wizards please interact

Solas studies the other man’s expression; drawn and stale, eyebrows knitted in concentration as he hunts for a satisfactory blade of grass to maim. “You have not felt this before, have you?”

A blush spreads up his neck. “Felt what?”

Solas’ brow hardens, but his eyes remain wide and gentle. “The creeping silence the night before battle.”

“Ah. That’s one way to describe it, I suppose.”

He repositions himself so he is seated facing Avery directly. “You feel differently.”

Their eyes meet at a brush, but Avery’s dart to the grass under Solas’ deliberate attention. He claims another victim and rolls it between his now-stained fingertips, as he had the others. “The ‘creeping silence’ is there. Well put, in fact.” He cracks a grin that does not leave his lips. “But it’s–” he glances up at Solas, and is momentarily lost in his rapt focus. He forgets the joke he was about to make. “It’s not alone.”

Solas’ voice is hardly above a whisper. “Nor are you.”

The glade stills, and details melt away as the pair’s eyes dart across each others’ features. Avery feels a prickling glaze of sweat on his brow from a spike in humidity. He releases hold of the heat in his chest, allowing it to fill his heart before running through his fingers and spilling into the greater Fade with his exhale. The sudden humidity dissipates as quickly as it arrived, but the crisp spring day Avery had intended to replicate remains unseasonably warm. 

With a slight shake of the head and an indeterminate expression, Solas refocuses his attention over Avery’s shoulder into the underbrush, which finds its shape once again.

Avery reclaims his gaze with a steady hand to his chin. “Or you, Solas.”

It feels like drifting. Instinctual. Avery is unsure whether he guides the other man’s lips to his, or if he was already on course. Solas’ mouth opens against the wet brush of his lips. The moment is removed from time or reason.