Chapter 10: Scar
Evelyn's hand was small inside his. Soft where his was rough, pale where his was tanned by the sun. He'd dozed for a while after she'd fallen asleep late in the night, in his arms, but he was too...everything to actually get any rest. Too surprised. Too happy. Too nervous. Too content. At some point he'd rolled onto his back and she onto his chest, resting her head over his heart. Her only hand was on his ribs, which he held there in his own staring down silently at the their point of contact. One of many points of contact, both superficial and deep.
As he'd imagined so many times, her hair was loose, not quite long enough yet to splay across him, but long enough now that it tickled his skin as she moved ever so slightly with each breath. It was maddening and perfect, the feather-light not-quite touch.
She snored. Which he already knew, but it was still funny. He wondered if she was the type to be vain about it, denying it to the last, or if she'd glare at him and accuse him of doing the same. He couldn't wait to find out.
Though he could fantasize about the innumerable things he wanted to ask and feel and tell and experience with her now, he forced himself to turn his attention back to her hand. He turned over her wrist to study the self-inflicted scars there. All were healed now but it looked like some had been neglected and could have used stitches to close them up and others were better off, as if she'd taken the time to heal them with magic.
If asked, in the same breath he would say he both loathed them and adored them. He wanted to burn the sight of her scars into his memory so he would never forget how fragile is happiness, never take for granted how meaningful is pain, and never deny how important is love.
When the sun started shining through his perpetually open window, she finally started to rouse. It was well past when he normally would have gotten up but he would have laid there until Wintersend waiting for her to wake on her own before he cut short the feeling of her nestled against him. Her eyes fluttered sleepily and she took a long breathy sigh as she stretched her body along his, awakening her muscles, lithe and strong compared to the frail state in which he'd found her in a shack in the woods.
It took her a moment to realize that he was holding her hand, but when she did she snatched it back and away, hiding it into her chest. She sat up, fully alert. He let her be, watching her emotions play out behind her eyes. He gave her a half-smile in good morning and he waited.
His heart started beating again when she laid back down next to him. He was bold enough to gather her in close, and she was bold enough to bring her hand back to his chest, her wrist turned down. Delicate fingers began to trace his own many scars. One in particular seemed to fascinate her. He could understand why, it was his worst.
"How did you get this one?" Her question started eagerly, but then her curiosity tapered into hesitation, "If...if you want to tell me…"
I want to tell you everything about everything, he thought to himself. It was an odd feeling. Normally he wished he could forget how he got that scar. The getting of it still featured in nearly all of his nightmares. Strangely, he could think of nothing he wanted more at the moment than to share the story with her. Shared pain is shared triumph over it.
"That was my first great battle wound." He almost laughed at himself. How ridiculous that he would start the tale by trying to protect his pride. Or hide his shame. Either way, he would have her know every corner of his past and how it shaped him. "Well, not exactly from a real battle. I couldn't put up much of a fight at the time. It happened at Kinloch when the Circle fell. A desire demon ran me through with my own sword. The mages healed the wound. A dead Templar isn't much fun to torture as it turns out, so I lived but it still stings and it's not exactly pretty, is it?"
Cullen wasn't looking at Evelyn while he talked. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, a crack in the paint, a cobweb, stupid little things to keep his mind grounded so he wouldn't go back there in his head as he spoke of it. Everlasting, it seemed, were the familiar remnants of old horror, present in his very soul, waiting dormant but always ready to try and burst free again. It was massively comforting though to hold Evelyn close, to feel her heartbeat next to his and it grounded him more than any other meaningless distraction ever could.
"A desire demon…?" He felt the side of her face wrinkle in confusion along his skin where she rested.
"Mmhm." He confirmed and nodded his head. "Not typically the weapon they wield, to be sure, but the beast was surprisingly accurate with the damned thing. I remember, sort of, knowing, at the time that it was a demon, but it didn't look like a demon, obviously. It looked like...someone else." He didn't continue from there, but Evelyn did.
"It looked like someone you loved."
Was she speaking from experience?
"It did." Another confirmation. Another nod of his head. The next thing Evelyn said shouldn't have shocked him, in all that he'd seen in his life, all that he knew about her then and now. But it did shock him. It shocked him and sickened him and made him love her even more with a painfully frightening ferocity.
"My desire demons all look like you." She breathed out the words more than spoke them, and their soft heat on his chest burned. "But none of them have ever had this scar. Now I'll know how to tell the difference." It was so sadly matter-of-fact, so logically poignant, he couldn't stop himself from squeezing her tightly enough to make her gasp.
Maker's Breath, but he wanted nothing more than to kiss her. Even laying on top of him, she wasn't close enough, they weren't near enough, everything in him ached to envelop her, swallow up her hurt and let her swallow up his.
As it turned out, his will was too weak and the force of his emotion for her was too strong in that moment. It must have been a demon that convinced him to stop thinking and just act. Rolling them both over, he placed her head on his pillow and rested on his elbows looking down at her. Though he wanted to devour her like a demon, he had enough human, enough Templar, left in him to hold back. So instead he slowly lowered his lips to hers, giving her all the time in the world to stop him, but she didn't so he just rested them there, barely making contact. At the first feel of her warmth, her taste, he froze. His demon deserted him and ten million doubts flooded back into his head, but he couldn't bring himself to back away. Trapped in a humiliating limbo that made him feel like a teenager back at the Circle Tower again, he hovered there, motionless, until she moved.
It was slow but deliberate. She lifted her head off the pillow and pressed her lips into his with firm determination. For the span of one breath, they were both tense, rigid, wondering. For the span of a second, they settled into the intimate touch. For the span of a third, they relaxed their whole bodies into each other. Lips parted, they exchanged their fourth breath while Cullen's heart raced and his head spun. It took everything in him to stop kissing her, but he knew he should and he knew he must. He enjoyed himself for one moment longer and then he pulled away. Forgetting herself, she followed him, eyes closed, mouth welcoming, but he didn't continue their kiss.
Let her want it.
As he wanted it. As he learned since she'd come back into his world, it was in the wanting that he truly knew he loved. He wished for her to feel the same thing, for them to meet in the same place in their hearts.
She accepted his ending of their kiss without question, but she brought her good arm up to curl around his neck and she pulled him down onto her this time. It was his turn to rest his head in the crook of her shoulder. She then held up her severed arm, drawing his attention to it.
"This still hurts." She admitted. "All the time. Sometimes it feels like the mark is still there, burning and glowing. Sometimes it feels different, with a prickly tingling, like my hand is still there and I just fell asleep on it. That's actually the worst. I don't want to remember it being there…"
You just want it to be gone for good.
It was how he felt about the lyrium. He would always have the remnants of it in his blood. It was part of him and it always would be no matter how hard he worked or how fervently he wished it could disappear and be forgotten.
"I understand." He probably didn't need to say it, but he did. He would never again not say the things he wanted to say to her. Never again would he allow her to question his feelings or his thoughts like some cryptic game. Both of them were well past games, intentional or not. Although perhaps the next thing he said would have been better not said.
"Is there, um, anything I can do to help distract you when it bothers you?"
Past the games, are you? But his offer was honest and definitely no game.
A wide smile spread across her face. "I'll let you know."
She sat up abruptly then, forcing him to sit up as well. Getting out of bed, she stretched again, arching her back in the sunlight spilling freely into the room. She walked over to Pup, still sprawled on his cushion, and patted his head. Next on her agenda was a leisurely stroll over to his dresser where she picked up a comb and started to run it through her bed-tangled hair.
He thought he might have had something to say but damned if he hadn't forgotten it completely, entranced by the sight of her going about her new morning routine.
Setting down the comb and dropping one hand to perch on one hip, she turned back to him. "So when do we leave for Denerim?"