howtoactfereldan | (no subject)

"Not what I said." He nudges Alistair's shoulder. "Just... work to do."

Alistair's smile goes bashful. He turns his head enough to kiss Cullen's cheek.

"And work I'll do gladly," he murmurs.

Cullen laughs quietly. "Shall we make a pact?" He squeezes Alistair's hand. "We refrain from trying to make the other turn red in public until the Council's done."

"I'd say 'you take away all my fun,' but that's not true. Today's been quite fun already."

Grinning, he returns the squeeze.

"You have a deal."

(The barman, elbows on the counter top, continues to eye these proceedings with obvious amusement.)

"Also," Cullen says cheerfully if uncharitably, "you just turned red, so I'm one up on you."

In absence of a crowd, Cullen suspects, they might have to buy their own drinks. Shameful! (But he's also not willing to wake up Grim.)

"Hey," Alistair protests, laughing, and whacks Cullen on the arm. (Lightly.)

If no one's around to buy them a drink -- so far -- then Alistair's going to buy something nice. Aside from ale, most of what the barman's got are fancy Orlesian wines and Tevinter liquors, but tucked away on a dusty shelf corner is the jackpot: a nearly full bottle of West Hill brandy.

Two glasses, the entire bottle (they can savor it in the privacy of their quarters later in the likely event they don't finish it now), an empty table. Alistair fills both glasses and takes a seat.

Cullen nudges his chair next to Alistair with his foot and drops into it. He slips his arm through Alistair's, like last night, and picks up his glass.

Softly:

"To what comes after. May it be peace."

"To peace," murmurs Alistair, clinking his glass against Cullen's. "And to finding wedded bliss, however it may arrive."

Cullen drinks.

And then says, peacefully:

"And if we could avoid it being fifty mabari in a cheese shop, that would be nice."

Alistair nearly chokes on his drink. (Fortunately, none of it goes up his nose. One: a waste of good brandy. Two: that sort of thing stings.)

With exaggerated hopefulness, once he recovers: "What about two mabari in a cheese cellar?"

"I'm glad to hear you find that blissful." Mild. Cheerful.

"One mabari in proximity to a small cheese shelf?"

He's laughing again.

Cullen has more brandy, and slips his other hand into Alistair's.

"Whatever pleases you, husband."

Cullen has discovered a new tactic in his Ways To Get Alistair To Be Quiet arsenal: call him husband.

Alistair's already bright grin widens as the giddy glee comes rushing back. It knocks him speechless; he leans his shoulder against Cullen's, squeezing his hand.

...Being Alistair, he rallies out of the speechlessness soon enough.

"Husband." Soft. "You can call me that all the time now."

"To be fair, I could have called you that at any point." Smirking. "It just... lacked ceremony."

"The ceremony's important." Alistair sips his drink. "Some would say the ceremony's the entire point of the thing."

Beat.

"So are you going to tell Mia, or shall we turn up at South Reach with a cheerful 'surprise, meet your new brother-in-law'?"

"The latter, I should think. Though I suspect she won't be too surprised."

He chuckles. "Perhaps not."

After a little more brandy: "Did it ever come up? In your letters?"

"Not directly," Cullen says after a moment. "Your continued presence in them seems to have been enough to indicate it. And that first one I sent her, telling her you'd write -- "

He shrugs a little helplessly. Smiles, a little helplessly.

"That's a declaration, coming from someone like me."

His smile softens. "Yes."

Alistair reaches to cup Cullen's cheek.

"I love you." Half-laughing, "You'll be hearing me say that a lot more than usual the next few days. I hope you're prepared."

"I shall persevere somehow, I suppose," Cullen says with a sigh.

(He also leans into Alistair's touch.)

"They'll sing songs about your fortitude, I'm sure," agrees Alistair solemnly, before he leans in to kiss Cullen.

He does his best to keep it relatively short; they are in public. Even if there are very few people around, comparatively speaking.

Murmured: "I'd rather they didn't."

In the corner of his eye, he sees one of Leliana's operatives -- former operatives? -- moving past with purpose. Something's wrong with that, but -- Alistair's right there -- he can't quite put the pieces together.

"Maybe just whistle a brief tune, then. No names attached."

Another quick kiss, and Alistair returns to his drink.

"Even better."

A pause.

"Are we... evading talk about literally anything else? If we are -- that's fine by me, but..."