Hope this is ok, had a kinda poopy day (everything is fine now though) so I'm not that confident with it... Also uhh the next chapter is probably going to be delayed by several days, sorry - I'm moving house tomorrow so it'll take a while to get settled in/internet up and running and so on :(

Chapter Thirty Six

He had not spoken to Lavellan since the glade.

They had returned separately to Skyhold and she'd evaded him with uncanny efficiency since. It broke him not to be able to see her but he told himself it was for the better this way, so he endured alone and in silence for days. Solas' mood since returning from Crestwood was melancholy at best and not even Cole's well meaning attempts to cheer him up made a difference.

The spirit-boy persuaded him to visit his spot in the tavern that afternoon and Cole tried, for some time, to distract Solas from his thoughts but it was hardly effective. He appreciated the effort but nothing could dampen his self loathing from knowing he'd broken the heart of the woman he'd loved for centuries on end.

Then, Lavellan's gentle lilting voice started to grace his ears and he turned around, confused at the direction it was coming from because he'd thought he was alone with Cole. It took him only a few seconds to notice the open window and he walked to it, entranced as if she'd cast a spell on him and gripped his hands along the windowsill. In reality she had flooded him with magic years ago in the form of her love.

His blue eyes easily picked up the back of her head as she sat on the lower roof below the window, talking with Sera and her hands clasped around a biscuit. How the bright light of day reflecting off her white hair like the shining crystal spires once had, it made him want to slip his fingers through her locks and beg her forgiveness. But no, he could not and yet he stayed and listened in spite of how much he knew he shouldn't.

"Friggin elfy shite piece of twat," Sera grumbled and Solas had no doubts about who she was speaking. "Do you want me to slap him, yeah? Because I'll do it. Even do more than just slap him for-"

"That wouldn't help," Lavellan interrupted softly and in her voice he heard the hurt he'd caused that cut her so deep.

"You sure?" The rogue glowered at the ground metres below them and then spat a particularly colourful insult. "Friggin ass!"

"Thank you for the biscuit, though, it-" Lavellan paused as her voice faltered and he knew she was fighting back tears as she added, her voice choked and strangled, "It helps."

He tore himself away from the window before she drove him mad, but Cole's frustratingly accurate insights tortured him as the spirit-boy murmured, "You love her, for so much longer than she ever realised." A pause, and then he added, "But you left. Why?"

"I did not have a choice," Solas replied bitterly.

"She's real," Cole continued mercilessly as the mages own thoughts were played before him unbidden. "But she shouldn't be. And yet she is. Her skin against yours hot, desperate, wanting, as if it was only yesterday when you held her last-"

"Stop."

It was barely more than a hiss spat between his lips, and he regretted that his anger got the better of him, but to have Cole torture him the way he did was beyond what even he could handle.

Then the spirit-boy added, "You will always love her because she was once the only thing that made you more than a beast."

He left abruptly before Cole had the chance to continue because the last thing he needed was his thoughts being played out before him through his friend a moment longer. And far more so than that, he could not bear it if Cole had picked up on what might have been going through her mind.

Down the stairs of the tavern he fled until he was so close to the exit and it was then that he realised who was sitting at the table beside the door. Bull gave him such a loathing stare that the mage knew he was aware of what he'd done to Lavellan, and with a small sneer Solas stared at the qunari and held his ground even as Bull chastised him.

"You, Solas, are a fucking ass," the qunari started, each of his words pointed and emphasised. "It's not that you left her, but you don't take a girls virginity and then break her heart when something like that obviously means a lot in your damn elven culture."

"It was an accident," Solas replied thoughtlessly through clenched teeth.

"So you just, what? Tripped and your dick fell into her? Like I said." A pause as Bull glared at him. "You're an ass."

The mage glowered and push past to leave, but Bull was loathe to give him such an easy escape and he tripped the mage up with his foot. Solas stumbled, unable to catch himself as he fell into the puddle of mud just outside the entrance to the tavern.

Coated in dirt and his clothes wet and covered in sludge, he picked himself up and moved, seething, to his quarters.

With a bucket of water placed before him on the ground, Solas knelt and peeled off his filthy woollen sweater and started cleaning the mud from the cream fabric. His eyes narrowed into thin slits, far more furious at himself than at Bull's actions. He hardly blamed Lavellan or her companions for reacting the way they did, in their position he would have done little better. He knew how it looked to them because they didn't understand why he left her, and he couldn't tell them.

So absorbed he'd become in his melancholy that when a soft voice graced his ears it took him a long moment to realise he'd been interrupted.

"Why?"

Lavellan's single word made him still. Staring into the water before him as if it would provide him the answers he needed, it took him a long moment to find a reply.

"Don't do this," he whispered eventually. "I can't-"

"Tell me why," she interrupted but even if she tried to force anger into her voice he heard the way it cracked and gave in to her hurt. "You owe me that at least."

"There are no answers I could give you that you would want to hear." Abandoning his sweater he stood and turned to face her, because he could at least bring himself to give her the respect of holding her gaze. She'd earned that at least. "Harden your heart to a cutting edge, and put that pain to good use against Corypheus."

Her only response was to gaze at him for a long moment in silence, her brow furrowed and her features twisted into the hurt and confusion he'd given her. Eventually she stepped towards him, her eyes searching his features for answers he refused to give and his muscles disobeyed him, denied letting him move because his heart was tortured and aching to take back everything he said, even as his mind told him he couldn't.

When she was inches from him he added, brokenly, "The blame is mine, not yours," and yet her hand still slipped up to cup the side of his face despite his words as if she refused to believe him that easily.

"It was irresponsible and selfish of me," he continued quietly and he couldn't push her away while her palm rested against his cheek so softly. Against every part of him that screamed for him to stop, he reached up and curled his hand around hers, his blue eyes unwavering as they held hers. "Let that be enough."

"I can't let us go like this."

Her breath ghosted over him as she spoke and it was like watching a disaster unfold second by second before him when she leant up and trailed her lips over his. It was barely a whisper of a kiss but it was enough to make him recoil from her. With his hands grasping her shoulders he pushed her away, a choked gasp escaping him as he reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"It is finished," he told her after a long moment and even as much as it broke him, he added pointedly, "Inquisitor."

The use of her title twisted her features into anger and he could see, second by second, how she closed her heart off and locked away the hurt he'd caused her until only her fury at his actions remained. It was bitter and sarcastic when she replied with, "You really don't let anybody see under that polite mask you wear, do you?"

"You saw everything once," was his soft reply. His words only deepened the loathing etched into her features and it was all he could do to offer, weakly, "Let me know if I can be of any more help planning our final fight."

She rolled her eyes and turned away and he felt the words welling up unbidden and unwanted in his throat before he could stop it. How much he wished he didn't say it, but past his lips they fell like tainted vile things and he knew it would only cut her even deeper and he hated himself for it.

"For what it is worth, I have loved you longer than you would ever realise."

"No you haven't, you used me," she spat and she didn't even give him the courtesy of turning to face him. "You don't even know what love is, you have no heart."

But how he did, and only since he'd known her in his life. It was with a glower at the walls for the cards fate had dealt him that he hissed, low and only to himself, "Bittersweet how it almost would have been easier if you'd never come back from the dead."

With a heavy sigh he reigned in his anguish and shoved it deep down with the rest of his guilt that festered in the darkest recesses of his mind. Turning back towards the bucket of water his gaze caught on the stairs leading up from his quarters, and the man standing there. Dorian was seething at him, his hands balled into fists at his sides and Solas stared, surprised, for a moment and it was all the hesitation the human needed.

In one swift stride Dorian moved towards him and levied a punch against Solas' features. His nose cracked with a sickening noise under the impact and a gasp spilled from his lips even as blood poured down his features, the metallic tang of it sharp on his tongue. It took barely whisper of his magic to numb the pain and correct his broken nose, but the gesture and humiliation hurt far more than the physical act itself.

Yet the first thing Solas did was glance at the direction Lavellan had left in. He found her staring, wide eyed and shocked as she hesitated in her path, and she moved towards him for a split second. But then he saw it, inch by inch, as she closed her heart off to the empathy she felt at his injury and her body became hostile and unwelcome to him. Moments later she was gone, and he was left to wipe the blood off his face alone with all the healing her presence had done to his savaged heart over the months yanked away.

Behind, he was left with a mangled ruined thing that barely had the strength left in it to continue beating. The only thing that kept him going then was his determination to fix the mistakes of his past.