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"More soup," Eira said, holding out her empty bowl. "Please."
From the other end of the couch Solas heaved a sigh, but he was ever-dutiful. He rose from the couch, still wrapped in his blanket, and took the bowl from her outstretched hand.
"It was your turn to get up," she reminded him.
He coughed pitifully into his arm and shuffled away.
"It's delicious, by the way," she called after him. "Healing, even."
Solas made a sound caught somewhere between amusement and disgust, which kicked off another coughing fit. It still sounded just as awful as it had a few days ago.
When he returned, holding his blanket-robe closed with one hand and cradling her bowl of soup with the other, he said, "Your praise is welcome, vhenan, but it would mean more if you had retained your sense of smell."
"You're an excellent cook," she said. "I don't need to taste it. I'm imagining it."
In the few moments when her nose occasionally cleared, she could smell the Dalish spices, earthy and strong, that reminded her of home. And even if she couldn't fully taste it, the broth was hot and comforting and seemed, at least, to help the awful cold feeling in her chest and the scratchiness of her throat. She had no doubts it was delicious.
Solas snorted, but his expression was fond. "I will make it for you again," he said, "when we are both recovered."
She balanced the bowl on her lap and he carefully folded himself onto the sofa beside her. If they both had to be sick, there was at least some comfort to be had in being sick together.
Still, it was easier when only one of them was sick. The last time Eira had been sick—an awful case of the flu—Solas had dutifully cared for her. He had doted on her, really.
But now it was the both of them, so they spent their days camped on the sofa together, in a sleepy fog of cold meds and television and soup.
Solas, huddled next to her in his blanket, loaded up Netflix.
"No documentaries," she said between spoonfuls of soup. The last time they'd watched one they had spent most of the runtime nitpicking its sources, and though she usually found this engaging, she was not particularly in the mood for academic squabbling. And squabble they would, if given the chance.
"It is my turn to choose," he said, and there was a hint of mischief in his voice before he sighed and it turned grumpy again. "My head aches and it has become painful to think. I would prefer something mindless."
"Something trashy, then," she said, watching as he flicked far too quickly through colorful title-cards. "Like a ghost hunting show, or something."
Solas made a face. "Ghosts," he said, "do not exist. Spirits exist." He cast a withering glance at her and she tried to hide her smile.
"Here," she said, pointing at the screen. "That one."
He hummed. "A mystery. Hardly mindless."
"It's based on one of Varric's newer books," she said. "I never got around to reading it, and the reviews were…middling."
"Very well," he said, as if the choice weighed heavily on him.
He cuddled closer to her as the movie began, mindful not to jostle her carefully balanced bowl of soup. She kissed the top of his head.
The movie was not particularly good. It was a historical mystery, and it was poorly lit and terribly acted, with cheap, anachronistic costumes to boot. But there was something fun about trying to predict what would happen next, and it did not take long for this to become a competition.
"The comtesse is lying," Eira said. She'd since finished her soup and now they sat huddled close together, eyes narrowed at the TV.
"Hmm," Solas said.
When it became obvious that the comtesse was lying, Solas muttered something incomprehensible under his breath. "A lucky guess,” he said.
Eira cackled, which quickly became a coughing fit. Her throat ached and she wanted a losange but was too wrapped up in their game to get up. "I believe," she said, "that was three correct guesses in a row."
He huffed. "I did not realize you were keeping score."
"You're paying too much attention to the dialogue," she said. "You're giving the writing too much credit."
"Truly a sign of an excellent film," he grumbled, but continued to watch, his eyes narrowed and his mouth pulled into a frown.
"The murderer," Solas said, sometime later. "It's the baron."
"An interesting guess."
"It is not a guess."
"It's too obvious."
"Yes," Solas agreed. "The true twist will lie in his motives."
She thought he was full of it, but then the movie ended, and he was, unfortunately, correct. "I thought you had a headache," she grumbled as the credits played, "and that it hurt to think."
"It does," he said. "The pain is more tolerable when I am enjoying myself with you."
She rolled her eyes. "Here, sweet-talker," she said, shifting. "Put your head in my lap. I'll rub it."
For a moment it seemed as though he might argue, but then he did as she said, pulling the blanket tighter around his body and curling up on his side. She ran her fingers up the line of his jaw and swiped his cheek fondly with the pad of her thumb. "Relax your jaw," she said.
He made a disgruntled, huffy little noise. He really was a grumpy old man, she thought, but he was her grumpy old man. (And really, she thought, massaging her fingers into the loosening muscles of his jaw, she wasn't all that young herself either. They could be grumpy and old together. It was charming.)
Eira half-listened to the movie's end credits as she rubbed circles with the tips of her fingers into his temple and across his brow. It did not take long for the tension in his body to ease.
When her fingers and wrist started to hurt she sighed and leaned back. It was her turn to get up, just in time for another dose of cold meds. But before she could, she realized that Solas had fallen asleep in her lap.
Eira traced his brow lightly with her fingertips. He looked so peaceful in his sleep. Hopefully his dreams were sweet. With any luck, he would feel better upon waking.
Carefully she slipped out from under him and tucked a throw pillow under his head. Then she shuffled to the kitchen. She let him sleep for a while before waking him up and dropping pills into his palm.
He looked half-asleep and miserable, but his expression was soft when he looked at her. "You look exhausted," he said. "You should try to sleep."
She sighed. He wasn't wrong. Her whole body felt sore and wrung out. Her throat hurt and her nose was stuffy and she felt absolutely disgusting.
"Come here," he said. She let him arrange her on the couch and cover her with a blanket. "Keep me company as I find something else to watch."
Eira supposed, all things considered, things could be worse. As she tried to get comfortable on her end of the couch, he tucked a pillow under her head and fetched her another blanket. There were worse ways to recover from a cold.
And when they did eventually recover, Solas made good on his word. He prepared another batch of soup and they ate it together in the living room with a loaf of fresh bread from the bakery, and it was just as delicious as she'd imagined.