#varriquisitor?

[bennydwight]

Dragon Age Oneshot

Shameless, indulgent, one-sided Varric/Inquisitor, because I understand why we’re not allowed to romance the dwarf, but that’s not gonna stop me from being bitter about it.

(Also feat. Dorian being simultaneously the best and worst wingman)

 ~~~~~~

"Oh dear what's got the Inquisitor so long in the face this time?"

Lavellan hid her startle well enough that Dorian didn't comment. Maker's breath, he could be stealthy when he wanted to. Observant, too, so she didn’t see much point in lying to him. "I'm in love, Dorian."

She felt more than saw his interest pique, and he slid down the stone wall to join her on the steps. Below them, the courtyard was abuzz with activity: Dennet and his apprentice busied themselves with checking the new stock of mounts, the merchants from Val Royeaux shifted primly as Fereldan soldiers examined their wares, and patients of the last battle milled around the surgeons camp. Among them, even from this height, Lavellan could see Cole's wide-brimmed hat bobbing along through the crowd of wounded like a leaf on a river, likely offering comfort to those who needed it. Varric's copper hair trailed along beside, either gathering intelligence for his next book, or ensuring Cole stayed within the confines of human morality. Nice that those two got along so well.

Far below, a soldier said something and Varric laughed, the delighted rasp floating up to reach even Lavellan's perch. Why must he do that to her.

"In love, you say?" Dorian continued next to her. "Anyone I would know?"

Lavellan sighed. "He's roguishly charming, dashingly handsome, entirely uninterested, and so far out of my league he may as well be the Black Divine."

"Dear me, have you fallen in love with me all over again? Can't say I'm not flattered, though I recall us having this conversation once before."

That drew a laugh from the depths of her lovesickness and she nudged Dorian with a shoulder. "You know the flame I hold for you in my heart will never extinguish."

"Alas, perhaps in another life." He chuckled back.  "Who's the fortunate gentleman?"

"Oh please, if you think I'll out and tell you like some babbling maid chasing the butcher's son, I give you too much credit."

He leaned back, stroking his goatee with an interested finger. "Making a game out of it then? Very well, I'll play along. Ten silver says I can guess the lad in three tries."

A game was exactly what Lavellan didn’t want, but she far too much enjoyed Dorian's scowl when he lost not to play.  The ten silver could buy her something interesting from the baker too, next time they travelled to Val Royeaux. "You'll be paying for my next pastry run, Vint."

"Better save at least some of that silver for larger clothing then." He made a show of tapping his chin, deep, deep in thought, the flash bastard. "Roguishly charming, daringly handsome... Just to clarify, you are talking about a lad, yes?"

"Oh, no. Making that distinction would narrow the field by far too much. If you weren't paying attention to the pronouns, that's on you."

Dorian glowered at her, but there was no real heat behind it while the gears of his mind were ticking elsewhere. "From the description alone, of course my first guess would have to be our distinguished commander? Not that I'd blame you, mind, he is quite the man."

Perhaps too much man for Lavellan, the commander was far too battle-ready for her to find attractive (though admittedly the scars did send something stirring within her). And Cullen's evasive reactions towards the advances of other members of the fairer gender betrayed a disposition more boyish than Lavellan expected. She imagined courting Cullen would be very much like courting the spirit of a farm boy in the body of a marble statue. "I flirted with him once, for fun. I was afraid he'd wet himself."

Dorian's laughter rang warm and clear through the courtyard. "That might explain why you couldn't tell him, the poor man would throw himself off the battlements."

Lavellan stuck her tongue out at him. "Don't make it sound like my affections are a disease to be feared."

"They certainly spread that way."

"You enjoy it, you all do. Maker knows none of you under my command have ever gotten enough hugs in your lifetimes."

"Something we all know you're desperately trying to correct."

"This game is timed, Dorian, if you don't use your guesses in the next ten seconds then you forfeit."

"Don't be silly, that was never agreed upon," he waved a hand flippantly, but settled again. "Sera-"

"Nope."

"That wasn't a guess, you didn't let me finish! I was going to say Sera is in league all her own, so it can't be her."

"It counts."

"It doesn’t. "

Lavellan never was very good at keeping a straight face, especially in Dorian's presence. "Fine, fine, you get one freebie."

"Then my next guess would have to be the Iron Bull."

Oh, she'd thought about it. Maybe Lavellan was just weak for big hands and a soft voice. And who could forget those muscles? But Iron Bull wasn't exactly secretive about his thoughts on relationships, thoughts Lavellan wasn't sure she could share in the long run. And maybe it would have been different if Iron Bull committed to the Inquisitor, but after an accidental (and awkward) run in with Bull and a kitchen maid, Lavellan was pretty certain she'd seen all she needed to regarding Skyhold's resident Ben-Hassarath.

Besides. She'd seen the silky way Dorian's eyes smoothed over Iron Bull's shoulders when his back was turned. There had never been two people she was less inclined to come between.

She shot Dorian a sly side-eye. "I'll leave the lovesickness to other, more suitable people when it comes to the Bull, I think."

He hid the hitch in his shoulders almost perfectly, but the pink dusting on his cheekbones was a little harder to explain away. To his credit, Dorian didn't try. "Ahem. Well, you mentioned 'uninterested', so it can't be the swooning--"

He trailed off, but Lavellan's sharp stare snapped to him, ears twitching up. "The what?"

"Nothing, a slip of the tongue."

"Your tongue is so slippery it's a wonder it doesn't slither out of your head. Now out with it, who were you talking about?"

Dorian heaved a mighty sigh, but his eyes shone in that way they did when he'd been sitting on a sweet bit of gossip for too long. "Very well, I promised Vivienne I wouldn’t say anything since you didn't need 'undue distractions', but since you insisted. One of your throne guards can't keep his eyes away from you."

This was news to her. "Wha- Are you talking about Davrish or Johannes? Or Tel, he fills in sometimes."

"The lad who usually stands at your left. Human, on the tall side, dark hair. Hard to see much under the helmet, but he's got a scar under his eye."

Davrish then. "He fancies me?"

Dorian laughed. "Like Solas fancies the Fade. He reveres you. Whenever you're in the Main Hall, he refuses to look anywhere else. He practically vibrates when you're judging someone, I imagine since he's never had a woman that close to him in his life. Have you truly not noticed?"

She truly hadn't. She'd spoken to Davrish several times around Skyhold, usually a casual bit of snark tossed around regarding the latest judgement, but never had she gotten the impression that he was interested. Perhaps since, whenever she frequented the Main Hall, her attention lingered elsewhere... "I suppose I'm usually distracted."

Dorian leaned closer, something wicked crawling into his grin like a desert lizard. "Distracted, are you?"

Lavellan huffed, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as if that could still her heart's rapid beat. "I'm the Inquisitor, Dorian, not all of us can lounge in the library all day, drinking cheap ale and commenting on whatever daily atrocity Solas is wearing."

"Oh, that reminds me, did you see the particularly awful armour he picked up during your last trip to the Oasis? I could go on for days about the state of the stitching alone-"

He definitely could, as proven time and again. Times like these, where her Tevinter friend really got on a roll, Lavellan could feign interest well enough while letting her mind wander to more introspective topics. She nodded and made appropriate noises at appropriate times to Dorian's impassioned ramblings, but once again her eyes sought the copper head weaving in and out of view of the crowd below.

As if sensing her seeking eyes, Varric pulled his attention away from Cole and stared straight at her.

Lavellan's heart stuttered to a stop. Even this far away, his eyes shone with the barely concealed mirth he always seemed to carry just under the crooked quirk of his eyebrow. The corner of his mouth pulled up in that roguish smile she loved as they made eye contact, and one hand (gloved, why always gloved) rose in a lazy wave.

Like a dunderhead, Lavellan practically tripped over herself to return the gesture, nearly catching her finger in one of the buckles of her clothes in the process. Varric didn't seem to notice, his smile widening before he turned back to his odd little charge.

Too late, Lavellan noticed Dorian had fallen silent beside her, his calculating golden eyes boring into her frozen face. She heard the dots connect.

"Oh."

Don’t make eye contact, don't make eye contact

"Oh, MAKER."

Lavellan spun on him, the tips of her ears burning under his scrutiny. "WHAT."

He stared back, expression refreshingly open for once, though it bore no malice. Only stunned disbelief. "Lavellan, the dwarf?"

Not trusting herself to speak around the dry lump lodged in her throat, Lavellan reached into her pocket and dropped ten silver into Dorian's unresponsive hand.

He stared at the coins as if in shock, though Lavellan knew him well enough by now to know when he was exaggerating emotion. Dorian and Sarcasm were old friends. "I can’t- Vishante kaffas."

"I know."

"Of all the available young matches here in Skyhold, you're wasting your time making doe-eyes at the single most ineligible person this side of the Anderfels."

"I know.”

"He's in love with a crossbow, for Maker's sake!"

"I KNOW!" Lavellan groaned, burying her head in her hands. "If you think I haven’t had this discussion with myself numerous times then you are sorely mistaken."

A beat of silence. "Although," Dorian started in such an oddly contemplative tone that Lavellan peeked out from between her fingers. The silver was gone, tucked away while she'd been marinating in her own self-horror, and his hand returned to its previous action of thoughtfully stroking his facial hair. "He is quite the strapping one." His face took on a haughty air. "And we already knew you had a penchant towards the witty."

"Not only wit," Lavellan sighed, and now that her darkest thoughts hovered at the forefront of her tongue, she found it nigh impossible to stop them from stumbling into the light of day. "He's suave, confident in a way that still eludes Cullen. He has all the easy, rugged attractiveness of the Iron Bull with none of his-"

"Expansive tastes?" Dorian supplied, entirely unhelpfully.

"-worldliness." Lavellan corrected coolly.

"He's quite the complainer. "

"He's opinionated, and most of them are right. Varric is warmth, and friendship, and a drop of sunlight in the midst of the rainstorm that is the Breach."

"I may vomit."

"I am taking that as a challenge. He is soft eyes and soft leather, and the feeling you get right after you make someone laugh. He's quiet nights by the fireside, the smell of ink swirling in the warmed air. He is-"

"-headed this way."

Lavellan was just about to admonish Dorian for his unsportsmanlike attempt to distract her from her flowering prose (it had really started to flow there, too!), but a glance downward found Cole nowhere to be seen, and instead one copper-headed dwarf tromping up the stairs.

All thoughts of poetry dissipated. He was coming straight for them! "Oh... oh Maker-"

"Don't panic," Dorian smirked, "with a nose that large, he can probably smell your nerves."

She didn’t have the chance to smack him before Varric reached them, breath laboured in the way that often happened when short legs were presented with more than five steps. Lavellan wondered why Varric chose to spend the majority of his days in the Grand Hall when it required so many steps to get there (and she refused to let herself believe it was because he wanted to be near her, no no). "Well, you two are looking chummy."

"Varric!" Dorian opened with no shortness of theatrics, "We were just talking about you!"

"Is that right?" Lavellan heard more than saw Varric's raised eyebrow as she pinned Dorian under a glare so hot it had been known to stop enemies in their tracks.

Dorian, having evolved out of the category of "enemy" some time ago, barely noticed. "Yes, we were just discussing your romance serial, the one Cassandra enjoys so much? Are you planning on writing more?"

Lavellan’s glare had taken on a panicked note, her friend going rogue before her eyes. How hard did one have to stare at another for them to spontaneously combust?

Varric, large as his nose was, didn’t seem to smell her distress this time. He laughed. "I am if Seeker has anything to say about it! Why, you're a fan too? Learning anything interesting?"

"On the contrary, I have an idea for another serial I'm sure readers would enjoy."

Lavellan’s shoulders relaxed marginally, head tilting at a quizzical angle. What was he doing...

"I don't usually entertain book pitches, but for you Sparkler? Let's hear it."

"It's about a famous, powerful young artist, who falls in love with a roguishly charming, dashingly handsome writer-"

Aaaaand there went her shoulders again, hitched almost to her burning ears. Back safely to Varric, she frantically mouthed "I'll KILL you, you sunnuvabitch", the rest of Dorian's blatantly obvious pitch drowning under the blood pumping in her ears. His mouth quirked up in the only indication he was paying her any mind at all.

Varric made a thoughtful noise, and she didn't dare turn round to look at him. "An artist and a writer, huh? It's got potential. And no one can say it's... unrealistic." Maker's breath, was he implying something? Was that tone barely concealed subtext, or just Varric being an asshole?

And Dorian couldn't leave it at that, oh no, never let it be said that Dorian Pavus did things halfway. "And say, if you do decide to write it, I'm sure our dear inquisitor wouldn’t mind illustrating. Surely you two have known each other long enough that working closely for prolonged periods of time wouldn’t be too agonizing."

Using her body as a shield, Lavellan flipped him off.

"It's certainly something to consider," Varric hummed, none the wiser to Lavellan's mortification. Unless... he was playing with her? "I'm sure my lady readers would appreciate another romance."

Dorian stared straight into Lavellan's eyes. "They certainly would."

"What about it, Herald?" Oh Maker, he was leaning over her now. The scent of warm leather drifted over her like the sweetest perfume-- NO, that was gross! Don’t think like that! "Feel like collaborating?"

"Sure," her voice came out more like a squeak than a sound, and Dorian couldn't quite hide his snort behind his moustache.

The creak of leather as Varric leaned back. "Peachy. After we take care of this Corypheus business, of course, even I understand that we have priorities. Speaking of, I gotta ask Seeker something. Dorian."

Dorian nodded in farewell, radiating smugness. Expecting her turn to be next and realizing at the same time that she hadn't looked at Varric a single time during this conversation, Lavellan finally turned to the dwarf.

Bad idea. She turned directly into that insufferable crooked grin. His hooded eyes glittered with mischief, like he was privy to an in-joke. The sun set behind him, haloing his visage with golden light. Varric himself couldn't have written this scene better, and Lavellan hated herself for thinking it. Her ears drooped under the weakness of her own body.

Varric's grin widened marginally. "Inquisitor."

"Bye," Lavellan breathed more than said. Dorian snorted again, louder, but Varric was polite enough not to mention it. He continued up the stairs and Lavellan managed until his heavy bootsteps faded away to melt into a humiliated puddle. She slumped over her legs, burying her face in her hands.

"Dear me, Inquisitor, your ears are a most delightful shade of crimson."

"Dorian?"

"Yes?"

"Once I can stand again, I am going to take my knife and cut out your tongue."

"Oh, I'd still find ways to humiliate you."

"I wont even use my nice knife. It'll be a kitchen knife. You'll suffer for days, just like I am now."

He patted her jovially on the shoulder. "Come now, Lavellan, surely you must know that Varric is crass and boorish, but he's far from an idiot. He'll nip this in the bud within the week and I need to get a decent amount of teasing in before then."

Lavellan punched him in the arm.

 END

#dragon age inquisition #da:i #varric tethras #varric #lavellan #dorian pavus #dorian #Varric/inquisitor #varriquisitor? #writing #oneshot