faderift | OPEN: this will be a better year

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: First Day
WHEN: Wintermarch 1 (forward-dated)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Scouts from both the Western Approach and Emprise du Lion are welcome (but not required) to have returned to Skyhold in time for this event.

There have been better First Day feasts, and less crowded ones, and cheerier ones. It isn't a good year for many to look back on, and this one isn't starting any better. Reports from both Eastern and Western Orlais are grim. Many in the Inquisition can't afford to take more than a few hours away from their work, if that.

But for those who can, the ambassador does her best. At lunchtime some tables, hot food, and finery are reserved for visiting nobility and wealthy pilgrims--cause for grumbling in some quarters, perhaps, but they're the people filling the Inquisition's coffers, and allowances must be made--but there's plenty of stew, bread, and ale for everyone, even with the soldiers and refugees who stay outside the fortress invited inside for the holiday. The recently repaired garden and its carefully tended plants aren't off limits, but anyone noisy and holding a drink will be stopped at the door; the battlements, with their potential for deadly falls, are blocked by Inquisition guards. But the courtyards brim with people, most of them happy despite the possibility that the world might end before another First Day arrives.

If the courtyards are too full of tipsy visitors for comfort, there's also the valley beyond the fortress, expansive, barren, and covered in snow. By the river the soldiers help the refugees make a bonfire larger than would ever be allowed inside Skyhold's walls, and some lend their shields to use as sleds down the embankments. A group of scouts start the most intense game of hide and seek Thedas has ever seen, with snowballs to the face for whoever is found first. In the camp, a refugee girl with her hand wrapped in a green scarf chases other children around the tents, shouting raaar, I'm from the rifts!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I was wondering if someone had been doing that on purpose," Gavin admitted with a grin as he let himself be easily led and sat down next to Maxwell. It was impossible to keep his hands away - not after weeks of waiting - but somehow he managed to keep it to just his fingers sliding to rest on Maxwell's hips.

"A vast conspiracy, of some sort..."

"Sssh," Maxwell murmured, a rumble in the back of his throat as he shifted, grin widening, and his hips bumped against Gavin's fingers. "They'll hear you."

He leaned, as if to whisper conspiratorially, but really it was a thinly veiled excuse to get closer and brush the tip of his nose against the wisps of hair at Gavin's temple.

"And come barging in here to correct their mistake, all this wine and fine treats will go to waste, and I might just die of a broken heart."

The whisper was enough to send a shiver rushing down his spine, and he couldn't help an almost nervous chuckle.

"Well, we can't have that," he murmured lowly in reply, shifting closer. "I suppose I'll learn how to be quiet, somehow."

"I..." His heart thumped, a hard kick in his chest, and he touched his lip quickly with the tip of his tongue. He knew what he wanted, had wanted for a long time, but now that it was in front of him, what if....

No. He'd lived with that night for too long. He wasn't going to let it end that way again.

He had to know.

"I might be able to help with that."

His hands lifted, hesitating just a fraction, before gently brushing against Gavin's jaw. Before his fingers slipped under his chin and coaxed his head to tilt. Their eyes met, held for a moment where Maxwell's heart stuttered and stilled, and then his mouth lowered slowly.

He knew it was coming, with an incredible, firm, assurance - the same way he knew how gravity worked, or how the sun rose and set every day. He could feel it, tingling through his skin even before Maxwell leaned in, even before those soft, plush lips met his own and stole a low, quiet groan from them. His hand on Maxwell's hip slipped up to his spine, pulling him closer as his own lips parted. As his tongue quietly invited him deeper.

The wine, the candles, the castle: forgotten.

It wasn't the first time they had kissed; wasn't the first time they had touched. But it still felt like it. The whisper of Gavin's pleasure knotted in his belly, and the brush of his fingers - up and just under - trembled up the length of his spine.

Gavin pulled, but he was already pushing closer, one of his hands hand moving to the back of Gavin's neck. His thumb stroking over the column of skin, fingertips pressing at the base of his skull, pressing the kiss deeper, firmer.

"Gavin...."

All pretences were lost completely, a heat rushing through him with a force unequalled by anything that had come before it. His throat suddenly dry, his head tilting back in Maxwell's palm, taking the kiss as deeply as he possibly could, his entire body pressing closer, his thigh sliding slowly between Maxwell's legs.

He came up for breath only when forced to, and even then, his lips lingered, his chest quivering as he sucked in a breath.

".... You are... unfairly good at that," he whispered, the grin pulling back onto his lips.

They were tangling together - so slowly and sweetly, muscles clenched across his body, flexing eagerly. Warming with the blood his heightened heartbeat rushed through him.

"...I try to rise to the occasion," he teased on a rough breath, palm skimming along Gavin's side, fingers hooking behind his thigh, massaging down to the back of his skin.

His lips bumped and brushed over Gavin's, as if he couldn't bear to break completely away. Just far enough to breath and speak, still close enough to taste.

"I've thought about this, a lot. About you."

His heart thumped hard, almost painfully so, coming to a rest in his throat and threatening to pull it closed.

"Me too," he admitted, lips almost in a kiss, save the space for the words to slide out, his face too close to Maxwell's to be able to look at him, hot breath mingling. "... Barely can think about anything else, lately. Keep trying to focus on something else, and there you are again--"

He laughed, a little rough, a little breathless, his nose brushing against Gavin's, their lips meeting quickly and parting again just as fast.

"I ruined some Orlaisan's hat," he admitted, leg moving to press against Gavin's. "I was practicing, and daydreaming, and there it was... pinned to the backboard."

His fingers danced along the hem of Gavin's shirt.

"I wasn't sure the yelling would ever stop..."

"Better his hat than his head," Gavin teased breathlessly, shifting just enough that Maxwell's fingers brushed past fabric onto flesh - making him shiver, his own hands tightening in Maxwell's shirt.

He groaned gently as Maxwell's leg slid against his, as the blood thumped hotly through him and he ached to be closer, but did not want to rush, or push--

"But we... may want to endeavour... to make the courtyards a little safer..."

Little sparks caught and flashed inside him; his fingers trembled lightly, both eager and unsure, as they lay against Gavin's skin, as gently pressed upward, carrying fabric on the backs of his knuckles.

"I'm not sure that's possible," he whispered, half a joke, half a truth he couldn't help.

He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to go back to the way things were. Gavin's memory had lingered for years after even so short a time together, now....

His Adam's apple rolled in his throat, up and down, as his mouth parched.

"I want you, Gavin."

It was hardly the first time he'd lain with anyone. But every time before this had been for fun, for pleasure, for passing the time -

This, this he felt right through every bone in his body, almost vibrating with anticipation. It was completely and utterly different, almost exhausting with how much his body craved it.

"Yeah," He whispered, his heart slamming hard. "I want you, too, Maxwell."

[Continuing here for not safe for work shenanigans.]

OPEN: this will be a better year

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