I Said Kiss Kiss Fall In Love Damnit
That was a mistake. That was definitely a mistake. And yet you did it, and when Sera drags you in to keep doing it, you do that too, shoes slipping against slick roof tiles as you struggle to keep your balance so your hands can do other things.
Her hand sliding up the back of your tunic is fire against the ice of your soaked skin. It sends electric tingles out from your spine as surely as if she was the mage. You have enough self-awareness not to start stripping her on the roof of an inn, and hopefully she does too, but that’s where self-awareness ends. You keep pressing closer until you’re essentially sitting in her lap, pushing against the chimney and pushing against her until she’s sliding downward, rough tiles of the roof pulling her shirt up slightly as she does. You play your hands across the bared skin, savor the way she sharply sucks in breath through the kiss.
You could do a lot more than kiss, so you’re sort of glad you’re on the roof, actually, grateful for the occasional distraction of your feet slipping against the tiles. You’re not wearing the shoes you normally would for climbing around on roofs in the rain—why would you be—so your traction isn’t what you’d like it to be. That little bit of awareness keeps you from sliding your hands down her pants, though it doesn’t stop you from kissing across her jaw and down her neck, testing curiously with little bites. The noises she makes are… encouraging.
You can feel her fingers, ice cold, playing around the waistline of your pants, perhaps contemplating the same things you were. You don’t know whether you hope she stops or not. You never got very far past this point in the past with Aimée—
The thought of her makes you lose your balance, mentally… and more importantly, physically. You foot slips dramatically out from under you as your weight shifts too much to the right, and you fall onto your side and begin sliding down the roof. Sera, still holding onto you and half caught by one of your legs, loses her balance as well and in a moment, both of you are tumbling down the roof. You push apart at the same time, having both apparently fallen off enough roofs to know that it’s very hard to grab onto something while tangled up with another person.
You don’t try to catch yourself on the tiles, not with your hands anyway, instead letting yourself tumble towards the edge where you can catch yourself with relative ease and without the risk of cutting your hands on sharp tile. You dangle half-carelessly off the edge, body still tingling all over. Sera is further up the roof, her boots having caught on the roof and helped her stop well before reaching the edge.
“Maker’s tits, are you alrigh’?” she exclaims. “Stop fuckin’ fallin’ off of shite!”
You laugh, and then pull yourself up a bit so your elbows and forearms can rest on the edge of the roof. “I’m fine, I’m fine!” you insist. “I caught myself.”
“Givin’ me fits…” she grumbles, and you laugh again. “Stop laughin’! It would be so like you to kiss me ‘n’ then jus’ fall off the roof ‘n’ DIE.” You laugh even harder, and she glares for a minute before beginning to laugh herself. You can’t help it. It’s just so ridiculous.
“Should I let go or climb back up?” you wonder after you catch your breath a bit. You’re just sort of hanging. It’s not necessarily super uncomfortable, but it’s not sustainable either, and it’d look super dumb if anyone came outside.
Sera slips further down the roof to look down over the edge. “Looks like there’s some hay down there, y’can proly just drop down. It’s only rainin’ harder.”
“Yeah…” you glance up at the dark sky. Not so much as a star. You can’t even see the moon through the thick cloud cover. “Where’d my wine wind up?”
Sera shrugs. “I think it rolled off the roof.”
“Maybe it clocked the Inquisitor on the head,” you suggest, and Sera laughs again. You lower yourself down as far as you can before releasing your grip on the edge of the roof. You fall to the ground, landing silently in the hay, and Sera follows just behind you. You don’t really talk about the fact you just kissed as you walk around into the inn, and then you’re in the room you’re sharing with her and Seeker Pentaghast, and Pentaghast is there so you definitely; can’t talk about it.
There’s only one bath, and the Seeker already had hers, so Sera goes next as you hang up dripping overclothes up and strip out of soaked boots. The awkwardness in the room when it’s just you and the Seeker is palpable, but you’re most preoccupied with thoughts of Sera.
You absolutely should not have done that. Any of it. And you’re kind of glad, in retrospect, that Seeker Pentaghast is here, because you don’t want to have a Talk with Sera where you hash out why the shit you kissed her and what comes next, because you don’t know the answers to either of those, or not any that Sera would like, in any case. You’re really glad she’s here, so that Sera couldn’t ask you into the bath with her, and you’re really glad it was raining and you didn’t actually have sex on the roof of an inn, which sounds exactly like something you would have done in Orlais and exactly like something you should not do with the Inquisition.
You and Sera shift awkwardly past each other as she finishes with the bath and you head in. You try very hard not to think about her sitting naked in the tub. The water is past lukewarm and headed rapidly into cold, and you think of Solas’s fire runes in the inn in Val Royeaux. Then you’re thinking about Solas, and you flop back miserably against the edge of the tub.
Why do you have to be surrounded with fantastic people you want to have sex with? You’re trying to minimize complications, but if feels like you’ve actually managed to maximize them. What are you going to tell Sera? What if Solas finds out? What if everyone finds out? Does Sera have any interest in keeping it secret, or does she think a kiss means you’re dating now?
At least Solas had the kindness to reject you when you acted a fool and kissed him. Thinking about it now, things really would have been even worse if he’d kissed you back like Sera had. You never thought you’d be grateful for him being a dickhead willing to let you believe that a dream had just been a dream when he’d been spying on you, but right now, you’re seeing the appeal of it.
It takes you a while to scrub all the mud off from your fall, and by the time you’re done and willing to come out, the water is stone cold and also pretty filthy, with bits of hay floating in it. You go ahead and take the initiative to bucket it out the window, body moving automatically in familiar motions while your mind races.
You’re so dead, that’s what you keep circling back around to. You have no idea to handle this. Fortunately, with Seeker Pentaghast there, you don’t have to handle it tonight. The three of you prepare for bed in relative peace. Sera is in a fantastic mood, which will probably absolutely bewilder the Inquisitor as soon as he sees her, something which amuses you despite how worried you are.
Seriously, what have you done? This isn’t fair to her. You’re lying to her every day, and you can’t be involved with someone right now, and you’d gone and kissed her. It’s your own fault if she gets the wrong idea! Anyone would! And how do you bring it up? Do you just say, oh, sorry we made out on the roof but actually I’m really emotionally unavailable right now for reasons I can’t tell you? Also I’ll be avoiding you for the foreseeable future because you’re hot as hell and I’m pretty sure I can’t trusted to be alone with you at this point.
Uuuuuuugh.
You stew in the darkness of the inn room, unable to sleep while listening to Sera and the Seeker explore the Fade in peace. Well, not that either of them would appreciate you phrasing it like that. Once you’re sure both of them, especially Sera, are asleep, you slip noiselessly out of bed. You grab your bag and a cloak on the way out and toss it on over your nethers so you’re not completely indecent. It must be really late, but there’s still people up in the tavern drinking. You’re severely tempted to join them; you’ve sobered up and you severely regret it. But instead you just walk out the door. No one bothers you, even though you’re barefoot and clearly not wearing actual pants.
That’s the beauty of crowds, of people. No one really cares. You can disappear.
Your bare feet pad through the mud, quickly becoming numb. They’re filthy and frozen by the time you get to the stables. You move inside silently, but when you do, there’s Cole, right by the entrance.
“You were really happy!” he tells you enthusiastically, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You can be happy, you know,” he adds, pouting a bit. “It would be different. Nothing has to be like before.”
“I’m not worried about that,” you lie. “I’m lying to her.”
“Not important things,” Cole claims, and you do laugh then.
“Really? You don’t think she’d lose her damned mind if she found out?”
“That’s why you haven’t told her. She’s not the one you should tell. But that doesn’t have to matter for this… does it?” he frowns, as if uncertain. “She makes you happy. You make her happy,” he adds, and your cheeks flush. You mean, well, obviously that would be true, since she made out with you, but it’s still something to hear out loud.
“It’s not right to be with someone like that and be lying to them…” you mutter, more to remind yourself than anything else.
“You’re not like her. No one else has to be like her, either. She was just one person.”
You shake your head. “I don’t think that.”
“You do, here,” Cole argues. He pokes at your chest to emphasize his point, amusingly nowhere near where your heart would actually be. He has to know where a heart is, he kills people. He has to know a heart doesn’t think anything at all.
“Well I don’t think it with anything that matters,” you say with a sigh. “She’s not Aimée, it’s a different situation, I get that, sure, whatever.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“I’m a fantastic liar, and you know it,” you counter, and Cole considers, then nods, which makes you laugh again. The noise comes out hollow and a little broken towards the end.
“Maker… I really fucked up, Cole.”
“She doesn’t think so.”
“She doesn’t know any better.”
“I do.”
“Then you know I fucked up!” you snap. “I shouldn’t have done that! It’s not fair to her!”
“But you make each other happy,” Cole whines, and you shake your head. You grip his shoulder comfortingly.
“Sometimes that’s not enough.”
“It should be.”
You open your mouth to argue, but stop, and then just shrug. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
You sleep in the stables with Cole and Revas. It’s warm in there, especially resting against Revas’s body heat, and thanks to Cole you can sleep with your aura out and way more solidly than you normally would. You dream deeply of Sera, of the way her hands felt on your body, of the taste of wine and salt. You wake up slowly, naturally, something you don’t think you’ve done in months. You feel like you could stand to go back to sleep again, but the sun is up, stablehands are poking around, and your party is probably waking up as well.
You can’t believe you didn’t have nightmares. You deserved to have nightmares. You deserved every demon the fade had to offer tormenting you within an inch of your life. You deserved memories of Aimée. Of betray. Of lies. Of who you are and what you are and why it’s wrong to even keep Sera in your mind like this, let alone act on it.
Instead, soft pastel dreams of women who might love you one day, if only because you could keep them from knowing any better.
Disgusted with yourself, you sit up. At some point in the night, you’d just rolled over on top of Revas and kept sleeping like that, on your stomach. The elven stablehand you’d put in charge of the harts is watching you from a few stalls over where he’s brushing and saddling Ashi’lana. You sit up, rub your eyes, and reluctantly gather your aura back up. It takes you a while to spot Cole, who’s sitting up in the rafters, whittling something. Spirits whittle? Well, Cole does, you suppose. He’s hardly a typical case study of spirit behavior.
Revas glances up over his shoulder at you, mouth full of hay he’s slowly chewing.
“I can’t believe I got the chance to sleep in a real bed and I wound up sleeping on you,” you grumble out loud. “I’m a fucking idiot, that’s what I am.”
Revas snorts, and you give his neck a rub before sliding off. You grab your footwraps out of your bag and belatedly wrap your feet up with them, as well as pulling on some spare pants you had in there. You try to shake as much hay loose from your cloak as you can before heading back into the inn.
You’d been hoping to maybe get up to your room and be able to put yourself together more effectively. You’d pulled your hair up into the shittiest bun ever but you’re pretty sure there’s still hay in it, and you’re not actually wearing a proper shirt or anything under the cloak. Unfortunately about the second you walk in, you’re immediately accosted by Seeker Pentaghast, which on the scale of “alarming things that can happen” is pretty far past what you’re emotionally able to deal with at the moment.
“There you are!” she exclaims, rushing right up to you. She seems about to grab you by the shoulders, and you’re fairly glad she didn’t since you probably would have just kicked her in the stomach and run. “You weren’t in the room when we woke up. We were worried something had happened.”
“Cassandra was worried something had happened,” Dorian adds dryly from where he still sits further into the tavern, eating breakfast. Blackwall and Sera are there too, and Sera gives you a smile and a little wave, which isn’t helping your nervous mood. “I told her you’d probably gone to commune with the halla—oof!” Dorian winces as someone—presumably Sera, from her expression—kicks him under the table.
“Almost,” you reply flatly, rolling your eyes. “I was just checking on the mounts.”
“Before dawn?” Seeker Pentaghast asks. You shrug.
“I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to straighten up and get prepared for the road.”
Seeker Pentaghast steps out of your way, and you head up the stairs to the room the three-to-four of you ostensibly shared. There’s not really much in it of yours. Your boots and the clothes that had been soaked yesterday and left out to dry. Everything else had been in your bag, which you’d dragged around with you all night out of instinctive paranoia. But you change out of your dirty and hay-covered clothes and into something fresh, then strap on some of your dumb leather armor since that was arguably your reason for coming up here. You cram the rest of your stuff into your bag and don’t even bother taking your foot wraps off, you just shove socks over them and yank your shoes on.
After you’ve done everything you possibly could to prepare yourself for the day, you just sort of sit on your bed for a minute and stare into space. You still have absolutely no idea how to handle the situation. You can’t possibly put it off forever… but boy you sure wish you could. You drag your feet every step of the way back to where pretty much everyone has gathered for breakfast. Cole isn’t there, which is to be expected. Solas isn’t either, which is weird, but you’re frankly kind of relieved. You have enough shit to deal with right now.
Warm breakfast that you didn’t have to cook is pretty nice despite your frantic mood, and having it in a warm inn is even nicer. This is basically the lap of luxury compared to your life for the past week, and you didn’t even bother sleeping indoors! You’re probably not going to get another inn room for the rest of the trip, and then you’ll be in a fucking desert with demons and probably Darkspawn and Maker only knows what else. Dragons, maybe. The Draconologist you’re supposed to be meeting is only there because he claims there’s a high dragon in the area, although you had heard the Inquisitor say none of the Inquisition’s men had spotted it at all.
Thinking about the sort of dangers you’re flailing headlong into should serve to put things with Sera into perspective. It… does not. It just makes you feel more anxious in general, and Sera keeps giving you looks over the table. Not to mention she and the Inquisitor basically aren’t even acknowledging each other.
Yeah. You don’t really wanting him or anyone else knowing you were making out with her on the roof. Somehow you don’t think it would particularly elevate you in his eyes, and you’re trying to avoid pissing him off.
The mounts are ready for you when you head out, which is probably your favorite part of this whole inn experience, save maybe the ability to take a lukewarm bath. Even the harts are ready and seem to have been saddled up properly. Thank goodness, since it’s not exactly like horse tack and saddle, and you would have hated to have to redo anything.
Mercifully, Sera, Dorian, and Cassandra get sent into the ahead party. Mostly you’re just relieved about the Sera part. Hopefully she won’t be striking up conversation with Dorian about your late night activities. This, at least, gives you the morning ride to think over what you’re going to do. Mostly, however, you just sort of panic. You’re back there with Solas, Cole, Blackwall, and the Inquisitor, and you honestly just want to be left alone to freak out. You even avoid talking to Cole, which is frankly something of a feat even on the best of days.
You ride a bit off from everyone, in what you hope is a very clear indication of “don’t fucking talk to me.” It seems to work. Cole flits around a bit, but generally settles on bothering Blackwall instead, much to Blackwall’s intense displeasure.
You spend the entire morning stewing, but you’re not closer to an answer by the time you all stop for lunch. There’s an obvious conclusion: you have to tell Sera… something. You can’t just make out with her while lying to her about a lot of things that would definitely be deal breakers. You’re also not… You’re not ready, and you probably never will be. It’s not a good time. You’ve got shit going on. All of these excuses, none of which you can really fully explain. “Hey Sera, my last girlfriend situation ended about as badly as these things can and I don’t think I should be legally allowed to kiss another person at this stage.” “Hey Sera I’m actually a lying liar pants and you know literally nothing about me.” “Hey Sera you’re hot but I can’t even deal with my own shit let alone yours.”
All of these are really valid things that you can’t say. Ugh.
And of course, Sera beelines right for you the second everyone stops for lunch.
“C’mon! C’mon, I got somethin’ to show you!” she says cheerfully, grabbing your wrist and pulling you away from the group. Hopefully it’s not her tits, because you’re not exactly a paragon of self-control, as has been established. You glance back over your shoulder to see if anyone is taking any mind of the two of you leaving together. Most people are busy with their own tasks, fortunately. That’s just as well. You don’t want to have to explain away any more than you absolutely have to.
Sera pulls you to a private sort of area under a tree, and as she cheerfully prattles about having swiped enough rations for a bit of a picnic, it’s painfully obvious that she probably thinks that this… that the two of you… are a thing. Which you’d been afraid she would. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption. You mean, she’s younger than you by a bit, if your memory of the orphanage serves you correctly. She probably doesn’t have any Aimée’s under her belt, or similarly bad women to teach her how the world works.
Looks like you’ll be her first.
Goody.
You sit down next to her, not even hearing what she’s saying, mind screaming the inevitable at you, frantically trying to formulate a way to do this without hurting her and knowing there isn’t one. If you didn’t want to hurt her, you shouldn’t have kissed her in the first place. It was wrong, and she’s the one who has to pay for your mistake now.
“…Emma? What’s wrong?”
You clear your throat, desperately stalling. Just four more seconds before you do this. Just another moment. Just one more. But the more you put this off, the worse it’ll get. You let out a long sigh, avoiding Sera’s gaze. She probably looks worried. She’s probably got an idea of what’s about to happen.
“Last night was… that is, I…” You struggle for words before finally blurting out. “I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry.”
“Uh?” Sera says, and you risk a glance up at her. She looks confused and a bit scared. “Pretty sure we both did it. Is this ‘cause of the alcohol? I wasn’t that drunk, s’not like you were takin’ advantage of me.”
“No, that’s not it. I mean, I might be, but that’s not…” You shake your head, trying to reorganize you scattered, terrified thoughts. “That was a mistake,” you clarify.
“What do you mean a mistake?!” Sera says, her voice raising. You pray they can’t hear it back in camp. “You don’t just oops fall into making out with someone for fifteen minutes!”
You flinch, in part because she’s not wrong. She has every right to be mad at you. “Wh-what I mean is… I can’t… I’m not really in the place to… be with anyone right now.”
“Why not? If yer not with anyone, why not be with someone?” Sera demands. “Y’can’t just go aroun’ kissin’ girls then tellin’ them you’re unavailable.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, it was a mistake,” you say, cringing, still looking desperately to the side to avoid seeing more of her expression.
“Why?” Sera demands, and you fumble to figure out how much you can tell her, what parts, before settling firmly on “pretty much nothing, actually.”
“I just… can’t.”
“That’s not an answer! Maker, at least look at me when you’re breaking up with me!” Sera snaps.
“We weren’t together to begin with!” you protest, which appears to just make her angrier.
“Oh, so you just make out with anyone on the roof?”
“Well, no, but…”
“Then obviously we are something,” she shouts.
“We can’t be!” you say again, this time forcing yourself to look straight at her, trying to drive the point home. You’re just dragging this out. “We can’t be anything. We’re not.”
“Then why did you kiss me?” she demands.
“Because I’m a fucking idiot!” you exclaim. “A complete fucking shitbag, alright? I’m an idiot and I kissed you and I’m sorry, what do you want to hear?!”
“Not that!” she yells right back. “You… stupid… dumb… ugh!” She throws her hands up in frustration. “You like me! You kissed me! Why’re you sayin’ this now when it’s obviously bullshit?!”
You wish another arrow would shoot out of nowhere, and this one would hit you instead of some innocent old man.
“I… I…” You don’t have good words to say, but she’s staring at you, demanding an answer. “I’m not… I don’t…”
“Is it cause I’m a girl? Have you not with a girl, before? Cause I don’t mind, we can go slow ‘n’ stuff,” she suggests, voice dropping in volume, taking on more of a whine.
“It’s not because you’re female,” you clarify, trying to get her out of this with as few complexes as possible. “I’m just not… with anyone, right now.”
“You were last night!”
“That was a mistake.”
“Stop sayin’ that!”
“Do you think this shitty conversation is something that should be happening right now?” you snap back. “Yeah! I shouldn’t have kissed you so I didn’t have to do this, but here we are!”
“Why do you think you hafta do anything?”
You grit your teeth. “I can still tell right from wrong.”
“Oh, so now I’m wrong?”
“That’s not what I meant! I just… Ugh…” You cradle your head, trying to figure out a way to make this stop. You take a deep breath, then look up. “I’m not going to date you or be your lover or whatever it is you were hoping. I’m sorry, and you can hate me for it if you want. But it’s not going to happen, and you yelling about it isn’t going to change that.” Your voice comes out flat. It’s not like when you yelled at Solas for poking around you while you slept, but it reminds you of that anyway. Sera’s hurt look will definitely be burned in your mind next to his and all the others.
“Forget it!” she yells. “Everyone is so fucking stupid.” She stands up and storms off, muttering furiously to herself. You sit under the tree for a while longer, looking at the food she’d gathered for what she no doubt hoped would be a romantic picnic.
Honestly “I’m a fucking idiot shitbag” is the closest thing to a genuine answer to why you can’t be dating anyone that you could possibly give.