sixthiterationlogs | i put away enough irish whiskey to fill the river styx.

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i put away enough irish whiskey to fill the river styx.

WHO: Reyes Vidal
WHERE: Their house
WHEN: Early February /handwaves
OPEN TO: Marian Hawke
WARNINGS: Nothing for now

Reyes’ eventual return from the hike meant trudging exhausted back into the village with a few scrapes from the black foxes, only to find a house warmly glowing with electricity waiting for him: lights, a stove, a fridge. Like some kind of consolation prize for having made it back in one piece.

Somehow, that makes him even more furious.

He faceplants into bed, with the loneliness and quiet of the house pressing against his eardrums — which is about the point when he realises that in addition to missing the hum of a station or ship or colony’s generators, now he also misses the sounds of Hawke puttering around the house. Fuck’s sake.

Once she makes it home safe too, though, it’s back to their regular schedule, like two satellites gently orbiting each other — she’s up early, he sleeps in, their schedules intersect for hunting, and Hawke seems to have a bee in her bonnet, since she’s out scouring the village for something. But a few days in, they’ve resumed something next to normal (although he sleeps with a dagger close to hand now).

Until the night Hawke storms in carrying a bottle of booze. Reyes looks up, startled. He’s in the well-lit living room, a chessboard laid out in front of him that he’s been slowly chipping away at with a solo game. For all that the man loves parties, she’s also learnt that her housemate often prefers his own company, and retreats to solitary pursuits when he needs to recharge.

“Everything alright?” he asks. There’s that immediate flicker of paranoia, the kind he’d never experienced before but now knows intimately: what’ve the Observers done now?

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And trust Hawke, of course, to hit the nail on its head and root out the exact detail he'd been skirting and semi-hoping he could omit. It means that this conversation isn't a cathartic venting, let's compare notes on our terrible exes; but rather a baring and laying-out the things that both hurt them. Possible mistakes, metaphorical beds they'd made and then had to lie in. The corners they'd backed themselves into.

With a lot of people, he might have lied. Might have spun the whole tale to make himself sound as good as possible, as blameless. But Hawke deserves the truth, potentially ugly as it is.

"I did," Reyes says. He admits. "She wasn't a city guard, but she was... something called a Pathfinder, for the entire human species in our colonisation initiative. They're representatives. Leaders of a sort, though they'd already exiled the people in Kadara, kicked them out to fend for themselves. But Sloane still called her in as backup. Trusted Ryder would be fair and removed from the power plays between criminals, not knowing that she wasn't. Probably Ryder's equivalent of having to make one shitty decision versus another shittier decision."

It was messy. Love was messy, and so was war.

"I think it worked out in the end -- Kadara was like your Kirkwall to me, my new home, the place I wanted to succeed above all else. I hated seeing what was happening to it. I made mistakes, and I wish it could have been cleaner; pretty sure I fucked up in not trusting her earlier. Can't pretend it's the same situation as yours, and I'm not trying to. I'm just--" God, he'd joined her in drunkenness, and why the hell had he started talking about this? "I think I'm just trying to say, we've all made mistakes, and hindsight is 20/20, and I understand being a mess over how things went down with someone."

Hawke did bristle just a little at the start; her instinct, and her rational mind started to file that down as a stop trusting Reyes fact. Except she metaphorically punted the rational fact out of the way, because no. If she spent all her time distrusting people because they fucked up in their life, she'd be a lone wolf, and she hated that. There was a vast difference in what he was doing, and what Anders was doing, because Reyes at least seemed to have regrets. Regrets that Anders showed no actual interest in. Only more excuses for why he was right.

Hawke moves over on the floor to sit next to him instead, decision made, and she doesn't particularly care if she'll have regrets. Twice bitten by lying exes and here she still is, like a fucking idiot. Oh well. She finds his hand with hers and laces their fingers together. It's way too intimate of a gesture and a setting for her comfort level, but she's also drunk and they've both poured their hearts out so she'll let herself be weak for now.

"Well if she shows up here looking for revenge, she'll still have to go through me. Because I have a feeling you'd be shite about fighting back in that case." Hawke does declare her loyalties fairly fast; all of her friends were 'chosen' by her and fiercely defended within a short time of meeting. The same has been true here.

"You fucked up, Reyes. I can't absolve you of that. I hope if you ever get to see her again, maybe she will." Hawke sighs and rubs her free hand through her messy hair. "If he was sorry and said all the things I wanted to hear, I'd probably forgive him." She gazes at the fire place. "Anne said she moved on from Eddie within a year because she couldn't sit around waiting for him, something like that, and I couldn't imagine going from engaged to that. It's been years and I still am emotional about him. What does that say about me?" She smiles sadly. "Outside of obviously being pathetic as fuck."

Something tightly-wound within him finally unclenches when Hawke takes her seat at his side and takes his hand, a sign that she's made up her mind and he isn't out in the doghouse. Reyes' shoulders loosen. For all that he purposefully projects the air of a languorous cat, he's almost never properly relaxed; there's a kind of perpetual wary tension as an undercurrent to everything Reyes says and does. But the closest he's come so far is in this house, with his friend. The warmth of her hand, the companionable bump of her shoulder against his.

"And if Anders comes back again, and is still an unrepentant shit about his act of actual terrorism, then I'll fling a boulder at him from my glass house. Pact?"

Her mention of Anne's ex-fiancee -- who's actually here in the village, speaking of people running into baggage from their past -- makes Reyes huff a dry laugh. Only half-amused. "I couldn't imagine being engaged, period. Not sure what this all says about anyone. We're all pathetic in different ways, I suppose."

Hawke surrounds herself with people with baggage, people who have reasons to stay guarded. It's almost the reason her group became so special. Here were a bunch of troubled, guarded dangerous folks who decided to love and trust each other despite their better judgment. And yes, it burned them, but she can't really see a way to regret loving those people or living the way they did. Regrets for not seeing Anders sooner, absolutely, but would she take back their little family just because it turned to shit? No. Never.

Hawke snort-laughs. "He's without magic here, he'd have no idea what to do without it. He'd be very easy to fling about." She was very tempted. Especially when he kept on being him and holding steady to his position. But harming him is simply not an option she can live with. "I think what made me angriest when I dragged him out of that bloody fountain, for whatever reason, was him assuming I executed him. And I know why, I was supposed to, everyone wanted me to. It probably was the thing to do." People were executed for far less, and at that moment, she was the authority of the city. "But maybe he never knew me that well, because I could never kill someone I love in cold blood. In a fight, maybe, but just sitting there waiting for it?" Ugh. Stupid Anders.

She sighs, putting her head on his shoulder. "I thought about marrying him. Not having kids, I never wanted any kids, but I don't know, it was a ridiculous thought." Hawke isn't sure when she'll be over it entirely. Maybe never. Over him, for sure, but over that level of betrayal and loss, that's a harder pill to swallow. "By the time I died I think I was just ready. It wasn't a suicidal impulse, but you outrun death every day for your bloody life, eventually you're ready for it." Hawke jokes about her death, she mentions it off-hand, this is the first time she brought it up with more sincerity.

It had been easy, almost, to pretend that Hawke's death had been clean. It's been simpler that way. She's described her past adventures, the reckless abandon and the absurd situations they'd gotten into (demons! giant spiders), and it's almost a miracle her party did survive that long. He'd always half-assumed that her inevitable death must have happened in a battle, bad luck finally running out and catching up to her. But.

Shit.

It's chilling, trying to imagine being that utterly ground-down. His hands splays across her arm beside him, and he can feel her pulse beneath his fingertips.

"You must've been so fucking tired," he says quietly. "To have reached that point."

She laughs. Or it sounds like a laugh, comes out like a laugh, but lacks amusement. Hawke moves her arm around, almost instinctively understanding what he's searching for. She's done a great job of not thinking too much about the details, because it's death, it's done, she's breathing for the moment so that's what matters. But it wasn't that simple in the least, and that's likely why she avoided it.

"I lost my mother not too long before our lives destructed, it was my fault. I didn't pay attention, I missed clues, she was taken by a serial killer mage, trying to construct a woman made of many parts." So basically, it was as horrific as that sounds. Hawke still sees it clear as day. One more thing she wasn't fast enough for, smart enough for. "But I still had my city, my sister, my friends, Anders." So she kept moving, kept existing, and that guilt never left but it got more tolerable.

"I lost all of it, that day. My sister's a mage, she had to go on the run, we all split up, I was living on the roads." The people who meant everything to her, who she breathed and existed for, were gone. She was alone. "I kept fighting where I could, but fucking Corypheus." Hawke hasn't actually gone this far in her explanation of things, because it's not fun or funny. Maybe referencing the giant monster she went up against, laughing boldly about it, but the details, no. "My fault, again, I didn't finish him when I should have, and now he was trying to destroy everything. I chose to stay behind in the Fade and buy them time to get out, because that's the only way he would be stopped. I could have gotten out and let someone else die, he offered, but ...."

She was just so tired. And so many things were her fault, were adding up on top of the pile of reasons the world was better off without her. So they got out and she helped save the world, grand, but it wouldn't guarantee her seeing the others, it wouldn't guarantee her ever getting a life she wanted. "Not everyone gets to choose, honestly. Fighting until I died was aways going to be my end. So I just picked when."

Edited 2019-03-07 01:26 (UTC)

A painful twinge in his chest, hearing all this. The gruesome details that she'd always glossed over until now, laughed off and handwaved away, and instinctively skirted (an instinct he knows well). But a serial killer assembling women from fucking parts?

Somehow, the life of a criminal kingpin pales in comparison. He'd seen ugly things in his line of work, seen horrors and wonders in the Heleus cluster as well, but somehow they haven't had that particularly dark, morbid touch that's haunted Hawke's life. The hardened criminals in Reyes' life knew what they were getting into; they hadn't been plunged into it like her mother or sister.

Self-sacrificing yourself for others -- something he doubts he would ever, ever do. She's a better and nobler person than he could ever be. He knows he probably doesn't deserve to warm her bed, but he's the one that's here right now.

And Reyes is mulling over her words, chewing over something that bothers him about them. "You keep saying 'my fault', Hawke, but from all I've ever heard about your adventures it's been a group effort. How is it when you all succeed, it's a team win, but you shoulder the blame when something goes wrong? Shit just... goes wrong, sometimes. You can't avoid it forever, can't plan for every single eventuality. Believe me, I've tried."

Hawke often joked (she always jokes) that if she didn't learn to laugh at her life it would be a non-stop misery train of sadness. It still was that, of course, but laughing kept her from lying in a puddle on the floor until she wasted away. It was a miracle when she had those years in Kirkwall, happy for such a bright spot, and it was worse, in some ways, to have it and lose it. She wishes even now she could laugh, joke, take away the tension, not be this pathetic mess leaning on him. She usually only allowed Varric and sometimes Isabela to see her this way. Even with Anders she tried to be a certain way. Reyes filled that gap the two of them had, between best friend and lover.

"Because I am the leader. It isn't something I chose, but I accepted. And the leader is responsible for what their people do, and what is missed." Hawke seems firm in this belief. She rarely admits to how serious she took that position, she laughed about being the Champion and how ridiculous the title was, except she cared very, very much about being the Champion if someone had to be.

"I dealt with leaders of their own sects, bloody Meredith and Orsino." So much anger suddenly attached to those two names in particular. "Were Templars and Mages under them responsible for their own actions too, yes, but they were held accountable for their people." She held them accountable. They held her the same way. "When Isabela stole from the qunari and they tried to take over the city, she was responsible, yes, but I am the one that dueled the Arishok. When Anders destroyed the city's peace, I had to pick who to fight for and lead the charge against."

It was exhausting and guilt-ridden and nothing was ever good enough.

As she describes her negotiations with the city leaders, the realisation is starting to slowly, horrifyingly dawn on him: he is so fucking predictable.

The two women are different in their specifics, but the broad strokes are oddly similar: Ryder had been shoved into that role too, wrangling the Initiative and the exiles and the angaran resistance, juggling all the various ingredients that had been tossed into the pot and left to simmer and stew. Leaders who hadn't expected to be leaders. Who piled too much onto their shoulders.

Reyes exhales, and tries not to look too closely at that thought. "How do you feel now?" he asks, his voice low against Hawke's hair; normally it would have been seductive except that today it's just gentle, intimate. "Now that you're here. Away from all that, the politics, the mages, the life-or-death questions. Or -- well, we do still have them here, but on a smaller scale."

Hawke either hated or loved the position she was in. Most of the time hated, but there was no doubting that she chose it. She could walk away at any time or refuse to follow requests, stop walking around Kirkwall and solving all their little problems. But she couldn't seem to. She's just glad the Inquisition didn't really get a hold of her like they wanted. The last thing she needed was to become another terribly chosen savior.

The voice by her ear does make her shiver a little, because well, his voice is always going to be sexy, and she also is hastily reminded how much of herself she's actually given him tonight. He's under her guard, and it's not because she's drunk, she could have gotten drunk with anyone. With the Anders situation so fresh, she should be more careful, but she craves this all the same. It's not a question she's considered honestly. She keeps surviving, that's all she puts her mind to. She helps the village. She teaches other people how to survive as well. She doesn't think much, and feel even less.

"If I could get my friends here, it would be the perfect afterlife. But it's probably wrong, wishing them stuck here, and I can't stop all the same. I'm bloody selfish. I miss them so fucking much." Hawke speaks often about her friends. Varric and his stories, Isabela and her sultry feistiness, Merrill and her shy sweetness, Fenris and his incapability of smiling, Aveline and her poor long suffering authority, her darling and dear sister, and yes, fuck, Anders just a little, the Anders he was before it was tainted.

Hawke picks her head up slightly and leans it back, looking at him. His gorgeous jawline, that hair that always screams touch me please, and she's stupid, stupid, stupid. She feels something stirring up from her heart or her gut or maybe both that's like burning poisonously through her system and she's pretty sure it's not her getting sick but who knows. "You're so pretty," is what she blurts out instead of other things she's thinking, because well, yeah that works too.

That little outburst makes him laugh, and she can feel it thrumming through his chest beside her. "You're very pretty too," Reyes says, and while it might sound obliging, humouring, he reveals the underlying gentleness by tipping Hawke's chin up with his hand and kissing her. The liquor they've been drinking burns on her tongue and his alike, a pleasant sting. She tastes of bad decisions. (Bad decisions that have somehow become good ones. Maybe.)

"Thank you," he adds a moment later; and it's not clear, exactly, whether he's referring to the goofy compliment or everything about this: accepting him. Not shoving him aside, as soon as he'd revealed his true stripes to the first person who wasn't his companions at the shrine, who'd seen his betrayal play out first-hand.

Most likely a mix of all the above.

Hawke returns the kiss and she's glad her drunken series of confessions and whining didn't put him off, because seducing him again would take more energy than she has at the moment if it did. Because she wouldn't give up on getting it back, of course. No, he's been claimed as one of hers now, whatever way that shows itself. The kiss is nice, almost sweet, and she sort of just lets it be. It's been a bad day.

"Thank me? Thank you. I'm the one who threw unnecessary drama and backstory at you out of no where." She usually is stronger than that, but that's the thing about having a housemate. Typically when Hawke went home in the past, she could wallow in self-hate and sadness all on her lonesome. If she felt like crawling up the stairs without talking to him, she probably could have, but oh well.

"I'm too drunk to thank you properly." She smiles, kissing him again, lightly. "But if you take me to bed, I'll show you my appreciation in the morning."

[Maybe a last tag from you? or we can assume he says yes lol.]

"Wellll, I was planning on finishing this scintillating chess game by myself, so I don't know..." He looks mock-longingly at the in-progress board over by the coffee table. When Hawke shoves his shoulder, he laughs again. "It's late. I'm tired. Bed sounds great."

Reyes stands up and tugs her to her feet; they're both shaky, but he's a shade more sober and steadier as he walks, and so it's the easiest thing in the world for Hawke to drape herself over him as if they just can't stop touching each other, a reassuring little confirmation that the other person is still there, still present. He'd have carried her if there weren't the stairs to contend with -- as things stand, though, they wander off together arm-in-arm. By some implicit understanding, they crash in her bedroom. He's been spending more nights there than his own bed lately, but that's a problem to examine some other day.

Right now, he's happy for the company. It beats his own empty bed, and it beats cold camping on cold ground.

When they flick off the bedroom light (which is electric now, an actual lightbulb with electricity), it even feels like a kind of normalcy.

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i put away enough irish whiskey to fill the river styx.

help, this whole scene

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& closed ♥