Summary: Set sometime between Acts II and III, Varric sees more than he should have seen and writes a book about it. This wouldn't be so bad, until Isabela draws the pictures and Danarius gets his hands on a copy...

Warnings: A dollop of humour, two dashes of romance, a spice weasel of angst, all topped by smutty sprinkles.

Disclaimer: All the characters belong to BioWare, I just like to play with them.

The Book Part One: First Draft

"It's the one story I'll never publish." Varric eyed the book with distaste. It was a slim volume, bound in cheap red leather that was already cracking along the spine. He had only gotten it bound a few weeks ago, but the abuse it had taken since showed clearly in the stained cover, the frayed pages and the tears along the side from where someone had attempted to rend it asunder with his bare hands.

At least the mage hadn't gotten a hold of it, he thought. Otherwise, the book would be nothing more than a tiny pile of ash.

"And why is that?" Isabela asked. She leaned on her elbows and stared down at the innocuous little thing.

"Well, you know I like to write about our adventures..."

"Uh-huh..."

"I mean, it's more fun that way. More realistic. Even though sometimes I have to make things a little less... weird."

"Especially for Merrill," Isabela agreed.

"So, well, one night I, well, I saw something."

"As you often do."

"And then I wrote it down."

"Again, which you often do." Isabela nodded along, her ebony hair sliding on her shoulders and her earrings shimmering in the dwarf's candlelight.

"And the people I wrote about didn't... appreciate it." He sighed and drank.

"Oo, now I'm intrigued." The pirate reached out, but Varric snatched the book away. "Oh, come on, you can't give it an introduction like that and then not let me read it!"

"That's not how I want to end my life, Rivaini."

"You can at least tell me the title!"

Varric thought about it. He shouldn't, really, that would just give too much away, but he was vulnerable to Isabela's pout. She was his most adoring fan, his most staunch supporter, especially for the pirate-centric series, 'There's Something About Captain Marian.'

He muttered the title.

"What was that?" the pirate asked, leaning closer and displaying more of her heaving assets.

Varric cleared his throat. "It's 'Fugitive From Your Flames.'"

Isabela stared. Then she started to laugh. "This is about a bad rash, isn't it?" she asked. "You know, I think I've had that one!" Enthusiastically, the pirate knocked back the last of her drink and then slammed the tankard on the table. She leaned closer, smiling widely. "You know, I've always wanted... can I... Can I touch your chest hair?"

Varric sighed. "It always comes to this, doesn't it? I'm not just an exceptionally manly chest, Rivaini. I have feelings. I have a mind."

They stared at each other. Then they started laughing and Isabela tackled the dwarf to take advantage of his manly chest.

/.\./.\

Later, Isabela sat at the bar, hunched over the purloined book, and started to read the battered pages.

First, she was confused.

Then she snickered.

Then she gasped.

Then she pressed her face to the pages to get that much closer to the words.

Much later, she traipsed unsteadily to the Lowtown Alienage and knocked on Merrill's door.

The elf, predictably, was still awake, her large eyes bruised from study and lack of sleep. "Isabela?" she said. "What's wrong? Does Hawke need something?"

"Merrill, shut up about Hawke," Isabela replied dreamily. "Hawke doesn't matter anymore. He can go and be the blighted Champion without us." She held up the book. "Read this."

Merrill regarded the item. "Is it... Is it a history book?"

"Better."

"A grimoire?"

"Even better."

"Um?"

"Just read it, Merrill. Don't answer the door. Don't go anywhere. Just read it." Isabela pushed it into Merrill's thin arms. "And then... pass it on."

The pirate wandered away into the night.

Shrugging, Merrill sat at her table and cracked the book open.

She giggled.

Then she blushed.

Then she went very, very quiet.

When Hawke knocked on her door in the morning, off on some adventure, she ignored him.

/.\./.\

Aveline was, predictably, in her office when Merrill stumbled in through the door. The Guard Captain looked up in some surprise.

"Merrill," she said, "are you lost again? Where's your twine?"

Merrill, looking more drawn and dishevelled than ever, held up a small red book in a trembling hand. "I found you," she whispered. "I've been wandering for hours!"

Aveline could only imagine how many of the Keep's occupants that the blood mage had frightened. Most likely in their baths. "You were looking for me?" she prompted.

The elf staggered to the desk and rested on it, hands splayed and head low. "Read this," she gasped.

The Guard Captain leaned away. "Is this... a blood mage thing? Is this one of those books Hawke was looking for? And whenever he opened one a Revenant popped up?"

"No," Merrill replied hoarsely. "It... It's magic. Real magic. The kind of magic that makes you... tingle."

"Like... an electricity spell?"

"No." Merrill shoved it across to the other woman, scattering memos and bric-a-brac everywhere. In a voice normally reserved for demons, she said, "Read the book."

"A-all right, Merrill. Just calm down."

"I am calm," the elf chirped. She smiled and strode unsteadily out.

Aveline sighed. She looked at the mess of her desk and shrugged. She was more curious about the book than she was interested in her memos, anyway.

She opened it.

Her mouth slowly opened in surprise and awe.

For a few minutes, she couldn't look.

Then she couldn't not look.

Several times, her guards, including Donnic, tried to get her attention. Finally, she shut her door.

/.\./.\

The men were enjoying a game of cards at the Hanged Man. Rather, Varric was enjoying the game. It gave him an opportunity to watch Anders and Fenris pretend to hate each other. The Renegade and the Fugitive glowered at each other over the table and bickered incessantly.

"Another heart," Anders commented when the elf made his play. "Whose chest did you tear it from?"

Fenris sneered. "Some fool mage who wouldn't shut up and play his blighted cards."

Do they rehearse this? Varric wondered.

Hawke pouted. "Do you think the girls are mad at me?" he asked. "I kept trying to talk to them, but they ignored me or locked me out."

"When was the last time you bathed?" Varric asked. "I find that helps."

Hawke paused, expression thoughtful. Then, with attempted stealth, he sniffed himself. "Ugh. Um. Well. I guess after we slew that dragon I should have, shouldn't I...?"

Fenris and Anders edged away from their leader.

A moment later, Varric felt something brush his dangling foot. He pretended not to notice, but took a sly look under the table.

There was Fenris' long, black-sheathed leg, extended across the table, bare toes working their way under Anders' coat. Above the table, the two men continued to glare.

Varric thought longingly of his book. It would've made me famous, he sighed internally. Real fame wasn't in epic Champion stories... It was in romance. Romance between two dark, brooding, dangerous men. Speaking of the book... He hadn't seen it all night. Not that he regularly took it out and pined over it. Never.

His pondering was interrupted when Hawke's female companions drifted in.

"Ladies!" Hawke cried joyfully. "I... I missed you!"

"That's nice, Hawke," Aveline replied vaguely.

"We missed you, too," Merrill added.

"We'll work on our aim," Isabela finished.

They drifted to Varric's low bed and perched on the edge. In unison, they rested elbow to knee, chin in hand.

"Um, would you like to play?" Hawke asked, holding up his cards.

"No," Isabela answered for them. "We'll just watch." Her kohl-lined eyes settled on Anders and Fenris. Aveline and Merrill's did as well.

Varric started to get nervous. Where did I put that blighted book?! Fenris had been very, very clear about what would happen to the dwarf if anyone read its sordid pages.

Fenris and Anders, though, didn't seem to notice the female attention. They seemed wrapped in their own world, their own little performance of hatred.

Until Hawke ruined it.

"What's wrong with you girls?" the Champion demanded with some bitterness. Varric knew that the libidinous man had been wooing both Merrill and Isabela, and he fawned on Aveline like a big sister. He wasn't used to being ignored.

"Absolutely nothing," Aveline sighed.

"Everything's... perfect..."

The dreamy tones finally caught the attention of their targets. Anders and Fenris looked up and startled at the three pairs of eyes on them.

"Er," Fenris rumbled. "Is there a problem?"

"Did I forget to wear pants again?" Anders asked with forced cheer. "That happens sometimes. People stare."

"No," the women replied in unison.

There was a long stretch of silence. Varric swallowed heavily when intent green eyes pinned him to his chair.

"I fold," Fenris said flatly, tossing down his cards.

Hawke, absolutely oblivious to the exchange, squawked, "What?! But... But I was winning!"

"Well, when you put it that way." Anders laughed and dropped his own hand as well. "I guess I'll pull out while I have the chance."

Varric coughed violently into his hand. The two men snapped a glare at him and the dwarf nearly gave himself an aneurism to keep from laughing.

"Good night, Hawke," the elf declared, voice low and hard. He pushed his chair back with a shriek of wood on wood. "Ladies. Dwarf." The way he said the word very clearly stated that Varric would be lucky to wake up with all of his limbs attached.

The group watched Fenris depart.

The women sighed.

"I, uh, I'm going to go. As well. Yes." Anders cleared his throat and stood with far less drama. He straightened his coat, nodded to his friends, and said, "Good night, all."

"Good night, Anders," the women cooed.

"Enjoy the moonlight," Merrill called.

"The starlight," Isabela added. "Sparkling in his-"

Varric dived at her and slapped a hand over her mouth.

Anders, expression slightly frightened, backed out of the dwarf's apartment.

When the mage was gone, Varric groaned and sank to the floor, covering his face.

"What?" Hawke said.

/.\./.\

"Do you think they know?" Fenris asked, a frown carving a line between his black brows.

Anders leaned forward, slid his hand around to the back of the elf's skull, and pulled Fenris close. He pressed his lips to that frown line and asked, "Does it matter?"

"Only if Danarius finds out," the elf muttered darkly. "Being with me... makes you a target."

"I'm already a target." The mage smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "And I'd rather be a target for something I'm actually doing instead of what someone thinks I'm doing." He only managed to keep the bitterness from his tone because he was trying to cheer up his companion.

"Besides, my... pride tells me I shouldn't have fallen for a mage in the first place." The expression was petulant now. Fenris looked away, toward the table and its layer of bottles and detritus.

"Then tell your pride what I tell Justice." As he spoke, Anders rose from his chair and tugged the elf to his feet. He put his arms around Fenris' strong, narrow shoulders, careful of the spikes, and placed his own lightly stubbled cheek by the elf's hairless face. "I tell him... 'Shut your blighted face-hole and let me be happy.'"

Fenris snorted, but his pale lip turned up in a faint smirk.

"Now, how about we adjourn to one of the bedrooms?"

"That's what you tell Justice?" Fenris recoiled and lifted an eyebrow.

Anders snickered. "Yes," he agreed, dead pan. "I also ask him if he's cleared out the corpses yet."

"I like the corpses," Fenris sniffed. "They keep the rabble out."

"It didn't work." The mage stepped back and opened his arms. "Here I am."

Green eyes, sparkling with starlight, raked over the Renegade. Fenris' smirk gentled into an honest smile, making Anders' heart flutter wildly. "Here you are," Fenris repeated. Unexpectedly, he closed the gap between them and caught Anders in a powerful, nearly desperate embrace. They kissed, hard and passionate, as though they wanted to crush together, forget the rest of the world.

When they broke apart, Fenris licked his lips and uttered, "I'm still going to get that book."

Anders blinked. "What book?"