Who: Revy & Gale, with an NPC appearance of Jack What: Sipping alien booze and celebrating Gale's upcoming marriage When: Last weekend, Gale's bacheloar shenanigan Where: In the mountaaaains Rating/Warnings: Language, mostly Status: Complete!
How fitting. A snowy bachelor party for a snowy wedding coming up at the end of the month - made the whole camping event that much more scenic, that’s for sure. Born and raised in the east coast where that side of the country was constantly pelted with blizzards a couple months out of the year, Revy didn’t mind it. Her clothing had been selected with the purpose of staying warm (hence the turtleneck, and for once her tits weren’t spilling shamelessly), and as long as she had enough cigarettes for the weekend and booze to help the skin stay heated, she was fuckin’ swell.
Outside the cabin of festivities and underneath a clear starry night - white flurries powdering nature all around them - was a blazing bonfire surrounded by logs for seating, and that’s where the ex-con was. S’more fixings, a cigarette in one hand and a cold, crisp Heineken in the other, and the groom of the upcoming nuptials nearby for a chat about mindless bullshit.
Until the guy from the Titanic (what the fuck) came out with wine-sized bottle of green liquid and a stack of red solo cups (jesus fucking christ).
“Guys,” Jack Dawson started, his mouth widened into a crooked grin. Of course he was here, and he’d be within the OC confines for the rest of the month until his fireball whiskey-consuming bud was officially bound by marriage to his Nightingale. “Garrus decided it was a good idea to drunkenly eat a burger and is inside regretting his life choices, but he’s given us the instructions to finish this Batarian thing off.”
Batarian ale, technically, and one cup could knock you right on your ass if you were human, so it was advisable to take it a little slow. But alien drinks, though?
Why the fuck not.
Just because it was winter (or...late fall, technically, but also ‘OC fuckery’) didn’t mean you couldn’t go camping, or enjoy a cabin in the mountains. Not really keen on the idea of a traditional bachelor party chock-full of strippers, their thongs stuffed with dolla, dolla bills or excessive alcohol consumption that surely led to projectile vomiting, Gale was more than alright with Wash’s plan to take everyone who would be interested on a hunt, and celebrate that way. Leliana was something of an animal lover, but she knew how important this type of thing was to Gale - in his sorrow-laden dreams, he’d only ever been alive while in the woods. Or when he had a state-of-the-art bow in his hands, but anyway.
During the day the sky was washed in grey, looking like a concrete slab, but at night everything was just so clear; the stars were bright and the moon resembled a pearl somehow. After a long trip hunting (stuff like easy mac consumed for dinner, along with stew thrown together in a pot with various ingredients, s’mores for dessert), sitting by the fire felt good - felt like warm butter melting on his face - and so give him a beer, with some company, he was happy.
“Now he’s going to be in the bathroom all night, isn’t he?” Gale chuckled. “But alright, sounds good. Does it go with s’mores?” He had just taken a stick of toasted marshmallows off from over the fire - they were nice and oozy too. Delicious.
“Probably in regards to the bathroom,” replied the artist, getting himself comfortable next his towering friend, and began pouring that radioactive colored drink into the plastic cups. Jack didn’t mind the weather either - back across the pond it was wet and chilly, and he also knew what it was to be cold. Really cold. Almost frozen to death cold. “Probably not in regards to the s’mores, I haven’t tried it yet. Cheers, though?”
Revy took a whiff of it once hers was passed over, and damn. That even made a season drinker like herself wince even the slightest bit. “Jesus fuck, is this the alien version of everclear??” Was this going to send her to the bathroom? Ah, well. She doubted there was going to ever be another chance that allowed her to indulge in extraterrestrial booze, might as well go with it.
A sip was taken to test the flavor alone, and she smacked her lips a little in thought. Its taste tickled her tongue and it wasn’t a flavor that she could honestly pinpoint from her various experience with liquor. “It’s definitely strong,” she mumbled. “Don’t really know how to describe it but it’s going to make s’mores taste like dirty asshole.”
Still wouldn’t stop Jack, personally, who was skewering a fat marshmallow with a stick and getting ready to make it toasty.
Red solo cups, those were so very Dawson. Gale had to laugh, though he was slightly cautious when he took his first experimental sip of Batarian. “Uh - “ Look, he liked to think that he could handle his liquor pretty well - he wasn’t a seasoned consumer like Revy, but he was built like an ox so it look a lot to get him drunk. But were his eyes watering now?
Nail polish remover, rubbing alcohol, hot peppers, or death - he was having a hard time pinpointing the taste of this. “It’s awful but I kind of want more?” he said, and kept on sipping. Of course, that meant he also had to test the s’mores theory and bit into a barely-cooled marshmallow gooped in between two graham crackers with a (cheap) bit of Hershey’s chocolate in the middle.
“Holy shit,” he coughed. “I never thought s’mores would taste like dirty asshole. And my tongue is also on fire - this was a good find. Kind of a shame you can only get it up in space, but perfect for my last few days of singledom.”
Jack hadn’t tasted it yet but considering their reactions, yeah, it was a must now, he was doing it. To him it almost, almost smelled like jet fuel or gasoline, something that really shouldn’t be guzzled for human consumption but he took a gulp equivalent like a shot. Quick, right down the throat, didn’t linger much on his tongue, but it sure had a shudder rip up his spine. “Whoo,” he sputtered and coughed. “That’s - I don’t know what to think about that.”
Revy wasn’t about to shoot the stuff, hell no - she’d sip and savor the goods while she had ‘em. “Already volunteered to carry your ass inside if you pass out,” she smirked, sucking in a bit of that cancerous tobacco and then exhaling the smoke. “Nervous about the big day? You really trust this place to not go to shit while your blushing bride skips down the aisle?”
Come to think of it, this really was the first wedding she’d be attending. Not a lot of ‘happy ending relationships’ existed throughout her life before this, so there were a lot of firsts for someone who lived life as a gunslinging gutter rat and then former prisoner.
“I feel safe in your hands,” Gale smirked, and he did - Revy could probably bench press him, and that was no easy feat. She was just ripped, was all. “But no, I’m not too nervous. Leli had a friend read her tarot and nothing like ‘Orange County demon episode’ popped up or anything, so we feel pretty confident things will go smoothly.” If they were in any other place, he might not be so apt to trust something like divination but he was well-accustomed to the idea of magic being real. “Her Inquisitor friend is going to marry us.” Ordained in this life and the last, apparently, as a ‘resurrected’ figure leading a venture ordained by their Chantry - Gale felt more comfortable with that than some priest he didn’t even know. It was personal.
Another sip of lighter fluid went down the hatch, and he tried not to twitch. Maybe the more you drank it, the better it tasted? Or did aliens just have really different taste buds than humans did?
A mystery. Also a mystery why he was pouring just a bit more into his cup. “I remember that double date at Disney when the hellmouth was opened - don’t you, Jack? We couldn’t even say the d-word. Now I’m taking the plunge.” How far they’d come.
Max? Marrying them? A grin formed around the cigarette, teeth keeping it in her mouth - oh, she could definitely see that. Skyhold was his baby. Might as well take the priestly role of making things official for people being married on that sacred land. “Fuckin’ A, I’m sure he’s psyched about that. Better him than some crackjob from the clergy who probably touches little boys.”
Well, shit. Food for thought there, Revy. Jack snorted a little, setting his red cup down to properly prepare the s’more. His marshmallow was that perfect kind of brown from the fire, not charred black, and he was beginning to meticulously create the most flawless campfire sandwich in all the land. “There was a lot of screaming from adults that day, we should have figured there was something going on,” he chuckled, the grin he wore oh-so boyishly handsome. “Any dole ships at this wedding? Seems like a crime if there wasn’t. Like, fuck, imagine how awesome a dole whip station would be.”
Revy blinked those golden eyes. “The fuck is a dole whip??”
“You’ve never had a Dole whip??” Gale seemed shocked by this revelation. “It’s amazing - “ Well, then again, Revy didn’t seem the type to go to Disneyland for anything at all, much less a double date or a day of feel-good fun. Before, he hadn’t thought that he would be the type either, but it had actually been a nice time (hellmouth notwithstanding). Go figure. “It’s vanilla soft-serve ice cream with pineapple juice, basically - so kind of like a pineapple float? Leliana learned how to make them, just randomly, she went on Pinterest and found a recipe. That’s when I knew I was in trouble.”
That he was going to fall for her - being seduced in her kitchen was one thing, but seducing him by way of learning to make his favorite Magic Kingdom dessert was another thing entirely. It should probably go in the vows - and of course there would be Dole whips at the wedding.
“They’re a go for the reception,” Gale confirmed, squishing a marshmallow in between graham crackers. Mmm. “A specific station’s a good idea though, like a whole Dole whip bar. People can add their fixin’s.” Sometimes that rural West Virginia twang reared its head - he tried not to sound like he hailed from the set of Deliverance and Land of Banjos though.
Fuck, no one could ever get her plastered enough to even step foot in the land of commercialized fairytale characters and talking mammals - too crowded, too many kids, and that mouth of hers wasn’t precisely rated for the ‘general audiences.’ Cigarette mainly finished, she squashed it beneath her boot and went to wash the taste of smoke down with some of that alien ale. “Pineapple icecream was the key to your heart, eh? Kinda funny for a dude I met fighting a fucking monster,” she snickered.
“Then you got into some serious trouble,” Jack reminded, raising an eyebrow at his military bud. “You know, the order in life is usually attending a friend’s wedding first, and then funeral. Not the other way around.” There was an unceremonious stuff of his most perfect s’more into his mouth, a sloppy chew and quick swallow, and then a pat on Gale’s shoulder as the once starving artist cleared his throat. “Some of your friends are jerks, by the way.”
Maybe he wouldn’t be so outright without booze in the system, but still. Needed to be said. Burp.
Pineapple floats were apparently the key, indeed. “Here I thought I had a heart made of stone,” Gale sighed with faux dramatics, but he was glad to be proven wrong - even to himself. Glad that someone actually chose him, and wanted him, and didn’t expect him to be unfathomably strong all of the time. Leliana would be here, with him, every step of the way in life - they’d build a future, one they chose. He never thought he’d get to have something like this, if his ‘past’ life was any indication.
Jack’s remark about his friends made him nearly choke on his s’more. Damn, Dawson. Also an impressive belch there too. “I think they were just...shocked? I don’t know,” he shrugged, knocking back some more of that booze. Hello, double vision. “But let it be known that if either of you die and then come back, I’ll just be glad you came back. No questions asked.”
Being shocked was one thing. Making it somehow all about them was way out of the field, that’s for sure. Jack figured Gale and his dame were involved in some sketchy stuff, but he was at least glad that it hadn’t actually killed them. Now watch him sip his share of the potent alien beer thing (more like liquor in human terms, geez) like that one Kermit the Frog meme.
Revy’s brow shot up, curious. There was no double vision for her yet but she could already tell the two men were beginning to feel those tingles. Made for loose lips and some dirty gossip, why the fuck not. “The hell did you have to fake your own death for? What kind of trouble were you even in, Hawthorne?” Gut instinct told her his hands weren’t exactly the cleanest - that concept didn’t exist for soldiers that saw actual war.
But for someone to go through the loops of deceiving their friends by staging a death? Yeah, there was one hell of a story there.
“I needed a job when I transitioned to the Reserves, so I was originally working in a military shipping warehouse here in Newport Beach,” Gale began, large hands practically dwarfing the red solo cup as he twisted the plastic around. “Coordinating moves for soldiers when they were stationed elsewhere, making sure their furniture all arrived, things like that. It wasn’t too exciting, so Leliana offered me a job as a bodyguard kind of - she used to run her own wetworks ring, a bunch of assassins. They had some skills too.” Bless Rosa and her can of lemon Pledge.
He realized even Jack had never heard the full story but no harm in telling it now. Gale trusted both of them, and besides, he and Leli had given up life in the shadows anyway. “That turned into accompanying her on missions, even running some myself - we weren’t together when I started, not officially, but then we became more serious. This apparently pissed off her second-in-command, not to mention she was pissed at Leliana for a whole other reason - “ Killing Marjolaine, when the bitch deserved it for her betrayal but that was how the game was played, “...so during a mission, I had to fake my death so she could think she succeeded at offing me. Then I came back once all that was taken care of, and we moved on to other careers.”
A long story, but a poignant one? Despite all the hardships, Gale didn’t regret any of it. It had all unfolded how it was meant to, he thought.
Alright, well, Jack had an idea that it wasn’t anything good but the whole wetworks thing was what had his drink go down the wrong tube. He coughed and sputtered some, but was able to regain some dignified composure. If one could really be considering dignified after guzzling what was in his cup, anyway.
It wasn’t the most foreign intel to grace Revy’s ears, and who the fuck was she to judge someone? Actually, she was more impressed that he was as put-together as he was - that’s the sort of style that corrupted you to the very bone and turned someone into living monsters, but it seemed like he got the hell out before it was too late.
“You were the guy diddling the boss, then - that usually ruffles a couple feathers,” she casually replied, all while Jack was in the background of the conversation groping the pockets of his coat for a cigarette, because damn. “You’re lucky. There’s not a lot of people that can leave that shit behind without it coming to bite you in the ass.”
Knock on wood. Gale was still young, the world was still huge and angry, who knew if it was all going to be fucking rainbows and puppies for them down the road, but she hoped for it.
“That explains a lot,” Jack finally managed to say after a puff of his cancer stick (he was cutting down, slowly, he was!). “Did all that have to - remember when you hinted at offering to get rid of Rose’s ex?"
Their reactions were kind of priceless - well, mostly Jack’s. Revy probably had heard worse, given her background. Not like the hard-knock life was anything new for her. “It sort of paralleled our respective dream selves too,” he said thoughtfully. “She doesn’t seem like she’s going to get out of it anytime soon, and me? My fancy job means basically weapons are my only companions. It was just so bleak - here, we knew we wanted to make a break for it. I’m glad we managed.”
Ah, the scent of tobacco in the crisp, night air. Gale was the only one not smoking but he didn’t mind his companions puffing away - though he would have given his left nut to see Wendy’s reaction to Jack and his cancer sticks. No doubt she was still trying to get him to quit, even while they were across the pond.
“Oh, yeah,” he laughed, remembering the whole Cal debacle. What a douchebag. “That was when I was knee-deep in it. Though it would have been easy to get rid of him?” Gale smiled crookedly. All’s well that ended well. The idiot might even still be in jail, he hadn’t thought to check recently.
Wendy would also bust that very nut should she even witness this going on, but, well - he figured it was the best thing to do when finding out that your best friend was something of an assassin? Not that Jack thought anything different; Gale was true and blue, and he doubted he and Leliana went around sniping innocent people. That just wasn’t them. “Real easy, but you had me worried there for a bit,” he chuckled, patting his friend on the shoulder. “Glad to know you didn’t stick down that path.”
“Wintry weddings in castles usually don’t happen when you go down that path anyway,” Revy added, but it was a good outcome after all they’ve gone through. “You want the whole nine yards with this sort of thing, yeah? Kids, picket fence? The fuck are you gonna keep your explosive arrows when she gives you a ginger kid to take care of?”
Jack’s grin was absolutely shit-eating. “Aw, hell, I hope you start making me an uncle on your wedding night. No pressure.” Okay, some pressure.
Man, way to make him nearly choke again, Jack. That was just such a unique way to put things. However, Gale supposed that Revy’s question was legitimate - he’d thought a lot about it, since proposing. Even before that. Here and there, one of those things he was gloomy about because at one point he couldn’t ever see it happening for him. “If I have to give up the explosive arrows, I think I’d be okay with that,” he said. Though likely they’d just keep those separate - he did love his weapons, his hunting toys. But no doubt he’d obviously love his son or daughter more.
He really did hope his kids were ginger too. That’d just be too fucking adorable for words.
“I used to think I’d be a pretty good dad, someday?” His cheeks were starting to go red, from both the drink and the nippy air. It was a good feeling, very refreshing. “I just had to meet the right person and, well, now it happened. So I don’t know about the honeymoon - “ Playfully, he punched Jack on the arm, “But you’ll be an uncle soon enough.”
“You might make me barf more than this drink,” Revy remarked, rolling those amber eyes - but, yeah, she could see the tall motherfucker raising some cute as shit ginger kids. All freckled like his lady, silvery-eyed like him. Maybe she’d even volunteer to babysit if she figured out how to properly deal with crotchlings. “Better enjoy the moments of shootin’ and drinkin’ while you can, then, before you’re tied down by offspring.”
Jack’s eyes, they were waggling. All suggestively, all drunkenly, and let out a hearty whoo as he raised his cup towards the fire. “To Gale’s swimmers! May they reach the fruitful womb!”
What. “I’m gonna have to carry his ass back into the cabin, aren’t I.”
“Oh, fuck me, you are so drunk,” Gale was laughing now, but hey, he wasn’t exactly sober either. At least not entirely. But that was okay - Revy wouldn’t have to carry him back to the cabin.
She’d have her hands full with Jack anyway. Man, it was good to have him around in the OC, even if temporarily. It was good to have all his friends around, now and for the day when he’d say ‘I do.’ May good luck shine upon them for the actual event, though he could do without ‘the fruitful womb’ luck. At least for the time being.