him, just like the girls did to him at the Blooming Rose. The nostalgia sticks to his teeth like pitch and he probs at it, summoning a tooth ache in the process. A physical tether of the memories he can't afford to lose.

"How about the time…" He's looking at his hands as he tells this story, flexing fingers against the armor he hasn't removed in quite some time. The gauntlet is almost an extension of himself, the claws of his other forms permanently overlaid on his human shape. His bare fingers aren't much better -- the pinking of his palms blackened with burns and magic, the nails steeped dark with blood. If he looks too long at himself he reminds himself of the statue back in Kirkwall -- so he doesn't. He looks at Varric instead.

He looks into hazel eyes, picking apart their colors. Here, where so little color likes to settle, they're mostly grey. The memories paint in all the other hues though -- the flashes of orange in the face of burning Hightown, the murky blue-grey as Varric held Bartrend's body, the mournful green-brown as Varric held him as he cried. All swirled together the colors blend into better things, like the stupid grin he would shoot at him after doing a trick shot, or the brilliant surprise when they managed to diffuse the proverbial bomb yet again. He favors the honey-brown of bad ale and quieter nights, tucked away upstairs in the Hanged Man, holding each other like the shit-show wasn't driving them to the brink and back. And that was then-- before all this; before now.

Bare fingers, as terrible as they may be, run along a memorable jaw. He likes the beard, but he misses the stubble. He misses the easy way Varric would roll his shoulders back and start spouting off his bullshit with a wink. He touches scars, the new angle of his nose from yet another break, and down. Following the path of a skin canvas to the newest scar, throbbing with energy and regret, even in this quiet place. He can feel the flinch as he touches, rippling through the body next to him and the air around them, conjuring the memories of the wounds origin. Of an elf, a rook, a dagger, and gods. He closes his eyes, letting it wash over him, letting it settle in his bones as yet another weight. Another burden for him to shoulder-- but he didn't. He hadn't.

He had the letters, the wax seals now disfigured with how many times they had been open and shut on his journey. He had the gaps of time between letters, where the ache of absence threatened to abscess, but he kept the infection at bay. Like many things -- he was good at keeping it at arm's length, just close enough to hurt him, but not put him down for the count. They were both good at that -- usually.

Until they met each other.

"Don't sell yourself short -- you need what little height you got." He grins, teeth jagged like a predator, and the heartbeat of his foci making his bloodied mark flash brighter in the dimness. The mark along his face that makes him impossible to miss, if he could have been missed in the first place. "You didn't miss anything." He knows that will get him a crooked look, something between a smile and scorn, and it makes the weight sink deeper. Like Varric in water, almost.

"Nothing I can't tell you about later." Clawed fingers are scraping along the ruins of a ritual site, collecting his staff, and he's standing. Standing tall, but not proud. Not as he cracks his neck and tugs his beard back into its iconic shape. "Because there will be a later." It's a promise, said without their hands entwined, or without a glass broken between them. "You gotta hold onto that." He's looking out, watching the slice of fade around them morph away from the ritual site and to something more homely. To a bedroom of sorts, with a bed too big for just one dwarf, and a desk too small all at the same time.

He stands aside the bed, looking down at a man whose body was trying to die, but his spirit would not. He touches the stab wound again, watching as real color invades the dimness and passes through the veil, bleeding reality into the world beyond it. Varric is both looking at him and not, with eyes shut before him, but open beside him. "This must be hell for you." Again, the jagged smile, as he looks over at the dreaming apparition next to him. The same apparition that had been the bell that had tolled and summoned the dragon closer, pressing its weight against the barrier between them. "Aren't you glad you got sucked up into the Fade so many times now? Gave you some practice before dreaming." The apparition may swat at him, but he can watch the body twitch-- can see a smile tug at tired lips. The dragon presses harder against the barrier, ignoring the war biting at its flanks, and he presses against the Veil; pressing a kiss to a dreaming, furrowed brow.