"It doesn't matter. I'm not running." She didn't really understand, did she? He was so bad for her. He was impossible for her. She was the angel, and he was her fall from grace. As his eyes slowly drew along the line of her perfect jaw, he knew it for truth. As he memorized the depth of those eyes, the curve of those lips, he knew he was killing her just by being here. He was everything she should be afraid of. Empty promises, a devil's deceit, a magician's weapon.
He was her death hidden in love.
Touch me, he begged. And she did.
She was so gentle, so whisper soft. He almost thought like her heart, but that wasn't true, was it. Look at how much she'd endured thus far, how much his past, his actions and inaction had put her through. And still she accepted him. And still she wanted him. That heart was the strongest he'd ever know. Was it strong enough, though? How much of him could she really take? Would the cruel, blackness in him fade, or would it consume her too. Or would he have to lie and hide the real him until it broke her completely. Until it killed her.
He almost shook his head, almost pulled away with all the doubts bearing down on him. He didn't want to hurt her. She'd already endured so much because of him.
But her lips were at his brow, and he closed his eyes as they passed to his temple, his cheek. He could barely breathe. She was doing it again, that thing she did. One moment he was burning so bright, so hot, then the next he was cooled for her, subdued under the water of her calm and steady touch. So much control, she wielded, and probably didn't even realize it. So much power it had briefly given to someone else to conjure her memory; the time when they were happy and holding each other in his dark home.
Her lips followed his jawline to his mouth, and he opened dark and lustful eyes to watch her as she tenderly bit the corner, took the sensitive velvet of him with a soft pull. His eyes flashed their heat again, held hers as she whispered to him: I don't want to sleep alone tonight, Dovev. And at least that was a promise he could keep.
He stepped into her, meeting is chest with hers as they had done so many times now. It felt so good, so right, to hold her this way. To cradle her against him where she was safe. Safe from everything but him.
His chin draped over her, rubbing light patterns across her spine in pensive silence. Every now and then his lips placed a kiss gingerly to her skin, then continued those slow little patterns. He thought of many things then. The bad and the unfair hardships he would bring her if they ever became something more. The gradual death of this gentle, beautiful soul. The good memories of her tucked neatly into his side, or the almost-fire he'd stoked to life in her eyes once. So close he'd come to taking everything from her, to breaking her like he had unintentionally broken sweet Cerva.
He shouldn't touch these sweet, kind hearts.
His touch shatters them, turns them to dust.
He shouldn't want to be with her.
Leliana.. But maybe now wasn't the time for heavy doubts. Maybe, for once, he could turn a bad memory into a good one. Another to keep locked safely away where he could remember every sweet detail. He pulled back enough to softly kiss her temple, then just below her ear. I'm yours, he whispered. For tonight he was hers. For tonight he would take what he shouldn't and hold her like she deserved. And tomorrow...
Tomorrow, she'd be safe again.
I'll take my bow, I won't make a sound
I whisper truce as the ashes hit the ground
