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He'd been playing with the fire for weeks, months now. He'd seen her with Cullen, with Dorian, with Scout Harding, with Josephine. Lavellan was a flirt. It was all a game.
A game he found himself enjoying.
He'd watch her, squeeze his hands together behind his back and watch her. Haven blew iced air against her cheeks, ruffled the loose hair at the nape of her neck. The mark on her hand connects them in ways he can feel in his spine but doesn't understand. She understands it less, feels it less. How can she not feel this. To be near her... he is always aware. Every breath, every shift of her weight between her feet, every small frown and lift of her eyes. Her voice. Her laugh.
A game he found himself losing.
His life had been walls and evasion and wandering, a quiet muffling of the static screaming in his mind. Waking up to early morning dew, to chilled breeze through a worn blanket. Stillness. An imitation of peace.
Restless.
People were so quick to misunderstand, to assume. People were so preoccupied with their own ambition, their thirsty grab for power or wealth, their preoccupation with their own prejudice. He grew tired trying to explain anything to them.
Weary.
And she'd surprised him. Over and over again. Willing to listen, eager to question, stubborn about her people but out of love and hope and a longing for what was lost that he understood all too well. She was a work of art, a living dream, a force-
A distraction.
They walked together and he was careful to keep a pace between them. Footsteps in sync but not close enough to matter.
He'd given her Skyhold. Cold and ancient, made of stone, old magic underfoot. Memories with names no one remembers. Slumbering. Dormant.
He brought her to it, and she gave it life.
She had asked him to tell her more, to show her his world, to let her in, and something soft and gentle had unfolded past the broken ruins in his memory, the jagged ache he felt with every breath, the wrongness. Her eyes were honest, her smile light.
What could it hurt?
Here, now, in the Fade, her eyes roamed over every inch of Haven. Memorizing it.
She hasn't figured it out yet. Maybe she wants to believe the illusion, the unbroken, unburied Haven.
Lavellan trails her fingers along the stone wall of the Chantry and he looks away, smiling, happy to give her this.
A beautiful lie.
The magic of the Beyond sets a buzzing in his chest that feels like memory and tastes like home. His shoulders relax, steps lighter.
He answers questions she hadn't asked, but that he'd seen on her face when they traveled together, when her eyes passed over him at camp.
Here is where I first saw you. Here is where I kept you breathing. Here is where you laughed. Here is where you told me you'd protect me, without question. Here is where you caught me off guard. Here is where you listened.
Here is where you changed my world.
“Felt the whole world change?”
Her voice sounded like that blooming warmth in his chest.
But there was still space between them, still enough distance between his bare skin and the flame that he can be warm, but safe.
“A figure of speech.”
That tender thing grew roots, shoot gently lifting through the rubble of a long-forgotten world. Small and soft and strong.
Like her.
The mark on her hand. The Fade. The magic he always sensed in her, as he sensed from every mage, but hers was the distant echo of birdsong in the lemondrop mornings of the inbetween, when winter melts and spring shyly buds its branches, unsure if it's safe yet, carrying the promise of so much life. And he could feel his heart growing lighter at the nearness of her, and his shoulders growing heavier with the wanting for more.
“I'm aware of the metaphor. I'm more interested in felt.”
Don't ask. Don't look at me with that open, eager mind, wondering what I feel.
Whatever you ask, I will always answer.
The words slip from him easily, like breathing in your sleep, like humming a song you know by heart.
It isn't the banter, the game, the mental gymnastics of spinning words to make her smile. It isn't a careful construct of plausibility to hide behind, getting close but keeping a veil between them.
It's the truth.
Possibly the first pure truth he's ever given her.
“You change everything.”
The sound of it pulls him back.
He runs, stuttering backwards, feet sliding on the pebbled hillside as he backtracks. Keeping distance.
Restless stillness. Cool, deep water. A slumbering thing. Ancient and dark and needful. Needed. Necessary. Sulevin'nadas. He turns his face to the winter wind, heart beating a swift rhythm in his bones.
Heat was in his veins and her voice was so low he felt it on his skin.
“Sweet talker.”
Be steady, beating heart. Pull back. It's a game. It's a metaphor. It's a lie.
Turn back and smile and break the illusion. Where did you think we were? What did you think I meant? Where did you think this was going? Wake up.
Wake up and remember why you buried all of this, why you tore down the mountainside, destroyed this peace – this Haven – to save the world. Remember the ice and the cold and the long weary walk for a chance to make things better.
Small hand at his chin, tugging him to her face, to her kiss. She moved in quickly but he had chance enough to gasp, to close his eyes.
To surrender.
That tender thing inside him soared.
She pulled away, hands fluttering, his lips growing colder as she moved away.
No.
He held her to him, giving in. Giving in to the heat of her, the magic of her, the sweet ache in his stomach as her body folded into his. Her mouth, open and soft. His hands sliding around her back. Giving up, surrendering to the bend of her, the feel of her, the taste of her.
Not enough.
Eternity was so long. This moment was so fleeting. Their foreheads pressed together as he breathed her in, gave and took and held and had.
He came close for another kiss. Never going to stop. Her breast against his chest.
The jawbone beneath his shirt, sharp teeth against his skin.
Remember.
“We shouldn't.” I shouldn't. “It's not right.” Everything is wrong. Everything except for you. “Not even here.” Here, where magic sings on the wind and feeds up through the pads of my feet on the ground, where my spirit and your spirit intertwine with every glittering part of the world and all I want is to kiss you again. And again. And never wake up. Never face that world again. Never-
“What do you mean, not even here?”
He swallows hard. Smiles.
Time to break the spell.
Reveal the lie.
“Where did you think we were?”