The Air That We Breathe
Solas almost breaks for her. For the Inquisitor-- the child of the Dalish and all of their empty, muddled, mostly-forgotten knowledge. For the willowy creature of moonlight-on-snow who gleams like the silverite of her knives as she slides into the familiar dance of battle with such lovely, deadly grace. The woman with Mythal’s vengeful branches woven beneath eyes as green as the swirls and eddies of the Fade. She is all that the People could be, should be-- and he aches, because he is forever wanting all the things he must not have.
In the Fade, he is all desperate hunger as he bends the Inquisitor backward in a too-passionate embrace, taking her too-willing mouth harder than he should, slipping his tongue past her softly parted lips when she gasps. His hands are too honest, dragging low on her hips as he crushes her wisp-light body against his. His fingers dig in; he wants more than anything in the world to give in, to let his hands discover and covetously map the fine, delicate curve of her ass. The temptation is like a knife in his gut: twisting, sharp, demanding that he show her what he knows he cannot reveal. Only the hazy dreamscape of the Fade-- and the fact that the Inquisitor is not a mage, so thankfully not a mage-- can hide his worst, most base reaction. Were she a mage, he thinks, she would feel him pressed against her and know that even in a dream built on a memory, he was desperately, achingly hard for her.
He fights for control and almost wins, pulling back from the kiss he should never have given into in the first place. She must see too much in the way he shakes his head-- denying himself, not her-- but he holds back, holds back, holds back...
He almost wins, but when she starts to turn away-- shy, embarrassed, rejected, the vallaslin on her cheeks filled in with pink color like carnations-- he fails. He falls. He is defeated. He doesn’t break, no, but by the heavens above, he wants to.
He kisses her again because there is no power that can stop him, hating her, loving her, wanting her-- and most of all, hating himself. Solas is a liar, a long-practiced deceiver, a master of dishonesty and close-kept secrets and words forever left unsaid. It doesn’t matter. He kisses her long and deep, and his mouth and his hands and the crush of his embrace-- that is all truth. It terrifies him. Truth is a beautiful relief he cannot afford, not even for her. Not for the Inquisitor, and never for himself.
Solas almost breaks for her. Take this burden from me, he wants to whisper against her kiss-wetted lips. He is drowning in his secrets, drowning in his sins. All he needs from her is one breath, one last desperate gasp of air, before the darkness pulls him under and he is lost for good.
My people need me. If I am to drown, then let it be with the taste of her on my lips.
Solas will not break for her. Not until the end, when all of the lies he’s been killing himself with finally restore the world, the People, the truth. Then and only then will he break. He will shatter. He will lose her, and he will hate her for her shy smile and her kindness and her quiet wisdom, and for this memory of a breathless, stolen kiss that he never deserved but will long for until the end of time.
His hatred for her will be his final lie, his grandest self-deception. It will be the lie that finally destroys him.
Solas wants to break for her. He must not. He must not. This will never happen again, he vows. He will deny the sweet temptation of her soft and eager mouth, her pale throat, her high breasts, her slender hips. He will let the cold, dark water seep into his heart. He will be ice and steel and terrible, unshakable purpose, and he will sweep everything wrong away like a tidal wave without once remembering her too-lovely eyes.
Liar. Liar.
He’s going to go to her again. Not in a dream. Not in a memory. It will be just her body pressed tight against his as he claims her mouth and grasps her hips and lets her feel the hard line of his cock, the proof of his unforgivable lust. He will show her how much he wants her. He will give her this truth in the waking world, in the burning and all-revealing light of day.
He will kiss her again, to see if she will break him. There is no power that can stop him.