Lace didn't notice until one day she went there after Bianca. The Inquisitor wanted to know if she could be repaired. And Bianca was still there, on the stand where she'd put it. Tears streaming down her face here where no one would see her, carefully putting everything as near right as she could remember.
But the room around it was different. The cot on which Varric's coat lay folded was a bed now. A fairly nice one, actually, with the seal of Kirkwall carved at the head. The room has grown a bookshelf and a small writing desk. Several of Varric's works and some of the Randy Dowager's favorites filled a shelf. A chess board was set up, ready to play except for the white rook, set in the middle.
All of the companions' rooms had been changing. The Lighthouse gave a certain amount of stability within the Fade, but whether it was the Caretaker or the place itself, it seemed to respond to the needs and desires of the people in it. Lace had found wildflowers from the Fereldan highlands growing in her room.
But this room was responding as though Varric was there.
She'd seen a lot of loss these last years. Sometimes, grief took strange forms. She wondered who's grief it was creating a shrine to Varric, there at the top of the stairs. Hers? Or Rook's?
Arden Mercar/Lucanis Dellamorte; demisexual Lucanis, Lucanis point of view
...
It began with respect.
Not all clients earned Lucanis’ respect. Not all clients deserved his respect. But this one was hardly an ordinary client. Rook was quick-witted, and kept his head in a fight. He fought with skill, and didn't send people into danger he wouldn't face himself. He smelled of military training to Lucanis, but if Rook didn’t want to mention it, that was his business.
What mattered was that he kept everyone calm and moving, even against darkspawn in the tunnels under Minrathous. And if they shared a love of ending Venatori, all the better.
Faster than Lucanis would have believed, respect began to blur into trust.
Trust was a rare enough thing in a Crow’s life, and even more rare to Lucanis. He trusted Viago. Probably. Somewhat less Teia, who was inclined to make decisions that were too rooted in sentiment, but somehow turned out right regardless. He trusted Illario to be Illario, which was a different sort of trust. Sometimes predictability was as close to trust as you needed. He trusted Caterina the way the tide trusts a cliff.
It had been a week since they’d found D’Meta’s Crossing. A terrible, helpless week, in which they’d turned up no new leads, no next steps. No way to fight back against the vastness of this cruelty and destruction. A horrible emptiness and fatigue had crept into Arden’s every waking moment.
“I don’t know, Varric,” he said. “I just don’t–how can something so cruel exist? Why would any thinking creature do this?”
There was a moment of silence as Varric shifted in his cot, trying to sit up more. Arden got up quickly, arranging the pillows behind him, until Varric settled back with a nod of thanks.
“You know, I like to pretend I have a knack for words, but that’s one I can’t explain. People do a lot of evil. Sometimes they’re just so tangled up in their own hurts, they think they’re just protecting themselves. But this? I think this is something different.” Varric stopped, scratching his chin where the stubble was getting thick. “Solas said they were Blighted. Well, that’s like Corypheus. Like Meredith, at the end, given what we know about red lyrium. I think they were always cruel people. But the Blight made everything so much worse. And if that’s true–Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, they’ve been Blighted for thousands of years.”
On the floor next to Varric's cot, Arden put his head in his hands, pressing his palms against his eyes. He leaned into his hands hard, trying to gain an inch to think. Maker, why couldn’t he just think?
“I feel so…bad!” he finally burst out. “Varric, why do I feel so bad? What’s wrong with me? I can’t sleep, and I can’t wake up. I ache! And there’s this…this burning in my chest, and it just won’t go away. It’s like I could swallow it down but I can’t.” For a second, he felt himself shake, as if he were about to cry, but as always these past days, no tears came. “Am I Blighted? How would I know?”
“No,” said Varric. “No, I don’t think that’s it. Rook, you ever lost someone? Someone close?”
Arden looked up, confused. “I mean, my grandmother.”
“The one that called you ‘boy’ and liked to tell you they should’ve left you on the battlefield as a baby?” Arden nodded. “Yeah, not sure I’d call that someone really close, then,” Varric said dryly.
“Why? What’s that got to do with it?” Arden asked.
Varric sighed. “Because I think what you’re feeling is grief.”
The two of them sat in silence, the shadows of the room wrapping around them. Arden stared at Varric, but Varric was looking into the invisible distance, seeing who knew what.
“Grief?” It didn’t make sense.
“Grief,” said Varric, “is a terrible thing. It eats everything around it. It drains you, body and soul. You feel it in your heart.”
Arden sat with that, eyes closed, and at last he felt the bloom of tears against his eyelids. He took a shaky breath.
“D’Meta’s Crossing. All those people. Children. There were children, in the–” he couldn’t say it, and couldn’t erase it. In the pulsing, tangled masses, amidst the boils and sickened roots. In the piles of dead, heaped up by the uncaring hands of people who had once loved them. “All dead. And how many more, Varric? How many dying right now, and I’m just sitting here, and I can’t even pull it together.”
“Yeah, that’s the grief. I’m sorry, Rook.”
“How…how do you manage? How do you live with it?” There were tears on Arden’s cheeks now, but it was no relief. “It’s crushing me!”
“I know. I know, kid. I’m sorry. It–” he broke off, closing his eyes for a minute. “It gets lighter, bit by bit. You go for stretches where you forget. Sometimes you wake up in the morning and it’s not the first thing you think about. But it’ll hit you again, out of nowhere. You just…get used to it.”
“It feels impossible.”
“Yeah, but people do it every day. And it’ll teach you something, too.”
“What’s that?” Arden asked.
“To value what you have, while you have it. To make sure you love things while they’re here.” Varric sighed again. “Especially if you didn’t do that before it was too late.”
It hurt so much. Arden took breath after breath, but every time it felt like he wouldn’t be able to take the next one.
“Nothing can ever be the way it was,” Arden choked out. The burning in his chest was so strong; it was agonizing. “Can we even stop them? Can we save anything? Varric–” and he said the name like a plea; please, please tell me it’ll be okay, but it can’t. It can’t be okay. “Varric, this is my fault.”
“Hey! Hey, look at me.” Arden obeyed, looking up at Varric, vision warped by the tears. “We’ve been over this. If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. Well, mine and Solas’. You did what I asked you to.”
“What difference does intention make if it destroys so much!?” Arden was nearly shouting, now. “What I’ve let out–it’s worse than anything Solas was doing! At least he meant there to be a world left when he was done! This–this is going to destroy everything!”
“Okay, you want to talk about fault?” Varric snapped. “Let’s talk about fault, because we’ve been over all this before but I know you’re forgetting. Who was it that found that knife in the Deep Roads, back when it was red lyrium? Me. Who was there when we freed Corypheus? Me. Sure, I thought what I was doing was good then, too. How many people have died? Nobody can count. We’re still fighting the red lyrium. Maybe we always will be. I’m too old to pretend about this, Rook. Almost every damned time something went straight to the Void in the last twenty years, I was right there in the middle. So do you hate me?”
“No!”
“What about Solas? His ritual. His dagger. His war, that we’ve gotten sucked into thousands of years later. Do you hate him?”
“I don’t…I don’t think so? I mean, we’ve seen what he was fighting. I don’t even know what to think, any more.” Arden swiped a sleeve across his nose, trying to stop sniveling like a child. “I don’t know, any more.”
“We didn’t create all this cruelty, Rook. We just…tripped over it, I guess you could say. Tore the wound open. And maybe I should hate myself. And maybe some days I do. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. A lot of really big mistakes.” Varric stopped, taking a deep breath. “Maybe that’s why I don’t want to give up on Solas, who knows.”
“Varric, no–” Arden ached. Varric almost never opened up like this, and it was terrible to see.
“But you aren’t one of those mistakes, kid. You’re one of the best decisions I ever made.” Varric nodded to himself. “And I know that you’ll find a way through this.”
“How?”
“For now? One step at a time. Just figure out the next step, Rook. It’ll get easier once you’re moving.”
The room was warm and the cushions covered in ring velvet. Not a tent, tonight, nor a scrappy inn, but some well-heeled merchant Varric knew through connections he was being vague about. Arden leaned back, stretching luxuriously.
“So,” he drawled. “You're calling me Rook now, huh?”
Varric looked up from his letter. “Yep. Got commentary?”
“Rook like the chess piece, or Rook like the bird?”
“Little bit of both.”
“So I’m a noisy pest that thinks in straight lines?”
“I was thinking more intelligent, gregarious, and a powerful challenger, but I am trying to write, and you are talking, so you can have it your way if you like.”
Arden snorted. “So you’re the white king, I guess? And Solas the black king? Lace doesn’t fit for queen, she’s more the knight. Lateral movement. Who’s the queen, then, this Charter character?”
Varric snorted in turn. “Don’t push the metaphor, kid.”
Arden grinned. “Rook,” he repeated, as if he were testing it. He let his head fall back on the cushions, grateful for momentary comforts. There hadn’t been a lot of them lately.
“Probably the Inquisitor,” Varric said into the silence.
Arden rolled up onto an elbow to get a better look at Varric, who was still looking at his work.
“The Inquisitor is a man, though?”
“I really don’t think it matters for the metaphor,” Varric said. “But if you’d met him, you wouldn’t argue anyway.”
“I don’t know, the way some of your stories sound, is the Inquisitor our queen, or Solas’s?”
That got a laugh, as intended.
“Ours,” Varric said. “Probably. Don’t push the metaphor, kid.”
Lace found Arden standing in the main hall, staring up at the most recently revealed mural. Elgar’nan and Mythal, hands upraised in victory as they stood on a cracked hill or orb. Solas looked thin and frail beside them, his own hand raised in accusation.
“Hey, Rook. Whatcha thinkin?”
“Do you think she loved him?” Arden asked.
“Loved who?”
Arden glanced down at her, broken out of his reverie. “Sorry. Elgar’nan. Do you think Mythal loved Elgar’nan? Do you think he was someone you could love, once?”
She joined him in front of the mural. “Does it matter?”
“No. Not really. Whether he was someone you could reason with once or not, she failed, and now he’s just a tool of the Blight. I guess in that sense, the Titans won. Some victory! But still, can’t help wondering. Did she join him just to moderate the Evanuris, like Solas seems to think? Or did she want it too? The power. The worship.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I can imagine being them. We keep saying they’re just people, but…they’re not like us. Never were, I guess.”
“How could they be, right?” Arden mused. “All that power. I can’t even imagine being the Archon, much less as powerful as that. I think it would change you. And to be that old? To see that much?”
Lace hummed. “I wouldn’t want it.”
Arden made a noise of agreement, but his mind was still on the original question.
“It matters because it tells us about her. Mythal, I mean. Elgar’nan, whatever he was, I think he’s as much a ghoul now as anything. But Mythal–was she the kind of person who thought she was acting out of love? Or was it always just politics?”
“Imagine being married to someone for thousands of years that you didn’t love! Brr!” Lace shook herself as if to shake the idea off.
“Imagine loving someone and seeing them become…that,” Arden said.
“Gross,” Lace said, and laughed weakly.
“Yeah. Gross.” Arden blew out his breath explosively. “Either way. Gross.”
“Icky,” Lace supplied, giggling slightly.
“Booger soup.” Arden laughed, and Lace responded with a slightly stronger chuckle.
“Kinda glad I don’t understand, to be honest,” she said.
“Oh, definitely. Yeah. Definitely.” Arden bounced on the balls of his feet, releasing the energy of his reverie. “Ugh. I’m gonna get in a run before dinner. Join me?”
Lace laughed. “Pass. Too many stairs. Have fun, tree trunk.”
“So you’re gonna go with ‘Rook’, huh?” Lace said it through a mouthful of brown bread and cheese.
“Sure.” Arden scooped another glob of polishing compound up and started buffing out the wing of his knee armor. There was a dent he’d need to have seen next time they were in a big town. The smell of linseed oil and tallow was familiar and grounding.
“You don’t have to. Varric gives everyone nicknames. You can ignore it.”
“No, I uh…I like it.” He scowled down at his work. “Kaffas. This strap is going to break, soon. I think I’m out of replacements.”
“Fine then. Rook.” Lace grinned.
They sat for a minute in companionable silence, Lace finishing her roll, Arden rubbing the polishing cloth in practiced circles over his armor. They’d gotten close quickly over the last couple months, and not just because they were together nearly every day. Both had open, friendly natures, and as they crisscrossed northern Thedas, they’d whiled away the leagues in talk and laughter.
They’d been staggering drunk together in Starkhaven, crawling from bar to bar while Varric took care of business in the palace, and surprised the shit out of would-be muggers. They’d hung upside down in snares together for two hours once after an encounter with one of Solas’s agents. They’d pretended to be Carta thugs for a few days once, while Varric tried to wheedle information out of a provincial Altus landowner, and mocked each other’s acting for weeks.
“Never had a nickname before,” Arden said abruptly.
“What, never? Really?”
“I mean, basic name-calling stuff from the other boys as a kid, but I don’t think that’s the same idea.”
Lace looked surprised. “Your parents didn’t call you something? Like my ma calls me Sweet Pea, that sort of thing?”
“Nope. Just Arden. Young Master Mercar or Arden Maximus if I was about to be in trouble.”
“Wait. Your middle name is Maximus?” A positively evil grin was starting to spread across Lace’s freckled face.
Arden rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, go ahead. I’m well aware it’s incredibly pretentious.”
“Maximus!” By now she was giggling madly.
“Welcome to my childhood.”
“Maker!” Lace giggled at Arden’s disapproving look. “Alright, then, I’ll use Rook. Maximus.”
….
“Do you think they’re real fish?” Arden asked.
They stood side by side, staring into the fish tank. It was beautiful, but Arden found it unsettling. The glass and water distorted the light and made distances strange, but Arden couldn’t decide if he could see a back wall to the tank.
“I mean, I don’t know, but that one’s a Calenhad sunfish. I’ve caught plenty of them. Stupid little wastes of bait.”
“Yeah but what I mean is, is it a real Calenhad sunfish or whatever, or just…I don’t know, like a magic picture of one?”
“No idea. This place is weird.”
“I mean,” Arden went on, “if they’re real, what do they eat? There’s not even a place to put food in.”
Lace glanced up at the corners of the room. “Huh. You’re right. Maybe they’re real, but they live on magic. I dunno.” She left Arden scowling at the fish, and left to poke around the rest of the room. “You thinking of setting up your stuff in here?”
“What? No! Why would I do that?” Arden sounded startled.
“I thought maybe the fish would remind you of the coast.”
“Yeah, a nice seaside vacation at Marnus Pell inside a fish tank. No, I’ll find a nice little room with no windows and no weirdly endless fish tanks and pretend I’m somewhere normal.”
Lace shrugged. “Suit yourself. I like the old sunroom or whatever it was. The dirt makes me feel better.”
Arden grunted an acknowledgement, still frowning at the darting fish.
….
The grinding of stone shifting against stone was deafening for a few seconds. As the last echoes died away, Arden and Lace grinned at each other.
“I did it, Rook!”
“Maferath’s ass, that’s amazing.”
“What about that one? Can you move that one? If it was just a little taller, we could skip up to the next turn of the path.”
Lace concentrated for a second.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Doesn’t feel right.” Arden gave her a quizzical look. “Don’t ask me to explain. I don’t know. There’s just…a feeling. Like some stone talks to me and some is just…stone, I guess.”
Arden shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Give me a second,” Lace said. She moved slowly along the base of the hill, eyes narrowed in concentration. Arden trotted after her, keeping an eye on the woods. Nowhere was completely safe in Arlathan, in his experience.
“Wait! Here!” Lace held out her hands and scowled fiercely, and just ahead of them, a series of rocks rumbled and groaned into motion. When they finally stopped, there was a rough giant’s staircase up to the next turning of the path. “I did it!”
“Fuck yes you did!” Arden’s smile crinkled his eyes up and pulled in the scar on his cheek. “That’s amazing, Lace!” He put out an elbow, leaning on her head in what had become a habitual gesture of teasing affection. “Oh! Uh–” Arden let out something between a whoop and a yelp and staggered sideways.
Lace reached for him, grabbing his arm before he could fall.
“Nope–whup!” Arden listed a couple steps forward, then barely caught himself before falling backwards. “I don’t–” His eyes rolled up in his head, and he keeled over. Spongy wood chips and rollie pollies scattered in a tiny explosion where his head hit a rotten log.
“Rook! Maker’s breath, Rook!” Lace rushed to kneel next to him, grabbing his shoulder. This time, though, she saw the ghostly lines of blue spreading from her hands. She jerked them back as if burned, scrambling away from Arden on hands and knees. “Maker’s breath!”
“Fine! I’m…fine,” Arden said, very unconvincingly. “Hoooo…gimme…second…” On the third try, he managed to roll up on an elbow. “Kaffas. Vishante kaffas.”
“Lyrium! It’s like I’m infused with lyrium! Oh, Maker, he’s lyrium addled. What if it’s permanent! What have I done?”
“Noo I’m betting. Bettering. Getting…better. Getting better! See?” Arden managed to push himself up until he was sitting. “Vishante kaffas,” he repeated, cradling his head in his hands. “‘S like I’m drunk.”
“Sweet Andraste, you scared the shit out of me,” Lace breathed, clutching the ground at her knees.
Arden snorted. “Pretty funny, though.”
“No, it is not! I could have really hurt you! Lyrium is dangerous, Rook!”
“Come on. Li’l bit funny. Ass over teakettle…lookit–lookit these poor bugs.” He gestured to the scattering of spongy orange wood and insects around him. “Like a Titan. Fall on their city–boom!” Arden giggled, ending on a loud snort.
“How in Thedas am I going to get you home?” Lace moaned. “Can’t even touch you. Andraste, give me strength.” She sat back, resigned to waiting it out.
Arden’s head lolled to the side, and he snapped it back upright, wheezing with quiet laughter.
….
“You’re staring,” Lace said quietly.
Arden turned his head away from the other corner of the great hall, where Lucanis was cooking, to look down at her. “I’m not allowed? He’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah? Bellara’s gorgeous. Neve’s gorgeous. I know you like girls, too.”
“Sure. You’re gorgeous. What’s your point?”
“My point is–wait, I’m–oh gosh, no, I’m not–nope! Nope, I’m not letting you distract me like that! My point is that you’re staring at him specifically. Not just because he’s gorgeous.”
“Maybe so.” Arden returned his attention to Lucanis, who was busy chopping vegetables with hypnotic skill.
“Rook, he’s possessed! He’s a possessed assassin!”
“I know. And he’s mourning his grandmother, or at least I’m pretty sure he is. You kind of have to guess, with him. And he’s just been imprisoned and tortured for a year, and now he’s living in our pantry like a rat terrier. And also I’m kind of his boss? Or his employer. That isn’t actually paying him.” Arden pulled a wry face. “Don’t worry. I’m just enjoying looking.”
“I’m not convinced,” Lace said. “Plus, he’s looking, too.”
“He–” Arden sat up suddenly, banging his shin against the little table between them. “Kaffas!” He grabbed his leg, rubbing vigorously. “He’s looking?”
Lace sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you should say more. Really?”
“Mmmmm. Yes, he’s looking at you, sometimes. Why do you care, hmm? I thought you were just enjoying the aesthetics?”
“Alright. There might be a little, tiny crush.”
“I knew it!”
Lucanis glanced over at Lace’s outburst, and she waved him away, smiling unconvincingly. He watched them for a moment longer before turning back to his cooking.
“I knew it,” she hissed again, quieter this time. “Rook, you can’t seriously be thinking of…of whatever.”
“No, I know. I know, Lace. That’s why I’m just looking.”
Have some hurt/sort of comfort. Still pre-relationship. [read it on AO3]
“Son of a bitch,” Arden grumbled. “Can't believe I let a shitty little deep stalker tag me.”
“You were fighting two Antaam at the time,” Taash pointed out.
“And it's the stupid cave lizard that got me.” Arden freed the last of his leg armor and carefully peeled off his pants, hissing through clenched teeth. “Kaffas,” Arden swore. “Could be worse. Not bleeding enough to have hit anything important.” He lowered himself into the stream, hissing as the water hit his thigh.
“Do we need to stop for the day?” Lucanis asked.
“Hang in there.” Arden bent over to examine his inner thigh. “Don't think so. A couple of these are deep, but they missed the arteries. Just let me get this wrapped up and we'll keep moving. No good stopping this near Antaam.”
Lucanis noticed Arden limping that day, and the next as well, but he still fought well enough to finish the mission and get them all back to the Lighthouse. A day or two of rest should see him on his way to healed.
The next afternoon found Lucanis perched on one of the floating bookcases, cataloguing the contents as best he could. Bellara and the professor had expressed an interest, but only Lucanis had the acrobatic skills to comfortably reach the higher bookcases. He was trying to decide how to record a book in a script he did not recognize, illustrated with diagrams he also did not understand, when Arden emerged on the balcony below.
Lucanis hadn’t seen Arden yet that “morning”, and assumed he'd been resting off the injury. It was unusual for him to skip his morning run. He looked rough, though. Dressed in a sweat-stained shirt and underwear, limping more than Lucanis remembered from the day before. Unaware of Lucanis, he turned down a hallway that led to one of the empty rooms. As Lucanis recalled, it contained only a few ancient cots and some storage. He frowned after him for a moment before returning to the puzzle of the book. Spite crouched on the balustrade below, also watching Arden’s back.
Lucanis had just begun to write “unidentified magical tome, possibly Neromenian” when he heard a muffled crash echo back down the hall below.
“Rook…wrong,” said Spite.
Lucanis agreed. Setting aside the book, he leapt down from the bookcase, grabbing the balustrade to shift his momentum up and over. He headed down the hallway Arden had taken, Spite prowling behind him.
Arden was pulling himself to his feet, or trying to. Books and papers were scattered around, spilled from the bookcase he must have knocked over. He was mumbling inaudibly, and did not immediately notice Lucanis, busy with trying to get his legs under him.
“Smells wrong. Bad smell,” Spite announced, grimacing at Arden from a few inches away. As Lucanis came closer, he smelled it too.
“Sepsis. He has an infection. The leg.”
Arden looked up at his voice. This close, Lucanis could see that he was flushed and sweating.
“Here,” he said, holding out a hand. Arden was larger, but Lucanis managed to get him settled on a cot. He felt like a furnace.
“‘M Fine,” Arden said, quiet enough to make Lucanis grateful for sharp hearing. “Just gotta little bit infection. Just going to clean it out. Varric…help.”
“Yes. Let's do that,” said Lucanis. “Stay here while I get Taash.”
Mercifully, Taash was in their room, and could quickly grab extra bandages, a bowl, and some liquor. The two of them were back in minutes, but Arden had gotten up again, and was teetering over one of the cots.
“Come here, you” Taash said, grabbing one of his arms and taking most of his weight. “How bad is it?”
Lucanis stood in front of Arden, grateful that the other man seemed able to focus on him well enough.
“May I look at your leg?”
Arden nodded, head bobbling a few times too many. Lucanis crouched, carefully peeling away the stained cloth wrapping his thigh. The smell and the spreading yellow stains gave him a pretty good idea what he'd find, but he still hissed when the last wrap pulled away.
The wound was a near-perfect bite mark, a round series of punctures perhaps an inch across each. Some were little more than angry scratches, but a few looked deep. The skin around the worst of them was tight and glossy, the angry red of sepsis. Worst of all, there was a tracery of red spreading down towards his knee and up into the hem of his underwear–a sure sign that the infection had spread into his system.
“Rook. Is hurt?” Spite asked, crouching next to him.
“It's bad,” Lucanis said. “Infection's spread.”
“He's got a roaring fever,” Taash replied. “Idiot. Why didn't you ask for help?”
“Not stupid,” Arden protested weakly. “Came to Varric. No need…bother you.”
Taash and Lucanis exchanged a worried look.
“Let's get him to his room and clean this up,” Lucanis said. He moved to take Arden's other arm, and between them they managed it. Spite paced along backwards, examining Arden, and kept his silence.
“Got worse so fast,” Arden said. “‘M sorry.”
Once Arden was settled on his cot, the packing crate he used as a table set with bowl and bandages, Lucanis took out the smallest of his knives.
“This is going to be unpleasant,” he said.
“I know,” Arden said.
“Seen it before,” said Taash, bracing Arden against their chest and getting a firm grip on his arms.
Lucanis held Arden's gaze until Arden gave a little nod. “Ready,” he said.
It was unpleasant. Very. Arden didn't cry out, but he growled between clenched teeth, body rigid, his free foot scrabbling at the bed. When Lucanis glanced up, he could see the veins in Arden's neck standing out with the effort of control. Taash held on tight, their face twisted up at the smell of infection. Lucanis worked as quickly and carefully as he could.
“I am sorry, friend. Brace yourself.” He probed into the worst of the marks with the tip of his dagger, eliciting a single shout of pain. “Ah.” He twisted the dagger slightly, and carefully pulled out a jagged object, ivory under the blood. “Tooth. Must have broken off.”
“That'll do it,” Taash said. “Vashedan.”
“He'll mend if we can keep it clean and get him to rest.”
“Promise,” Arden muttered between labored breaths. “I promise.”
“My mom has a tea she makes when I'm sick. We might have most of the stuff for it. I can go when we've got him cleaned up?”
Lucanis nodded, carefully rinsing the wound. Arden writhed as Lucanis flushed each tooth mark with Taash's rum. By the time Lucanis secured the last bandage, Arden’s shirt was soaked with sweat and his face was burning red. Taash lowered him gently and left for the kitchen.
Lucanis cleaned up the mess of dirty bandages.
“I'm sorry,” Arden whispered.
Lucanis looked up. “For what? We all get injured. I let you get overwhelmed.”
“For not taking care of it. Making it your problem.”
Lucanis smiled gently. “There are enough problems to go around.”
……
Arden was asleep when Taash returned with the tea. He had already pushed his blanket off several times, but Lucanis stubbornly pulled it back up. Better to let the fever do its work.
“Think he'll be alright?” Taash asked. “I told Lace and Davrin, but I said not to come by just yet.”
“He should be, given a few days.”
“Guess he kinda had me fooled,” Taash said. “Always figured if he said it was okay, it was okay. I dunno. I mean, not that I thought he couldn't get hurt, that’s stupid. Just…”
“A commander's duty is to inspire confidence in the people he leads. He knows this.” Lucanis set the tea on a packing crate, waiting for later.
“Sure, whatever, but it's all vashedan, right? I mean, we know he's just a guy, really. We should know. You go pretending he's more, and shit like this happens.”
Lucanis nodded.
“Hey, what if he goes wandering again?” Taash asked. “Not a great place to sleepwalk.”
“I will stay with him,” Lucanis said.
“Alright, well…fine. Stinks in here now anyway. You know where to find me.” Taash took the bowl full of dirty bandages and left. Spite shooed her out, repeating, “Stinks. Stinks!” Alone, Lucanis allowed himself a small smile at Spite’s antics.
……
Arden slept fitfully, in the grips of the fever. Lucanis had just begun to doze off when Arden started talking. Lucanis straightened up, angry at himself, but Arden's eyes were still closed.
“‘M sorry, Varric. Sorry. I can't…” Whatever he said next was too jumbled to make out.
Lucanis felt a wave of discomfort at seeing something so personal. He knew of Varric Tethras, had even read some of his work. And he knew from Harding that Arden rarely spoke of him since his death. Lucanis understood the privacy of pain.
“Can't! I can't do it any more! Please, Varric, it's too much!” Arden twisted in his cot, and Lucanis had to brace a shoulder against his hip to keep him in it. “They'll die. My fault. Not strong enough. Please.” Arden subsided again, quietly whispering “please” one more time. Once he was still, Lucanis straightened the blanket.
“Rook give up?” Spite asked, face twisted in confusion. “Weak now?”
“No,” Lucanis replied quietly. “Not weak. Just hurt and sick.”
@opal-bee got me thinking with her tags wondering how Misty and Viktor talk about V when they're not around, because that shit is right where my brain is, too. Didn't have long to dig into it, but here's a quick start:
Viktor looked up just a little too quickly at the sound of Misty's footsteps in the stairwell. She knew the cause; it was why she'd hurried back to him, after all. V had been all he'd thought about for days, and she knew letting the man out of his sight in such a state had been hard as hell.
“He's settled,” she said. “I think he was going straight to sleep.” Vik’s face relaxed. Almost imperceptible, but not to Misty. “He'll be ok, you know.”
“You know that's not true.”
Misty’s heart ached. “He's strong. Stronger than this. I choose to believe he'll find his path.”
Vik shifted in his chair, running his hand over his face. Misty practiced patience. She chose to be gentle, now more than ever.
“I'm glad your beliefs bring you comfort,” he finally said. She knew he was clinging to a lifetime’s practice at patience, too. She knew they were both hurting.
“And we'll be there for him,” she added.
“That we will,” he said. He gave her a tight smile. “For what it's worth.”
“You could send him a text,” she said. “Tell V to call when he wakes up. Update you on how he's handling things.”
“I'm not his mom.”
The words could have been harsh, but Misty knew better. It wasn't “I'm not responsible for him.” It was “I have no claim on him.”
“As his doctor,” she said. “It'd be good.”
Vik grunted. He stared at his phone for a second before shifting towards it.
“Yeah. Yeah. Just to check in.”
She smiled at him in encouragement. She could only hold the expression for a second.
