@bornpariah asked: 𝙸 𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝙰𝙳𝙼𝙸𝚁𝙰𝙱𝙻𝙴 𝚀𝚄𝙰𝙻𝙸𝚃𝙸𝙴𝚂.
“Do you think me unaware of your admirable qualities? Or do you seek to reinforce their value by always reminding me?” The Inquisitor’s brow is arched playfully, enough humour in the warmth of his eyes to thoroughly soften the slight edge to his words. Of course he is aware. They both know that Halwn is unforgivably aware of how specifically and confoundingly fine the mage is, so keen in that awareness that it feels half-cruel for Dorian to remind him—even in teasing.
There has been a tremendous amount of teasing.
The scene between them now—not yet half-drunk, sitting on the steps of a darkened stairwell only a few risers apart, avoiding the rabble of the party they are obligated to appear at to secure some invitation or another, glad for the thin excuse to almost let the toes of their boots touch across the distance—is punishingly reminiscent of some various scenes that have played out in Halwn’s life before. Once or twice, at least, but for what is missing. Dorian hasn’t smiled at him in a way that Halwn suspects that he is able, haughty and inviting. A wordless demand that Halwn would bend to without the slightest hesitance, if given the chance. Surely, Dorian knows that, too. His wish, Halwn’s command. The Inquisitor has not been subtle, after all.
That is, of course, part of the problem. The command. Halwn’s titles, his position. The very real possibility that Dorian simply wants to save the world, not complicate his already complicated life further by indulging the Inquisitor’s obvious desire to tip his head back and kiss him senseless. Dorian values his senses. As he should. Halwn values those senses, too.
The silence has caught on in that particular way, that way that it tends to between them. The way that indicates that Halwn is thinking of doing something patently, achingly, adoringly stupid. Dorian gives him that look, that warning look, that offers no room for argument against it. There will be no discussion of this tonight, it seems. Another tonight, and another tomorrow, then, gone much the same way. Not wasted, of course. Not wasted when they are together, in whatever capacity, though Halwn feels a sharp spike of self-reproach at how easily he accepts less than what he wants. If he were to bend now and kiss Dorian, stretch over him on the stairs, cradle the back of the mage’s head in his hand to have the freedom to kiss the breath out of him without smarting his skull against the stones—
Halwn pushes himself to his feet and descends a little, and then lingers on the step below where the mage is artfully reclining. He thinks that he can almost hear Dorian’s heart accelerating in his chest, fighting in his breast like a bird. As though reading Halwn’s mind by some dark art or another. Yet Dorian’s face wears the same quizzical, commanding expression, utterly unflinching. He’s a brave man. Fierce, and sharply tenacious. The thought only makes Halwn all the more tempted to kiss him at last. But there is something brittle beneath Dorian’s face, too, beneath his sleek and beautiful facade. Fear. A perfectly understandable, and justified, fear.
For men like them, love is always a risk—and a man like Halwn, in particular? The Herald of Andraste, the Maker’s Chosen? What a spectacularly bad bet he is likely to be, in the end. It is not a deal he’s willing to entice Dorian to make, Halwn reminds himself, no matter the power of his own desires. His fate will be the same at any likely outcome, but Dorian’s happiness is at risk. His trust, and his willingness to trust. Halwn does not wish to wager that kind of currency.
It is, all of it, too precious to be unwillingly risked.
Whatever happens, Dorian must invite it. Some day. Sooner, hopefully, rather than the later that is likely to involve an Archdemon and a field of magickally enhanced fire. Halwn would like to be so certain of his own good intentions. But he’s a military man, too, and a military leader, and he knows how wars like this one are usually won. Gradually, softly—so softly that they do not seem to be fought at all.
There is only a single candelabara still lit along the staircase and, rather unfairly, its light is draped across Dorian’s shape, reclining on the stairs in all his white and gold silk, all his appealingly flushed skin. He’s been dancing. That thought alone causes an unhappy and utterly ridiculous drop of Halwn’s stomach. It’s not jealousy, precisely, so much as it is a sense of loss. He wants Dorian to be happy in that simple way, and he’d not begrudge him a moment of it —but Halwn also wants to be a part of it, with an admittedly jealous want.
“The Maker made us all from the same dirt, so the Sisters say.”
Halwn cants a brow and forces himself to smile, though he’s sure it will be perceived as thin. Dorian’s no fool. It is thin, stretched by the insistent longing that he feels to forgo conversation unless it is to say: I am in love with you. I have been in love with you for a year. Every day, though it seems impossible, I find I love you more. They’re not foolhardy boys, making eyes on someone else’s staircase. Testing invisible boundaries. Are they? What should Halwn say? The truth? Kiss me. I will spend every day for the rest of my life, short as it may be, desperate to make you happy.
Even to him, it sounds like a poor bargain. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Halwn is going to do it anyway, with or without the kiss.
That thought lightens him, and Halwn’s smile grows a little warmer, a little more sly. Rather than retreat, he steps into the stairs and bends his body slightly, over Dorian—nearly the same as he’d thought of doing, though missing the press of them together. No, he’d not go that far unasked. He holds himself at a passable distance with a hand on the riser just above and beside Dorian’s head, unable to resist a slight grin at the offended, almost appalled expression on the mage’s face at their sudden proximity. Dorian had given him that look, after all. That should have been the end of it. Still, even as the mage begins to turn towards indignity at Halwn’s sudden defiance of their rehearsed rules, the Inquisitor lifts his own chin and takes keen note of the way that Dorian, perhaps unaware of it, tips his head back just a little in a perfect, answering accommodation of the motion—as if in anticipation of a kiss that hasn’t yet been delivered.
Halwn smiles, and draws a breath of the scent at Dorian’s throat, the same that’s in his hair, citrus and amber and a faint dark, floral spice, all mingled with skin and its sillage spread by the already long evening, and stands back.
“I will say, unpressed, that you have polished yourself to a far finer sheen than the rest of us seem able—” the mirth is gone from Halwn’s posture, replaced with an almost apologetic affection. It’s not his intent to push until something breaks, to trample over boundaries. That is not his nature. Still, he does want, in a way that has gone long unsatisfied—just a sign would be enough, such as Dorian has sometimes given him. A lingering look, an involuntary smile. An apple. An abundance of healing energy. Three long passages read aloud from a book that Halwn could not begin to honestly understand. A coy touch. A sharp rebuke. What else? A kiss. One, and Halwn would be satisfied.
Halwn’s not a liar, so he doesn’t say such a thing aloud. Instead, he smooths a hand down the front of his jacket, sweeps a hand back through his hair, and sets his soft eyes on Dorian one last time in the dim light of the stairwell. Looks at him a little, and dips his head in appropriate contrition.
“I should say goodnight. Elsewise, I believe there is a chance that it might go ill between us, and you might end the evening cross with me.”
Dorian doesn’t answer, but Halwn thinks he hears a quick inhalation.
“Goodnight, Dorian. Enjoy the party.”
If you dance with another, please, think all the time of me.
