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Chapter Twenty Eight

"Hawke, there is nothing wrong with you," Solas repeated for what was probably the tenth time that day. The human sat on his couch irrationally concerned as the elf stood beside him with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed.

"Are you sure?"

"Completely." Fine eyebrows tugged into a frown at Hawke's insistence that he check every inch of him after the Fade just in case. "Why is this concerning you so greatly?"

"Oh, well..." the human deflected for a long moment, and when Solas arched a brow at him, Hawke sighed and added, embarrassed, "My lover has lyrium tattoos and I don't want to accidentally kill him because of some weird Fade thing that happened at Adamant."

Solas stared at him for a long minute before hissing, "That is why you have just wasted five hours of my time?"

"Better to be safe than sorry!" Hawke protested. "I mean what if the next time he's on top of me in bed and I touch him he explodes?" A pause, and then he added, "Or I'm on top of him. I mean we switch it up sometimes."

"Hearing about your sexual relations is truly the last thing I wanted to happen today," Solas groaned but the human kept babbling on so he rolled his eyes and picked up a vial of lyrium sitting on the table. Uncorking it, he stepped towards Hawke and tipped a drop of the liquid onto his hand.

Hawke blinked and stared at the spot it had hit his skin and when nothing one might identify as 'bad' happened, Solas prompted with, "Are you satisfied now?"

"I suppose so," the human finally conceded.

"Good," Solas started, "Now would you please-"

He didn't get the chance to finish the sentence because his door was smashed in quite violently and an elf covered in what did appear to be lyrium tattoos marched into his quarters. The new comer spared a quick glance at Solas who stared at him incredulously and then, very quickly, the tattooed elf's attention snapped to the human in the room.

"Hawke," he hissed through gritted teeth.

"Oh, hello Fenris," Hawke replied pleasantly and Solas watched, dumbfounded, as the other elf stomped towards his presumed lover and slapped him hard across the cheek.

What followed next was several minutes of Fenris berating and shouting at Hawke for his idiotic actions and accusing him of having a death wish at various intervals. Hawke himself merely sighed dramatically while the elf lectured him, mimicking his lover's anger and speech with perfect precision so much so that Solas greatly suspected this was not the first time this had happened. When they finally stopped arguing, Fenris grabbed Hawke by fisting his hands in his robes, and pushed a kiss to his mouth.

Solas pursed his lips, fidgeting awkwardly and then, when their affections started to become a bit too enthusiastic, he cleared his throat loudly and they broke apart.

"And who are you meant to be?" Fenris snapped.

"The owner of this room," Solas replied politely, "Who would rather appreciate it if you took your affections elsewhere."

"He's almost as grumpy as you, Fenris," Hawke chimed in unhelpfully. "Maybe you two should have a competition?"

Solas stared at him, unimpressed, for a long moment before muttering, "Please get out."


Hawke left their company after a few days and everything went back to more or less normal – or however normal their lives could be given everything that was happening with Corypheus. Lavellan began planning with her advisors their next course of action and Solas did not see much of her over the next few days.

Early that morning however, before the sun had risen, Solas awoke with a start, sweat clinging to his body the same way as the fragments of dreams latched onto his mind. In vivid detail could still hear the cry for help from his oldest friend amongst the spirits, and it took him minutes to recover from the shock enough to calm his breathing. With fingers pinching the bridge of his nose he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to disconnect himself from the fear and anguish he'd felt so strongly in his dreams from the spirit, but even as his eyes flickered open again he knew it had little effect.

A sigh spilling from his lips he tugged off his blankets and stood, but his poor sleep and scattered thoughts made him stagger and lean against his desk for support. With a groan he gazed at the strewn papers before him for minutes until his head stopped spinning. Then, cautiously, he moved to the door of his quarters and slipped out.

Skyhold was empty this early in the morning and he preferred it that no one would see him stagger and stumble towards the kitchens lest they think he was hung over, which was far from the truth. He fetched and filled a tea pot with water, and then made his way into the gardens. With the sun slowly creeping over the snowy mountains, he sat amongst the trees and bushes at a table and brewed the pot of tea with a flash of heat from his fingertips to boil the water.

Then, he poured himself a cup and stared at it for a long minute as he tried to steel himself for the bitter unpleasant taste he was about to subject himself to. It took several more moments before he found the courage to bring the ceramic cup to his lips and pull the smallest sip of tea past his lips. Even that amount repulsed him and he pulled a disgusted face and pushed the cup back onto the table.

For some time longer he sat and tried to force himself to drink the tea to shrug off the clinging tendrils of sleep, and eventually he was interrupted by a soft voice.

"You're up early."

Solas glanced over his shoulder and found Lavellan standing behind him. She smile briefly at him and then walked over and slipped into a chair beside him.

"So are you," he pointed out.

She looked tired, although far more awake and better slept than he. Her white hair was tangled and messy and it flooded him with the urge to lean forward and thread his fingers through it until it was combed and neat. But he couldn't while they weren't even together so he curled his hands around the edge of the table instead to distract himself.

"I was woken up by someone throwing goats at my bedroom wall," she replied with eyebrows tugging into a frown.

"A... goat?"

"Yes. Several of them." A moment's pause and then Lavellan was shrugging and stifling a yawn with her hand. He supposed after all the crazy things that had happened since the breach, goats being thrown at her bedroom didn't make it very high on the list of things that might faze her.

"Sometimes I wonder if you aren't so much creating an Inquisition but rather a travelling circus given all the things that befall you," he murmured as he forced himself to pick up his cup again and bring it to his lips.

"Believe me I think that myself at least three times a day."

She laughed as she spoke and he took a sip of the tea. The bitter unpleasant taste hitting his tongue made him scrunch up and distort his features again because he'd never get used to it no matter how much he tried. With a scowl he wiped his lips with the back of his hand and put the cup down again.

"Something wrong with your tea?" she asked.

"It is tea," he replied simply as if the answer in itself was enough of an explanation. "I detest it."

"Then... why are you drinking it?" Lavellan tilted her head at him, staring as if he was an idiot, and in that moment he rather felt as if he was.

"Because I need to shake the dreams from my mind," he offered as an explanation.

"Here I was thinking you were some kind of tea masochist."

For a long moment he stared at her, then narrowed his eyes into a glower and added, "You have been spending too much time with Bull and Sera."

"And you are being grumpy and moody," she countered.

His glare deepened momentarily but then he sighed, shook his head and forced his features to relax. It was hardly her fault that he was in an atrocious mood from his insufficient sleep and troubled dreams. To excuse himself he explained the reason for his distress and she listened at how he recounted his captured friend who needed his assistance. Cautiously, he asked if she would help him, and when she agreed it pulled a smile at his lips and he thanked her.

After a brief moment's pause her violet eyes flickered to the cup before them and she murmured, slowly, "If you're not going to drink it, can I have it?"

"Of course." She grabbed the cup a little too enthusiastically and raised it to her lips, taking a big mouthful of the drink and swallowing it happily. He very near balked at the sight and asked, carefully, "Do you like tea?"

"I love it."

In some twisted way he was almost grateful they weren't technically in a relationship at that point. He didn't fancy explaining to her that he'd rather she didn't put her mouth anywhere near his while she stank of tea.

"While I have you alone, though," Lavellan started as she held the cup between her fingers. Her words made him hesitant and he leapt to the conclusion that she wanted to discuss their relationship and he didn't have anything formulated to respond with. Mercifully, she instead said, "Your gravestone in the Fade... it said your greatest fear is dying alone."

In some ways, this line of conversation was almost as bad as what he'd initially thought she was going to bring up. Cautiously, he replied with, "It did."

"Would you tell me why?"

He betrayed nothing but silence for several long moments and then, with a soft sigh and his lips pressed into a thin line, he obliged explaining it to her however vaguely he could. "I have many demons, Lavellan, and I have faced most of them with no one at my side. It puts things in perspective, and I fear the idea that I would die in the same manner I have spent so much of my life."

"You have the Inquisition now," she offered gently and he forced a smile to his lips to make her feel better for her attempt to comfort him.

In truth none of the Inquisition, however much he might ever get along with them, would replace the grief that tore at him that he was the only of his kind left in the waking world. Even if he'd hated most of the other god's, even if they'd been so atrocious and uncaring that his only option had been to lock them away, it still ate away at him that they were gone and he was the only one left.

"And you have me," she added.

That comment meant something to him. For years before he'd met her he'd lived alone and isolated and she would never know how much it had meant to him to have the company of another, even before she became his lover. Where the company of the other god's thrived off his desire to not be the last of his kind, hers ran far, far deeper.

Hers stretched deep into his heart. A companionship and love he hadn't known he'd needed until he'd found it so many years ago.