howtoactfereldan | (no subject)

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Cullen sets a brisk pace on their way back to Skyhold. He's been away long enough; he's ready to relieve Briony; he's ready to go about receiving full intelligence reports from Leliana instead of the truncated, heavily coded ones he receives in the field.

He is also ready to personally see to the laundering of his coat.

And Cullen is also ready to take at least half a day, and preferably more, to revel in solid walls and doors that lock.

As they ride through the sally port, Cullen glances over at Alistair. "I'll need to see Briony, and then I'll likely be called to the war room -- you're going to see Kieran?"

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He laughs, soft and fond. "What would you have done if I did?"

Cullen considers this for a moment.

"Done my best to make you squirm and then caved like a house of cards when you did me one better. If the past is anything to go by."

Satisfied -- and so, so very smug -- "I thought so."

He closes his eyes.

"Could've been its own fun, though, I suppose. Put our imaginations to work for as long as possible, until one of us gives in and drags the other one off to the tent."

"Perhaps we'd be deemed so insufferable everyone would leave us alone."

"Mm."

Dreamily.

"A fate I'd happily endure so long as I endured it with you."

"Until the reports arrived."

"No, no," says Alistair, airily. "In this dream, we've annoyed them so much that there are no more reports ever."

Cullen makes a sad noise. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

A leer.

"Sit there and look pretty?"

"That's boring," he complains.

"All right, fine," says Alistair, wrapping himself more snugly around Cullen. "You're allowed a few reports, so long as you look pretty while you're doing them."

Cullen pushes Alistair's arm away with one finger. "You mean I don't always look good? What a betrayal."

"Of course you do," says Alistair, sounding deeply offended by this affront to his honor.

(He does let his arm be pushed, though.)

"It's an effortless extra to all that report business."

Cullen heaves a sigh. "Fine. I see how it is. My only real value is ornamental."

"You're hopeless," Alistair informs him, fondly, before settling his arm back into place. "I love you a rather astonishing amount."

There's... well.

Cullen wants to joke about that. Wants to keep joking about it.

(His worth is absolutely contingent on how well he can do his job. There's no question about that.

Hence: hopeless.)

It's -- too difficult to say something without the ring of truth in it.

"Yes, well," he says, weakly, after too long a moment. "That amount is -- variable. Depending on who you ask. And what they think is astonishing."

Alistair's smile dims.

(After so many months together, the pause -- and, moreso, Cullen's tone -- are unmistakable. You took the joke too far.)

He rests his head on Cullen's shoulder; takes up drawing a finger along the ridges of his arm again. Eventually, he settles into a small back-and-forth over one of the scars on his bicep.

"More than all the water in the oceans," he murmurs. "To be terribly mushy about it. How about that?"

"Far easier to quantify." Cullen rests a hand on Alistair's.

He shapes a tiny smile. "I thought it might be."

Gently, in silent apology, he presses a kiss to Cullen's cheek.

A small sigh.

Cullen rests his head against Alistair's. His other hand runs up and down Alistair's back, slow, deliberate.

Why can't he be good at words in times like this? Everything he can think to say dissolves into the same apology: I'm sorry something in me is fundamentally broken.

After a time, Alistair shifts in Cullen's arms. Partly, it's to make himself more comfortable.

Mostly, it's to make it easier for him to kiss Cullen properly: gentle and sweet, with -- for now -- no expectation of more.

(It was a very vigorous bout.)

When he slips his fingers in Alistair's hair, similarly, it's for nothing more than sheer hedonistic pleasure.

(The kind of thing he can try to lose himself in, with mixed results.)

"I love you," he breathes again when they break apart. Another, lighter kiss follows. "I'm glad we're home."

He strokes his thumb along Cullen's cheek.

"That we made this a home."

Soft: "Our home."

He essays a smile, small and sheepish. "Thank you for putting up with me."

Alistair shakes his head a little, still smiling.

"Freely," he murmurs, "and very happily."

Besides: Cullen's put up with him plenty of times when Alistair's not at his best.