Thanks everyone for the support! Also an amazing friend of mine drew a picture of Lavellan from this story, if you are interested there is a link on the AO3 version of this story on chapter twenty five!
Chapter Twenty Five
His new quarters in Skyhold were drowned in the books and papers she'd brought and begged him to teach her about. She'd been pestering him for hours, always ready with a new question or theory the moment he finished telling her about the last. Her enthusiasm was... enjoyable, but it was also exhausting. They'd only been at Skyhold for a week, and Solas was fairly certain she had a hundred other things to do far more important than talking to him.
Lavellan pushed aside the book she had just finished and looked up at him from where she sat cross legged on the floor to him lounging on his couch with one leg draped lazily over the edge. "Why pride?" she asked.
"I'm sorry?" He blinked at her because she caught him off guard and, also, because he didn't particularly want to answer the question she was posing.
"Why call yourself pride?" she clarified.
"Because it is the only thing left in me worth anything."
She stared at him for a long moment, and then scoffed. "Now you're just being unnecessarily dramatic."
"Perish the thought," he muttered softly to himself and he could tell she didn't hear a word he said. "There is by far enough drama in your other two mage companions that I wouldn't chance adding to it."
"What was your birth name?" she continued and he wrinkled his nose ever so slightly at her insistent needling for information.
Placing the tome he'd been reading down against his chest, he deflected with a casual, "Unimportant."
"Really? Your birth name is Unimportant?" She glowered as her sarcasm washed over him. "Because my birth name is actually Getting-Tired-of-Your-Evasive-Responses."
He snorted a dry laugh, refused to latch onto her bait and replied by moving the conversation away from himself in a manner he thought might only irritate her even more. "I have seen things in the Fade about your name, Lavellan. It used to be a common given name in Arlathan."
She frowned and rocked forward slightly, grabbing onto her feet the way a small child might. "What's your point?"
"My point is your clan must have named themselves after a Lavellan who meant something in the ancient days."
What he neglected to tell her was that it was herself that her clan had chosen for their namesake. Many of the clans he'd heard of in these times had initially taken their names from slaves and people who had played a notable role in their struggle for freedom. His one-time lover shrugged though as she mused, "I wonder what she was like."
"I'm sure she was a great person, else they wouldn't have taken her name for their own." A gaze sidelong at her sidelong as he added, silently to himself, and she was beautiful, as well.
She watched him for a long moment and he shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny because of the way her lips pulled into a grin. "You stare at me like that a lot. Why?"
"You..." A paused and cursed himself for being so foolish as to be caught, and now he owed her an explanation. "You remind me of someone I once cared for."
"A lover?"
Lips pulled into a dry smile and he shook his head because he wouldn't fall for her bait this time. "The only thing I will tell you is that you would never need to compete with her."
Her features twisted into annoyance. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said," he replied simply.
She scoffed and turned away to return to the books before her and he could only chuckle softly at her petulant expression. After a few moments her hands stilled flicking the pages of her tome and she glanced up at him once more, her eyes bright and hopeful in such a way that it made him wary about what was about to pass through her lips.
"Would you tell me more about yourself?"
He gazed at her carefully for a long moment as he considered. "If that is what you wish," he started eventually. "But not now, you have pestered me enough this day and I am certain your advisors are becoming irritated with your prolonged absence."
Her expression fell and she sighed as she presumably realised she couldn't hide in his quarters all day long. Reluctantly, she pushed herself up onto her feet, grumbled something he couldn't catch, bade him farewell, and stomped out of the room. He watched her leave with a small, wistful smile on his lips.
Perhaps there were some things he could show her without revealing too much.
Solas visited her in the Fade as what he had decided to show her was not the sort of thing he could easily conjure in the mortal world.
That night, while they slept, he slipped into Lavellan's dream and manipulated it into Haven. He knew by the way she gazed around as he walked through the scene that she genuinely thought it was real. She didn't remember that she had once been able to twist dreams as he could, and to her, the perfect accuracy of Haven, down to the gentle cool breeze and floating snowflakes, convinced her it was reality. Solas showed her where he'd kept her alive in the dungeons, deflected her thanks by telling her it was necessary and then led her outside once more where he told her how he'd tried to close the rifts.
And he managed, mostly, to keep the dream under control and to not let his emotions run rampant. He still loved her, he doubted he could ever stop, but he suppressed it for what he'd told himself was her own good. Yet she still flirted with him mercilessly, and it warmed his heart every time she did, but it couldn't stop his hesitation.
So he kept himself removed and tried not to indulge her when she leered at him. It rarely worked, he stared at her far too much for her not to notice how he longed for her, but he tried, desperately, to discourage her even as his heart yearned to drawn her into his arms again and let himself love her.
He slipped up that night so tragically when he told her, softly, that when she closed her first Fade rift, he felt the whole world shift.
"You felt the whole world shift?" she repeated with a grin and he flushed as he realised his mistake.
"A... figure of speech," he deflected casually to try and dissuade her. It had painfully little effect at wiping the smile off her features.
"I'm aware of the metaphor," she replied and when she stepped closer, his muscles betrayed him and he froze in place. "I'm more interested in felt."
"You change..." he started helplessly, before realising that he was already beyond hope and threw caution to the wind by adding, meaningfully, "Everything."
A final attempt to look away and discourage her somehow, and he almost thought it might have worked, until he felt her hand clasp his chin and pull him to face her. He submitted because he ached to feel her against him again and when she leant up and kissed him, he sighed softly against her lips. But it was short and fleeting, and she pulled back a moment later, raked her eyes over his features to try and determine his intentions but he betrayed nothing and her brow tugged into a frown as she stepped away, embarrassed and trying to hide her rejection.
And he couldn't bear to see her think as if he didn't care for her. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her towards him and caught her by the waist as he pressed another kiss to her lips. She startled slightly at first, but folded in his embrace and wrapped her arms around his neck. When she opened hungrily to him, he slipped his tongue into her hot mouth and moaned softly against her. It had been centuries since he'd held her in his arms and he was aching for her.
Like a starving man gorging himself at a banquet he bent her over until she was clinging to him, delighted in the slight gasp of surprise he drew from her throat and pressed his thigh between her legs desperately, needily and without shame for how blatantly forward he was being. With his tongue curled around hers he ground his hips against her, but pulled away after a few moments because he knew if he didn't it would get horrendously out of control. It was a reflection of how drunk on her love he was in that moment he wanted nothing more than to be completely with her, even if it wasn't real, but he forced himself to remember that for her this was the first time they'd even kissed, so he suppressed his desire.
Instead, he sighed hopelessly as he pushed an errant lock of hair out of her face, and then, with another quick, fleeting kiss, he reluctantly released her from his embrace. She frowned with flushed features and reddened lips because she couldn't have understood his hesitation, but he only smiled, gently, despite how he knew he shouldn't encourage her.
"We shouldn't, it isn't right," he started softly, "Not even here."
But how much he wished that it was right, how he wished she remembered so he wouldn't feel guilty holding her while he knew so many things that she didn't.
"What do you mean not even here?" she asked carefully.
He smiled because she still hadn't caught onto the dream. "Where do you think we were?" As she glanced around, he let part of the scene shift and alter to betray the illusion he had created.
Recognition dawned on her features as she murmured, "This isn't real."
"That is a matter of debate," he chided ever so gently. "One best discussed when you wake up."
And with his words, he broke the dream and pulled the both of them back to the waking world. He found himself lying on his couch with a blanket draped over his legs, staring hopelessly at his paintings as he ran his fingers over his lips in the exact same manner he had done the first time she'd ever kissed him in the Fade so long ago.
He was lost and helpless and without the knowledge of what he should do. How devoid of control and submitted to his lust he had been in the dream was proof enough of how he wanted to let himself love her so desperately. But he couldn't, no matter how much he tried, shake the feeling that it was wrong to deceive her. It felt as if, while she didn't remember, her interest in him wasn't truly her free will.
And her freedom had been everything to him.
It did not take Lavellan long to find him the next morning. Much as the first time it had happened, Solas had barely managed to compose himself when he heard her opening the door to his quarters. He was hunched over his desk, staring at a tome when she came in, and he glanced up at her nonchalantly, and murmured, "Sleep well?"
The annoyed look that danced over her features made it impossible for him not to grin and he stepped back from the table to observe her properly. She merely stepped towards him, but maintained a respectful distance, as she replied with her eyes trained on him. "When I asked to talk to you, I didn't think we'd be doing it in the Fade." She paused pointedly, before adding with a brief glance at his thigh, "Or doing it in the Fade for that matter."
He chuckled softly at her choice of words, but sobered soon after and shook his head dismissively. "I apologise, the kiss and so much more was... impulsive and ill considered, and I should not have encouraged it."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "You say that now, but you were the one who started with tongue."
"I-" he scowled at her but he couldn't maintain it in the face of the humour of her words, so it twisted into a smirk. "I did no such thing."
"Oh? Does it not count if it's Fade tongue?" she challenged. "Does that rule apply to you shoving your thigh between my legs as well?"
He gaped at her for several moments like a fool, before he managed to compose himself and mutter, defensively, "It has been a long time. And yet..."
A pause with a frustrated sigh because even after everything he'd told himself, having her standing here before him with that smile on her features only made him want to pull her in and claim her mouth in another kiss. He was conflicted, and his hesitation showed as her features, slowly, twisted into hurt and rejection.
"Lavellan, I am not sure this is the best idea," he continued as gently as he could. "It could lead to trouble."
She reached forward, took his hand and squeezed it meaningfully and he froze under her touch. "I'll risk it."
"You-" he started before his voice faltered because she was actually pouting at him. "Maybe, yes." He was saying it before he could stop himself, the words falling from his lips to reflect his desire and not his better judgement. "If you would give me some time to think."
She grinned, and her fingers linked with his caressed him ever so gently. "Take all the time you need."
"Thank you." He allowed himself to smile at her even as he pulled his hand from hers. "It is not often that I am moved by events that occur in the Fade, and yet it every time it has happened, it seems to have revolved around you."
And with that he ended the conversation, insisted that she seek out her advisors before they sent a search party after her and wondered when he was finally alone, if he truly was going mad.