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“Rook.”
“Not now, little wolf.”
“Rook,” Solas breathed out, the softest whisper in his ear. “Hidden though your injuries may be in the Fade… I can sense them. Take a longer break. Heal. You cannot continue as such.”
“No? Watch me,” Rook bit out as Solas had once again moved position, as if he were made of mere air and intent. A spectre.
“Would that I could,” he sighed, hands folded behind his back. “Out there. I wish I could watch and protect you. Fight alongside you.”
“Stop,” Rook whispered and closed his eyes.
“Is that what you wish? For me to pretend your essence – that alluring part which makes you you – does not call to me? For me to pretend I do not await every moment slumber overtakes you?” Solas sounded far off, despondent, and then Rook felt breath fanning his nose and warmth exuding close by. “Is it, Florian?” Rook pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled sharply as his elbow softly connected with the being in front of him.
They’d been at it for months, close to a year even; pushing away, and pulling, and pushing, and pulling once more. As if they were helpless but to do so. Drawn to each other. Aggravated one night, sharing hopes and dreams in another.
“If you get out of this Fade prison,” Rook inhaled to pause, afraid to open his eyes and see the truth writ in his, “and I’m alive, you would leave me as soon as you could, yes?"
“I—”
“Your grand plan will always matter more, no? A leopard can’t change its spots, nor can a crow alter its wings.”
A long, low growl echoed in the vast emptiness. “I am neither a leopard nor a crow.”
Rook opened his eyes and sighed at the vexation evident in Solas’ expression, and yet he could not resist needling where he shouldn’t. Provoking a target into revealing things was always a favourite of his tactics. “Oh, I’ve got more animals up my sleeve, tesoro.” Solas’ head craned forward, infinitesimally so. “How about this one? We Antivan crows have a saying. Il lupo perde il pelo ma non il vizio. It means the wo—”
“The wolf loses its fur, but not its vices. Yes, I am familiar with it.” Solas’ head tilted to the side, examining. “Tell me, then, my little urraca, do you still wish me to stop?” Rook could not hold back his glare at being called a magpie, and in his own bloody mother tongue. The gall of it. “Thinking I would leave you? Thinking me capable of it, when I have relinquished my heart into your hands for safekeeping? When I long to hold yours in mine? Say the word, and I shall stop.”
“Mierda,” Rook breathed out. “You don’t play fair. Are you sure you’re not a crow?”
“I am not a crow, but I am your wolf in perpetuity. Do you wish me to stop, vhenan?”
Rook let his gaze wander above him, to what amounted to a sky, before he let it slide back to Solas. “Tell me this is not a trick. That you wouldn’t ditch me as soon as you get out of here. Tell me…” Rook breathed deeply, as if his lungs needed it in this place. “That you wouldn’t let me die to enact your plan.”
“It is not a trick.” One step closer to Rook, as if they were living pieces on a chessboard, their breath mingling. “I would not do that to you, ma vhenan. By my word, you have my heart. You have all of me, if you but claim it.”
They’d been dancing towards this point for a long while; a crow flying high above in concentric circles around a wolf circling his prey. Circles tightening and tightening like a noose around their necks; a noose they both desired. Until that noose had become something more, something altogether consuming and burning and freeing.
Rook whispered then, as if it were sacrilegious to raise his voice in this place. In this moment, when he allowed himself to believe. To hope. “As you hold my heart, mi tesoro.”
They met halfway in an instant, close as they were. Lips melding together as if they’d been starved.
It was welcoming and loving.
It was electric.
Solas’ lips tasted of the sweetness evident in his honeyed words; just as expected, perhaps even better still, and Rook was helpless but to curl a hand around the back of Solas’ neck. The groan leaving his wolf’s throat was too perfect as the sound amplified in the massive nothingness of the Fade. Rook savoured him like fine wine, and deepened the kiss, unable to resist, and it wasn’t long before there was a certain sharpness to their exploring each other’s mouths.
Something hot and verging on feverish.
When it reached a near-boiling point, Solas pulled back and thumped his forehead to Rook’s, resting and breathing in heavy gasps.
It was only then that Rook noticed how Solas had wrapped his arms around him, like a giant squid guiding prey to its beak. Not an inch left between them, their bodies pressed against each other. Merging. Melting, and unable to ignore the hard line of their cocks, searing through their clothes.
“Yes,” Solas whispered into Rook’s mouth, neither a question nor a command.
A shared desire.
They undressed slowly, eyes lingering and hands caressing between stolen kisses. For a moment, Rook contemplated the ground beneath their feet, and before the thought had fully formed, pillows formed around them. The Fade always provides. They shared a fond look, a smile, before Rook pushed Solas onto the mountain of pillows; the surprised expression already imprinted on his mind.
A wolf, not accustomed to relinquishing control.
Fingers traced the angles of a jaw, of a collarbone, and he followed each caress with a kiss. An unexpected mole on his abdomen claimed his attention for a while. A perfect imperfection. As Solas’ breathing harshened, Rook palmed the jut of a hipbone. He could swear the sounds of their heartbeats were drumming a tune in the Fade; not even close to steady, but erratic and entrancing.
His deft fingers twirled in russet curls as his tongue traced a wet line up the underside of Solas’ cock; the man sounded like he was close to the sweetest of deaths. They locked eyes, and Rook couldn’t help but smirk. “Fenedhis lasa,” he teased, and caught the hawkish glint in Solas’ expression before he guided Solas’ cock into his mouth; inch by inch, pulsating and hot.
“Flo—”
Rook chuckled deeply at his choked-off name, and the breathing that came out was hitched. He bobbed his head, and gentle hands tangled in his short, wavy hair. Curses left the wolf’s mouth as his hips bucked roughly.
Thrilling, to see Solas like that.
Utterly debauched.
“Stop,” Solas managed after a few minutes of Rook’s ministrations, and so he stilled like an opossum playing dead, before he let go. “I— I want— I would have you inside me, Florian. Now. Please.”
The pleading tone loosened something inside him; how could it not? Rook gently nipped Solas’ thigh before he answered. “Does the Fade provide silkroot paste, tesoro?”
“Come here,” Solas whispered and pulled him up for a slow, melting kiss, no doubt tasting himself in Rook’s mouth. “Lubrication spell,” he breathed out, the words fluttering between their near-sealed lips. Rook pulled back and observed a dusky pink spell crawling over Solas’ stomach, like dozens of ants rushing towards a sugar cube, until it disappeared between his legs.
Drawn towards where the spell went, Rook shuffled back further and gently spread Solas’ legs, pleased at the soft moan leaving the man’s mouth. “All mine, sì?”
A crow, not accustomed to being loved.
“Yours.” Rook observed the pleasure erupt on Solas’ face as he slid one finger inside. Then two. Curling and caressing. Again and again. “All yours. Always.” Three, and a little faster each time, entranced. “Please. Don’t make me wait a second longer.”
“Of course, mi amor,” Rook whispered, almost startling himself, and looked up for a second, drinking in the sight. Teeth digging into a bottom lip and lust-filled eyes as black as the bears that scare the living daylights out of him or the spiders with the weakest venom for the slowest deaths. Rook grinned. “Sì, sì, impatient, hm?" Intoxicating. He could lose himself in those depths, and as if they’d read his mind, they widened slightly.
He slowly retracted his fingers and repositioned Solas’ legs to his satisfaction, until he fit snugly between them, and then he sank himself inside in one long slide. Their mouths found each other, like the gravitational pull of a moon to its planet. Solas’ nails ran trails over Rook’s back, and he was helpless but to thrust slowly, kissing and swallowing Solas’ soft moans until they rocked in tandem for what felt like hours.
A wolf, and a crow, sharing control and their hearts.
When Solas came with a gasp, Rook followed in an instant with sweat dripping down his forehead and his vision going grey around the edges; limbs and thoughts nothing more than liquid and cotton candy.
Rook nearly droned off as their breathing slowly settled to a normal pace, and Solas managed a cleaning spell on them both. Refusing to budge, Rook rested on his chest and traced the line of Solas’ nose with his index finger.
“Do you remember the statues imbued with your memories?” Solas nodded and smiled softly, his freckles standing out more than ever. “They’re all linked to you. Your essence.” Rook bit his bottom lip in thought and then discarded his doubts to the side. “Emmrich and Bellara figured out how to get you out of here.”
The sharp intake of Solas’ breath resounded before he pulled Rook closer in a shocked embrace; the drumming of the heart beneath him picked up exponentially. Rook smiled and simply held him.
If wolves could dance with crows, and both could live to tell the tale, then, perhaps, they could stay with each other, as well.
Only time would tell.