۞
"I believe we have an agreement then, Your Majesty." Garrett stood and stepped around his desk, the perpetual, solemn hush of the Viscount’s Office cut by the distant roar of the plate falls and the lilting voices of a pair of flirtatious gardeners tending to the rooftop garden a floor beneath his open window. His seneschal told him that quiet gave way to seriousness, but Hawke would always be of the opinion that if one was making decisions that effected the livelihood of Kirkwall, then it made no sense to isolate oneself from her sounds and smells.
That was the valid excuse he gave. Really, he just hated absolute silence. It was lonely and condescending and made him feel all the louder in comparison. If it was so quiet he felt embarrassed to fart alone in his own office, then it was definitely too quiet.
With both his signature and that of Cailan Theirin alighting the contract they’d made about trade partnership, Garrett approached the other man with hand outstretched, maneuvering around the corner of his desk with ease committed fiercely to muscle memory after having walked into it at least a thousand times.
Unfortunately, the blond king’s wheelchair was not something he’d had to accommodate prior, and his large left foot caught on the wheel as he stepped close, He would have recovered easily enough, had his desk not been directly behind him, for when he yanked his left foot back and away with apology it had nowhere to go, negating his balance and sending the three-hundred-pound Mayor of Kirkwall staggering forward on top of the King of Ferelden.
Garrett’s hands clamped down on the arms of the chair, vacated by Cailan’s own as the royal endeavored to brace the falling Hawke. With both making quick efforts to avoid pain and catastrophe, they managed to stop the majority of Garrett’s falling, forward motion, though with a comical smooching sound wrought by tight-lipped tension and and intake of air, their lips collided in a kiss. Slightly askew, but a kiss all the same.
Both men paused for a moment, Garrett’s stomach feeling as though he was about to shit it clear out at the realization that he’d just tripped on Cailan Theirin’s wheelchair and kissed the man, but Cailan began to chuckle which prompted Hawke to do the same. Clearing his throat, Garrett straightened up. ”Because who shakes hands anymore, really?”
Cailan adopted a serious expression and pulled his counterpart forward to kiss him once on each cheek again, before at last taking Garrett’s own large hand in both of his and shaking. Hawke clamped his second hand on the back of Cailan’s right. ”Always a pleasure, Your Highness,” Garrett said with complete honesty and an added, cheeky wink.
