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bodyofvvater · 6 years ago

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good morning

i found this piece i wrote in june of last year about delphine and @arlessaofamaranthine‘s nynia which i had forgotten all about, so i figured i’d post it uwu

Delphine is still awake when the sun rises.

There’s a dull pain in her leg that hasn’t gone away in the past week, a reminder of the creature that got a swipe in at Adamant. One reason amongst many to stay awake all night; the fear that still lives in that pain, keeps her heart beating out of her chest even in the quiet moments. A reminder that, for too many breathless moments, the Inquisitor was gone and the world was lost.

She tries not to think about that. She tries, instead, to focus on the woman in her arms, warm and breathing steadily--though, that hasn’t been helping with the beating of her heart.

It’s still new. Having Nynia like this, peaceful in her arms. Just a week ago, Delphine wouldn’t have dared to dream of a reality where she might have this; she had made her peace with taking her feelings to the grave.

Adamant showed her that the grave might not be as distant of a concept as anticipated. And then the Inquisitor disappeared, and those creatures were everywhere, cutting through their numbers like it was nothing, and Nynia was there in front of her, scared and desperate and the only person Delphine would want to die next to, and--

She tries not to think about it.

But it did change things. Namely, now they have… this. Whatever this is; it’s still a little vague. It started there, a week ago, when Delphine thought they might not make it out alive and just put it all on the table. Now they spend their nights like this, wrapped up in each other in Delphine’s tiny bed.

And it’s… good. It’s really, really good. They haven’t told anyone yet (although, it’s just a matter of time before Quinn figures it out), but it’s been peaceful. It’s been a moment of refuge at the end of a long day, a childish game of trying to sneak off where nobody will notice them. It doesn’t have a name, but it’s theirs, and it’s good.

Delphine worries if maybe it’s too good.

She knows this feeling; the heavy warmth in her chest, how she feels as though she may implode from the rightness of it all when she has Nynia this close. How she longs for these moments during the day. The giddiness when they pass each other in Skyhold’s halls, exchanging knowing smiles.

It’s all so dangerously familiar. A sense of home she hasn’t felt in years, hasn’t felt since-- well. Since Val Royeaux.

That’s another thing she tries not to think about. Another reason she spends most of these nights wide awake.

She wonders what he would say if he could see her now. If he would be angry, or hurt. If he would ask her why she did it. If he would ask her why she moved on.

She’s not sure she has the answers.

She holds Nynia closer; for a moment, she’s afraid she might float away if she doesn’t. And it’s warm and the room is quiet, and Delphine feels her eyes well with tears at the intensity of it all.

She swore to herself, back then, that she would honor him. He took the fall for her weaknesses, and she promised to never forget that.

And I haven’t, she reassures him, as if he can hear her if she thinks loudly enough. I haven’t forgotten. Not a day goes by that I’m not sorry.

It’s just that Nynia is good. Nynia feels like home, and she’s funny, and sweet, and caring, and looks out for everyone. She makes Delphine’s chest feel hollow when she can’t have her, and when they’re together, like this, Delphine has never felt more whole.

Delphine isn’t good. Delphine is off holding a wonder in her arms while her fiancé lies dead--

She shouldn’t think about it. Not now; light is stretching through the small gap under the door, and Nynia is starting to turn in her arms. Rolls to face her, wraps her own arms right around Delphine’s torso and rests her head in the curve of her neck.

Delphine can’t be upset like this. She doesn’t want to be. I can have this, she assures herself, we’ll talk about the rest later.

Nynia moves again, just a tiny bit, and her eyes flutter slightly. Then again; they squint at the light as they try opening one, two, three times. Her gaze is foggy and tired as she orients herself, then spots Delphine in front of her. A small smile spreads across her lips.

“Good morning,” she says, a tiny whisper of a thing.

There are a lot of things Delphine regrets. She regrets the way she left things with her mother. She regrets never prying more into the identity of her father. She regrets the blood on her hands.

She could never regret waking up with Nynia like this.

“Good morning.”

#delphine d'aramitz #nynia avilles #oc tag #not the longest thing ive written but it was the first i wrote for any of my oc's so #it has a Special Place in my heart uwu

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bodyofvvater · 6 years ago

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foil

last night i had to accept that luca and @arlessaofamaranthine‘s cosmas, my arch nemesis, defo hooked up, and also that i was defo gonna write about the aftermath, and now i’m putting the end product here where everyone can see it. it’s not my best writing and luca isnt Entirely in character (although that’s at least partially on purpose), but i had fun writing it, so here it is anyway

Luca spends more time looking for him than he would care to admit. At least he takes solace in cursing his name all the while.

Not twelve hours ago, Cosmas was in Luca’s room, a little disheveled and a lot out of breath. And Luca felt smug, letting Cosmas set the pace, knowing he thought he was in control--knowing he wasn’t at all. Afterward, Cosmas looked a particular kind of pretty, and Luca told him so knowing it would make a flush crawl up his neck. And then they drifted off to sleep, tangled up in each other yet careful not to let their hands touch. All par for the course; good bedside manner, as far as hooking up is concerned.

The problem was waking up. Cold in an empty bed, with none of the easy bickering of two friends who just did each other a very mutually beneficial favor. Maybe he should be upset; as it stands, Luca is mostly affronted.

And as if being left in his own bed isn’t bad enough, now Luca has to scour all of Skyhold looking for the son of a bitch.

Because--okay, maybe Cosmas sneaking out in the middle of the night isn’t as out of left field as he would like it to be. Luca knows Cosmas is about as far from straight as it gets. He’s not so sure Cosmas is aware of this himself.

It’s not even a week since they sat by one of the tables in the Great Hall, still chatting hours after everyone else had cleared out after dinner. And Luca mentioned growing up with no one like him around, not knowing that he wasn’t the only one. Cosmas offered a “that must have been hard for you” with all the sympathy of someone who had never had to think about it, and then that was that.

Luca might have believed him, if two drinks later Cosmas wasn’t practically straddling him, staring at his hands like he wanted to eat them.

Luca might let him, in a manner of speaking, if Cosmas hasn’t scared himself back into the closet.

It takes almost an hour of searching (why is this castle so huge?), but in the end, Luca finds him in the library. He’s practically folded in on himself, knees to his chest and chin resting on them, looking like he’s trying to blend into the chair Dorian usually occupies.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Luca wonders where the Inquisitor might have dragged Dorian off to; his active thoughts are mostly occupied with the sight in front of him. Much to his delight (and probably to the man in question’s dismay), Cosmas has done a piss poor job of not looking like he recently got fucked--if he’s tried at all. His blond hair is mussed and sticking up every which way, tangled where Luca vividly remembers his fingers clasping down. He’s got a hickey peeking up over the hem of his shirt--which appears to be unbuttoned halfway, if Luca isn’t mistaken.

He could waste time worrying about what to say. He’s not particularly fond of worrying, though, so he plunges right in.

“How long have you been here?” he asks, and tries not to snicker when Cosmas nearly jumps out of his own skin--this doesn’t exactly seem like the time to laugh at him. Later, he promises himself.

“Um…” Cosmas starts, and, okay, wow, speechless. That’s a new look on him. “I don’t know? Some… hours, maybe?”

Luca can’t resist a small scoff at that; he’s not perfect.

“Talk to me,” he says then, because he doesn’t know how else to broach this particular subject. Easier to let Cosmas do the talking.

Cosmas looks at him for a long, endless second. Luca thinks maybe it should make him weak in the knees; that might make this easier. If he could sit down next to Cosmas and take his hands and monologue about how much he loved him and how last night had meant the world to him. It isn’t true, but for a moment he considers saying it anyway, if Cosmas wants to hear it.

Instead, Cosmas speaks: “You’re a good man, Luca,” and Maker, it’s gonna be one of those speeches. “You’re a good man, and-- Our friendship is. Good.”

There’s a pause where Cosmas looks like he’s forgotten how to speak. Luca has the urge to chuckle again; he swallows it down.

“We--” Cosmas starts, then stops. A determined expression colors his features then, and he starts over; “Last night was a mistake.”

“Alright,” says Luca. Determination melts into confusion on Cosmas’s face; Luca has never realized how close the two can be.

“Just… alright?” he asks, hesitant. Like he’s scared he’s about to open up a can of worms he won’t know how to close again.

Luca saunters closer, leans against the bookcase across from where Cosmas sits. He doesn’t sit down; he likes that he’s the taller of the two in this position.

“Yes, alright,” he says, “What were you expecting? For me to plead for you to love me? Try to trick you back into bed?”

There’s a shameful silence before Cosmas sighs, “I… Maybe?”

Luca rolls his eyes; “Andraste’s ass, you’re pretty, but you’re not that pretty.”

A flash of something small and scared passes over Cosmas’s features, and Luca sort of wishes Delphine were here to tell him what that meant--but then he realizes that that would mean he’d have to tell her that he slept with Cosmas, and suddenly he sincerely hopes she’s on the other side of Thedas until he can destroy the evidence.

“It’s just that I’m… I’m not, you know, like that.”

At least he has the decency to look forlorn.

Luca suddenly feels a little sick, something cold and hard coiling in his stomach. If his pride wasn’t all he had, he might have walked away. Because it’s one thing to say you’re not into men, or that you didn’t enjoy a hook-up. Even that your friendship can never be the same.

Cosmas says it like it’s poison, and Luca knows exactly what it means. I’m not like that. I’m not like you. You’re not like me. You’re not like us.

Luca wears his best steely expression, tries to tell his rapidly beating heart to quiet. “I don’t appreciate your tone,” he says, and feels so much like his father that he could laugh if he wasn’t so angry. Or sad, or hurt, or whatever he is. It all seems to blend together.

“You know what I mean--”

“Yeah, I do,” Luca cuts him off. “I wish you didn’t.”

Cosmas looks apologetic at that. It feels like a consolation prize; Luca hates that it makes him feel a little better.

“It’s just,” Cosmas sighs, “I like women. That’s-- I always have.”

Luca rolls his eyes; “You can like both. Any. All.”

“But I don’t.”

“Forgive me for being a little skeptical,” Luca scoffs, “after having you begging in my bed not twelve hours ago.”

Cosmas crosses his arms. He looks like a petulant child. Good, Luca thinks, for once it’s not me.

“It was a mistake,” Cosmas reiterates. He looks desperate--a little crazed, maybe. Luca wants to ask why he’s this upset about it if last night truly meant nothing to him, but it feels like a waste.

“Alright,” he says again instead, “I’m not arguing that.”

“Then why are you arguing?”

“Because you’re being an ass about it!” Luca exclaims, a little louder than he was aiming for. If someone else is in the library, they certainly heard. He doesn’t care enough to look.

“I’m being an ass about it?” Cosmas asks, incredulous.

For a second, Luca thinks he sees him with the same lens Delphine does. Selfish, oblivious, destructive. A second, and then he’s back to Cosmas--a peer, a friend, and, as of last night, a lover. Both frustrate him endlessly.

“Yes, you,” he snaps. “I’m not a foil to your fragile masculinity. You jumped into bed with me as much as I jumped into bed with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m not an animal. You don’t have to worry about me pouncing on you. But whatever crisis you’re having is yours to deal with--I don’t want the blame for it after you asked me to take you somewhere private.”

Cosmas goes quiet, and so does Luca, and then they’re just staring at each other.

Part of Luca knows he’s not being entirely fair. He remembers this; remembers feeling scared and alone and different, desperate for something he felt disgusting for indulging in. Reading every novel in the library at home, wondering how all the men fell in love with those women, how they made themselves do it. Mostly just wondering if they secretly fell in love with their best friends, their fellow soldiers, neighboring princes. If it was so secret the narrator didn’t even tell the reader.

He looks at Cosmas and sees a man who knows only what he wants when he has it, and spends every other moment depriving himself of it. It must be a tortured existence, Luca thinks sympathetically, all while imagining what words he could say to cut the deepest.

“I didn’t mean to imply…” Cosmas says then, sounding a little embarrassed. “I’m not-- You didn’t… take advantage of me.”

Relief washes over Luca, smothering a worry he didn’t know he had. Suddenly he feels like crying, a little bit.

“Okay,” he says instead, barely managing to keep his voice even. “Good. I’m glad.”

Slowly, Cosmas unfolds himself from where he’s been sitting curled up. He grimaces as he stands on stiff legs, and Luca almost grumbles as Cosmas is once again the taller of the two of them.

“Look,” Cosmas says with all the guilt and pity of someone trying to break up with a partner gently. Maker, no.

“Don’t,” Luca practically begs.

Cosmas, thankfully, shuts right up.

“I told you,” Luca continues, “I’m not in love with you, I’m not an idiot. Last night was fun. That’s it. That’s all it has to be.”

Cosmas hesitates. Seems to search for something in Luca’s face, body language, something. Luca wouldn’t be able to say what if his life depended on it, but whatever it is, Cosmas seems satisfied with his conclusion. He smiles--just barely, a tiny thing, but it makes Luca breathe easier all the same.

Then he sticks out a hand to shake, and Luca has to laugh.

“You want to shake on it?” he asks.

There’s still a nervousness to Cosmas as he chuckles. “I don’t know, it felt appropriate?”

“It most certainly isn’t,” Luca says, and shakes his hand anyway. It’s better than arguing.

#the ending is so half-assed ok #i just didnt feel like writing any more at that point #oc tag #luca bellamy #cosmas etlet #also #delphine d'aramitz #is mentioned

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