A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

Here with You

18 Justinian, 9:42

Cullen could hardly wait until they reached their quarters to pull her into his arms. He didn't even want to kiss her, not just yet. Right now he just needed the feeling of her there, the reassurance that it really was all over, that she had survived, and that she was here with him where she belonged.

She seemed to need something of that, too, because she clung to him tightly, her face buried in the junction of his neck and shoulder.

After a long time, he said, "Was it awful?"

"It was ... hard. It was— Cullen." Her voice quivered.

"What is it, my light?"

She held out her left hand, the mark still glowing inside the palm. "It's still here. I can't ... I wanted it to go away, and it—it won't." Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Cullen took her hand in both of his, lifting it to his lips and kissing the glowing mark there. He held her hand firmly, even when she tried to wrest it from his grasp. "I'm sorry. I would take it from you if I could ... but it doesn't matter. Not really. Because the Breach is closed, and Corypheus is gone, and you're still here. And that is all that matters."

"I know, and I'm trying to remember that, but ..."

He put his fingers over her mouth. "No more tonight. Tonight, we celebrate that what we dreaded is past and you're still alive, and still here with me. Tomorrow, we can look into this. Maybe Dagna can find a way to get rid of the mark, or Dorian's research will turn something up, or Morrigan will have some insight. All right?"

"All right. What would I do without you?"

"You never have to find out. Never." He bent to kiss her now, slowly teasing her lips with his, deepening the contact even more slowly, wanting to savor her taste and her touch and her scent. "Maker, I love you."

"Cullen ..." Her fingers were worrying at the buckles on his breastplate.

"Slowly, love. We have all the time in the world." He nudged her head to the side, feathering small kisses along the line of her jaw and up to her ear, his tongue tracing the shell. Closing his eyes, he rested his head against hers briefly. "And I think you might want something to eat and a bath after your long day, don't you?"

"Yours hasn't been short, I bet," Antonia said. She lifted her hand and stroked the side of his face. "You haven't slept at all, have you?"

"Just like old times." He smiled at her, but she looked alarmed and pressed the back of her hand firmly against his forehead. "No fever, I promise. I didn't mean it like that."

"Good."

"Now, let me run you a bath, and you can soak while I get Roya to bring you something to eat. And then we'll get back to what we were doing before," he said softly.

"You don't have to take care of me, Cullen."

"Yes, I do. Because you're here, and you—I thought you wouldn't be, and I didn't know what I—"

"Don't think about that anymore. I'm here now, and I'm never leaving you again, not if I can help it."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

He kissed her again out of sheer joy at hearing the ease with which the promise came from her now, and then he ran the bath and helped her out of her armor—not without significant pauses to exclaim over bruises and to stop and kiss her again and to look at her in detail and marvel that she was here and it truly was over.

Then Roya came up and brought food, and exclaimed over the bruises in her turn and clucked and fussed over Antonia as she ate. Antonia put up with all of it with decent grace, until she was finished eating, at which point she told them both to stop acting like her mother and give her a moment to breathe.

Roya smiled. "I know what that means. You," she said, fixing Cullen with a steely glare. "You both need your rest, so make sure she gets some."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good."

Left alone, they looked at each other somewhat awkwardly. Cullen wanted ... everything, all at once, to make exquisite love to her and to bury himself inside her immediately and to just hold her and look at her.

Antonia was the first to move, reaching for the tie of her warm woolly robe and loosening it. She shrugged and let it fall off her body, standing there in front of him naked in the moonlight that streamed in the open balcony doors.

"Maker's breath. You are so lovely."

She smiled. "You only say that because you can't see the bruises in this light."

"I would say that if you were nothing but a bruise."

"Ew."

"Yes, that's unfortunate imagery."

"You know what else is unfortunate? That I'm the only one naked in this room."

Cullen smiled. "That is a shame, isn't it? Care to come help me do something about that?"

"After the day I've had, you want me to do more work? I think not." She lay down on the bed, propping the pillows up behind her. "Let me see you, Cullen."

Almost shyly—he had been naked before her many times, but she had never watched like this before—he began disrobing.

"Don't hurry. Take your time." Her brown eyes were on him, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips as he slid his shirt off his shoulders. "You're beautiful, you know that?"

"You couldn't manage a more manly term?"

"You mean, such as 'ruggedly handsome'?"

"Ah, that's more like it." He smiled at her, tugging off his boots. His pants and smallclothes came off together, with some difficulty over his already hard length. "Antonia ..."

"Come here, Cullen." She opened her arms to him, and he joined her on the bed, moaning at the contact with her smooth, soft body.

His fingers trembled as he cupped her face, kissing her hungrily, pressing her back into the pillows in an effort to get ever closer. Antonia's leg slid up and down the side of his, eventually wrapping itself over his hip, and the heat of her was so close now, he couldn't help just rubbing himself against her, just a little, and then somehow she had shifted and he was inside her even though he hadn't meant to get there yet.

"Ah, Cullen," she whispered, her eyes closing at the feel of him.

"Open your eyes, Antonia." He waited until she forced them open, looking down at her face in the moonlight. Her eyes were soft and hazy, the way he loved to see them. Slowly, his gaze never leaving hers, he withdrew and thrust again, every inch of her caressing him. Another gradual withdrawal, another undulating movement inside—over and over again, their eyes locked on each other's face.

"Oh, please, Cullen, I want—ah, there, please, yes," she whispered at last, her hips lifting. He could feel her tightening around him as her pleasure got closer, and while he wanted to make this last longer, he was shaking with his own need for release.

Bending his head, he kissed her, his tongue finding hers as he thrust once more, as deeply as he had ever gone before, and again, and again, and then she was clutching him, her body clenching tightly around him, and he couldn't hold himself back any longer, the waves overtaking him.

The tensions of the last few days—the last year and a half, really—had taken their toll on him, and he found he could hardly keep his eyes open. Antonia seemed to feel the same, her eyelids heavy. Still clinging to one another, they shifted beneath the covers and drifted off to sleep together.