Title: Rhapsody in Ass Major – Chapter 25
Co-Conspirator: 
MaverikLoki
Fandom: Dragon Age
Characters: Bethany Hawke ♀, Carver Hawke ♂, Anton Hawke ♂, Cullen ♂
Rating: T (L2 N0 S1 V0 D1)
Warnings: Heavily implied het, unintentional voyeurism, Carver can't catch a break, zero relationship skills, Cullen is getting sappy, Anton's mouth
Notes: Cullen's got ideas. Cullen's got a plan. Anton's… well… Anton.
"Andraste's ass! Bethany!" Carver slammed a door, somewhere upstairs, and Anton could hear his sister laughing.
"If you don't want to see things like that, you shouldn't open doors without knocking, Carver!" Bethany cackled with glee, obviously up to something questionable.
"How was I supposed to expect your Chantry boy's bare ass!?" Carver raved. "Doesn't that violate his vows or something?"
"How would that violate his vows? Did you see any of my skin?"
"I don't know! I was trying not to see anyone's skin! What in the void are you even doing?" Carver paused, as the implications of that question made themselves clear. "Don't tell me!"
Sebastian's reply was loud, but incomprehensible, and suddenly Anton wondered exactly what his little sister was getting up to. Whatever it was, Chantry boy was in for a real fuck of a ride, with her and her ideas and her freaky nightmare magic.
Carver howled in frustration and stomped down the stairs. "What are you looking at?" he snapped at Anton.
"Not what you were, that's for damn sure." Anton's eyebrows hiked up.
"Shut up," Carver snarled, heading out. "Just shut up."
Cullen had taken Monday off. He wasn't entirely sure how he got away with it, or how bad this was going to look, later, but he'd done it. He'd promised Anton Sunday and Monday, and he was going to deliver. (And Maker, how Anton had smiled at him, when he showed up with orchids in his hand, to deliver the news. The man was going to ruin him!)
He was going to do this right. He was going to do this actually right, instead of something that roughly approximated right, he decided, and made a few stops before showing up at Anton's door: Nevarran takeout, Fereldan whiskey, and not just any orchids, this time, but fresh-cut embrium. And then he passed the bakery in Hightown, and made one more stop, because showing up without those divine lemon cream duchess cakes would be a terrible sin.
At last, he made his way to the door, trying to decide if he'd forgotten anything, or if he was somehow going to make a fool of himself in any of his choices. He'd brought clean clothes, supper, and gifts. That should cover everything, he thought.
The dwarf remembered him, this time. "Ah, Ser Cullen! Come in. Messere Hawke is expecting you. I'll fetch him."
Bethany passed Bodhan in the hall, and stepped in to see who'd come to the door. "Ser Cullen! What a lovely surprise!"
She hurried over to him, curious. "What's all this? Have you come to woo my brother? You have, haven't you?" Bethany poked and prodded and examined everything. "Oh, you're so sweet! I'm sure he'll love it!"
And there was Cullen's first blush of the night. "Er, thank you," he said with a nervous chuckle. "It's not too much, is it? Maker, it's too much. I knew it."
Bethany's eyes crinkled, lips pressing together in a way that said she was fighting not to laugh. "It's perfect, Cullen," she reassured him, patting his shoulder. "Anton deserves to be spoiled now and then."
"Anton should definitely be spoiled and spoiled often," said the man in question, coming out of the library with Bodhan in tow. He turned a smile on Cullen that was as much warm as devious. Maker. How many times would Cullen see the man before he'd stop setting his heart aflutter?
Aflutter. Now that just made him sound like a blushing maiden. He may have the blushing part down, but he was certainly no maiden. He cleared his throat. "Hello, Anton," he said, his tone aiming for smooth and coming out reverent. It just made Anton smile wider.
"Walk with me. Talk with me. And as soon as we're out of my sister's all-too-curious sight, show me how you're going to spoil me rotten, all night long." Linking his arm through Cullen's, Anton winked at Bethany, before leading him out of the room. "If anyone's looking for me before Tuesday, tell them I'm dead!"
"I'm telling mum you brought home a boy to make kissy-faces with!" Bethany called after them.
Anton offered his sister a single-finger salute, over his shoulder.
"So what's all this?" Anton asked, finally gazing into the basket Cullen carried. "Andraste's tits, those are embrium, aren't they?"
No one had ever gotten him embrium, before. Shit, it was rare enough that he got flowers at all, the bulk of flowers he'd received in his life having been orchids from Cullen. And orchids were posh as all get out, sure, but embrium… embrium was serious. Still, this was Cullen. He probably didn't know any better.
"Yes." And there Cullen stalled out for a long, awkward moment. "I, um… What I mean to say… it just seemed like… I should… I heard they're what you get for someone you really enjoy."
Anton laughed. "They're what you get for someone you love, or, sometimes, someone who's dying. I heard in some parts of Orlais, they're what you get for someone you're going to kill."
"Oh, I… Well, it's a good thing we're not in Orlais, isn't it." He'd screwed this up, already. He was sure of it. Maker's breath, what was he even doing?
"No, indeed," Anton replied. "And not just for that reason. My Orlesian accent is terrible, and their food is much too melancholy for my taste-buds." Anton noticed Cullen wasn't denying the 'in love' or 'dying' reasons for getting the orchids, and the thought settled uncomfortably on his shoulders. Maybe he was dying and didn't know it.
Cullen laughed nervously. "Yes, and I don't think I could pull off an Orlesian mask half as well as you."
"Darling, no one can."
Cullen didn't argue that, and he was looking at Anton like the sun shone out of his ass. As glorious as Anton's ass was, that was another realisation that made him squirm. He rifled through the basket hooked over Cullen's arm to distract himself. He hummed in pleasure at what he found there. "Are those duchess cakes?" he asked. "Oh, I love duchess cakes!"
"And takeout from that Nevarran place in Lowtown. I remembered what you ordered, last time." Cullen blushed and tried to decide if that made him sound romantic or just creepy.
"Bethy's right. You're so sweet," Anton mangled out around a bite of cream-filled pastry, before kissing Cullen on the cheek, right there in the hall. "What are you, really? Spy? Assassin? No one's this …" romantic, adoring, soppy "…sweet unless they're angling for something!"
"I've got everything I want right here." Cullen had no idea how the words made it out of his mouth without his whole face bursting into flame. "Just… Just you."
"Pfft. Charmer. You been reading those old Orlesian novels?" Anton led the way into his room, closing the door behind hem. "Don't get me wrong, there's some fantastically dirty stuff in those, and that's what you want to come away with, but the rest — we're grown men, not swooning teenage girls."
"No, certainly not," Cullen said perhaps too quickly. He was certainly not a teenager or a girl, and Knight-Captains do not swoon. If he read those novels, it was certainly to mock them. Yes. "I'm not… trying to charm you." Well, okay, he was. "I'm just being honest."
That was a good line, Anton would give him that. He chuckled and took the basket from Cullen, setting down on the end table, where he'd set up his array of syrups the last time he was alone with Cullen. The look on the templar's face said he was thinking of exactly that. "Well, you're welcome to continue not charming me then, Ser Cullen," he said, sauntering back over to the blushing man. Anton wondered how long it would take for Cullen to stop blushing every time he teased him. Hopefully quite a bit longer. He rather liked watching the red spread across his cheeks in splotches.
"Not charming," Cullen said with a self-deprecating laugh. "That is something I can certainly be."
Anton begged to differ, but he wasn't about to say so.
"I, er, I thought we might start with supper?" Cullen suggested. He'd been so nervous he hadn't eaten all day, and the idea of Anton's naked body wrapped around him before he'd gotten something down just sounded like a recipe for fainting. All the blood would rush out of his head and there would be nothing to sustain him.
"Of course! You've been all over town, today, haven't you? Need a little rest before your next round of … exertions." There was that deliciously wicked smile again. Anton rifled through the boxes from the restaurant. "Ah, you got the things with the leaves and the barley again! Excellent. And the duchess cakes, of course. Hmm… Come lie with me, and you can eat from my fingers. Supper in bed."
Eat. From his fingers. Anton stretched out on the bed, lazing like a cat, and patted the spot next to him. That was it. Cullen had died, and the Maker had taken him unto his bosom. There was no other explanation for this that wasn't blood magic, and he'd already ruled that out.
Cullen tried to think of something clever to say, only to decide he'd just end up stuttering anyway. He unbuckled and kicked off his boots and stretched out next to Anton. If only he had this waiting for him every night.
Anton smiled that coy, lazy smile and and pulled Cullen closer by the lapels. Cullen held his breath anticipating a kiss, but Anton smiled and pressed a bite of food against his lips.
Cullen tried to take it without dropping bits on the sheets or slobbering all over Anton's hand, and he mostly succeeded in both regards, a small happy sound rising from him as his mouth closed. Oh, yes. Food. That was a thing, and he was supposed to be eating a great deal more of it than he'd managed to get into himself, since he skipped breakfast. He could do this. Just think about the food, and don't look too much at the gorgeous man holding it, until after. Okay, that last part might be a little more difficult.
Working his way through an assortment of bite-sized Nevarran foods, Anton split them sensibly and evenly — one for Cullen, then one for himself. Cullen seemed to be determined to keep the eroticism to a minimum, possibly so he wouldn't choke, but Anton was devotedly perverse and licked his own fingers clean, when Cullen wouldn't. He suspected Cullen would, with prompting, but he'd rather demonstrate, and just watch that blush creep up, again. He wondered how many simultaneous shades of red and pink Cullen's skin would support at one time, and made it his mission to find out.
Anton added humming to the finger-licking, and Cullen wondered if he'd ever be able to eat Nevarran again without getting an erection. Probably not — he already couldn't look at oranges without squirming — and wouldn't that be fun to explain. Thank the Maker templar armour hid a multitude of sins.
"It's good, isn't it?" he asked, words tumbling out. "The food."
"Delicious," Anton agreed in a purr, making a show of the next bite while Cullen was looking at him, flashing quite a bit more teeth and tongue than was strictly necessary.
"So are you," Cullen choked out. Maker, what was wrong with him, tonight?
"Is your memory so good? You haven't licked me once, tonight. I was starting to think you didn't mean to do it again," Anton teased, all sharp edges and sleek lines. He punched his finger through the top of one of the duchess cakes and brought it back covered in lemon cream, offering it to Cullen.
Cullen, who paled and then blushed harder, hesitantly putting out his tongue and licking the tip of that lemon cream covered finger. Concentrate on the lemon cream. He had to keep his mind on the lemon cream, as his tongue slid over the tip of that finger, and he fought off thoughts of all the ways and places that finger had touched him.
"Come on, it's just a little lemon cream…" Anton petted Cullen's tongue.
Cullen tried to talk around the finger in his mouth but just ended up whimpering instead. There was no 'just', not with this man. Anton slid his finger out of Cullen's mouth, spit-slick finger lingering over his lips before scooping out more lemon cream. He moved as though to press it to Cullen's tongue again, only to slide his finger into his own mouth instead. He hummed at the taste, the sound just this side of obscene, and Cullen added lemon cream to the list of food that would make him blush.
"Maker, you're gorgeous," he said, stupidly if honestly, only to clear his throat and look away.
"And you," said Anton, pulling his finger out with a pop, "are adorable." Whatever Cullen was about to say ended up swallowed in a lemon-cream-flavoured kiss.
The very little bit of sense Cullen retained was largely focused on not leaning in the food or flipping it onto the bed. Just don't move, unless it's your face, he told himself. He still wasn't fantastic at kissing, but the more times he did it, the better he got, he thought. Mostly he tried to do things he'd felt Anton do.
And Maferath's cavity-ridden left testicle, was that weird for Anton. It was getting to be like kissing himself. Most of the time, he knew exactly what Cullen was going to do next, because it was what he would have done on that side of the kiss. Frankly, it was oddly erotic, actually, and Anton considered that if he ever had the chance, he would fuck the daylights out of himself. In the mean time, however, he had Cullen, to whom he was getting oddly attached. Those weird worshipful looks, all those stupidly charming sentences, the way he blushed so easily… Anton was hooked. He liked this one. Wanted to keep it for a while, which was dangerously stupid, in some ways, and possibly the best idea he'd ever had, in so many others.
This was for his brothers and sister, he told himself. Keep your enemies close and all that. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
