Work Text:
Solas was used to isolation.
Even in his youth he had never been a particularly social person. He had a few people in his life that he kept close. Platonic relationships, friendships, romantic relationships - they all came and went and he was pleased with the time he had alone.
But when isolation is your only option, it becomes less of a safe harbor and more of a prison, even if it was self imposed.
Which was why Lavellan was so… impossible. They had to be impossible.
At first, he feared it was just being in close proximity to an elf that reminded him so much of the elves of the past. It had to be the anchor, he thought. The orb must have affected them in ways he didn’t anticipate.
But it wasn’t that. Lavellan was simply chipping down his walls, piece by piece. They kissed him in the Fade of all places. Took a dream, a place where he had always been in control and flipped it in their favor.
The kiss was far too short and far too amateurish for him to be satisfied.
That seemed to be a consistent excuse. A kiss wasn’t long enough. A touch wasn’t firm enough. A glance didn’t give enough. Lavellan had broken through and now he was seeping need. It was bleeding through his clothes and dripping to the floor, leaving him shaking and weak.
The worst of it was they had no idea what they were doing to him. They were… kind. considerate. They would visit him in his den with no thought to the agony they put him in, though he knew he made no such indications.
He would see them and he would smile and Lavellan would smile back and, briefly, Solas believed himself to be just a man.
Of course, that wasn’t the case.
He continually promised himself that he would stop. That he would tell them, explain the truth, or at the very least separate the two of them as to avoid further heartache, but these things never seemed to happen.
Every time he came into their dreams or to their quarters, they ended up touching.
Lavellan treated him like he was fragile, like he was thin glass they were too afraid to break… at least that’s what he thought initially. But as he took notice of their expressions, of their smiles and their soft eyes, he knew better.
Perhaps they knew he was fragile. Inwardly, at the very center, he cared too much and loved too many and that was his downfall. but in the end… he was precious to them. So precious that they would trace the lines of his face. That they would cradle his jaw and stare at him and whisper things in a language they only partially knew but were eager to learn.
He was fluent in elven, but how to explain to them that romance was something he hardly knew, that intimacy was foreign and frightening and something he needed but couldn’t have?
He couldn’t have it.
He kept repeating that even as he asked Lavellan if they could go to bed together.
Solas wanted to hate himself as they pressed together in the dark, adjusting limbs to try to find the best position to sleep.
But Lavellan laughed.
They laughed and apologized for something (had they hit him on accident? he couldn’t even feel it) and Solas felt himself melt. He leaned in and kissed them and didn’t stop until his lungs ached for oxygen.
They kept touching him like he was the most treasured thing in their life.
He was unsure if that was true, but that didn’t keep him from touching them in just the same fashion.
It was impossible not to treasure something that gave you hope.