Title: Rhapsody in Ass Major – Chapter 26
Co-Conspirator: 
MaverikLoki
Fandom: Dragon Age
Characters: Anton Hawke ♂, Cullen ♂
Rating: E (L3 N4 S4 V0 D1)
Warnings: Zero relationship skills, Cullen is getting sappy, Anton's a goddamn moron
Notes: Oh, Anton. Get a grip… Not on that… Well… That works too…
They hadn't even opened the whiskey yet. Cullen caught on to that and clung. Yes. Whiskey. That would distract Anton for a moment, keep his mouth occupied with something other than templar tongue. "I, er…" Cullen pulled back, clearing his throat again. "Drinks. We should. Drink, that is. If you want to. I brought… I brought whiskey."
Maker. Subject, verb, object, that's how sentences were supposed to go.
"Oh, I'd love to drink. I'll even settle for whiskey, for now." Anton stretched out, moving the food back onto the table, a clear indication of where he expected drinking would lead. Which, to be fair, it usually did, for him.
He took the bottle down, moving up the bed and folding himself over Cullen to reach it, and Cullen tried his best not to consider that Anton's crotch was almost directly in his face. Cullen closed his eyes and swallowed hard, as memories of taking Anton into his mouth washed over him. The taste, the smell, that warm throbbing against his tongue…
And then the bed moved and Anton's finger traced down the bridge of his nose. "Looking a little lost there, Captain."
All of the words Cullen meant to say compressed into a single sound. "Eep?" He cleared his throat and tried again. "Oh, uh, just… laces. My eye."
Anton pursed his lips against a laugh. There was something so endearingly sweet about this fumbling man, something heady in knowing that he could affect someone this way, the Knight-Captain, no less. "Do these laces offend you?" Anton asked with mock concern. "Shall I be rid of them?" Long fingers toyed with the laces in question, and Cullen watched them as though hypnotized.
"I, er… um." Cullen had rehearsed this, talking to Anton. He'd been determined to sound sexy, not to stutter, but the damned man knocked all sense from his brain.
"What about the pants as a whole?" Anton teased. "Are they bothersome too?"
"You're holding whiskey." Cullen failed to answer the question, entirely. "We should drink whiskey."
"With or without my bothersome pants?" Anton asked, opening the bottle. "Or maybe you'd like to be rid of your own bothersome pants as well… We could drink whiskey with no pants at all, if you like."
Cullen felt light-headed. Maybe whiskey was a bad idea, if he was already getting dizzy just being in Anton's presence. Or maybe he'd feel a little less drunk if he had a few drinks. He'd heard that helped. And somehow, in the middle of this, his mouth got away from him, entirely, and said the thing he'd been trying to avoid even thinking. "If you unlace your pants, I'm going to be drinking more than whiskey."
The words drifted back to his ears. Maker! Who said things like that? It didn't matter that it had passed through his head. That he'd tried not to giggle hysterically at the thought. That was just… No. He couldn't have. He was just nervous and imagining things. Didn't happen. Didn't say it. Oh, Maker, the way Anton was looking at him…
"Oh, that sounds like an incentive to me," Anton replied, looking fiendishly delighted. He handed Cullen the bottle, and Cullen somehow had the presence of mind not to drop it as Anton started unlacing his trousers. And it was ridiculous, the slow, sensual way he was doing it. No one took that long untying their pants.
"All right, Captain?"
Cullen realized he hadn't been blinking. "Er." Whiskey. Right. He opened the bottle and took what he was sure was an impolitely large drink. "Fine," he choked. "I'm just… fine. Better than, actually. You are just…"
And there was that reverent look again, shining out of Cullen's eyes. "I am just…?" Anton prompted, lips curling. Cullen struggled to find an adequate word with which to finish that sentence.
"… ideal. Perfect. The Maker's own image of good and right." Cullen was rambling and he couldn't seem to stop himself. Maybe he'd just get it out of his system. "I never understood what a man could see in another man, and then I met you. And everything else… it just seems so … shallow? dim? empty? There's just you. All you. I can't stop thinking about you. I don't want to stop thinking about you. Anton Hawke, you're a beautiful man and I love you."
His face was burning. He wondered how he hadn't spontaneously combusted, yet. He'd hoped the embrium would say it for him, but Maker, Anton was obtuse. Probably intentionally obtuse, remembering how Anton had made him ask for obvious things.
Anton blinked. Cullen looked so sincere, a determined line to his jaw, that flaming blush that reached from his collar to his hairline, and Anton knew exactly how far down his chest it stretched. He smiled, confused and amused, and stroked Cullen's cheek.
"You're ridiculous." And then Anton leaned in and pressed his lips to Cullen's. Flattery, after all, would get one pretty far with Anton.
But not Anton's heart, Cullen realised even as he kissed back, one hand reaching up to cup the back of Anton's head. Best to keep his mouth occupied before he said anything else embarrassingly stupid. Of course Anton didn't love him. He didn't expect that, not yet, but he'd been hoping for something.
Ridiculous. That was exactly what he was.
He pushed Anton back gently, a hand on his chest. "Anton," he started to say, only to let the name stand alone. Anton, am I fooling myself here? But he couldn't ask, couldn't bring himself to hear the answer he suspected. If he was fooling himself, let him keep on being fooled.
"That's me," Anton replied, with a cocky smile, tracing the line of Cullen's jaw with one finger. That wasn't a happy look, on Cullen, and Anton couldn't figure it out. "Too quick? Whiskey before kissing?"
Anton just kept joking, and Cullen couldn't figure out where things had gone so awry. Yes, he could. It was the first night he set foot in this house. It was the first time Anton kissed him. Everything he knew stopped making sense. He was in so far over his head, lost and finally frightened. But, he'd just hold on and hope for the best, as long as Anton would let him.
There was still a bottle in his hand, and Cullen took another large swallow of whiskey, before handing it to Anton. "Whiskey before kissing," he agreed, caressing Anton's chest with the hand he'd just used to push the man back.
Anton grinned at him over the bottle's lip and took a swig. He sat back against the headboard, his shoulder brushing Cullen's. His pants gaped open, and Anton tilted his hips in a way that made sure Cullen was aware of that. And there was Cullen, gaze lingering right where Anton wanted it to but still not looking entirely happy.
Between sips passed back and forth, Cullen was quiet, drawn inward. Anton wanted to hear him stutter again. "So, how much whiskey, do you think, before the kissing?" he teased, just to fill the silence.
Cullen looked at him as though deliberating. "At least one more sip," he said, taking said sip and kissing Anton.
Somehow, the bottle made it back onto the table, as Cullen tried to drown himself in Anton. The kiss was a little too desperate, but Cullen's hands wandered in that way it usually took Anton a whole lot more teasing and kissing to incite. Anton, though, was not going to complain. Yes, he liked blushing, shy Cullen, but adventurous Cullen could also be exciting.
Anton pulled Cullen tight against him, kiss sliding sideways to land on Cullen's neck. Cullen always smelled faintly metallic, with an undertone of wet leather, like all the years in armour had soaked into his skin, and Anton never got tired of it, never got tired of pressing his face against Cullen, and just breathing deeply. Maybe one day he would, but he had no sense it would be soon. Maybe as he aged, he was getting a taste for templars and soldiers — he considered trying out a guardsman, to see.
"Touch me," he breathed in Cullen's ear, just to see if he could spark a stutter.
But, Cullen surprised him. "I'm already touching you," Cullen said, lips curling in a way that said he was being purposefully obtuse. And he was not wrong. His hands were definitely on Anton's body. "You might have to be more specific."
Suddenly Anton was the one stuttering, surprised to see Cullen playing his game. He laughed, delighted. "You're cheeky tonight, Captain," he purred, lips brushing one ear, mouthing the lobe. "I approve."
Cheeky or not, Cullen was still blushing furiously, and that reassured Anton that this was Cullen and not a trick of the Fade.
"Elbows," Cullen murmured, sliding one hand up Anton's arm. "You must have meant your elbows. I'm sure I haven't given those enough attention."
If Anton could play this game, so could he. He could be just as awful about it, he assured himself, trying not to be distracted by the way Anton's thigh pressed against his knob. Which was becoming increasingly difficult. And increasingly hard. No, maybe he didn't need Anton to love him. Maybe he just needed Anton to want him. That could be enough, couldn't it?
"I meant," Anton started, pausing to duck down and nibble under Cullen's chin, "that you said something about drinking more than just whiskey, if I unlaced my pants. My pants which are wide open and sliding down."
Cullen knew looking would be his undoing, but he looked anyway, staring down between them at the slice of skin Anton had bared, the lines of his hipbones begging to be touched and tasted. He was a fool for thinking he could keep up with the man, but he could certainly follow.
"These pants?" Cullen said, caressing Anton's thigh and powering through a stutter. "The bothersome ones?" His fingers traced the waistline, dipping in to press fingers to skin and hitch Anton's pants lower still.
"The very same," Anton hummed against Cullen's throat. "Though not so bothersome as yours."
"You find my pants bothersome?" That was Anton's ass in Cullen's hand.
"I find all your clothes bothersome. Offensive, even. You should be rid of them immediately."
Cullen blushed vibrantly, but kept on. "Oh, how thoughtless of me to have arrived clothed. I thought— thought—" and there was the stutter, again "thought you might like to unwrap my package, yourself."
He blamed the terrible Orlesian novels. Cullen had always been a fast reader, and after last time, he'd picked up a stack of the awful things, just to see if maybe he had been reading the wrong sorts of books. And definitely to see if he could pick up some ideas to use on Anton. He couldn't get all his ideas straight from Anton, that would get predictable. And there was no way he was asking Emeric about this. He could have done without the one about the horses, though. He tossed that one in the fire straightaway, and sat to make sure it burned.
Anton choked out a sharp laugh. "Andraste's tits, you have been reading dirty books, haven't you!"
Of course Anton would know. Cullen sighed.
"Bethy's right. You're sweet. You're just ridiculously sweet." Anton followed that with a kiss that might almost have been affectionate. Or maybe Cullen just wanted it to be. "I like it. Don't ever change."
And then Anton's hands slid down to Cullen's pants, and his smile crossed from fond to wicked. "You want me to unwrap your package, Ser Templar? Oh! All these complicated knots!"
Cullen bent to kiss that wicked smile and swallowed Anton's laughter. He was tempted to tell Anton to just tear the laces, for Maker's sake, but these were his nice trousers, bothersome or not, and trousers he'd worn specifically for Anton. Rather silly that, he supposed, since they would end up crumpled on the floor with everything else.
Somewhere in the kiss, someone got Cullen's pants open. Then there were hands on Cullen's hips and pants bunching at Anton's knees, and they pulled apart long enough to kick the bothersome articles aside.
"Much better," Anton purred, pulling the templar back down into another kiss, then another and another, until all Cullen could taste was whiskey and Anton.
Anton wrapped a hand around them both. Yes, knobs were meant for licking, and he'd certainly intended to get some licking in, but they had all night. And if Cullen decided he had better ideas, Anton didn't doubt he'd share. That was new and different, but good, he decided. The blushing and teasing was great, always would be great, but there was something about hearing Cullen say things Anton was dead sure he'd picked up from dirty books that just went straight to Anton's knob. Anyone else, he'd have rolled his eyes and put his pants on. But, Cullen… Cullen was just adorable. Ridiculously adorable and adorably ridiculous. He did not speculate on whether this meant he adored Cullen, but he certainly wanted to continue to enjoy every minute of that ridiculously sexy man's presence.
And so, he gripped them together, stroking the knobs in his fist slowly, listening to Cullen's breathing change, feeling the way Cullen's tongue always flicked in just that way, when he stroked right there.
"That is a lovely gift you've brought me," Anton murmured against Cullen's lips.
Cullen looked down at the hand on his knob, blushed and stuttered and pulled enough brain cells together to quip, "I-I see you brought me one too."
Anton traced Cullen's jawline with his teeth. "Why not? You spoil me, ser."
Cullen felt like the one spoiled in that moment, with clever fingers on his knob and hot skin against his. Cullen pulled Anton closer by the hip, wanted to press as close as he could to this man until he couldn't tell one body from the other. They were barely a few minutes in, and he had a full night of this to look forward to. This, surely, was the definition of decadence.
"Anton," he sighed, the name heavy with his want, his affection for this man.
"The one and only," Anton replied, with a sparkling grin.
The one and only, indeed. Thank the Maker, because Cullen wasn't sure the world could handle more than one. He certainly couldn't. Two of Anton would be the death of him, he was sure. And then Anton was asking him something, and he wasn't paying attention.
"What?"
"Oh, am I distracting you?" Anton's thumb skated across the ends of their knobs. "I said if you reach back, there should be some oil on the shelf, there. The blue one."
Cullen, of course, couldn't see a damned thing, because it was, as Anton so helpfully pointed out, behind him. He groped bottles as Anton watched, until Anton told him he had the right one.
He handed the bottle to Anton and went back to kissing him, smearing a kiss down his throat. He heard Anton fiddling with the bottle and suddenly there was oil, cold and slick, against their knobs. It startled a breath out of him which Anton bent to swallow.
"Better?" Anton purred against him, teeth pulling playfully at Cullen's lower lip.
"It's… not bothersome," he said. Not bothersome? Did he really say that?
But Anton was chuckling breathlessly and touching them both in a way that made sparks flare at the base of Cullen's spine.
"It's perfect," he amended with a sigh.
And still, or maybe again, Cullen had no idea what to do with his hands. Maker, one of these days he was going to have to pay more attention to the hands in those books. He touched Anton's face, stroking his cheek, sliding a finger along his lips, which was suddenly bitten and licked, and there was that devilish eyebrow twitch. Cullen could feel the heat rising in his cheeks, and not just in his knob. The hand moved down, tugging at Anton's shirt, and then Anton caught his wrist, smoothed his fingers open, and pressed his palm flat against the tops of their knobs.
Cullen sucked in a breath. Apparently the palm was an erogenous zone. Add another thing to the list of things that weren't in the books. He'd found ladies with horses in those books, but not this. He pressed down a little harder, just to feel the hot, damp slide of flesh against his palm, and Anton purred warmly.
But maybe he didn't need a book or an instruction manual when he had Anton, making those lovely sounds and arching that lovely body against his. When he moved his hand just so, he had to be doing something right, judging from the breath that shivered through Anton's lips.
"Cullen," Anton sighed, the sound going straight to Cullen's knob.
"I… yes, the one and only," Cullen quipped in return, less smooth in his delivery than Anton had been. But Anton's smile said he had done something right there as well.
Anton felt the twitch against his fingers and went for more. He moaned lasciviously against Cullen's lips. "Yes. Oh, yes, Cullen. Just like that."
It was so easy to perform for an appreciative audience, Anton had found, and when that appreciative audience was polishing his knob and flattering him with impressions of himself, it almost wasn't a performance at all, any more. He really did enjoy Cullen, even if the man was hopelessly confused. Actually, he kind of liked the hopelessly confused part, too. There was something to be said for those with more talent and a less optimistic outlook, but it was a nice change, and Cullen's charming innocence never failed to make him smile. And as that innocence fell away, well… if Cullen kept doing that, Anton would be doing a lot more than just smiling, soon.
Cullen eagerly repeated everything he had done in the last few seconds, hoping to hear those words again or words like them, in that voice. He kept one hand on their joined knobs, panting at the slide of Anton's hand, the friction of his, and he reached up with his other hand to cup Anton's cheek. Thumb smoothing over Anton's cheekbone, Cullen shuddered and gasped, spurting between them, letting their gorgeous man fill his senses.
"Anton," he breathed again, sure the man would answer with another quip to his exasperation and adoration.
"Still me," Anton replied, but his crooked smile had a dazed edge as he continued touching them both, his breaths hot and ragged against Cullen's cheek.
That dazed smile might have been the most delicious thing Cullen had seen on Anton's face, yet. How could one man be so devastatingly appealing? His hips rocked in time with Anton's hand, and that wonderful slide of flesh on flesh erased most of the thoughts from his head. The occasional single word flickered through at the end of a thrust. Anton. Perfect. Wonderful. Love.
Anton saw Cullen's eyes get hazy, heard his breath catch, and pushed himself to catch up. He closed his eyes and thought of all the things he had yet to introduce Cullen to the joys of, focused on the feeling of Cullen sliding against him, through his fist. And there was an idea. Oh, what a delightfully wicked idea. He wondered what it would be like to slide against Cullen inside someone else. He made a note to ask Serendipity, later, if she could suggest someone. For, well, after Cullen had stopped stuttering and blushing at the idea of Anton's usual repertoire. But, that would be amazing. If he thought about it, he could almost feel it.
"Cullen," he gasped, and that was all it took.
If Anton's face was the most delicious sight, Cullen's name on his lips was the most delicious sound. Cullen pulled Anton close against him as he shuddered, lips and free hand tracing every plane and edge of Anton's face, the jut of his chin, the cut of his cheekbone, the curve of his brow, expressing again his love for this man without stuttering the words.
"What have I ever done to deserve you?" Cullen murmured, brushing back Anton's hair as their breathing slowed.
"Mm, either something very good or very wicked, I suspect," Anton replied. There was that dazed smile again, which Cullen had to kiss.
"But not as wicked as some of the things y-you have planned for me tonight, I suspect."
The dazed smile turned devilish told Cullen everything he needed to know.
