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He wakes sore and stiff, but her arms are warm and solid around him. Her breath teases the back of his neck, and the fingers resting splayed across his abdomen are gently stroking the soft, wiry hairs under his bellybutton. Low enough to send a pleasant tickle through his spine but high enough to be innocent.
She’s awake, but only barely. He can tell based on the slow, deliberate pace of her breathing, the movement of her fingers, and the way her other arm, tucked under his head, has flexed to make him more comfortable.
He’s only just peeled his eyes open, the soft light of early dawn, pink and orange, shining in over her balcony and streaming warm beams across the stone floor and the soft rugs. He feels heavy with sleep and stuff with the emotional and physical toll of the night prior.
His eyes do feel swollen, with bags beneath and all dried out, just like he’d suspected. But it’s ok, he decides, letting them flutter back shut, everything is okay. He shifts back against her, flattening his back against her bare chest, feeling her taut stomach and breasts against his muscles.
She shifts in kind, squeezing her thigh that’s wrapped around his, and gently pressing her palm down on his tummy. Her neck cranes forward a little, and then she pushes a soft, warm kiss to the crest of his ear, then to his hairline.
“Good Morning,” she whispers, voice heavy with sleep and coated in honey for him and him alone. She is usually so monotonous and crass, but never with him, not like this.
“Mm,” he murmurs back, still not awake enough to respond fully. But he feels the stiffness beginning to drain, starting at his toes and fingers, curled into the sheets. He starts a long, languid stretch, reaching his legs down, unbending his knees and arms and stretching until his limbs shake.
She chuckles behind him, stroking her fingers through his hair, mussing his tight curls and massaging his scalp. He moans gently at the feeling, her flat fingertips working at the skin of his head, always too tight with migraines and aches.
He sighs and shifts against her, and she shifts back to cup his body again when he moves back into a comfortable position.
“Feel good, sweetheart?” She coos, gently nipping the side of his ear again, and then kissing the shell of it. He moans in response, pushing his head of curls back into her touch, silently pleaing for more.
It’s mornings like this, soft sun, warmth creeping in the painted windows, the doors fastened just enough to keep out chill. Curtains drawn low, and the bed delightfully pliant and warm and comfy beneath his aching muscle, sleep-filled bones. It’s the ones like this that make him so thankful. He’s survived the torture, he’s survived Kirkwall, he’s survived the arbor wilds and every other battle the inquisition has faced thus far. And he will keep surviving. He will survive his withdrawals, he will survive nightmares and hardships.
Because he is strong enough, he is able enough.
He knows that she plays a massive part in all of it, in the things he’s learned, in the things he’s un learned. The things he believes about himself and others, now, and the way he’s able to push through the hardest of times with her hands and her heart intertwined with his.
She’s given him her all, and he tries to not feel guilty about it, because he knows, he knows , he would surely do the same for her, any time, any place. He would give anything, for her, do anything.
To keep her safe, happy, and even more so to have the privilege of having her, the herald, the woman he’d never dreamed he could have, curled around his back.
“Good Morning, darling,” he finally Musters the voice to say, letting it float out on a breath, his eyelids flicking back open and his body taking another, smaller, lazy stretch.
She stretches too, reintertwining their legs, moving her arm to circle the space between his pecs with gentle fingers, lulling him to a comforted, half asleep state once again.
“And how are you? Hmm?”
She’s warm and solid and he can’t think of anything else to say but what leaves his lips,
“Wonderful… I feel…” he sighs, content, “I feel at home, at peace, when-“ he almost second guesses himself, almost becomes embarrassed at admitting the depth of his feelings so plainly, so casually, but she is here and loves him, and is close, “when I’m held by you,”
She coos, sounding delighted and adoring, she nuzzles the back of his head with her nose and takes in his soft, woodsy scent.
“I feel that too, at home, when we’re together,” she’s kissing him, now, on his jaw and ear, “because I love you, Cullen.”
He turns on his shoulder to face her better, and lifts an arm to wrap around her neck, to tug her in close, and finally meet his lips to hers, soft and warm, but silly and sloppy with early morning headiness.
“I love you,” she continues, being stopped and assaulted by his copious kisses against her warm, welcoming mouth, against her jaw and playfully to the tip of her nose, “so much.”
He nearly chokes on emotion when he opens his mouth to speak a response, but manages to keep it back, batting his eyelashes to beat away tears of happiness and love,
“I love you too, sweetness,”