AN: This...is pretty much stupid silly smut. I have no excuse.
Rated: M very much M
Disclaimer: Bioware owns. I just work here. Without getting paid.
It was very late when Solas heard one of the doors to his study creak open. He had spent the better part of the evening attempting to translate a strange old book the Inquisition had unearthed in a ruin in Emprise du Lion. It was written largely in Arcanum, occasionally interrupted with long paragraphs in garbled Elvish, and seemed to be little more than a diary with a few magical theories and notes on artifacts here and there. The author mostly spent his time complaining that a girl named Vida wouldn't give him the time of day, and Solas wouldn't have bothered with it at all except that there had been several references to a Somniari who wielded a mysterious orb of power. If he could locate another orb, if he could find some way of unlocking it and returning to his true strength….
Something soft and slightly damp pressed against the crown of his bald head, and a few locks of lavender-scented hair fell into his face. There was a giggle, and the sound of it buzzed against his skull. He glanced up, completely unsurprised to see Aili hanging over the back of his chair, a wide grin plastered across her face. Her cheeks were flushed a dark pink against her tan skin. She hiccupped.
"Vhenan," he greeted her impassively.
"Sooooolas," she replied, breaking out into another fit of bubbling laughter as she slid off the back of the chair, offering him a little wave as she vanished from sight. She slunk around one side of the chair before crawling up into his lap, nuzzling under his chin like a large affectionate cat. She gave a pleased-sounding hum as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Hi."
"You smell like a brewery," he told her archly, still trying to read the book in his hands over the top of her head.
"S'no way to talk to the Herald of-" she hiccupped again, "Andraste."
"I shall bear that in mind if she ever appears," he assured her.
"You're such'n ass sometimes," Aili snickered. "You should be nice to me." She started trailing lazy kisses up one side of his neck and along his jaw. Solas suddenly found he could not remember how certain verbs in Arcanum conjugated. He swallowed thickly, but otherwise gave no hint of the weakness she was exploiting in him.
"And why is that?" His voice had a distinct roughness to it. Solas was still staring at the tome he'd been studying, but every other sense he possessed was fixed firmly on the Dalish woman and what she was doing to him.
"Cause," Aili explained as she gently bit his ear, making him inhale sharply, "When you're nice to me, it makes me wanna be nice to you." She shifted so that she was facing him directly, bracketing his hips with her thighs. She cupped his face in her hands and smeared a sloppy kiss across his mouth and chin. She tasted strongly of alcohol.
"Lemme be nice to you," Aili mumbled with her mouth still against his lips. Her head lolled to one side as she grinned at him with bleary-eyed adoration.
"I...I am trying to research something of great im-" he began to protest weakly when she cut him off.
"You're always doing research," she complained, sticking out her bottom lip a little, pouting. "I've been gone for more than a week...didn't you miss me?"
"I always miss you," he told her seriously, because it was true. It was madness to admit it, but Skyhold always seemed too quiet when she was away. He was a man who enjoyed a fair amount of solitude, and hardly anyone came to speak with him regardless, but her presence was just so big, so bright, that not even an entire fortress filled with people could make up for her absence. And even when she was here, there were times when she would smile or laugh or touch him, and all he could see was a ticking clock eating up the precious moments before something happened to tear them apart. The anticipation of that loneliness, of a future without her eyes and her scent and the sound of her voice, was like a noose slowly tightening around his neck.
"I got back this morning," Aili said in a low whine, "and you've barely said five words t'me all day."
"I was-"
"Busy," she finished for him. "That excuse is wearing thin, Ma sa'lath. You wouldn't even come to the tavern when Varric invited you to join the celebration."
"There was a celebration?" He asked.
"Yes. No. ...sort of?" Aili giggled again, apparently remembering her good humor. "It was mostly Bull shouting things in Qunlat and trying to get everyone to drink something that tasted a lot like paint thinner. But s'okay, most of your taste buds are dead after the firs' pint."
Solas heaved a long-suffering sigh.
"Solas..." She murmured into his neck, slowly grinding her hips against him, "Solas, I killed a dragon."
"You did what?" Solas barked in alarm, his heart thundering in his chest in equal parts dismay and desire as she continued to slide against him torturously. He clutched his book tightly behind her back, scrabbling for some scrap of calm. This was not the way to have this conversation.
"There was a dragon," she explained slowly, as though the words were difficult to master. "In Crestwood. Big scaly thing eating everyone's livestock and…I think he might've bitten somebody's head off? I forget. Anyway, nothing to do but send in the elf girl, right? Inquisitor or no, I bet some of them were hoping it'd kill me…but I showed them! Poked it with my staff- right in the eye!" She gave a triumphant laugh, "Blood and goop everywhere!"
"You should have," he paused to bite back a groan when she decided to make a little dark love bite just below his ear, "sent for me. You could have been hurt. You could have been worse than hurt."
Aili gripped his shoulders as she threw her head back and laughed. The sound was high and clear and giddy with amusement as it echoed off the round walls surrounding them. She nearly fell out of the chair.
"Oh, Solas," she said, still chuckling thickly, "I've been physically thrown in and out of the Fade. I've been at the heart of an explosion that ripped a hole in the sky. I got sucked into some crazy time vortex and sent to the future. I've been roughed up by some wannabe god and his big blighted pet, and then I had a mountain fall on top of me, and then I walked over ten miles in the snow with three fractured ribs and a sprained ankle in the dark, on my own. I visited the halls of Halamshiral, a place that should have belonged to my people, and danced their human dances and ate their human food and returned all their fake smiles, even knowing half of them would've liked nothing better than to find me in a pool of blood with a dagger in my back before the evening was through. And most of the Chantry would still love to throw me in a Circle, or burn me at the stake for blasphemy. …and you're worried about a dragon?"
"You do seem to attract an uncanny amount of danger," he admitted, frowning slightly. "You are a talented mage, Vhenan, but just because you have survived thus far does not imply that picking fights with dragons is safer for you than anyone else."
"I tried telling it to shoo, but it just roared a lot and threw a ball of lightening at me." She shrugged, still smiling.
"Please do not make light of this!" He snapped in obvious aggravation. "Losing you would-" Kill me. Break me. Ruin me entirely. Solas turned his face away from her, glaring at an unfinished mural. Her fingers traced along his jaw, the touch was soft and sorry, guiding him back to her.
"Ir'abelas, Ma sa'lath," she whispered hoarsely, leaning in until their foreheads touched and closing her eyes. He sighed wearily, but did not answer her.
"I'm here, Solas. I'm with you. Safe." Aili slanted her mouth over his as if to prove the truth of her words, trembling against him, wanting. "I didn't come here to argue."
The book he had been reading made a loud slapping sound as it hit the floor. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in until there was no space left between them, burying his face into her shoulder. She stroked the back of his head consolingly.
"Next time," he said from somewhere in the loose curls of her white-blonde hair, "take me with you. Or send a message back telling me to come. Don't do something like that on your own."
"I wasn't alone, you know," she told him, still slightly slurring her words. "I had Bull and Dorian and Sera with me. None of them would've lemme get hurt."
"None of them are in love with you," he pointed out.
"Thank the Creators!" she laughed.
Aili dug her fingers into his tunic before continuing. "There was something about bringing it down, though: something so wild and strong, all that raw power. It was a little sad, but…there was this rush...a big sort of 'woosh' in my chest afterwards. My magic was singing in my veins like I could do…anything. I felt as if I was a force of nature. Like a storm had come to conquer me, and I had turned around and conquered it right back. I was so fiercely alive. I was invincible..." Her eyes locked with his, their bright purple hue gleaming slightly in the dim lighting of his study.
"And Dread Wolf take me, but I wanted you."
"Is that so?" The words rumbled from deep in his chest as his hands slid to her hips, gripping them tightly, trying to pull her impossibly closer. He nipped at the smooth tan skin of her throat, growling quietly when she began to roll against him again.
"I wasn't the only one with their blood pumping," she chuckled throatily. "I could barely get any sleep with all the noise Bull and Dorian were making."
Solas drew back from her, closing his eyes and heaving a sigh of immense suffering. His face soured into an expression of extreme disgust.
"Is this your idea of a seduction?" he asked, arching a brow.
"That depends," Aili grinned at him toothily. "Is it working?" She slid her hand between them, dragging her fingers over the bulge in his trousers. He hissed and his hips bucked into her hand of their own accord. "Ah, I see that it is."
"You-ah!" He panted raggedly as she began messaging him through his pants with firm deft fingers. "You are drunk."
"And you're sexy." Aili countered, cupping his face in her hands and smiling at him widely. She ran her thumbs over his cheekbones before pulling him in for a deep, claiming kiss. When she drew away, he was breathless and dizzy with the taste of her.
"I believe you made a comment about wanting to dominate my indomitable will when we first met," she commented with a hint of smugness at the dazed look in his eyes. "Care to give it a try?" She kissed him again. "Or is a dragon slayer too much for you to handle?"
"Is that a challenge?" he asked, hunger blazing in his blue eyes and a smirk creeping across his face.
"It might be," she said mischievously. "As you said, I've had a bit to drink, so you might even win."
Solas kissed her hard, a feral smile still on his lips. She moaned into his mouth, but did not surrender to him. They were biting, nipping, nuzzling, tearing at each other in a mutual frenzy of desire.
He tugged the top half of her shirt open harshly in a mission to free her breasts, ruining a few of the delicate clasps. Aili yanked at the high collar of his tunic, frustrated when she couldn't reach more of his skin. She let out a sharp gasping growl when he pushed her breast band up and began kneading her chest, the pressure hard enough to dance along the fringes of pain. She bit his neck in harsh retaliation, breaking the skin a little, making him snarl.
His right hand abandoned its task in favor of raking down her back and she arched her spine like a bow drawn taught. He slid his hand down into the back of her pants, giving her well-toned backside a firm squeeze before reaching the damp slit of her entrance. She cantered her hips back towards his hand, wordlessly trying to convince him to touch her, but all he granted her was soft teasing strokes. She glared at him for a moment, her hips still fruitlessly thrusting back against his hand, desperately seeking friction. She would not beg, however.
Instead, her hands flew to his groin, scrabbling to unlace the ties and remove the cloth that kept him from her. He groaned despite himself when she finally freed his erection from its linen prison, and again when she began pumping him slowly with one slender hand.
Now they had reached an impasse, neither one wanting to admit defeat, but both yearning to take that final step, to be joined completely. Eventually, after what seemed like ages of frustratingly light touching, Aili slid from his lap. She stumbled, weak in the knees and still somewhat drunk and knocked into his desk.
"W-we should..." she managed to rasp out between heaving breaths, "We should go to my room or-"
Solas cut her off as he rose from his chair and seized her in a rough embrace, kissing her hard enough to bruise. Aili groaned and melted into his touch as he all but tore her trousers down her legs so that they bunched around the tops of her boots. He pushed her back against his desk, showering the floor with heaps of books and carefully organized notes as she leaned backward onto her elbows. He ground himself against her, but no more. She me his gaze, dark and predatory, but still controlled, still waiting for her to break.
"Tell me you want me," he demanded hoarsely. Aili knew it was part of the game they were playing, but there was something cruel about it, some sort of fleeting pain behind those words. It was as though he thought she might be capable of not wanting this, of not wanting him.
"I'll always want you, Ma sa'lath," she told him quietly. Solas jerked back a little in surprise, apparently not expecting her to forget her role so easily. Her smile turned impish as she added, "So, you should reward me for my devotion."
Solas grinned down at her wolfishly, sealing her mouth with a searing kiss, sheathing himself in her to the hilt with one smooth stroke. They both cried out at the sensation, both so far gone on each other that almost anything would have sent them both toppling over the edge.
Solas stilled himself for a moment, focusing on the dull pain of Aili's fingers digging sharply his hips instead of the warm silken heat of her sex clenching around his cock. He looked down at his lover, her eyes screwed shut, her lithe figure a supple line of tension. She brought her knees up and tried to grip his thighs with them. After a few more moments she tugged at his shirt and croaked the word, 'move'.
After that it was almost mindless. He braced himself with one hand on the far side of the desk, the other clenched tightly on her hip, trying and failing to keep an even rhythm as he continued to push himself in and out of her. He lost himself in her, in this moment, and she clung to him as if he was her last link to any kind of sanity. She moved to meet every snap of his hips as best she could, though the rough wood of the desk chaffed against her skin even through her shirt.
She needed this, needed him. Because, despite everything, they were alive and together and here. And killing the dragon in Crestwood had reminded her just how unlikely any of those things were. She hadn't told him how the beast had managed to sideswipe her with its tail and almost smashed her brains out against a rock, or how it had nearly stepped on Dorian, or how it had stepped on Bull, and how Sera was more or less a walking bruise. It didn't matter. They were alive, and the dragon was not. And she desperately wanted someone to prove it to her.
Solas brought his fingers down to where they were joined and began rubbing at her clit in quick circular strokes, and Aili screamed as she came undone, startling several sleeping crows. His end was quieter, the deep groan lost in her mouth as she kissed him senseless, his muscles seizing as he spilled himself inside her.
Her limbs flopped bonelessly onto his desk, scattering what few scraps of his research had survived the initial onslaught. Solas lay on top of her heavily, trying to collect himself, breathing in the scent of her damp hair, lavender mixed with sweat. He eyed the ruins of his desk and winced.
He couldn't believe they had done this here. Despite the late hour, someone could have walked in at any given moment. He groaned, so much for discretion. Aili was incorrigible, and alluring, and as close to driving him mad as anyone had managed in over a thousand years. He shifted to his elbows in order to tell her as much, and discovered that she was completely passed out. Solas attempted to gently shake her awake, but was only answered by Aili's gentle snores.
Eventually he gave up, heaving a defeated sigh as he went about trying to right both of their clothing. There was no saving her shirt. He gathered her into his arms and carried her to her room, hoping that he wouldn't run into anyone and not envying the headache he was sure she was going to have the next day. Halfway through the Great Hall, she turned her face into him, grabbing onto a handful of his tunic and smiling in her sleep. He felt his heartbeat skip a pace and grinned despite himself. Impressive as it was to bring down a high dragon, he doubted there was anyone else in this age who could claim to have so thoroughly vanquished an ancient elven god.