#and hal trevelyan responded with 'i remember everything you've ever said

[inquistior-a]

@bornpariah​ asked   :   𝙺𝙸𝚂𝚂 —— 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝙾𝙽𝙴 𝙸𝚂 𝙹𝚄𝚂𝚃 𝚂𝙴𝙻𝙵 𝙴𝚇𝙿𝙻𝙰𝙽𝙰𝚃𝙾𝚁𝚈, 𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙻𝙻𝚈

   ‘ Sit up. ’

   A gentle but impatient command as Halwn slips back into the bed and braces his back against the headboard, legs stretched across the coverlet. Dorian is half across him again almost immediately, and half back to sleep as well. It’s likely only interest in the promised present that’s kept an eye cracked open---Halwn chuckles at his expression, and smooths a thumb across one of the mage’s sleep-disheveled brows, smiling a little wider at the impatient huff it earns him because, of course, he will not be able to preform the attempted procedure to Dorian’s particular standard.

   He has a small wooden crate in his hands, fetched from where he had concealed them the night before in the alcove behind his desk. It is a small crate, smaller than he’d like, no bigger than an egg crate. He pulls the lid free with an easy jerk, revealing inside a cluster of two dozen oranges carefully packed with straw. The fruits are small and ripe and vibrant as spessartite stones, smelling strongly of sunlight and a warmth that their current climate sorely lacks. Not that Halwn minds the cold overmuch---but they are not meant for him.

   ‘ Do you remember the morning at Haven, the first you ate with Varric and I at the tavern? They served you stone-meal and boiled potatoes under really dreadful hard-fried eggs. You started in immediately on the failings of Southron cuisine and, when Varric insisted that it couldn’t be so much better in Tevinter, you described to him the breakfasts you ate as a boy. Sweet yeasted breads dredged in citrus blossom honey, rose petal preserves mixed with chopped cashews and almonds and spread on slices of pear---coffee and sweet milk and coconut. You described bowls of oranges, peeled perfectly bare by use of magick, piled so high that you could not see across them. You carried on for nigh a half an hour, through the whole meal, and Varric vowed he’d never eat with you again, since the cooks would surely spit in your food, and the food of anyone fool enough to be seen sitting with you, after a tirade like that. ’

   All the time he speaks, Halwn has been peeling one of the little fruits in his surprisingly nimble hands. Nimble for their size, at least, and delicate with the orange---used to handling such tender things, and many more tender even than this. Seedlings and new-cut blossoms. A foal’s confused head, eyes barely open. Hurt hands, frightened faces. All of that is far from his mind, now.

   ‘ They all thought you were ridiculous---and you were, a little, ’ something sharp sinks into his left thigh, and Halwn is reasonably sure it’s a short nip of teeth. He chooses to ignore it for the moment. ‘ But I had never longed so acutely to taste something as I did the things that you described. I knew then that your excess wasn’t pretension or pride, as the rest suspected. It was passion, and love, for the place you’d come---pouring out of you like light. ’

   ‘ That was when I knew I’d have you, ’  it’s sly, and goading, and far more tease than truth. Halwn had known he was lost, then---whether or not anything would come of it, he hadn’t yet allowed himself to consider. His inclination towards the newly-arrived and universally mistrusted Evil Magister had begun in a world that technically did not exist. Returning to the reality of a relevant timeline had done nothing to shatter the stunning clarity of the feeling.  ‘Your inclination’  was how Josephine had nervously described it, too polite to call it what it plainly was:  an infatuation past a simple interest.  ‘ I was fairly certain that I’d been born for you, regardless of whatever claim it was supposed that Andraste had made upon me. ’

   The severity of the statement is blunted somewhat by humour, by their shared flirtatious lightness---but only somewhat and still, Halwn knows he can’t linger on it long, or the truth of it will sit like a rock between them. Not yet, perhaps. It’s true, and he isn’t ashamed to share it---but it’s not to be dwelt on when it might make his lover feel unsafe. That’s utterly opposed to Halwn’s purpose, now, which is nothing more than delight, and tenderness, and an easy smile.

   It’s not easy to forget that, now---now, with oranges piled in his lap, and Dorian’s chin resting on top of his thigh, lovely grey eyes inherently sharp and yet somehow softened, almost unfocused with affection as they watch him work. Bright with amusement, with pleasure. Halwn carries on peeling the oranges, and doesn’t indulge in too long a direct stare. If he does, he’ll have to kiss him, and then the trail of his thoughts will certainly be lost.

   ‘ I saw these in a market stand in Montclair six days ago, when we rode past on our return from the capital. They’re very rare in this part of the world, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. They will not grow well south of Tevinter. Not even so near to it as Ostwick. I thought you should have one, to please you---but then I thought you should have more, so many that you could not see over the pile of them, as you had when you were a boy. Josephine thought I’d gone mad---or else she suspects I’m paranoid over the fear of developing scurvy. ’

   By now, Halwn has divested three small fruits of their rinds. He begins to separate their segments out, tenth by tenth, and offers the first of a ridiculous many to Dorian. The Inquisitior isn’t surprised when his lover takes the section of fruit with his teeth rather than hand to hand---not surprised, but still obviously pleased. As if it were a reward for that blatant indulgence, Halwn sweeps his thumb, sweet with the perfume of the oranges’ juice, across the mage’s lower lip, and bends over low enough to kiss him. Dorian’s mouth is sweet with the oranges, too, sweet and sharp with citrus. It’s crushingly appropriate, blisteringly beautiful, and one kiss turns into a second, a lingering third. As it always seems to be when he is in good health, Dorian’s skin is warm to the touch, and the flare of the Anchor, as well as the little sing of nerve tension that accompanies it, indicates their shared thrill, something like the surge of hearts. Dorian’s pleasure, so attenuated to magickal manifestation, pulls---and the Anchor is a well.

   Where it’s rooted, Halwn cannot say---though, in moments such as this one, it feels as though it’s drawing out of the center of him, pulling from a bottomless place that had opened up only after the first time that Dorian had stepped insistently into his arms.

   ‘ I’m sure a mage could peel them more completely, though I challenge him to claim he gets half so much pleasure in doing it for you as I do---and, though I bought all the merchant had, it may not be enough to match the excess you were once accustomed to...  unless the bowl is very small. Will you forgive me? ’

   The rest is all laughter and equally teasing placation, kisses and hands and more. Eventually, the oranges tumble to the floor half forgotten---which is a shame, since they’d ended up as a donation once the merchant realized who she was selling them to. Wasting the fruit of the faithful is the least of the charges against him, certainly, but Halwn would take much worse for a moment or two more of this particular kind of peace:  the surreal, almost ghost-like sensation of home.