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It wasn’t everyday that he got stuck somewhere away from an Eluvian in the middle of a freak snowstorm… But of course it would be one of the days where he was avoiding this particular companion. Being stuck in a room with Lace where neither could leave would normally delight him.
But ever since they all watched Solas’s regrets… Well, Augustus knew his guilt was misplaced but he still couldn’t shake it whenever he looked at her.
Augustus hoped that they could just stick to separate rooms, hoped that Lace Harding wouldn’t look him dead in the eye and see how he was hurting himself by avoiding her. She didn’t need to see how willingly he bared his soul to her, he could keep himself in check. He was a Grey Warden, dammit.
There was something worse than his guilt though. There was only one room in the lodging they’d found. And it was just his luck that there was only one bed to share between them. Augustus knew Harding too well to believe she would just take it without putting up a fuss or without calling him out on his skittishness.
He briefly fantasized on seizing the opportunity to go camp outside away from her. The wind howling and varied curses from other guests put an end to that fleeting hope.
Still. “You can have the bed,” he tried to offer it, turning away from her to start unbuckling his breastplate. He felt her gaze on the back of his neck, warming his skin from the weight of itm
“Oh, no you don’t. We finally have a moment where we can talk where you can’t run away from me.” He heard the bed creak and risked glancing over his shoulder to see she had sat on the side closest to him, leaned back on her hands and was meeting his gaze unwaveringly.
Even ridden with guilt and other feelings, his treacherous heart still thudded painfully in his chest at the way the warm light highlighted her silhouette. A halo surrounding the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, the woman who he wanted to scream how much he loved to the whole world. The woman he was hurting every moment he forced himself to stay away from her.
Augustus wanted nothing more than to grovel for forgiveness at her feet. He swallowed roughly, opting to fail at steadying his nerves instead- and turned to meet her scrutinizing gaze. If they were going to have this conversation, at Lace’s insistence, then he’d at least give her the attention he’d been dying to give.
His breastplate being set down wasn’t the only noise in the room. Her slightly aggravated breathing. The sound she made as she shucked off her boots without looking. The sound of the bed linens scratching against the mattress as her hands clenched. “Why are you avoiding me, Gus?” Lace waited for his answer, intent on staring him down with that beautiful gaze he’d been tormenting himself with by avoiding.
“I-”
“Don’t lie to me either. I know you better than that by now.”
Augustus didn’t want to lie to her. He also didn’t want to admit how much of a coward he had been in running from her. “You-” he stopped, glancing out of the dark window and only seeing his exhausted countenance looking back at him. “I- You can have the bed,” Augustus tried again instead, knowing it wouldn’t work as it didn’t the first time.
“Nope, if you’re not sharing it with me, neither of us are gonna have it. You know by now how stubborn I am.” Her grin was sharp, an ill fitting thing on her usually kind face, especially when she looked at him with all the love she could muster. Lace had spent too much time with him to buy his poor diversion- the first or second time, and it showed. “Try again, why are you avoiding me, Gus?” Lace’s voice softened, her head tilting as she watched him closely.
He could feel how his entire body sagged from the effort of keeping his heart contained. Augustus didn’t want to keep it in anymore, he was absolutely miserable. Reasons (or excuses?) spilled out of him, his regrets over what’s happened since they began this entire journey. His fear over what happened to his mother, who had been missing since he joined Varric’s team. His guilt over every decision he’d made since he took over the team from the injured man.
All of it only highlighted, exacerbated by the damned Wolf’s memory of what the ancient elves did to the Titans. His ancestors versus hers- he carried too much on his shoulders and a lot of it wasn’t even Augustus’s fault.
“It sounds so silly when I put it like that,” he laughed wetly, rubbing furiously at his eyes and nose to wipe away the mess he’d become.
Her gaze was indescribably tender. “No, it doesn’t. You know I can’t- I don’t hold anything against the elves today for that, right?” Lace tilted her head and the light shimmered against her face, showing that sometime during the time he was spilling his heart to her- she started crying with him.
“I do.”
“Will you come here then? I only just got to enjoy touching you when you started avoiding me.” Augustus wasn’t proud of how fast he ran, clad in half of his armor still, then fell to his knees to place his head on her lap. “Woah! You missed me too.” She sounded amused, but he could hear the underlying question as she began to card her fingers through his shaggy hair.
He sniffled. “I hurt myself more than I hurt you by not being at your side.”
“Mmm,” Lace hummed, leaning down to press a kiss to the crown of his head. “Can we talk more about this with you holding me? In bed? I haven’t slept well since we started having our spat, I missed having you with me.”
“But I have to finish changing.”
“Then hurry up, I don’t mind watching,” Lace teased, further dispelling the tension that had been broken with his breakdown.
He laughed at that, finally feeling like things were going to turn out okay between them. “Yes ma’am.” And Augustus did just that.