#tethrawke

[hawke-varric]

If you don't spend endless hours painting your OTP reuniting sharing a romantic moment in the rain, what are you even doing with your life

[tethrawke]

What about a canon AU where Hawke needs to somehow buy her way into Kirkwall after fleeing the Blight with her family, but working for the smugglers isn't enough? What if Varric needs a wife ASAP before Bianca's family kills him and he hears about this newly washed-up refugee from a formerly well-respected noble bloodline who's been working odd jobs for questionable people to keep herself and her family afloat? What if he decides to take a look for himself and watches her for a few days and realises she's EXACTLY what he needs to deal with dwarven politics? What if he makes her an offer she can't refuse and they're married before the day is over and the Hawke family is moved into Varric's mansion? What if Dragon Age 2 becomes a green card AU?

[lasatfat]

Prompt time! "Holding their hands while they're shaking" for Rian and Varric.

50 wordless ways to say "I love you" | hurt/comfort dialogue prompts | @dadrunkwriting

Thank you to @broodwoof for his help with writing Varric.

I Turn 'Round and There You Go

“I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats, With scarves of red tied ‘round their throats To keep their little heads from falling in the snow, And I turn ‘round and there you go, And Michael, you would fall And turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime.” - White Winter Hymnal, Fleet Foxes

Varric hasn’t been himself since returning from the Emprise.

He smiles, he laughs, he writes letters, he plays games of Wicked Grace. To the untrained eye, he’d look practically jovial. But the laughter is hollow. The smile doesn’t reach his eyes. The romantic dimension might be new, but Rian has been friends with Varric for the better part of twelve years, and they know him well enough to see that something fucking big is eating away at him. And he should know them well enough to see that he isn’t fooling them.

They’re sitting in Varric’s bedroom, for a change. Rian can walk short distances now on their new artificial foot, with a new pair of sturdy wooden crutches. The surgeon is satisfied enough with their progress – she thinks they might be able to walk unaided in the future. For now, they’re pretty happy hobbling along to sit at Varric’s desk and play cards. Gin rummy, to be precise.

“This is the one where we lie about the cards we’re putting down, right?”

“No, Hawke, that’s Cheat,” Varric says. “Gin rummy is where you put down sets of three cards, and the first to a hundred…”

“…first to a hundred points wins,” Rian chimes in. “I’m with you. You might have to help me with the scores.”

Having set the conditions for Varric to egregiously cheat, Rian looks down at their starting hand. They have a pair of Serpents already, but not much else to build on. They discard the Song of Autumn, and draw another card from the deck.

“So, how are you?” they ask.

Varric chuckles. “Me? I’m fine. Glad to be back in the warm.”

“Varric, can you be honest with me?”

The smile fades from his face, replaced by something not quite angry. For a moment, Rian wonders if this might trigger their first argument as a couple. Had to happen sometime, they suppose, and at least it won’t be over something stupid. They meet his gaze, resolutely, a calm and silent promise that they’re not letting this go. Varric sighs, and puts his cards down on the desk. Face up. That’s not good.

“You should have seen that place, Hawke.” He must have been desperate to talk about it, for it to be so easy. “It was everywhere. Anything that wasn’t white was red. And they were growing more of it, out of…”

He stops. His whole body is shaking, as if he’s back on that frozen mountain, and maybe a part of him is. Rian can only think to take his hands, and hold them tight.

“Varric, none of this is your fault,” they say, gently. “You found the red lyrium, that’s all. None of us could have known what would come of it.”

Varric shakes his head. “I gave Bianca the location.”

“Because you knew she could help,” they insist. “She must have found something. You said she was good enough to be a Paragon.”

“But it was her, Hawke. She gave red lyrium to the Wardens.”

She gave it to the Wardens. The Wardens gave it to Corypheus, and Corypheus gave it to the Templars, and the Templars gave it to all of Thedas.

“Dozy mare,” they respond, before they can think better of it. Their eyes widen, as they watch Varric for his reaction. Great idea, Rian, insult his beloved ex-girlfriend. That won’t make him clam up at all. Instead, he chuckles.

“I’ll tell her you said that, if she ever comes around again,” he says, warningly.

“Sell me out to your ex? That’s cold,” they retort.

They laugh a little, together, though there’s little mirth on Rian’s part. Varric has hitched up that smile once again, and they rather think they’ve lost their chance to get anything out of him. He clears his throat, and pulls his hands out of Rian’s grip.

“I know I need to do better,” he says, almost absently.

“That’s not what I…”

“No, I mean, I know I need to get better at talking.” He starts gathering up the cards, shuffling and preparing to deal them out again. “I’m working on it.”

The relief that flows through Rian is so great that they’re almost surprised Varric can’t feel it. The candles might be burning a little brighter. They touch his arm, and his hands still.

“We have time,” they say, simply.

Varric smiles, more genuinely this time. “Anyway, gin rummy…”

Rian sits back in their chair. “That’s the one where you line ‘em up in columns, right?”

They laugh again, and this time, it’s real.

[lyrium-lavellan]

Should I start a Tethravellan Discord server? Lmk if you’d be interested! It would be open to anyone and everyone who ships Varric with someone other than Bianca, be that Lavellan, Hawke, or another OC/Character. Full of rarepair antics, memes, Varric love, screaming about OCs and moral support for art and fic writing!

EDIT: I did it! Varricmancers United is now live!

[tethrawke]

What if I wrote a modern AU where Hawke is a newbie actress with only community theatre experience from her small hometown. Varric is a decently published writer, but not to the degree he could live off his writing alone. He and Bartrand are trying to make their first movie and launch a production company. It's based on Varric's script. They don't have the money to fund it, so they need the actors to go in on the funding (and get a % of the profits if it sells). They audition so many people. They stop being able to tell the humans apart. Everything is a blur.

And then SHE comes in. The one. And she's poor af. She can't afford to buy in. But it HAS to be her. Varric will strangle Bartrand in his sleep if that's what it takes. Instead, he helps her get the money together by referring her to people he knows for modelling work. Maybe even a sexy maid service. He thinks she'll kill him for suggesting it, but she just cracks her knuckles and tells him, "Let's do this."

He's in love. He knows he's in love, but he CAN'T be in love, because everyone knows he's still in love with the ex that left him years ago. So he's not in love. He just recognises raw talent when he sees it. That's all.

They get the money together. The film gets made. It's a runaway success. They get filthy rich off the profits. Hawke gets swamped with new offers. Varric starts writing again. He spends a decade telling himself he's not in love with his best friend and it doesn't kill him to see her with all those classically handsome film stars on screen and on the red carpet, their hands on her lower back. He's not jealous when she gushes about other scripts and how great her love interest is in this one. He doesn't care at all.

He cares so little, in fact, that he DOESN'T end up writing a script of their lives in a haze where the character that's definitely not him confesses to loving the girl on the last page, and there's nothing after. He doesn't forget that he wrote that dreck and left it out on his coffee table when Hawke comes over. He can't, because that would mean she'd know, and then what? He's kept the secret for so long, what are a few years more?

He's lucky Hawke is a fast reader and always skips to the end.

The luckiest man alive.

[tethrawke]

Had to stop in and tell you that I have such writers envy for your stuff, your style is amazing and so gripping! Filing it away for inspo 🩵

Thank you!! 😭 I'm glad you're enjoying it! I have another fic planned for Hawke/Varric (and when I say planned, I mean halfway finished), so hopefully you'll like that too 😉

[tethrawke]

Oh man, a thousands thanks and also one “I hate you” for Hope & Dreams. I’m drowning in the yearning feelings, it’s so good!!

Thank you so much!! 🙏 I'm glad you enjoyed it, hope the ending was what you wanted from it! 👀

(also sorry for the late response, I cannot multi-task at all)

[lasatfat]

Welcome Distraction

also on AO3

“Come to bed, Varric.”

It’s not the first time Hawke has had to tell him. There’s always something new for the Viscount of Kirkwall to deal with, but it seems that that one of his numerous other occupations is keeping him busy tonight. “I’ve almost finished this chapter,” he says. “I just need a little more time.”

Hawke has heard that excuse before, but Varric has been staring stubbornly down at the same spot on the page for at least the last half hour, with any progress scribbled out a few moments later. Snapping their own book shut, they shuffle to the edge of the bed.

“What you need is sleep,” they argue. They cross the room to him, leaning over the desk, pushing their leg underneath to touch their foot to his. “Come to bed, let it rest, and go at it fresh in the morning.”

Varric crosses out his newest attempt – at this point, the page will soon be more scribbles than legible words. “I know what happens next,” he retorts. “Need to figure out how to word it.”

Well, clearly asking nicely isn’t working. Time to change approach.

They crouch on the floor. They’re a little old to be crawling around under desks, especially one set this close to the floor, but crawl under they do. It’s a nice desk, at least. Looks like real serault oak, polished to perfection, even on the underside. They could probably see their reflection in that wood, if they cared enough to cast magical light and check. As it is, the candlelight provides enough illumination to allow them to unpick the laces on Varric’s boots.

“Damnit, Hawke, what are you doing?”

“You’ll see,” they reply. Boots shed, they get to work on his breeches. Varric startles; Hawke bumps their head. “Ouch.” Not the best start.

“Anyone could walk in!” he hisses, even as he lifts his arse off the seat, letting Hawke tug his breeches and smalls out of the way, and bare him from the waist down. He’s half-hard already.

“Entering the viscount’s private quarters unannounced?” they say, with a smirk. They brush their beard up the inside of his thigh. “Who would dare?”

“There’s a ffffffirst time for everything.” Varric almost loses grip of that sentence, as Hawke wraps their right hand around the base of his length.

“Go on, then,” they say, punctuating their speech with open-mouthed kisses up the length of his now straining prick. “Finish your chapter. I’m keeping myself amused.”

“You’re not making it any easier,” Varric gripes.

They don’t really have a good retort, so Hawke puts their mouth to better use. Their lips close around the head of his cock – tastes the sour-salt of precome – and they flick their tongue against him.

“See? You don’t – ah! – you don’t have an answer for that,” he says, entirely too smug for someone with their genitals so close to someone’s teeth. Hawke reminds him with the barest scrape of theirs as they pull off.

“I don’t have your talent with words,” they reply, which is true to some extent. Varric is the author, the negotiator, the silver-tongued raconteur, but Hawke has made him come more than once by simply whispering in his ear.

“Maker, Hawke…” and he does lose that sentence, groaning as Hawke takes him into their mouth again, and swirls their tongue. They chase the sound, taking more of him with each stroke, each grunt or whispered curse lifting fresh butterflies up from their stomach, until they think he must be able to feel them too. They can’t see his face, but they can see his hands in a vice-grip on the arms of his chair. The writing has been well and truly abandoned, it seems.

Hawke pulls off, for just a second, just long enough. Their free hand – marred with a whorl of burns – fondles his balls in compensation. “I want you to come on my tongue.” And they take him deep, deep enough for the wide head of his cock to slip down the back of their throat. A tiny spurt of salt falls over their tongue as they withdraw, cheeks hollowing.

“Rian.” It’s not often Varric uses their first name. “Shit, Rian, I’m…”

Sensing how that sentence would end, Hawke presses forward, taking him to the back of their mouth once again. Varric comes with a noise like a growl, cock pulsing, spend filling their mouth and flowing down their opened throat.

Hawke holds his softening cock in their mouth for a moment longer, savouring the weight of it. When they pull off, prompting a disappointed sound from Varric, they slump back against the desk drawers to catch their breath. They’d been so focused on him that they hadn’t noticed the growing ache in their jaw, or the bump on their head. The hot throbbing of their own cunt.

After another minute or so, Varric pushes his chair back, offering a hand to help them out from underneath.

“Always the gentleman, Master Tethras,” they chuckle, clambering to their feet. When he pushes them back against the desk, it takes them by surprise. “Oop. Spoke too soon.”

Varric hooks his thick fingers into the waistband of their trousers, pulls them down over their arse. They take the opportunity to perch on the edge of the desk. Their smalls must be visibly wet, because Varric eyes them with a low laugh, and says, “got you good and worked up, huh?”

“That you did.” They lift themselves up, and tug the underwear out of the way, tossing it aside. “What are we going to do about it?”

Varric grins. “One good turn deserves another,” he responds, before dipping his head to taste them.