Note: Another random one-shot I found floating around my laptop - surprised I hadn't already uploaded it.
My Trevelyan Inquisitor, Anwen, is feeling a bit nostalgic and a bit blue - Cullen is there to cheer her up.
When Cullen finds her, he can't help but feel that something is… wrong.
Anwen likes to keep herself occupied; every moment in Skyhold is spent attending meetings with visiting nobles, honing her magic or planning for their next journey. And when she does allow herself rest, she hides away in her private study with her head buried in a book.
So when he finds her in Skyhold's gardens, lying in the grass and just… staring at the sky, he can't help but feel a little unnerved.
"What are you doing?" he asks, trying to mask the concern in his voice while standing over her prone form.
"Looking at the sky," she replies matter-of-factly, her gaze never once leaving the endless blackness above them. Her face is calm, oddly blank, and he wonders whether there really is a little sadness veiling her eyes or whether it's just the shadows cast by the tree branches in the moonlight.
"Can I join you?" he ventures at last, hoping that his intrusion is not an unwelcome one.
Finally her face turns to peer up at him, and she looks at him as if she's only just realised he was there.
"Of course," she says, curling her lips into a small smile as she gives the ground beside her a pat in invitation.
Once he's settled on the soft grass, he joins her in her skyward scrutiny, although he's not entirely sure what he's supposed to be looking at.
"It's a nice night," he begins, and he feels a little foolish for saying something so banal – weren't they beyond idle small-talk? "It's very… um… peaceful."
She chuckles beside him and it's a welcome sound, alleviating some of the awkwardness that seems to cloak them, an awkwardness that hasn't surrounded them since their very first stilted attempts at courtship several months ago.
"Yes, it is a nice night. Very… crisp."
"So… what exactly are you doing?" he asks after another lengthy pause. In the quiet of the gardens, it seems an oddly invasive question.
"I'm counting the stars."
"Well then you're going to be here a long while," he drawls dryly, feeling oddly proud of himself when she laughs again. It's only a small thing, quiet and short, but there's enough warmth there to ease his concerns.
He doesn't see her move, too busy staring at the sky, but he feels it when she rolls across the grass to press herself against his side, hand sliding across his chest to rest on his shirt, fingers idly tracing a figure-eight between the buttons.
"When I was little, my brother would say: 'I'll let you have the last strawberry tart if you can count every star in the sky' or 'I'll let you play with my favourite toy if you can count every star in the sky'." She pauses for a moment, always a little uncomfortable when talking about her family. "He wasn't very good at sharing."
Suddenly she sits up, leaning over his chest so that her long, dark hair falls over him, obscuring his view of anything other than her face. She's smiling now, the sadness brought on by her uncharacteristic nostalgia seemingly banished.
"I wonder how many there are," she asks, eyes suddenly alight with curiosity, "if you had all the time in existence – if you could travel the skies counting all the stars – I wonder how many there are."
"It's impossible," he says, causing her to arch a brow in question.
"How do you know it's impossible?"
"There are an infinite number of stars."
"How can you be so sure of that?"
"I can't – I'm… not sure."
Her eyes narrow, studying his face carefully as if she can understand his full meaning if she can just observe his expression closely enough. He shifts a little under her scrutiny, wishing that she would return her attention to the skies and stop staring at him so searchingly.
"Everything has an end," she says, and she always manages to sound so certain of herself. "Things start; things end. We're born; we die. Nothing is infin-."
"You're wrong," he interrupts, and he takes a perverse pleasure in the way she pinches her brows, pulls the corners of her mouth into a small frown. She's not used to people disagreeing with her.
Her hand still rests on his chest, tracing idle patterns against the rough fabric of his shirt, and he takes her hand within his own to move it over his heart. He hopes she can feel the steady beating; hopes she can understand his full meaning.
"This is infinite," he says earnestly, staring into her eyes with the same intensity with which she'd been staring at the sky.
She ducks her head, no longer able to maintain eye contact, fidgeting uncomfortably as she always does when Cullen says something unflinchingly sentimental.
"You hopeless fool," she mutters with a shake of her head, though her words lack any real recrimination.
He's about to defend himself when she ducks down to capture his lips in a kiss, warmth spreading across his chest as she stretches her body against him. The stars are immediately forgotten as her tongue dips into his mouth, her hands sliding upwards until they frame his face.
Cullen knows they can't stay like this forever, that it would cause quite a stir should the Inquisitor and the Commander of the Inquisition's forces be found entangled in the gardens come morning. But as he wraps his arms around her, returns her kiss with a fervour equal to her own, he wonders whether, through sheer force of will, he can make this moment last for infinity.