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Rook had been laying there on that ledge for some time. Long enough that the glass of the aquarium around his temple had clouded almost imperceivably from the temperature contrast. He didn't know why he was so warm. His face had been flushed since being pulled from the Fade Prison, as if the whole fever dream experience needed to manifest itself physically. It had been what? A day? Three maybe? No... Surely only one. Well, two, if you count the night he'd been pulled out. Rook couldn't tell anymore. He'd been terrified to fall asleep, almost positive Solas would be waiting at the back of his eyelids.
Knock-knock.
Silence.
Knock-knock.
Rook's heart stuttered as the sound jarred him from his thoughts.
Knock-knock.
Silence.
Rook calculated the sound by habit. Two taps, three times, a patient five seconds between repetitions. Tapped with the blunt surface of the fist rather than the sharp thwack directly on the knucklebones. A polite sound, by nature. Only Emmrich knocks like that; kind and exact, just like him.
Rook sighed, nerves spiking as he turned to face the aquarium glass and away from the door.
Clunk.
Grrrruuuuuummmm.
"Laird? ...Dearest?"
Rook found the courage to close his eyes, but only for the sake of measuring a sharp exhale that fogged the glass in front of him. A bleak silence echoed in the room. Finally, the dull clack of those metal-soled boots and soft jingle of grave gold broke the silence.
Emmrich had learned by now to never approach the jumpy young Ingellvar too quickly, especially from behind. But tonight, he had no choice in the latter. His beloved had said nary a word or left this room since being pulled from the Fade. The Professor had been sick with worry; quite literally as nausea knotted his gullet.
His heart had been clawing at his ribs like a caged warg, all his instincts frantic to rush to Rook's side. Two weeks. It had been two weeks since they shared the same space, let alone the same plane of existence. Two weeks searching. Two weeks between grief and determination. Two weeks with the corrosive ache of that argument and the apology that was never timed properly eating away at him. And now his darling Rook wouldn't even face him.
Had his time in the Fade caused such irreparable damage to make him mute? Did Emmrich take too long to rescue him? ...Was the argument they had left each other with so damning he'd lost Rook before truly losing him?
Emmrich shook his head to himself. He felt selfish. Don't be naive. This goes beyond me, he silently admonished himself.
The Professor took a breath and sat on the ledge cautiously by Rook's head. His hands twitched, desperate to sooth the unkempt stripe of apricot hair that contoured his beloved's scalp. But he didn't. A myriad of guilt and anxiety held him still.
The silence was enough to make Rook feel ill. His chest was taut. His hands, tucked across into his armpits, were clammy and unpleasantly tepid. The reflection of his beard tinted the glass before him, the orange haze a sort of mindless backdrop to the thoughts crackling behind his mossy eyes. The truth was, Rook was terrified to face Emmrich. Even moreso to speak life into the hell he'd survived in the Fade. He was afraid to admit Varric was gone. To speak life into that revelation of trickery would just make the grief real. Rook hadn't even realized that he'd began to tremble.
Emmrich did, though. The reaction was instinct at this point. He stood, shrugging his researcher coat from his shoulders and casting it over the shivering man. He'd done this countless times before, by now. "It's heavy," Rook would always murmur in an attempt to justify stealing it on cooler evenings, "It feels... Secure." And that's all Emmrich wanted, right now. To make Rook, his Rook, feel secure. Anything but the misery of his current state.
Rook froze as the studded collar landed on his shoulders. The leather shoulder fin thunked against the aquarium lightly, the nearest fish scattering from the tap as the felt coat tail draped his legs. It was warm. It smelled of Moss and lilacs and aftershave.
It was secure.
It was real.
The trembling kicked back into gear. But it wasn't the same. Emmrich looked into the glass' reflection just as the first choked sob puffed free from Rook's beard-crested maw. Emmrich knelt quickly as Rook clutched a burgundy lapel tightly to his face, feeling as though he couldn't throw his arms around the young Mourn Watcher fast enough.
"I'm sorry," Rook croaked.
Emmrich pressed his brow to Rook's shoulder, his voice nearly as broken. "None of that, dearest. I won't have it. I'm right here, now."
Both men were in shambles, the pent up anguish and relief exploding between them rivaling more fanciful retellings of the Conclave. Rook thought he was going to go rolling backwards if Emmrich pulled him any further back, and Emmrich could already feel his joints cursing him tomorrow for this cattywampus position. Rook couldn't tell if the queasy feeling in his throat was bile or the pile up of sentences he couldn't articulate. Both tasted the same, right about now. Emmrich's deceptively thin frame hugged him like a vice. Rook needed that more than anything.Mortalitasi breathing exercises were trying to push their way to the forefront of his logical mind, but he just couldn't get control of his lungs.
"Please tell me what to do, Laird," the Professor pleaded between his lover's shoulder blades. "How to fix this, how to protect you, how to... How to... I can't lose you, darling. I-I can't--"
GREEEEEEEUUUM.
"ROOK!"
Uncoordinated, leather boot steps pattered across the stone floor as the door swung wide, propelled by a tiny but mighty effort.
"Freddy!" Rook forced himself upright, lurching forward as he swiveled on the ledge. Rook scrambled to collect himself in the split second before being tackled clumsily against the aquarium window.
"Rook! Rook! Rook! Rook! Rook!"
"Manfred, please," Emmrich woed, "this isn't a good ti--"
"Oof!" Rook laughed shakily, the skeletal ward hugging him at full force, "no no, he's fine! There's my buddy! Oh, Freddy, I missed you too!"
Manfred hissed with glee, climbing onto the Watcher's lap with all the gusto of a delighted toddler. "Rook back!" The skeleton declared with a gravelly trill, as if Emmrich was blind to the scene.
"Indeed he is, Manfred," the Professor simply sighed with a smile. That grammar would need to be corrected before it became habit, but he could forgive it just this once. The sight before him was a balm to his soul. Even if he was simply putting on a show for Manfred, seeing Rook smile again after so long without was something Emmrich didn't know he needed.
"I think I missed you the most, y'know that, Manfred?" Rook said, bouncing the skeleton assistant on his knee. He took a liking to Manfred from day one, and it had always shown in the way he treated him almost like his own.
"Me!" Manfred gave a pleased hiss, habitually and diligently djusting Rook's crumpled shirt collar for him.
Rook patted the skeleton along his vestments with a weary chuckle. "Yeah you," he confirmed warmly, "You learn anything new while I was gone?" Manfred simply hissed, which was still received as an answer. "Oh yeah? Why don't you show me tomorrow, okay, buddy? You can tell me all about it over tea. Sounds good?"
"Manfred?" Emmrich interjected politely, "Will you please fetch my field bag from beneath my desk and bring it here?"
"Your field bag? You goin' somewhere?" Rook quirked a brow. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes as Manfred dutifully took off, his voice betraying his fear Emmrich was suddenly leaving.
"Quite the opposite," Emmrich gently assured. The older gentleman scooted closer, finding the courage to take Rook's hand between his. His hands shook with an uncharacteristic lack of composition. But who could blame him in this moment. "If you haven't any objections, I'd... rather stay with you, tonight. For my own peace of mind," the professor tried to justify.
Rook simply stared for a moment. His voiced rumbled deep like thunder as always, but with all the might of a chantry mouse.
"So we're okay?"
"Pardon?"
"You still... I was so nasty during that fight... Then having to pull my ass out of the Fade, I... All this just happened and you're not trying to run away?"
It took Emmrich a moment to process the question, wondering if they were still on the same subject. "Darling, I...? Of course not. The Fade just returned that which is most dear to me. Why would I ever..?"
The Professor couldn't finish his sentence. A flash of orange came at him and buried itself into the crook of his shoulder as Rook's arms threatened to crush his aging figure in a desperate embrace.
"Please stay..."