male lavellan/cole "but you don't love me like you love him"
Cole was growing more and more frustrated by the minute.
He thought he was being clear, or clear enough for them to understand him. Clear enough for Lavellan to understand him, at least. And he thought love was supposed to be a good thing; the way others spoke of love, it should make you happy, lift you up, not leave you feeling like you were drowining. Love was supposed to be good.
But this - whatever this was - if it was love, he did not want it. He did not want to spend evenings watching Lavellan in secret, or listening to him laugh, or seeing the way he pushed the hair back from his eyes. He did not want to see him dance with others or smile that special smile of his at others; especially not at Cullen. He did not like the warm feeling in his stomach or the fluttering in his chest or how his skin prickled or his head felt cloudy when he looked at the Herald.
He didn’t like what Lavellan said when Cole told him “I think that I love you.”
Lavellan had smiled easily at him as he leaned back against the tree. “I love you, too, Cole,” he said, and for a moment Cole’s stomach dropped out and he felt muffled and strange, but giddy, until -
- until he realized. Until he saw the little ring on Lavellan’s finger, bright and shiny, until he touched the weight of the coin in Lavellan’s palm.
“I love you,” Cole had said, and Lavellan had said he loved him, too, but he didn’t. Or, he didn’t the way that Cullen loved Lavellan.
“But you don’t love me like you love him,” Cole found himself saying, because he didn’t know how to lie. “You don’t love me the way I love you.”
Cole was learning, and he’d learned that the confusion on another’s face was not good. He panicked. Not good meant Bad, usually, and Bad was something to avoid. He couldn’t read the Herald, but he knew from his expression that he’d realized something the Spirit did not want him to realize.
Without a thought, Cole pushed into Lavellan’s head and whispered, “Forget,” in a soft, terrified tone. Then he pulled away while the thoughts were undone, words unravelled, and fled to his sanctuary up in the tavern.
