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10: french kiss
It seemed like she could never be completely done with her duties.
Even when she retired to her quarters, the thoughts of what she’d left unfinished that day haunted her. The operations on the war table that were perpetually left untouched, the words she’d yet to write in her journals, the books she’d yet to read, the people she’d yet to meet. They sloshed about, frivolous and detrimental to her sleep, and kept her from achieving deep sleep.
And on top of that, add the tension between her and Cullen, which really had became encumbering when she chose to recruit the mages over the Templars. She had seen the way he’d scowled, like she’d betrayed him. How could he have expected her, a mage, to choose the ones who would devoutly kill her or bring her back to a Circle, if the times were not as bleak as they were? He did not seem to put this fact into consideration. When they claimed Skyhold as their main base of operations, and he’d seen her struggle, after Coryphaeus made his debut, through the perils alone, and some of his inhibitions had tempered.
They still festered. The Commander was very one-track about his feelings with her choice. He only saw it as her divergence to order. Other actions of hers were commendable, though — she had desperately tried to make it up to him by always choosing him to oversee operations at the war table. It was unspoken, for she would never actually admit she was doing such a thing, but he could take cues.
When she’d come to speak to him, finally, about her choice back there, she was met with compassion. Or more accurately, passion. It was a stand-in for a real conversation, for on this they would never agree and most likely bicker for hours on end about it.
He was standing in the centermost point in his room, some kind of clipboard in one hand, when she had entered his room. He’d set down whatever facetious task he’d been toiling over, signalling that he was giving her his undivided attention with an elevation of one eyebrow. A wordless inquiry. Evelyn had taken several halting steps toward him.
Instead of igniting a controversy between them, she does something uncharacteristic. Evelyn knows she’s probably in his personal bubble when she stops before him. Strife was in her eyes, glinting like the steel of a sword. She was conflicted. He opened his mouth to say something, but whatever words that were on their path died on his lips.
And then, like that, she aligned her posture, and kissed the corner of his parted lips.
Her fingers dipped into the front of his shirt to gain better leverage, her fingers inadvertently touching his clavicle, encroaching on his sternum. A shudder was enticed from him. When he returned her kiss, the way he incorporates a gentle element with severity causes periodic mental hiccups; overwhelmed to the point of not being able to process things with clarity. For a moment, she forgot the waxwork corpses always in her mind’s eye. His hand ghosted to her hip. Where he touches, flickers of a foreign but pleasant sensation fan out and make her heart flutter. White static fills her missing perceptions
It hadn’t been long since they had captured Skyhold. She had lamented the people she had been forced to leave behind in Haven. She had constantly been dogged by her remorse. This place knew death. But so did they.
They were embracing with equal force. Neither of them had the desire to break it; Evelyn clung to him in fear it may end abruptly, like a drowning man on a chunk of driftwood. His arm snaked around the small of her back. She knotted her hands into the back of his shirt, pulling against it, a wordless response to his advances. She hadn’t noticed that they’d backed towards a wall until her back touches it. They were pressed against each other at this point, which willed her legs to spread slightly to maintain her posture and comfort. Bells rung in his head.
And just like that, it’s over. His hand was his protest; he places a hand on her cheek to stabilize her and broke their kiss. Without contact, she instinctively followed after him, but then realized what the gesture implied. When he stepped back, he’s breathing harder than before. The commander cooly smoothed a hand through his hair, avoiding eye contact with her momentarily. Evelyn’s back was against the wall still, her arms bent at the joint and grasping for something that isn’t there anymore.
“I —- Ah —”
He struggled to say something appropriate, but finds himself at a loss. She’d turned as red as wine, a dreamy and eerie expression was on her face, half- pleasure, half-pain. Her head bent with a sleepy, soft, drooping movement that was almost woeful.
“I’m sorry,”
She turned and exits without another word.