howtoactfereldan | (no subject)

Cullen wrinkles his nose. For show.

(As evinced by the way he pinks, just a touch.)

"We've a plan, then?" Beat. "Let's put a rock on that bait sack, lest your hard labor escape."

"An equally good plan." He smiles. "Don't want them crawling off the dock and giving our fish a free meal."

Alistair sneaks a quick kiss, then heaves himself up to go fetch the necessary rock.

(He is not sticking his hand in the water to try and dig one out of the lake bed.)

Reasonable -- yet Cullen sincerely hopes Alistair will wash his hands post-worm procurement.

He pulls the hook out of the water, and notes with extremely mild irritation that the bait's gone. All the more reason to get back to it after a little rest, he thinks.

Bedrolls, then. Cullen's got every intention of napping in the sun like one of Skyhold's barn cats.

Removing mud takes less time in the frigid water than digging up a rock. Once the bait's secured, Alistair dunks his hands just long enough to scrub them clean.

(Water this cold is just begging to be flung down the back of some unsuspecting person's neck. Not Cullen's, though. Alistair isn't that much of an ass.)

As he returns, drying his hands on the hem of his shirt, his eyebrows rise at the sight of Cullen setting up their bedrolls. "Oh." With some surprise. "Outside, then?"

Rather than backpedal immediately, Cullen gives Alistair a grin that could vaguely be described as impish.

"When's the last time you got to be lazy in the sun?"

"...Probably twenty-odd years ago."

He starts to smile: tentative, but pleased.

"Then it's past time to do it again, don't you think?"

"I suppose it might be."

He settles next to Cullen.

"Very well. I accept your generous and very lazy offer."

"Excellent," he proclaims, and promptly flops on his back, stretching. "No telling when we'll get another chance."

Alistair chuckles. "I'd suggest kidnapping you for a day," he says, and works an arm around Cullen's shoulders. "Take you away to a distant spot in the valley. But I've a feeling that'd only incite panic, no matter how kind a note I left."

Cullen slides over -- just enough to use Alistair's shoulder for a pillow.

"Consternation, perhaps." Thoughtful. "We could enlist a few helpers to keep that to a minimum. Though that might defeat the point of the kidnapping."

"How so?"

He draws his thumb back and forth along the knob of Cullen's shoulder.

"If we enlist the right helpers, I'm sure it could go quite smoothly." Beat. "Though I think helpers of that caliber end up being called accomplices eventually."

"They might prefer that, honestly." Dry. "If one or two were aware of your plan and could vouch for your intentions, that might forestall some of the consternation."

"I'll recruit Lel and Bull, then." He considers his options. "Maybe Cassandra as well."

Cullen groans. "No. Please. She'll chastise me for not working."

And then, horrified: "Or she'll think it's Swords and Shields."

Alistair snorts, not unkindly. "What makes you think she isn't secretly thinking that already?"

"Ugh."

Cullen rolls over on his side, hiding his face. "No."

Alistair pats his shoulder.

"Sorry." To his credit, he does sound genuinely apologetic. "I'm sure she's not. She does have some sense of propriety."

Unlike certain other people in Skyhold, cough, cough, half the damn Chargers.

"As long as she's not being an accomplice," Cullen mutters. "She wouldn't be rational."

He settles back against Alistair, turning inward. After a moment he reaches up, running the pad of his thumb lightly along Alistair's lower lip.

Alistair's eyes slip closed; his breath catches for an instant.

"Hard to think," he murmurs, "that if I'd been asked to go without you for six weeks, half a year ago, I would've been fine with it."

A quiet laugh. "Still thought I was insufferable, I imagine."

"Not insufferable," he says, still soft. His mouth quirks up. "I was glad to see you when I arrived at Skyhold. More glad to see you well. But I suppose -- after ten years, what would've been another month and a half?"

"...given we're at war, potentially a great deal."

He traces small circles on Alistair's chest. "But I take your meaning. Even if I'm wondering why you're dwelling on it."

"I'm not sure." A small exhalation; the smile stays put, rueful as it might be. "Picturing myself back at Skyhold, for some reason. Alone in our bed. All the embarrassingly forlorn letters I'd be sending off with the ravens. How miserable I'd be, and...how lucky I am, that I'm not."

His smile warms.

"You came back," Cullen says, very softly.