Chapter Text
There were three things soldiers wanted on liberty: alcohol, women, and a good time.
Any one of those three could easily cause trouble. And if there was one thing Sergeant Varric Tethras hated, it was waking up early on a Saturday, nursing a hangover, to find out that one (or several) of his men were in the brig.
So he sat in a dark corner, the only occupant of his small table, hunched over his warm, bitter beer. He was watching the kids. Someone had to.
His eyes flickered around the bar, nodding approvingly. His men were well on their way to being shit-faced, and had attracted quite a crowd of ladies. He snorted into his beer. Half of them had just come off the farm and had been no closer to a woman than the pin-ups in the barracks. But that didn’t stop them from trying.
They were awkward as shit.
Still, it was pretty hard not to look good in a uniform. And…they had money. And cigarettes. And chocolate. And they were here, unlike those poor British bastards who had already been fighting for three years.
He hoped his men had fun. This might be the last chance they would get for a while.
Or forever.
He winced at the unbidden thought, rolled it around in his mind with a sense of unease that he couldn’t entirely dismiss.
Something big was going down soon. The invasion. He heard the murmurings, could feel it in the air. After fifteen years in the army, he had developed something of a sixth sense.
He scrubbed a hand across his face, the stubble that had already grown there from this morning grazing his palm.. He’d thought about shaving again before he came out, but then figured why bother?
He reached into his shirt pocket for his Lucky Strikes, more out of force of habit then anything else. He tapped the pack against his fingers absent-mindedly, one two three, as he always did before he got out a cigarette.
Then…
“You are sitting at my table,” an accented contralto announced from beside him, her annoyed tone interrupting his train of thought.
Varric looked up. And up.
Shit, the woman was all legs. Not from around here, either. She was beautiful, with almond eyes, tanned skin, hair rich and black and glossy, pulled back in a braid that circled her head.
Her uniform proclaimed her a nurse.
Maybe she was from one of the colonies? It was hard to tell, especially with the war going on.
Varric made a show of looking her up and down, then calmly took out a cigarette and lit it. He took a long draw, relaxing as he held it in his lungs, and then blew his smoke in her general direction.
“Tables ain’t got no names on ‘em, darlin’,” he drawled, exaggerating his Texas accent.
He knew it would annoy her. The angular lines of her body, her eyes that took him in at a glance, her sturdy, competent hands…they all proclaimed her a no-nonsense women, too impatient to have any time for the likes of him.
He saw her draw in a breath, her chest expanding impressively, no doubt about to give him a tongue-lashing that would do a battalion sergeant major proud, probably casting aspersions on Yanks in general and him in particular.
“Didn’t say we couldn’t share it, though,” he said, before she could speak, nudging the other chair at the small table out with his foot.
He liked a challenge. And unlike the fresh-faced peaches-and-cream misses gathered around the bar, this woman was intriguing.
He smiled winningly, the smile that had worked on women from three separate continents, and more states than he could count.
She frowned.
The woman made no move to sit down, a look of disgust replacing her previous exasperated expression.
“Ugh,” she said, lip curling.
But she hadn’t moved, either.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “I just didn’t want to get a crick in my neck talking to you. You’re kind of tall, you know?”
“I know.” There was a dangerous edge to her voice, as if she was challenging him to say something more about her her height.
He sighed dramatically. “Guess to be a gentleman, I’ll have to stand up.” He took a long drag on his cigarette, planted his hands on the table and pushed himself up and—got an eyeful of her chest.
He stared for half-a-second too long, and wrenched his eyes away before he could be slapped, then looked up at her.
She quirked a perfectly manicured eyebrow at him.
He was short. He knew it. Army said he was five feet, and that might’ve been a little generous. So he was used to it. But this woman was tall by anyone’s standard.
“This is no better,” he complained. He looked around mournfully. “I guess I could stand on my chair.”
The corners of her lips quirked. “I would like to see you do that.”
“Or...” he said, trying out his winning smile again, “You could take pity on me and have a seat.” He gestured to the opposite chair once more.
She sat, gracefully, then looked surprised at herself for doing so, brow furrowing in consternation.
“I don’t usually do this,” she said, perhaps more to herself than him.
“What’s that? Have a good time?” He grinned.
He had meant it as a joke, but she nodded. “It has been a hard day.” Then her lips twisted. “A hard year.”
“You work at the hospital in town?”
She nodded again.
Varric winced, sobering.
A lot of the casualties were evacuated here to recover…or not. He had sometimes seen the patients, the better ones, out in town. A few soldiers with what they called million-dollar injuries: just bad enough to get evacuated, but nothing they would bear permanent injury from. A lot more with mangled and missing limbs, disfiguring burns, lost eyesight…unlucky SOBs in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He rubbed his forehead. The laughter and the shouts from the rest of the bar—pub—whatever they called it—washed over him, breaking over the table where they sat, threatening to pull him under and drown him.
He took another drag from his cigarette to soothe his jangled nerves.
“Want to get out of here?” he asked. He had thought it, not meant to say it. Everything was just too much all of a sudden. All of it. He needed some air.
But it came out wrong, and now she would assume—he winced. Now he would get slapped.
Her eyes widened slightly, and he braced for the blow he knew was coming.
But something surprising happened. She looked at him, eyes searching his. He forced himself to meet her gaze, flushing under her scrutiny. A long silence passed between them.
“I didn't mean—” he started at the same time she looked at him and said, simply, “Yes.”
His jaw dropped.
But then, he nodded.
Something big was coming.
She had had a bad year.
Varric lifted his glass, and drained the remaining dark brew in one long gulp. He fished in his pockets for coins, trying to work out the shillings and pence, then muttered, “Screw it,” under his breath and left all the change in his pockets on the table.
“Come on,” the woman said, rising to her feet, and grasping his hand.
It wasn’t romantic.
It was desperate—hands fumbling for each others’ clothes, lips frantic on each other in the stillness, small noises that hurried them on, fingertips that searched for ways of forgetting the past, and the future.
He tried to slow down. For her, and the tickle in the back of his mind that registered gasps of surprise intermingled with pleasure, passion with shyness, and awkward, untutored touches that still set his skin on fire.
But every time he drew back and would take his time, her hands, her lips, her thighs all urged him on, and damn, it had been too long.
She was ready for him, and when they came together, it was in a frenzy of barely-controlled lust that took his breath away. He was frantic and ungentle, chasing forgetfulness in her body. The bed moved in increasingly desperate groans with them until it was too much, and he spilled himself in her like a green schoolboy, collapsing on her in a puddle of hot, sticky sweat, chest heaving, completely sated.
He came back to himself only slowly. She held him even now, her body still yielding to him, her arms wrapped around him tightly, hands cradling the back of his head, twining in his hair.
He stirred, and she released him as he pulled himself out of her with a groan and shifted to the side, removing his weight from her. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No.”
“Good.” He exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and trailed his fingers down her body, intent on bringing her to the pleasure he knew she hadn't had in his eagerness.
He had just ghosted his fingers over her swollen flesh when she pushed his hand away. “You don't need to try,” she said.
He was surprised. “Darlin’, I just want to give you—“
“I’m fine,” she repeated more firmly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Just…” Her voice trailed off. “Just hold me, please.” The voice was soft, pleading, and not what he expected.
“Of course,” he said, slipping his arm around her, and wondering what sadness troubled her, but too much of a stranger to know, or to ask.
So he held her, in the narrow bed that was barely big enough for the two of them, leaning back against the hard headboard as he waited in the silence for the sweat to cool from his body.
As his breathing evened out, he fumbled on the night table for a cigarette and handed one to her before getting one for himself. He lit them, the orange-red embers glowing in the room, tiny pinpricks of light in the darkness.
Just his light, and hers, and the smell of smoke.
She idly rubbed circles with her fingernail onto his chest, tickling the hair there.
“I’m Varric,” he said finally. They should know each other’s names, if nothing else.
“Cassandra,” she returned.
Cassandra. It wasn’t a pretty name, or a common one, but…Cassandra. It was a name well-suited to the tall, stately woman with the hidden sense of humor she kept locked behind her dark, unreadable eyes.
He thought about asking her a number of things. Where she was from, what she did at the hospital, if she had someone…before. Before all this.
But in the end, he didn’t. She was here now, and that was enough for today.
He buried his nose in her hair and smelled lilacs, and squeezed her closer to him.
He woke up early the next morning, and gathered his scattered clothing from the floor in the semi-darkness.
He knotted his tie, and lifted the blackout curtain just enough to peer out the window. A fine, misty rain was falling, just hard enough to well and truly soak his wool uniform before he made it back to the barracks.
He thought of Texas and the long, hot summers, and the sun and the mesquite trees, and not for the first time, missed home.
He sighed, and adjusted his tie for the final time, before picking his garrison cap up. He turned back to look at the bed, and saw amber eyes following him across the room.
“I gotta go, darlin’,” he said, retreating into his drawl.
She nodded, and he stood there awkwardly for a minute, before turning to the door.
But he had only taken a few steps before he turned around again.
“Cassandra, I—I would like to see you again. If you would too, I mean.” His voice cracked, and he wondered why he was so nervous.
He didn’t usually do this, that was true. Romantic entanglements weren’t his thing—not that his infrequent lovers had anything to complaint about. He never made promises, and the women he was with didn’t want them. Usually, he’d leave without looking back. But there was something about her—something about Cassandra—that he wanted to get to know better. The prospect of leaving and never seeing her again struck him not with relief, but with regret.
There was a long pause as she looked at him, then sat up, pulling the covers around her. She hadn’t taken her hair down last night, and now some of it fell in soft tendrils around her face and down her neck. Just above the blankets, on her chest, hovered the small pink marks that told of yesterday evening.
She looked like nothing so much as a ravished Madonna.
“Varric,” she said carefully, as if tasting something unpleasant on her tongue.
His heart dropped.
She looked him in the eye, with the hauteur of a marble statue, and said, her words chipped from ice, “The events of last night notwithstanding, I have no intention of being at your…disposal…while you are here.”
Shit. That wasn’t what he meant at all. He scrambled, looking for the right words. “No,” he said emphatically, his voice over-loud in the small room. He winced. “No,” he said again, moderating his voice, “Just seeing you. Not like this—I mean—just you. Talking, dancing, whatever you’d like. I’d like to get to know you. For however long we have.”
Her face did soften a fraction at that, though it didn’t thaw completely. “Thank you, Mr.—“ and then she broke off, frowning slightly when she realized she didn’t know his last name.
“Thank you, Varric,” she said. “But I think we both know last night was a mistake. I do not do... these types of things,” she said, picking her words carefully. She paused, clutching the bedsheets tighter to her chest, a flicker of realization in her eyes. “You have no way of knowing that, of course,” she said wryly. “But I do not.”
The corner of his lip quirked up. Cassandra had a sense of humor, as he had suspected last night. It was a droll thing, quick to point out absurdities, against herself or others.
It was a rare quality, and one he admired.
“I know you’re not going take my word for it, ma’am,” he said, retreating to formality to put her more at ease, “but it’s not really something I do, either. Kinda unusual times we’re living in, though.”
“Yes.” Her voice was soft. “It is. But still—it was a mistake. Something I truly regret. It would be easier,” she swallowed, “if we didn’t see each other again.”
He felt a sting. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but he closed his eyes against it for a second, for the flicker of pain that it brought with it.
“If that’s what you want,” he said dully.
“Yes. That would be for the best, I think.”
He would have tried once more if he had heard a note of sadness, or uncertainty, or anything, really. Anything except for the calm consideration she dismissed him with.
And he was dismissed, no doubt about it. Whatever he saw in her, she didn’t see in him.
He bowed his head, jammed his garrison cap on, walked out the door, and presumably, out of her life.