A Halloween prompt from OTP prompts on Tumblr:
It's Halloween night and your OTP is watching a horror movie. Person A thinks the movie is stupid and keeps rolling their eyes. Later when they go to bed and turn the lights off, Person A is suddenly scared but keeps denying it to person B.
Anwen massages her moisturiser into her skin with a level of concentration that would have made Vivienne proud. Her index fingers sweep in unison along her brow bone, curling around to brush down her cheek bones, then she makes little circles across her cheeks, working backward toward her hairline. It is a nightly routine she has kept sacred since she was a teenager. Forever moving house and changing schools, losing friends and meeting strangers, she has clung on to her routines ferociously. Her life is certainly more settled now, with a beautiful home and a steady job at Inquisition Corps, but her nightly habits have proven impossible to shake.
Returning the little pot of moisturiser to its rightful spot on her dresser, she climbs into bed and starts braiding her hair, carefully considering a mental checklist of things she needs to organise as she does. She must remember to hand her trip report to Josephine; it's over a week overdue and Josephine's anger, though rare, is terrifying to behold. And she must book those flights to Val Royeaux before the price goes up. The business negotiations with Repose Limited were progressing smoothly but a face-to-face meeting was imperative to bring the deal to a close. She sighs as she loops a hair-tie around the bottom of her braid; she has a two-hour conference call scheduled for the morning and the mere thought of it is exhausting.
So consumed is she in her thoughts that Anwen doesn't realise how unnaturally still Cullen is at her side. Usually he likes to read at night, easily devouring a chapter while Anwen flutters around the room performing her elaborate evening rituals. But tonight he lies stone-still, eyes wide open and staring intensely at the ceiling.
Her hand stills as she reaches for her bed-side lamp, finally noticing Cullen's disquiet. "Is everything all right?" she asks, hand poised mid-air.
"Yeah," he replies unconvincingly. She frowns as she turns the light off, then turns to face him as she settles into the mattress.
"Tell me what's wrong," she probes inelegantly, never one to mince her words.
Cullen stays quiet, face knotted with concern – or is that embarrassment?
Anwen arches a curious eyebrow, shuffles a little closer to him so she can better read his expression in the dark. "Was it the film? Has it freaked you out?"
"No," he replies too quickly and with too much force.
Her lips curl into an amused smirk. Cullen had spent the entire film rolling his eyes and scoffing, pointing out all the plot-holes and inaccuracies while waving his hand dismissively at the screen. Anwen had spent most of the film partially obscuring the screen with her bowl of popcorn, hoping to mask her fear as a love of snacks. But now Cullen seems uneasy, shaken even, and the irony is not lost on her.
"Was it the bit with the girl's fingers in the toaster?" she asks.
"No," he replies simply, hoping that his refusal to engage with her questioning will cause her to stop. Of course he knows better than to think that will work.
"Was it the bit in the forest with the bear trap?"
"No"
"The bit where the guy's crawling down the road with the broken knees?" she says with a tiny shudder. Anwen is not particularly squeamish, can happily watch the goriest of Tarantino films without flinching, but there's something about kneecap injuries that makes her skin crawl.
"No," he replies, sighing deeply in such a way that Anwen knows he's about to relent. "It was the dog."
"The dog?"
"The bit where he killed the dog."
Anwen considers this for a moment. "So you have no problem with a bus load of college kids being chased through the forest and butchered in a log cabin, but you draw the line at the dog?"
"He made those sad whimpering noises!" he says, a little louder than necessary, and she can feel his awkward shrug from the way the mattress shifts.
"You're such a Ferelden," is her response as she snuggles next to him, nudging his shoulder with her forehead affectionately.
Her eyes fall shut, limbs going limp as she feels sleep overtaking her. But she can feel his body is stiff and tense, his admission doing little to diminish his unease. Gently, she paws the space between them until she finds his hand, entwines their fingers and gives his hand a squeeze. I'm here. He squeezes back and she smiles when she feels the tension slowly unwinding, the stiffness uncoiling from his muscles.
He sleeps badly that night, waking up numerous times with a start, jolting her awake with each jerked return to consciousness. It takes all her willpower not to tease him, not to make some snarky comment about her usually stoic boyfriend undone by a poorly-acted, badly-written film with questionable production values. She only allows herself a private smirk, unseen in the darkness, as she strokes his arm comfortingly until he falls asleep again.
End Note: I don't watch horror films because I really don't like them. The horror film in question is completely made up. Any resemblance to any actual horror film is entirely coincidental.
Anwen is also very much a cat person – she doesn't get the whole dog thing.