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Varric watched her.
He had been watching her often, lately. He couldn’t say why. It was one of those things he didn’t particularly wish to investigate any further; it meant something. He didn’t want to know what.
Evelyn, he thought as he tightened one of Bianca’s bolts. He’d been tightening and loosening the same bolt for the last half-hour, his fingers black with grease. Evelyn Trevelyan. Greener than a Ferelden spring, that one. How she had ever survived the Conclave would be a mystery to him – and, indeed, to everyone. He recalled her in those first few weeks: her countenance was harrowed and terrified. Her eyes were wide-open in that same fear, but Varric saw a fury there, too, and had an itch to dig it up, to see its bare roots.
But he wouldn’t. She was barely more than a child. A child, he thought, thrust into the heart of disaster, who had lost everything and rose from the blasted ashes as a creature even she herself did not recognise. All she found was malice. Hatred. The people had decided her guilt before she was out of her shackles, and Cassandra funnelled all her grief into cruelty, flogging the girl beneath it until she bled and cried. Only Varric and Solas had opened their hands to her, and afraid as she was back then, she had clung.
He tightened the bolt. Felt it catch; release. Twisted it between two fingers. How long ago it seemed, now, when the sky had first belched open its vast green maw. Varric glanced up from Evelyn to the sky, eyeing the boiling clouds.
When he returned his gaze to her again, he found her eyes already on him. He flinched in surprise and tried to smooth it over with a cut-cheek smile. He wasn’t sure if it worked; she’d been harder to read, lately.
“Keeping busy, Sparky?” he asked her as she edged around the fire and into earshot. She leaned over him, narrow and pale like a shadow of the early afternoon, those cursed eyes dispelling all darkness in her face. “Haven’t seen you round much lately.”
Evelyn perched on the bench beside him like a bird. She was an average height for a human woman, and yet somehow seemed both too large and too small for her own body, her spirit cramping in her limbs and her face. “Busy,” she echoed without looking at him. “Yes.”
Finally Varric set Bianca down. “You didn’t come here for a friendly chat, did you?”
He saw it, then. She was twitchy. Unable to look at him, for some reason; her eyes skirted about and she drew in on herself in a way that Varric could only describe as virginal. The word tasted like a sin in his mouth. Now that he thought about it, she’d been like this for days – her attention lapsed, her focus came in fits and bursts, and Cullen had started to complain that nobody would take her seriously if she could not even hold a sword.
“I found a book,” she said. Varric couldn’t quite tell in the half-dark of the fire, but she looked a little pink.
“A book.”
Finally she looked at him. Not right in the eye, mind, but somewhere in the vicinity of his chin or neck, gaze lured by the gleaming ring around his collar. “One of yours.”
A part of Varric’s brain ground to a halt. Oh, Maker. “One of mine? What, just – lying around?”
Evelyn worked her lips over her teeth and, for just a moment, looked sheepish. “Someone must have left it out. I knew you wrote books, but –,” Her hands spread down over her shins. Her fingers were still pretty, even after all the hours of arms training Cullen had put her through. Varric decided he quite liked her fingers. “Did you really do… those things?”
Varric eyed her. This conversation was leading somewhere, though he couldn’t be sure where, nor whether or not he should end it now. But Evelyn was so – she was so eager, always listening, always learning, always entertaining his stories and shenanigans with a particular type of girlish glee Varric had not seen in a very long time. And the way she leaned towards him, her voice hushed and lovely –
“Depends what book you read,” Varric said. When she told him, he laughed from deep in his belly. “That garbage? Maker, of all my books you could have read…”
“Varric,” Evelyn said, terribly softly. For a long moment Varric said nothing. His laughter died dry on his tongue.
“I prefer to write from experience. Mostly.” The words came very slowly. His jaw resisted. He should have lied to her, he knew that. It would have been better. Easier. Send her away to put her mind to other things. Make it less likely for Cassandra to cut off his balls.
It was a lady-tickler, that book. That’s what he called mindless smutty drivels – of which he had written his fair share, admittedly – something for the bored ladies of Thedas to hole up with in their rooms, something to keep them company while their lords were elsewhere. Explicit, driving desire was hidden in those pages, inspired by Varric’s more sordid endeavours – some of which he had, indeed, partaken in personally, and others he had only heard about. He had half a mind to track down whoever left that book in Evelyn’s green-eared path and flay them to within an inch of their life.
The thought was fleeting, though. He appraised Evelyn as she sat there, still refusing to meet his eye. It was the kind of book she’d come across inevitably, at some point. If not here, then back in Ostwick, in her own ivory tower. In her own neglect. She would find it, and she would read it, and she would peel herself out of whatever fine silks and pearls she was wearing and lie sweating and gasping and flushed lotus-pink, and –
“Shit,” Varric muttered, turning away and searching for Bianca again. He always felt a little more confident when holding her, and at that moment he needed all the confidence he could get. “You should go, Sparky. It’s late.”
It wasn’t late. Barely past the ripe dark of evening.
“Varric,” Evelyn said again, just as soft as before, and Varric hated how his dick twitched. There was something wet in her voice. He didn’t dare look at her. “Won’t you teach me?”
Maker. Maker. Andraste preserve me –
Varric looked at her. She was staring at him and he finally understood what Cassandra had meant when she’d called the girl’s eyes fade-quickened.
“Are you seducing me, Herald?” he asked, all the breath punched from his voice.
“No,” Evelyn said. She was far too earnest. “I – I want to learn. I am treated like a child, and I’m – I’m not.” She was stuttering, something thick lodged in her throat, damming up the words. Cute, Varric thought miserably. And she was right, too, was the worst of it – she was treated like a child. Many a dance was had around her inexperience, be it in etiquette or horse-riding or swordsmanship, and he could see how tired she was of it. Maybe, he thought, it wasn’t so much about learning – maybe it was about being treated as an adult for once. Or maybe it was a bit of both.
“I don’t know,” Varric said uneasily. “Half of Haven has their eyes on you, Sparky. You could find someone nice to show you the ropes. I bet Curly would jump at the chance.”
But Evelyn did not look convinced. Her frown was deep and pulled at the still-healing scars on her face. “It couldn’t be anybody else,” she whispered. They sat huddled together, now, consumed by great secret. “I don’t – trust them.” A pause. She wasn’t breathing, and for a moment she looked like she might cry. “I trust you, Varric.”
Shit. Fuck. Shit. A violent tingle shot the length of Varric’s nerves, right down into the tips of his fingers. He knew when people were lying to him, usually; he knew when people were trying to warp him in their own interests. Evelyn was doing none of that. Fear rippled in her face, and Varric briefly saw the pressing shadows of loneliness around her, caged in as she was by the lashing tongues of others, their gleaming eyes and demands.
“I’m no good for you,” he tried, one last time.
To his surprised, she smiled. It wasn’t quite a grin, but there was something wolfish about it, and he caught the flash of her teeth in the fireglow. “I know.”
“You sure?”
Evelyn nodded. A strand of pale hair slid from behind her ear, and Varric reached out to tuck it back into place.
She followed him like a lamb. Said not a word the whole way. She moved quiet, hushed, like a shadow through the dark; the narrow passages of the barracks pressed in close and dark, and at times Varric would lose sight of her, and for a terrible moment wonder if she’d gotten lost. But then she would appear again, and catch his eye, and give him an almost-smile that was gone as quick as it came.
Varric’s room was a cramped low-ceilinged corner that he had, admittedly, grown quite fond of. It was small, but it was private, the floor strewn with sweet hyacinth and discarded parchment. Evelyn stooped only slightly.
“Are you a virgin?” he asked. Evelyn nodded shyly. “Ah, shit. Okay. Listen – I’m not gonna take that from you. It’s special, see, if you want it to be. Give it to someone who deserves it.” He appraised the disappointment in her face and added, quickly, “I’ll still teach you, don’t worry. But I’m not going to fuck you.”
Evelyn shuddered. Something about hearing the word spat from his mouth made her dizzy.
“Have you at least kissed before?” Varric asked, then, and was greatly relieved when she nodded. “Good. Well – might as well get out of those clothes.”
He turned his back, then, pretending to busy himself with tidying his desk, which was, admittedly, a complete mess. He didn’t need to, of course, but it would probably make the girl less self-conscious. He could hear her fumbling behind him, and desperately wanted to turn around and watch. Only when she fell silent again did he face her again.
She stood gleaming and pale in the rushlight. She was thin, but less scrawny than Varric expected. Skin marked pink from the confines of her clothes. Her hands worried in front of her, fingers clenched around each other as if she was fighting the urge to cover herself, shifting her weight from foot to foot on the cold flagstones.
“Maker’s blessed arsehole,” Varric croaked. “Look at you.” And look he did – lecherously, penetrating, just for a moment – before he beckoned her towards him. “Come here. Sit down.”
She went to him and he took her hand, smoothing a reassuring thumb over the back of it. He caught her eye and said, very lowly, “You just say the word and we’ll stop, okay? No questions asked.”
Evelyn’s lip trembled in what Varric suspected was a smile. She nodded and squeezed his hand.
It was easier to reach her like this. He’d meant for her to sit on the bed, but instead she folded herself down onto her knees beside it, putting her a little below Varric’s eye-level. He liked that. He touched a broad finger down the length of her jaw and stopped, just for a second, to consider how pretty she was. The explosion at the Conclave had fucked her face up something fierce, but he could still see how it might have been before, smooth and pale and soft. His thumb ghosted below her lips, and she tilted her chin a little to kiss the pad of it. Varric kissed her, then, fully on her mouth. She sighed and pushed up against his lips, against the coarse scrape of his stubble, her hands half-lifted from her lap as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.
Varric wanted to say something witty. He couldn’t think of anything. All ability to speak was wiped from him the moment he leaned back and saw her half-shrouded eyes, her kiss-flushed mouth, the way she breathed between her open lips. No virgin had the right to look like that, he thought.
“You really never messed around with anyone before?” he croaked, hating how much the thought did for him. He knew Evelyn was sheltered – almost obscenely so – but surely even she had dabbled in common engagements. Surely. “Not even a tumble in the dark? A quick tug? In your mouth?”
Evelyn closed her eyes and shook her head. Her lips pressed in a thin, shamed line. When she opened her eyes again they were wet and desperate. She shifted on her knees, pressing her thighs together. The movement drew Varric’s eye and he was quite suddenly aware of how fucking hard he was.
“Oh, sweet Maker,” he cursed, taking her face into both his hands and kissing her again, deeper this time. She lured his tongue into her mouth and sucked on it, and moaned, and shivered. Her hands grasped at his belt, begging without words.
“Please, Varric,” she nearly sobbed. “I’m going mad.”
He had meant to be slow, truly. He planned to sit her down, lay her back, kiss her sweet and guide her hand. Show her the pathways of her own body, too, if by some miraculous chance she had not yet travelled them herself. A handjob, maybe; he didn’t want to be the first to touch between her legs. He was a little more hazy about her mouth, though. Either way, he had decided they would not go far. He would teach her, as she had asked, and nothing more.
That was not where this was going. He strained to keep to the path – to be the better man. But Varric had never really been the better man, not by any stretch, and so it was deliciously easy to imagine pressing the girl down and sucking her soul out through her cunt, of desecrating her delicate purity, of taking.
It made it so much harder that she wanted him to.
Varric made to curse, but all he got out was a bitten-off growl. He made quick work of his belt as Evelyn’s searching hands crawled up under his shirt, spearing into the coarse hair she found there. He was still kissing her; he felt her moan rather than hear it. It was a soft, breathy little thing, and when she pulled back to breathe he kissed along the soft line of her cheek. Her neck, shivering throat; his hand fit perfectly between her jaw and shoulder, his thumb slotted up under her ear. Her hair fell from its tie at the behest of his tugging fingers, and he held her by it, pulling just a little.
She whined. Varric supposed it was meant to be his name, but the consonants were lost in the wetness of her voice.
Her fingers, then, on his breeches. Working the laces as he kissed the corner of her mouth, her eyelashes fluttering against his cheek. Her hands slipped from his shirt and dragged down the length of his body, to the powerful line of his hips, to his cock straining against the laces of his breeches. She did look, then. Her breath hitched in her throat and her fingers flinched away. Varric, breathing hard and a little more affected than he’d prefer, almost forgot his promise.
“Little spark,” he rasped, stroking the bare line of her throat. “Hey, hold on a minute – take it easy.” He gently lifted her hands away. “Slow down. Get on the bed; what’ll I tell Ruffles if you ruin your knees?”
He helped her up. Her knees trembled and he could smell her, the pungent heat between her legs. His throat thickened with it. His dick ached. She eased herself down on the bed, and Varric could see her better there – she was flushed and loosened, a delightful change from her usual neat, terrified countenance. He stroked a hand up her thigh to soothe her, and for a minute they did nothing. It let the fire settle somewhat. Varric couldn’t trust himself when the flames leapt that high.
He noticed the way her shoulders curled inwards, how she had begun to fold, as if she was ashamed.
“Having second thoughts?” Varric asked sympathetically, his hand coming to a stop by her knee. “We can call it off any time –,”
Evelyn didn’t reply so much as look at him, her eyes flashing oddly in the dim glow of the rushlights, and seize Varric’s wrist. Her fingers were so cold that he flinched. She lifted his hand to her chest, allowing his broad fingers to spread around her breast. His throat jumped. So did his cock. He squeezed firmly, feeling the nipple pebble against his palm, watching as Evelyn’s posture unfurled and press forwards against touch.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, Varric.”
She’d kill him. This – whatever it was they were doing – would kill him. He was sure of it.
Varric groped her tits with both his hands, pressing her back against the bed. She twisted her hips up, her thighs slipping wetly together. “Feel good?” he asked, amazed he could still talk at all. His tongue felt too big for his mouth.
“Yes,” Evelyn whispered. Her knees clenched together and drew upwards a little, and then melted apart all at once, her hand dipping between them. She choked on her own voice as the tips of her fingers touched the swollen folds of her sex.
Andraste’s flaming tits, Varric thought hazily. He didn’t want to look – didn’t seem right to look – but he couldn’t help it. She was neat and pink, crowned by a thatch of pale curls. It was a woman’s cunt, sure, but Varric it had to be one of the most perfect cunts Varric had ever seen, and he allowed himself a moment of grief that he wouldn’t be able to at least taste it.
“You’ve done this before?” Varric asked her, stroking his hands up and down her thighs. “Rubbed yourself off, hm?”
Evelyn flushed and nodded.
“Show me how you do it,” Varric whispered, eyes riveted to where her narrow fingers speared through the folds of her cunt. Her thumb drew back the hood over her clitoris, and it peeked out at him, pink and swollen and glistening. Maker, he wanted to put his mouth on it. Suck it until she was speaking in tongues. She rubbed it and shuddered, her thighs trembling under his hands.
He imagined her in Ostwick, hidden away with her hands under her skirts, hunched over in sweating pleasure. What a little gem.
“Varric, please, Varric,” Evelyn rasped, her hips jumping from the bed in little bursts; her fingers curled back into her palm, glistening with her own fluid, her expression contorted as if she was in great pain. “Varric –,”
“You’re close,” he laughed. The sound was parched and rough in his throat. Evelyn felt it like the pass of his hand over her skin. “No coming yet, little spark.”
Evelyn whined right from the back of her throat. And then – to Varric’s surprise – she moved. She slid from the bed like water, out from under Varric’s hands, until she sat on her hands and knees on the flagstones. Her face was right at cock-level, and Varric couldn’t even hope to hide how viciously aroused he was. He could feel her breath against his cock, even through his breeches.
“Can I?” she asked, peering up at him with those eyes of hers.
“Ah, shit. Fine. Just –,” But she was already moving, unlacing his breeches and peeling them away from him; his cock fell heavy against her fingers and he groaned, his head rolling against his shoulder. It had been a long time since his cock had felt the touch of any hand other than his own.
When Varric finally had the strength to open his eyes again, he found Evelyn holding him loosely, her face pinched with trepidation.
“Just try stroking it a little bit,” he rasped. She did, moving slowly at first, building her confidence. Then she moved faster, tighter. “Twist a little.” His voice was hardly more than a breath. “Ah, shit, that’s good.”
Evelyn paused. Varric glanced down at her just in time to watch her close her lips around his cock. Her eyes flickered. She opened her throat and sank down the length of him, her brow pinched in a way Varric might have called frantic. Hungry. Her lips were swollen and slick with spit. He wanted to kiss her, Maker, he wanted it.
“Good girl,” he rasped, petting her hair back from her face. At the touch she looked up at him, eyes wide and adoring, and Varric’s cock pulsed in her throat. He knew she felt it. His dick wasn’t as long as a human’s, sure, but it was thick enough to make her jaw creak, to make her lips sting at the corners. Her tongue trembled against the underside of his glans and he shuddered from skull to tailbone. As the friction ebbed, Evelyn’s mouth slickened by drool and Varric’s precome, she sank deeper. Deeper. Deeper, until her nose was pressed right against his pelvis and the head of his cock hit the back of her throat, made her gag and convulse on her knees. She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes watered and she held.
Varric lifted Evelyn off his cock before she could asphyxiate herself. She coughed and drooled, and when he caught her eye she looked almost possessed, lit from within by a spark that made Varric shiver.
“Varric,” she begged, wretched. Her hips twitched. “Please fuck me, please –,”
Varric slapped a hand over her mouth. It was reflexive and foolish; Evelyn’s lips parted and he slipped two thick fingers inside, gliding over her slick tongue. He couldn’t help the way he drove back just a little too far, just enough to make her flinch.
“Settle down,” he growled at her, just to see if she would. Evelyn became still, though she continued to gaze at him imploringly, dragging off his fingers with a sopping gasp. “Now, be good.”
The sternness seemed to work on her. There was some kind of current there, under all of this – Varric could taste it, acrid and sharp right at the back of his throat, as if someone had shoved a knife right up into his cranium. Something dark. Something he wasn’t seeing.
“You should go,” he warned her. “If you keep begging like that then I might have to break some promises. I don’t like breaking promises.”
Evelyn’s eyes flashed, but she said nothing. Without lifting her gaze from his, she bent down to kiss the hollow of his palm. Then she moved again, slipping from his hand and turning onto her hands and knees. She lowered her shoulders to the floor, unheeding of the winter-chilled stone, and canted her hips upwards.
Sweet Maker, Varric thought as he watched. Like this, her cunt was level with his cock, angled up towards him, begging, starving.
“Do it,” Evelyn rasped. “Varric. Please. I’ll die if you don’t.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit –
Her hips were smooth and girlish under his hands. Her skin was so delicate. He spread her open with his thumbs, all sticky and glistening. He ran the tips of his fingers up the seam of her. Maker, she was dripping, and he couldn’t help but lift his fingers to his lips and smear the taste across them. His heart pounded right in his cock. He needed his mouth on her. He needed –
The stone was rigid under his knees. Evelyn keened when his tongue found her, throwing her head back so her hair spilled bright across her back. Varric’s tongue was much like the rest of him: broad, thick, and capable. He had her shaking in minutes. She moaned wetly against the floor and when her hips finally gave out, he caught them and held them up himself. Fucked her deep with his tongue, sucked her dry, listened to her climb higher and higher until she was beyond words, beyond all thought. He did enjoy seeing her try, though.
He could feel her orgasm trembling in her abdomen, coiling tighter and tighter, ripe to snap. He drew back before it could, leaving Evelyn to stutter in protest, the little punched-out noise she made somehow managing to sound indignant.
“Tell me to stop,” he said. “Tell me to go. It’d be better for you. Less… regret.”
Evelyn glanced back at him, then, over the sharp peak of her shoulder. Her eyes flashed just like they had before. The rushlights were low, now, and their light was dimming, though she still sparkled.
“Varric,” she hissed at him.
“Maker save me,” he muttered, gripping Evelyn’s trembling hips in his hands, lining up so the very tip of his cock kissed against her folds, and fucking into her in one slow, sure stroke.
Evelyn shuddered all over. Her spine bent one way, then the other, her brow pressed to the warming stone, feverish in her pleasure. She tried to swallow around her moans, but it was little use; they sluiced from her.
How splendid she looked like this, Varric thought with what little faculty remained; unravelled as a spool of thread at the mercy of cats. Taken apart and throw about his room. The air stank of her, stank of them both. Maker, how long had it been since he’d –
It was easy, like this, to fuck her. The position was perfect for him to lever through his powerful thighs, powerful hips, powerful arms holding her down against the floor. What a mess she was, now. How beautiful. Sparkling with sweat, her voice driven so high it was almost silent, her fingers burning with a force she couldn’t control. For a brief moment Varric wanted her to lose it. He wanted to see her explode like she used to before Solas taught her how to control it. Like she still did, sometimes, when she was afraid or upset or angry. Fearsome, violent arcs of magic that burst from all parts of her, ignited by any and all agitation. What a sight it was, he thought. How much he’d love to see it again, even if he got fried dick-first in the process.
Evelyn popped and crackled. She clenched her fists and her teeth and stretched out on her long, shaking legs, toes burning, to push back against him. With one hand anchored to the middle of her spine, Varric leaned over her as best he could and cupped her chin with his other hand, guiding her body into the taut arch of a drawn bow. The position drove his cock right down behind her pubic bone, and he watched as her eyes rolled in their sockets. He kissed her open mouth; she didn’t kiss back. Couldn’t remember how.
“Come on, Sparky,” he huffed in her ear. Maker, he was close. There was too much of her all at once, a charge than ran just beneath the surface, a tearing current hidden by the still. He’d dipped in too far. She had him. Maker, she had him. “I wanna see you cream all over my cock.”
That did her. His voice, haggard and rasping and pitched so low, drove deeper than any cock ever could, piercing her from cunt to cranium, and she fell apart. Shaking, she came violently as Varric fucked as deep and hard as he could, and the room was illuminated by a brief flash of violet. The shock of it coursed the length of her body and into his, and it very nearly kicked him over the edge. But Varric was never easily moved, and now was no different – he had paced himself for the sole purpose of watching her come, and, oh, how delicious were his desserts.
Evelyn did not lie there like a dead thing. He expected her to, but, possessed, she rose onto still-trembling limbs and crawled across the damp floor, dragging Varric’s cock from her body. The wet cold of the air was unpleasant, but was quickly remedied when Evelyn turned herself around and replaced her cunt with her mouth, her high brow and cheeks shining with sweat. He held her face with a little more force than he could forgive himself for, guiding her sweet mouth up and down his length. She raised her eyes, dark and clouded with lingering pleasure, and –
Varric, quite helplessly, came all over her face. Her sweet, scarred face. Smeared against her lips, against her teeth, spilling a little in her mouth as she opened it to gasp. It clung pearly to her eyelashes and she chased his release with her tongue, far more eager than she had any right to be, in Varric’s opinion; she got the last of it in her mouth, and licked from her face whatever her tongue could reach.
Varric caught himself on the bed, easing himself down to sit before he could collapse. Maker, he hadn’t felt this weak at the knees since… well, a very long time. He was so used to being his own lover, stewing in his loneliness, and yet –
Evelyn was still shaking, but she was smiling. Rueful.
“You’re a good actor, Sparky,” Varric rasped when he finally recovered his ability to speak. “Had me in the first half, I can’t lie.”
Evelyn licked her teeth and sat back on her heels, peeling the sticky hair away from her face. He took the chance to appraise her: pale body mottled pink and red by the passage of his hands, a memory that would linger for hours, if not days. Her face, bright with cooling sweat and his spend, which she smeared greedily towards her mouth while somehow managing to seem shy about it. Her knees and hands and elbows, all chafed raw.
“I’m sorry,” she said, quiet but still smiling. “I thought it would be – fun. I knew you’d catch on eventually. I counted on it. You wouldn’t have fucked me if you didn’t.”
Varric beckoned her up onto the bed. Seeing her on the naked stone made his knees smart in sympathy. She folded herself in beside him, not quite close enough to be intimate, but close enough that he could feel the warmth of her, the tickle of her hair against his side. He stroked the back of her neck in the silence that followed, and for a little while she allowed herself to grow drowsy. Varric, of all people, understood her need for that tenderness. For… this, whatever it was. She’d been hurting for a long time. She’d been alone. They both had.
“So who was the lucky sod?” Varric asked her. Evelyn laughed through her nose.
“A stable boy in Ostwick,” she confessed, passing her hand across her eyes at the memory. “It seems so long ago, now.”
Varric’s laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “Not a good lay, then?”
“Not especially. I don’t really remember much else other than it being tepid and… sticky.”
Varric couldn’t help it. He laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed, and then she was laughing, too, and he realised it was the first time he’d seen her grin like that. She smiled widely and with all her teeth, and her cheeks dimpled just a little, visible in only the right light. He couldn’t help it. He laughed, and he kissed her soundly on the mouth.