Work Text:
The door closed behind Solas with a final, sonorous click, and he turned at once to press his forehead against the wall and groan. Whether in frustration or disappointment, he wasn’t entirely certain.
The coolness of the stone wall just outside the Inquisitor’s quarters was a stark contrast to the heat in his face, and his groin. Passing the palm of his hand over the offending region, he bit off a second groan as it encountered his growing hardness. Pure instinct had him grinding down through the layers of fabric, and his mind strayed to the way, only minutes before, it had been her body in place of his hand. Until the fullness of the effect she had upon him had begun to manifest, and he’d been forced to make a hasty retreat to the very stairwell he was standing in now, fantasising about nothing more than a close embrace.
How old was he? Old enough to have more control than this. Now he was fully hard. Now he had to traverse the spiral staircase and cross the great hall, where someone would inevitably see him in his current state and make assumptions. There was only one quick solution to his dilemma, and it both filled him with deep shame, and caused his cock to twitch within the confines of his clothing.
Tilting his head to the side, he listened hard for any sound in the room beyond the door, or below him on the stairs, but there was nothing. He turned to place his back against the wall, and unlaced his trousers beneath the fall of his tunic.
His cock now free, he could see the tent it made in the heavy woollen material even in the dim light of the stairwell. Taking hold of himself and stroking, quick and sharp from root to tip, seemingly only made it more obvious what he was doing. Perhaps it was more obscene covered, a demonstration of his shame, and its lack of ability to stop him. He widened his stance and kept stroking.
Bringing his other hand to his lips, he thought about the cause of his misery, the architect of his predicament. Her lips, in the physical world or the Fade, were a revelation. Soft, and just a little chapped from the wind and sun. She’d pulled the words he’d been vainly trying to contain from his mouth, as though she’d held them gripped in her teeth, unspooling between them as he’d pulled away.
“Ar lath ma,” he’d said to the woman who had come to reside at the centre of his being, as inextricable and vital as the fleshy muscle thudding in his chest at that very moment. To those who had once been without flesh ‘Vhenan’ meant something quite different: the heart of a spirit was the core of its identity, its soul, and as long as its heart survived intact it could be resurrected again. ‘Vhenan’ therefore was a person so vital to the core of one’s being that their loss would be the same as the destruction of the self.
He felt it. Her loss would kill ‘Solas’ - apostate mage, wandering dreamer - if he had ever existed to begin with. Fen’Harel would no doubt continue to wreak destruction upon the world, but that identity was, and always had been, hollow at the core.
A vicious twist of his wrist on the upstroke caused him to gasp aloud. He clamped his hand down over his offending mouth, listening again for any sound beyond the waiting door.
Still nothing, but what if there had been? What if, curiosity piqued, she followed a half-heard sound to its source and found him there? He could not hide what he was doing: his very presence still outside her door was suspect, even if he could have somehow hidden the evidence of his actions. He imagined her steady eyes regarding him like this, tracking a path of fire across his body to the part that wanted her most, then back up to lock him in place with her eyes. Would she slowly approach, until she stood before him? Would she kneel down, disappear beneath the trailing hem of his tunic and- no.
She would stop just far enough away that the covered head of his cock almost, but didn’t quite, touch her, though the material of his tunic might. She would reach one hand - the left hand, the marked hand - beneath the curtaining fabric, and gently pull his hand away. Without breaking eye contact, she would reach with her other hand to grasp him. A hand smaller than his, warm and calloused. And that would be it; one hand at his wrist, loosely holding, the other rasping against his most sensitive flesh. Their eyes entwined. He wouldn’t know whether to strain towards her or against her, but she would answer the question for him with a mere tilt of her head: an invitation to be kissed.
He’d barely been able to resist her a moment on the balcony; here, with her hand at work unravelling him like an unsatisfactory tapestry, he would have no chance.
The kiss would be like no other kiss in his long, long life, and at the same time alike every other kiss they’d shared so far. He couldn’t distinguish whether the emotion those kisses dragged from him was want or need, desire or hunger; his confusing, unwanted body insisted it was both. The touch of her lips would be the final straw. His spend would mainly dirty the inside of his tunic, but it would also smear her hand, the inside of her wrist. Perhaps even dribble down to the floor. He would pull her against him to thrust the final few spurts against her body, rather than into her hand, and then he wouldn’t let go afterwards. She would swallow every one of his moans down her throat for safekeeping.
Outside of his imaginings, his hand was moving quick and desperate. With his attention on the images and sensations conjured up by his mind, and his eyes on the Inquisitor’s door, he was startled by the sound of another door opening. Far below, on the lowest landing, the quiet murmur of a pair of voices made its way up to him.
Solas froze, his eyes flashing to the stairs leading up to his position. There were no convenient alcoves, no places to hide. Only the twisting and turning of the stair, and the door through which he couldn’t pass. Not like this. Which would be worse: to be found on the stair by some unsuspecting servant, or to flee into the Inquisitor’s room and reveal what he had done after leaving her? It was a choice he desperately didn’t want to make. His ears felt strained with the effort of listening so intently.
A few moments later, after a few clattering sounds, the voices retreated and the door swung shut with a deafening clatter that echoed all the way up to his landing. The danger had passed. To his dismay, he had not wilted at all.
He understood, now, better perhaps than at any other time in his life, the power held by desire. Here he was, brought low by her - and not, in truth, through any action of hers! What had she done to encourage this? A stolen kiss, a gentle hand at his elbow and a request not to leave? No, the enemy was inside him, and seemingly had been from the start. He had rarely wanted something so terribly for himself. The issue at hand remained, a throbbing predicament.
A new fantasy then, if he was to follow through. The kiss. He would return time and again to that kiss, he knew. His body roaring to life under her touch. What if she hadn’t let him go?
She’d yielded so sweetly to him for the kiss, her body moulded to fit against his. Arrested by her hand at his elbow once, if she’d done so again, he would have had no strength to deny her. Given the chance, he had no doubt that she would have led him to her bed, the Orlesian monstrosity that dominated the space. He hardly knew whether to fantasise about being pulled down to cover her body with his on the bed, or being pushed down to serve at her pleasure. Which would she prefer?
Her pleasure. He imagined being pulled down atop her, the shifting and heaving of her breath beneath him. Another kiss, indulgent. Moving downwards, to mouth affection at her throat. Pulling aside her clothing to expose her breasts to his exploration. Travelling lower. A kiss pressed to each tender thigh, as he lifted them to rest on his shoulders. A heated breath passed over her core, simply to watch her body tense and tremble in anticipation.
In the past, he’d often been a teasing lover. With her, at least this first time, that would be impossible. A starving man sat down in front of a feast could not be counted upon to provide entertainment.
No teasing, then. A long, luxurious swipe of his tongue, savouring. Her body, tensing, loosening, tensing again, her thighs clamped tight around his head, heels digging in, holding him in place. He wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else.
It wouldn’t be difficult to bring his hand to his leggings, pull apart his laces, and take himself in hand, just as he had in real life. He could almost feel her, hot and slick against his mouth. If he made her feel good enough, could he crack her restraint so much that she would grind against him, make use of him for her pleasure?
He was growing close. Hurriedly, as though he might actually come before he could bring her release, he pictured intensifying his efforts, pressing and flicking and tonguing until her back arched, hips jerking, and she gave a high, fragmented cry. That imagined cry seared through his nerves, and he crumpled inwards, dropping his hand from his mouth just in time to catch his spend with the inside of his tunic, rather than allow it to drip down as in his earlier fantasy. As such, he couldn’t quite prevent his own low groan from escaping his lips. With luck, it wouldn’t be heard, though he still spent a few bleary moments halfheartedly listening for movement behind the door. Still nothing.
He allowed his head to roll back against the wall again. Its coolness was less soothing now, instead rather clammy and cold. Here he was, standing outside the Inquisitor’s quarters, with his tunic soiled, his leggings sliding down his thighs, and his cock swiftly softening between his fingers. All this because he loved her, and had lied to her.
It would first be necessary to put himself to rights. The mess was on the inside of his tunic, and his hand could be wiped on the same. It should be sufficient for the journey to his quarters, so long as he avoided any delays. His eyes shifted involuntarily back to the door - still closed, still silent. Closing them against the sight, he sighed.
Just a moment longer, then he would go.