(reposting for @dahalloween’s day for spirits and possession - an old ficlet, but one i never posted to tumblr. Cole tells a knock-knock joke.)
He doesn’t know. Varric’s head is full of people who are real and not real and all of them hurt, and Cole doesn’t know how to untangle it. But the knock-knock jokes help.
“Okay, kid, try it again like we practiced.”
“Two pairs beats one pair. Four of a kind beats two pairs. She slips the ace of dragons into a thigh-high boot, calls to the barman for another round. Blondie stares at the table, angry, always angry.”
“Focus, kid. You can't beat four of a kind with bad memories.”
He says the memories are bad, but he doesn’t want to forget them. He wants to spin them into stories, familiar faces hiding behind fake names. Maybe if he tells the story enough times, it'll have a different ending.
Maybe this time when Blondie tries to give him an old and tattered pillow, he sees a message in it. This time he says the right words, and tomorrow Blondie’s dark mood is gone and they’re all back to playing cards. It was just another of Blondie’s bad days. They happen. They pass.
Cheer up, Blondie. You’re making me cry just looking at you.
You’ve killed two hundred and fifty-four by my last count. Plus about five hundred men, a few dozen giant spiders, and at least two demons.
Why? Because this one you feel bad about? Maybe that’s the problem.
Those were the wrong words.
The Hinterlands are burning, and Varric’s adding it to Blondie’s score. Or maybe his own score. He should have found the right words.
Another one for me! How many have you got, Hawke?
“It’s me, Cole. That is my name.”
“No, no. You’re still not getting it. Sorry, kid.”
But hearing the name helps the hurt, because he’s Cole, which means he’s real, he’s a person. And sometimes when Varric looks at him, he’s seeing someone else who was stuck halfway between person and spirit.
Varric asks him how he can fight with all that hair in his eyes, and he raises a hand and pushes it back, but then he stops because Varric’s seeing someone else raising his hands, tying his hair back. Nevermind. Stick with the hat. The hat looks good on you.
In Varric’s memories, he’s keeping the gangs away from the clinic door, and making sure Blondie actually shows up for cards with the guys, and they talk and they joke and they laugh even when it’s just Varric doing the laughing, and he makes sure Blondie remembers to be a person too, not just a cause.
Even when it makes Blondie angry. He is Justice, he says. You can’t claim to support one and not the other.
But Blondie and Justice are as different as the older brother who both is and isn’t here anymore, and Varric doesn’t give a shit about the cause, he just wants his friends to be safe. Well-placed bribes and balls of twine. People and demons always end in trouble. Too many Daisies in this garden.
“I am good, Varric. I am me,” says Cole. “You don't need to worry, but thank you for caring.”
“Al...right? Well, let me know if you ever... er... yeah.”
Cole understands how to tell a knock-knock joke. The punchlines are all there in Varric’s head. But hearing a punchline isn’t what Varric needs. Varric needs to help him be a person.
The jokes work better this way.
“Try it again. You’ll get it.”
