"Friends" With Complications

Title: "Friends" With Complications

Series: Dragon Age

Characters: F!Hawke, Carver Hawke

Words: 3,850

Summary: Follows Coming Home and A Lesson in Change. On his second night back in Kirkwall, Carver has dinner with his sister and nephew so he can talk to her. He has a bit of an ulterior motive for his talk though...one which involves the unofficial Knight-Commander of the Gallows.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Carver leaned back in his chair as he watched his sister usher her sleepy-eyed son out of the main area of their Gallows quarters. He found it terribly amusing that his sister had ranked one of the rooms in the Templar wing but it made sense. None of the mage quarters were suitable living space for a woman and a child, not even those of the First Enchanter.

He didn’t even question why she wasn’t living in the Hightown estate. After Mother had died, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to walk within ten feet of the door. Then there was the fact that Anders had lived there with her for three or four years. Now he could imagine that she too walked that wide berth around the entrance to the home that held so much sorrow.

Sighing, Carver pushed aside the darker thoughts, recalling instead Mathis’ bright questions during dinner. The boy had been all eagerness for whatever stories he could pry out of the man he’d known of but never met in his short life. Starkhaven was a mysterious beyond for a five year-old and he turned into a proper doting uncle as he put forth a series of tall tales about the city that would have made Varric proud.

The Starkhaven he’d known, had fought in, had shed blood in was nothing as glamorous as the picture he’d painted. Mathis was too young for the truth of his years of his uncle’s absence, however, and Carver had had fun coming up with happier outcomes of his trials there.

A soft cough interrupted his thoughts and he looked up to see Treva standing next to the now closed door that led to Mathis’ room. She then moved across the floor and he followed her with his eyes, eyebrows arching when she returned to the table with two short glasses and a bottle that bore a familiar label. Years spent in the Hanged Man and in Isabela’s company had not just given him knowledge of Rivaini curses but various types of alcohol.

“Nevarran whiskey?” prodded Carver even as he reached across the table to take the glass as the liquid filled it. “Really, sister?”

Treva chuckled and sank into her seat as she lifted her glass to her lips. “You’re not the only one who hung around Isabela half the time to taste the liquor,” she quipped slyly. That made him laugh and then they both leaned towards each other to touch their glasses in a silent toast.

For a long moment they both simply sat and drank then she sat her glass down. Her eyes remained on it for seconds that felt like they stretched into hours and Carver let her have them. Then that blue gaze so similar to his own looked up and he dropped his glass down to rest on the table as well.

“I know you came by tonight to talk.”

Carver shrugged then said airily, “Maybe I just came by to apologize for Marin. After so long in Starkhaven I forgot he always was a stickler for the rules.”

Treva snorted loudly at that and cocked her head to the side, fingers rapping an impatient staccato against the table top. “Please, little brother,” she chided, “don’t think five years of not seeing each other has lessened my ability to read you. I saw that look on your face when Cullen and I left together. And when he got me to leave.”

He ignored the jibe at being easy to read – he knew now that he always had been and didn’t take offense. Also ignoring the mention of his look, he said, “It was surprising that you agreed to stop handing Marin his ass.”

An arched eyebrow was all that answered him and Carver groaned mentally. His sister had always excelled in the waiting game, letting the person she wanted answers out of just stew in wondering until they told her exactly what she wanted to know. He’d been a victim of it since he’d learned how to string sentences together.

Sighing, he leaned forward to brace his elbows on the table and stared at her.

“Fine,” he growled, “I’ll just get out with it.”

“Good, you know how I hate to let things fester.”

Even years later Carver still flinched at the jibe referring to how he’d acted towards her before and after arriving in Kirkwall. He pushed past it, breathing heavily through his nose, and jabbed, “Are you sleeping with the Commander?”

Treva pursed her lips for a moment as if in thought then smiled as she asked, “What did he tell you?” Because he was her brother and she knew him well enough to know that he’d go all over-protective on anyone she liked. He’d done it with Anders the first time he noticed the ex-Warden giving her longing looks one night at the Hanged Man.

It had been annoying but it had served to remind both of them that they were still family no matter what was between them at one time or another.

“He told me you were friends.”

“Then that’s what we are.”

Carver scowled at that and picked up his glass, gesturing with it towards her before he down the rest of the whiskey. As it burned down his throat, he growled, “I was watching him when he said it, Treva. After dealing with Anders and watching Fenris pine for you, I know how a man looks when he feels something for a woman. Maker’s nuts, I hung around Isabela enough to learn it from her various conquests.”

Her gaze dropped then, turning to her glass as she spun it idly. Then she sighed, shoulders slumping, and grumbled, “It’s…complicated, Carver.”

“Complicated,” he repeated in a flat voice.

Treva’s gaze flashed up to meet his at that, fire and anger there as she snapped at him. “You’ve been a templar for a long time now, known him for longer. Don’t you dare tell me that you haven’t heard the stories swirling around the Gallows about what he went through in Ferelden.”

Oh, he had heard every story and more but he’d treated them with the same dash of disbelief that he used on all of Varric’s stories. The initiate barracks was as much a rumor mill as a noblewoman’s sewing circle so he’d heard it all and more about the ‘unstable’ Knight-Captain. Of how Cullen hated mages. How he’d killed several back in the Ferelden Circle and that was why Knight-Commander Greagoir had sent him to Kirkwall. His once crush on a mage under his charge that had been sent to Aeonar for aiding a blood mage in escaping the Tower. They were only story and rumor, though, and he’d spent enough time around Varric to know better than to believe anything that didn’t come from the mabari’s mouth.

And he’d never been close enough to Cullen to ask about something that seemed all too personal.

“Lies and blasphemy spouted in the barracks,” he said calmly, contrasting her rage. “After five years here you know as well as I do that the Gallows is as much prone to rumors as anywhere else. People like to gossip. So I spent a lot less time listening to rumors about him and watching what he did.”

Treva’s fierce expression softened then, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “So it is,” she agreed. Then she took another drink before she said, “After you left with Sebastian, Cullen was the only person I really talked to for the longest time. Restructuring the Circle was…well, it was a nightmare in living form and being with child didn’t make it any easier. And with the city rebuilding, I didn’t see any of the others for long stretches of time so Cullen and Siegfried – to an extent – became my best friends.”

Carver just nodded, waiting for her to keep talking.

“It was after Mathis was born that we really started talking. I was tearing myself apart trying to care for him and keep working on fixing the Circle. Plus…there was always the worry of just how I was going to raise a child on my own.” She paused to drain her glass then and poured another before offering the bottle across the table. Carver took it and poured as she continued, “Cullen was the one that stopped me from tearing myself apart. Practically ordered me to let Siegfried handle the mages for a moment as he knew everything I did about what we were doing and to just let myself rest.”

Treva let out a little laugh then and rubbed a hand across her face. “It was about that point that I realized how lost I was. Well, more accurately a while after that, when Mathis was a year-old and I’d been just consulting Siegfried for months.”

She swigged her glass in one move and Carver blinked a few times, wondering just what she was about to tell him.

“I stopped sleeping at that point and spent most of the night wandering around the city, not coming back until it was dawn. A few days into that Cullen caught on and after that he was waiting at the gate for me. We never talked; he just smiled and hugged me before he walked me back here to sleep.” Treva shrugged weakly then. “That went on for…Maker, a month.”

“A month?” repeated Carver, getting angry now. The Commander had let his sister drag herself into exhaustion while she had a child to take care of for a month?

A hand stretched across the table to touch his and he startled out of his growing anger, blinking at the serene look on his sister’s face. “I needed that month,” she said reassuringly. “And he made sure that Mathis was always taken care of – generally by having him in his office.”

Carver wasn’t convinced but he took a few calming breaths. “What happened after that month?”

Treva’s serene look vanished then, overtaken by an expression that he couldn’t put a word to but it made his heart ache and his stomach twist into knots as the need to protect his sister from this hurt rose up.

“It was the same as any other night I went out until I got back. That time…as soon as his arms came around me something broke inside and I started crying.” Carver thought of that first day after Meredith had fallen and how she’d barreled into him before crying herself into unconsciousness. She seemed to sense that and tried to smile. “No, it wasn’t quite that bad, little brother. Cullen carried me to his room because everything I’d felt started to spill out and he knew that Mathis shouldn’t see me like that. And stop twisting your face like that, all he did was listen and comfort me while I broke down. It was what I needed too and I stopped wandering the city.”

He forced himself to school his expression into something that wasn’t disapproval then furrowed his brows. “Where did the complication come from?” he asked, honestly confused since that was what had started this conversation.

Treva flashed a bitter smile at that. “It was just a bad night at first. I was…depressed…because Mathis had started really talking by then and right before bed he asked if he had a father like one of his friends. It shocked me and I explained that his father had had to go away, which he seemed to accept.”

“I ended up in Cullen’s office that night, wanting to talk, and noticed he looked to be in the same sort of mood I was in so I suggested drinks. We ended up in the Hanged Man after that and after a few pints I finally asked him why he looked so down now because he’d seemed fine earlier in the day.” Frowning, she looked down at her glass and started twisting it again. “That’s when he told me what happened at the Tower. Before, during, and after Uldred.”

Carver frowned then asked, “Aren’t these Cullen’s secrets, Treva?”

“Please, I’ve been correcting every templar, mage, and recruit when they bring up one of those foul rumors since he told me.”

He nodded slightly at that and gestured for her to continue, watching as she poured another drink before she started.

“We had a cousin in the Tower, you know. Elena Amell.” She smiled, shaking her head as she continued, “Cullen was in love with her because she treated him and every other templar like a person and not some feared monster. She returned his affection as well but…first love held out. Elena had apparently been in love with her best friend, Jowan, for years and when he asked for help she didn’t even ask questions. Despite the fact that he was in love with a Chantry initiate and not her.”

Carver just blinked at that. Varric would love that detail for one of his stories. And he noted that their cousin sounded very much like the mage sitting across from him.

“Apparently Jowan was going to be turned Tranquil and wanted to destroy his phylactery so he and the initiate could escape. That part of their little plan went well but when they were done, they were confronted by their Knight-Commander and First Enchanter. Jowan proved himself a blood mage and escaped, leaving his so-called love and best friend to be sent to Aeonar in punishment for helping him in his crime.”

The thought of their cousin, of their blood, in that terrible place Malcolm Hawke had only spoken of once to his children chilled Carver. He’d hated the place upon hearing about it and no matter what ire he might have held towards his sister, he would have never let her or Bethany be taken there. Father had said it was better to die than to go there and he’d believed him after seeing the haunted look in the older man’s eyes.

“So,” continued Treva, “Cullen was already in a dangerous state when Ostagar happened and Uldred started the revolt at the Tower. He and a handful of others tried to fight their way to where the First Enchanter and several Senior Enchanters had been in a meeting when it had started. Uldred, having already weakened the First Enchanter, imprisoned them and let demons have them. Cullen watched every one of the brothers that had come with him to try and protect the mages die.”

Carver’s mouth fell open at that and he couldn’t begin to imagine watching that. Seeing his brothers and sisters die in battle was bad enough but to watch demons take them…no wonder when they’d met the man he’d been so hard set against mages. And why he was still so hateful of demons.

“A desire demon tried to tempt him with our cousin but he fought it off. He said the memory of her terrified face as she was dragged off to Aeonar was more than enough to keep him from falling. It nearly broke him as he went into lyrium withdrawal but the timely arrival of the Wardens saved him.” She shook her head sadly at that and he was quietly glad that the Commander had relegated lyrium supplies to only the templars that would go mad without it. There were already far too many ways in the world for a man or woman to break and that one, from what he knew, was one of the worst.

Treva sighed and finished off her third glass of whiskey before she continued. “After that was when he became so against mages. He never hurt anyone in the Tower like they say but the Knight-Commander was apparently so worried about it that he sent him here after the Blight was over. With the Circle trying to rebuild, they didn’t need the Cullen of then there.”

“So,” said Carver, “he ended up here, in mage hating central, and somehow stopped hating?”

“I asked that myself.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“That it wasn’t real hatred, not like he thought it was. He’d loved our cousin too much to let real hatred for mages consume him. He just had to learn that it wasn’t hate.” She ran a hand over her face as she continued, “This…this is where the night took the turn towards complicated.”

Carver arched an eyebrow and folded his arms, his expression saying clearly that he was waiting to hear just how complicated complicated was.

Treva pushed her glass aside and leaned onto the table, pillowing her chin on her arms.

“We were both completely drunk at this point and leaning against each other just to stay upright. He somehow managed to get his arm around my shoulders, clumsily kissed my forehead, and then said that I was the reason he’d learned it wasn’t hate he felt for mages. That I’d treated him and every other templar – except the outright crazy ones – the same way Elena had. And he thanked me for it, for helping him see. ”

“You sound like you were surprised,” he noted.

She shook her head as she answered, “I knew he respected me and that what I’d done in the city had changed his opinion. That’s what he told me before, not that I myself had changed it with something I didn’t even think about.”

Carver nodded slightly then waited patiently for her to continue.

Treva drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes before she started talking again. “After that is a little…hazy. Somehow that embrace turned into touching and kissing and might have gone further if Corff hadn’t gone to get Varric. He very firmly separated us, told us we were both idiots, and that if we really wanted to continue we could do it sober. Then he marched us right back to the Gallows, muttering ideas for one of his stories the whole way, and put us to bed.”

That started Carver laughing and after a moment his sister joined him, both of them cracking, “Varric is such a mother hen!” at the same time. Their giggles went on for a few moments until Treva leaned back in her chair, saying, “We talked the day after, acknowledged that we like each other but it honestly hasn’t gone beyond that, Carver.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged and answered, “Various reasons: our work, Mathis, Anders.”

“Anders?”

“I still love him, Carver.”

“And Cullen?” he pressed, pointedly using the Commander’s name.

“I…” Treva faltered, her whole body shaking slightly as she wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe. I care about him. After Anders though…can’t you understand that I wanted to make sure this is right? Plus I want Mathis to understand that Cullen isn’t his father.” She paused, shaking her head as she continued, “I know some people would say I should because of what Anders did but I want my son to know where he came from. You remember Anders when he wasn’t –”

Carver held up a hand to stop her, well remembering a time when he’d truly thought his sister had brought a halt to the mage’s revolutionary ways. A time when they’d been happy, as ridiculously happy as he imagined their parents had been once upon a time. “I know,” he said softly. “And I understand, Treva.”

He understood her wanting Mathis to know where he’d come from as well. The knowledge of their apostate father had shaped them into who they were and Mathis’ half-mad possessed father would undoubtedly shape his as well to good or ill.

Sighing, he rose and moved to kneel next to her chair, reaching up to grasp her hands in his. Treva blinked down at him then tears welled in her eyes as he spoke.

“I want nothing more than for you to be happy, sister. So don’t keep pushing this relationship off for so long that it doesn’t happen. Plus…I think it would do good for the city and the world to see that mages and templars can do more than just exist together.”

“Oh, Carver.”

He smiled and squeezed her hands as he said, “And if he hurts you, I’ll beat him bloody, Commander or no Commander.” That made her laugh and it was good to hear the sound no longer stained by the grief or worry of years before. So he went on and jibed, “Besides, you’re turning into an old maid. Thirty-four and no husband, tut-tut, Mother would be ashamed.”

“Speak for yourself!” said Treva back as she freed one of his hands to playfully shove at his shoulder. Then she smiled and leaned forward to hug him, her loose hair falling across his face in a way that reminded him of Mother. “Thank you, little brother. For coming home and for being a nosy git.”

Carver laughed at that and hugged her back tightly. He didn’t stay much longer before he said goodnight to her and to her aged mabari Tristan who had been guarding the door the whole night. As he exited the room, he started in the direction of his own then changed pace, heading towards the Commander’s office. The light showing from underneath the door showed the man was still awake and working and he entered after his knock got a quiet enter from within.

He only pushed the door open so far, barely stepping into the office since he only meant to take a minute. Cullen watched him expectantly, his hand pausing in whatever he’d been writing.

Carver’s eyes flicked over the man, assessing him again after the long years gone and what he knew now. There was a…the only word for it was peace that hung around him now, same as it hung around his sister. Treva had found comfort in this man while he had been gone and Cullen had found it in her in return, echoing a relationship he’d never been able to have because of duty and Chantry rule.

Now they were free, mage and templar both, in the Kirkwall built from the ashes of the old.

“Don’t hurt her,” warned Carver, blue eyes catching the older man’s hazel. Cullen’s eyes widened slightly then he seemed to realize that that was all the brother of the woman he had a tentative relationship with was going to say. And it was; Carver respected his sister and Commander enough to keep their privacy.

So when his Commander inclined his head and softly said, “I would never,” Carver nodded sharply and said good night. He turned back in the direction of his room then, smiling as he strode along the corridors of the Gallows, thinking brightly of what the future might hold as well as his sister’s last jibe back at him.

That made him think of Merrill and Carver decided he would go visit her tomorrow as he thought of what he’d said to his sister about pushing her relationship off. He’d been speaking from experience and she’d known it as well as he had.

It was time for both of them to stop running from what they wanted.