“I can’t believe you snort when you giggle” Varric grins teasingly.

“I can’t believe you’re a jerk” Bianka huffs hiding a smile.

“Awww, don’t be like that Giggles, I think it’s cute!”

Varric’s shoulders shake with silent laughs. Bianka narrows her eyes and smirks.

“I’ll show you cute.” She tackles him to the bed and her fingers accidentally poke him in the side. He makes a noise halfway between a squeek and a laugh and squirms away before freezing, staring at her wide eyed.

“Oh my god you’re ticklish!” She crows delightedly grinning like a loon before mercilessly attacking his sides.

“I-haha-am-hahaha-not! heehehehee” He dissolves into a fit of giggles and tries to squirm out from beneath her; it’s unsuccessful.

“Ohoho, you are never living this down! I’m telling Isabela!”

“You are a terrible person.” He gasps between laughs.

She laughs, loud and clear, and stops her attack. Breathless, he stares up at her and smiles; he’ll pay her back once he gets his breath back but right now he just wants to look at her. He thinks she’s beautiful, especially when she laughs. A flash of teeth inside brightly coloured lips stretched wide in a grin next to dark skin, lighter than Isabela’s but much darker than his, covered in freckles. Her grey eyes crinkle stretching the tattoo that starts beside one eye and curves across her nose to end beside the other.

She called it a phoenix “a fire bird, haven’t you heard of them? They have brightly coloured feather, usually red and gold, and can travel using fire. When they die they’re reborn from the ashes. They’re not real of course but they are pretty” He thinks it suits her burning hot, she’s always so warm, colourful, whether it’s her makeup personality or her words, and the part about being reborn? He lost count how many times she fell and he thought she had died when there would be a faint blue glow near her heart, a sharp intake of breath and she’d open her eyes, get up and be perfectly fine in minutes.

“Varric?”

“Hmmm?”

“Lost in thought?”

“Hmmm. Have I told you that you’re beautiful recently?”

He can see her blush and he loves that he can do that to her with just a few well chosen words. She’s not easily flustered so it feels like an accomplishment whenever he manages it. She smirks and is back in control and he loves that too.

“Not recently no.”

“Well I guess I’ll have to remedy that.”

“I guess so”

“You’re beautiful and…”

“And?”

He smirks and expertly flips them over and relentlessly tickles her sides pulling that giggle snort out of her that started this whole thing.

“And you should know better than to let your guard down like that.”

“You jerk! hahaaha”

He presses a kiss to her lips soft and sweet. She smiles and leans up to take another before he can pull away fully. He loves that about her, she’s never shy about what she wants but she always makes sure it’s what he wants too.

“So…” She runs her fingers across the stubble on his face. “Have I told you that you’re handsome recently?”

She likes throwing his own words back at him but in this instance he can live with it.

“Hmmm. No, I don’t think you have.” A lazy smirk curls on his face.

“Guess I’ll have to fix that, huh?”

She can’t say remedy without thinking of Sol’s shop and laughing. Some of her jokes are really bad but he doesn’t mind. He knows he’s told his fair share of bad jokes.

“Looks like it”

“Well. I think you’re handsome” She kisses his nose and that makes him blush, something that’s much harder to do usually. “I especially like your stubble and the way it scratches against my skin.”

She winks, letting him know she doesn’t mean her cheeks and he laughs.

“I’ll be sure to keep my hair just long enough to do so. Just for you Baby Girl.”

“You’re going to run out of nicknames for other people if you give them all to me you know”

“Hmmm. They’ll just have to cope knowing they’re not as important.”

She grins and pulls him down for another kiss. Varric thinks he could live his life like this, with this woman. Next to her, commitment doesn’t sound so scary. He grins back and meets her halfway. No he definitely doesn’t see a problem with doing this for the rest of his life; soft kisses, tickle fights, stubble scratching in all the right places. That all sounded just fine to him.