howtoactfereldan | (no subject)

The squeeze seems to draw Alistair back to himself. He looks up at Cullen, shaping another small smile.

"Something like that, yes. I think. ...Of course if any dwarf were prone to ignoring tradition, it's Dagna, but still."

"She loves experimentation." Sunlight is streaming through the windows; the buttery light calms his jangled nerves, just a little bit. "But not at the cost of doing something a friend asks her not to do."

"Also true."

His smile grows a fraction; he tips his head toward the chaise in silent query.

Downstairs, he'd meant, when he suggested they go wait together for news.

But Cullen wavers.

In response, he drapes his coat over the arm and sets his back against it, pulling his legs up on the cushions. "Indulge me?" he says, quiet. "I'm not a terrible backrest."

Alistair chuckles. "Rather the opposite, I'd say."

He takes a seat, nestling close until his back is flush with Cullen's chest, and lets out a contented sigh.

"And I'm always happy to indulge you, love."

Cullen brings his arms around Alistair, and tightens his hold.

"Much better," he mumbles into Alistair's collar.

"Yes," he agrees. He lets his eyes drift closed.

"I always think of you kissing me that first time when we're like this." Soft. "Might've been the first time you were my back rest, too."

"Mm."

Cullen raises his head just enough for a lingering kiss to Alistair's temple. "But this time, unlike last time, I'm doing it with forethought."

A quiet laugh. "I was just so overwhelmingly attractive that you couldn't help yourself that first time?"

Cullen troubles to lower his voice and says right into Alistair's ear, "I can't decide whether to agree or tell the truth."

Alistair lifts an eyebrow, grinning.

"Oh, come on, don't hold back now. We're married. No lies between us."

"Now, it's not a lie, exactly." He squeezes Alistair briefly. "It just wasn't... foremost on my mind."

Softening: "We'd both had a difficult day. You far more so. And then... there we were. Quiet. You were better -- far better than you'd been in the morning. And I was... glad. Grateful."

Alistair's smile softens in turn. He twines the fingers of one hand with Cullen's.

"And so you kissed me," he murmurs.

"It was an accident," Cullen says, dignified. "And then it was... unobjectionable, apparently, so... that seems to have worked out for us."

He chuckles, warm. "I'd say."

Alistair lifts Cullen's hands to kiss his knuckles.

"Rest assured that if you hadn't, I probably would have confessed my feelings in truly embarrassing fashion a few weeks later. And then possibly run and hid in my old quarters depending on what sort of face you made."

Cullen blinks in genuine surprise.

"Truly? You -- ? I'd just assumed... neither one of us had thought about it before then. You didn't... did you?"

"Well -- "

He shrugs: a small, awkward one-shouldered movement.

"I told you I'd already begun to imagine us together after the war was done. I didn't picture it as anything but friendly, it's true. But there were times I'd look at you -- moments where you'd smile, or the sun would hit you just right, or you'd make some little gesture when you were thinking particularly hard about those trebuchets..."

He squeezes Cullen's hand.

"I don't think I recognized it at the time. But if I'd had a few more weeks, I expect it would've it hit me."

Cullen huffs, and tucks his face against Alistair's neck. Alistair might be able to detect how red he's turned by the extreme heat radiating off his cheeks.

"Trebuchets," he grumbles, for lack of anything else to say.

"It wasn't always trebuchets," says Alistair peaceably. "Sometimes it was other tactic-y things."

He turns his head enough to kiss Cullen's hair.

Still grumbly:

"Go kiss a siege engine, then. Or -- whatever."

Struggling not to laugh: "I love you, too."

He squeezes Cullen's hand. Then, more sincerely, Alistair adds, "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"Hmph," Cullen says into his shoulder.

Then:

"At least trebuchets don't turn me on."

Alistair splutters a laugh.

"That is not how I meant it, Rutherford -- "

"I don't think I believe you," Cullen says cheerfully.

Alistair groans.

"I meant that seeing you deep in thought over complex math problems is incredibly endearing and kind of attractive," he says. "Not that I want to have illicit relations with a trebuchet."