alexis! (celebutante) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-04-08 22:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: alexis rose, ₴ inactive: cullen rutherford |
WHO: Cullen & Alexis
WHAT: Alexis gets a canon update via dreams!
WHERE: Skyhold, their room
WHEN: Tonight (pretty late)
WARNINGS: Nah, just schmoop
STATUS: Complete
David and Patrick’s wedding was beautiful - and when Alexis closed her eyes that night, slipping off into the Land of Nod, it was like she was really there. In all of its splendor and the wackiness that ensued beforehand - the way (in typical Rose fashion) disaster struck left and right, at pretty much every opportunity. Not only was it raining, but David didn’t have an emergency tent (he wanted the wood-fired pizza oven, and naturally couldn't afford both). Also, due to the fact that the haikuist officiant named Fabian could only travel by pennyfarthing, he couldn’t make the ceremony. That meant the family all had to band together to save the day, anointing Moira as the official-officiant and working to find a new space for David and Patrick's nuptials. It turned out so well in the end, with the Town Hall being the site of where David and Patrick said ‘I do.’ Alexis (wearing a cream-colored dress and looking like she was marrying her own brother but it was a cute frock, okay) proudly escorted David down the aisle and the Jazzagals worked their musical prowess to sing lively, velvety tunes that were just right for the occasion. Maybe it wasn’t the dream wedding David and Patrick planned, but it was the happy ending they deserved - and this time, when the family went their separate ways, they did so with a lot of growth having occurred and love in their hearts. Alexis knew she needed to strike out on her own. She couldn’t stay in Schitt’s Creek but that didn’t mean it wasn’t difficult to leave. She said those words to her family, I love you, and she actually meant them - it wasn’t like pulling teeth, or fitting a square peg into a round hole. It was truth and this truth bolstered her - here she was, a flower who finally had bloomed. And while she was a pretty rose before, afterward she’d shed her thorns and grown stronger roots. In Vallo, she knew she’d seen the end for now - a turning point, and she woke up with tears dotting her lashes and streaking down her cheeks. Kind of an emotional whiplash, really, and she sat up sniffling and wiping at her face to try to collect herself and not wake up Cullen. Cullen had a longtime soldier’s habit of sleeping lightly, though--Alexis sitting up was enough to pull him most of the way into the waking world, even in the middle of the night. “‘Lexis?” His brow furrowed in a mix of confusion and concern as he dragged himself upright. No one was attacking, bleeding, or screaming, so he could spend a little longer on taking stock of the situation rather than jolting into action and going for his sword. As he woke up a little more, a brief mental inventory revealed that Alexis was awake and Alexis was crying and it wasn’t even sunrise yet, which meant he needed to do something, but it was thus far unclear what. Right, so make the rest of the journey to consciousness and ask. “What’s wrong, love?” he finally had brain enough to say. “Nothing, really - or, okay, well...” Clearly it was something, or she wouldn’t be shedding tears. They weren’t necessarily sad tears, however. Maybe something bittersweet, a bar of dark chocolate - because while she was definitely happy for David (and for her mom and dad, proud of their recent successes), she just missed him. She missed her entire family, the blood relatives and even the weirdos who called Schitt’s Creek home. Like Ronnie and Jocelyn and Roland, Twlya especially - the best friend Alexis ever had, before she arrived in Vallo and now had a few of those whom she actually cherished. She took a breath, playing with the ends of her sleep-mussed curls. “I had a dream about home. Only it felt real? Like how people get updated or whatever. They somehow know what happened at home - it was that.” "Oh!" Cullen had heard about that happening to people. One day they woke up with memories they didn't have before, like they'd lived a little more of their lives back home. Cullen found it rather comforting that it could happen - it meant he wasn't abandoning his responsibilities in Thedas while going on with life here in Vallo. "What happened? Is everyone all right?" Alexis’s brain was still a little rattled - felt like the top of her skull had been unscrewed and then all this stuff was dumped in there. She wasn’t sure what to make of it, or how to feel - and maybe it just needed to settle a little more first before she could make a decision. And she felt kind of bad about waking Cullen up but it might help to put some of this weirdness into words and talk about it. “Everyone’s good,” she assured. “David and Patrick got married. I know they wanted it one way but the weather wasn’t cooperating and they had to have my mom be the officiant - it turned out really beautiful though and then it was just...we all decided to like, go our separate ways.” She remembered she’d moved to Schitt’s Creek, the one asset the government let her family keep after their fortune was yanked out from under them, and she’d started out with little regard for other people’s feelings. But then her tunnel vision seemed to expand and she cared about everyone in town, all their feelings - she started to put other people before herself and it was almost strange to see everything else unfold and come to an end. “We didn’t leave angry or anything - more like I got this new job in New York and my parents had new opportunities too. David was going to stay in town with Patrick. I feel like I changed a lot and I guess...I miss them. I tried to stop being selfish but is it selfish to want them here?” Because she did. She got close with David appearing in Vallo, but he slipped through her fingers quickly each time and then was gone again. "Of course not," Cullen quietly replied. He took Alexis's hand and squeezed it gently, trying to offer some physical reassurance along with the verbal. "Selfish would be not caring where they were or what they were doing, or wanting them here without caring about their happiness. It's not selfish to miss people you care about." Cullen missed his own family regularly; he'd only just gotten back to visiting and writing them after years of silence. He'd love to have his siblings and nieces and nephews here, so he could introduce them to Alexis and tacos and all the other wonderful things about Vallo. That didn't feel selfish, just a bit wistful. “I miss them so much,” Alexis sighed, and she had already shed tears - so now more leaked out of the waterworks again, just a few. Fresh ones that rolled down her cheeks. “I want them to be happy too and I guess - when he was here, David just never fit in. I don’t know. So I wouldn’t want him to feel like that.” For about ten minutes he had Patrick with him too, before they both disappeared, but maybe it was that Vallo happened to be a place where he just couldn’t flourish - whereas Alexis, who had been on the precipice of moving on to a life that didn’t include Schitt’s Creek, did pretty damn well for herself here. She had the Apothecary (which was like a piece of David with her anyway), and her job at the DOA, and her friends. And Cullen. Cullen, whom she nudged back with her so she could lie down and snuggle up to him, sprawling across his chest with her abundance of hair and one arm hugging him. Boyfriend comfort cuddling time. “Do you ever wonder what your family’s doing back home?” “I do,” Cullen admitted. One hand landed at Alexis’s waist, the other going to absently stroke her hair. The gestures had become more or less automatic after a few months of spending every night together. “I wonder if Bran’s youngest is walking by now, if strawberry season has started in Highever, how Mia and her brood are doing, if Rosalie will make it back south for the summer this year...and I wish I could take you there to introduce you to everyone.” He smiled to himself and tipped his head to kiss the top of hers. “They would love you.” “That’s so sweet.” Alexis closed her eyes and eyes and sighed - she always liked hearing about Cullen’s family, what he remembered. The way he described them - it made her curious too, and wondering if the strawberry fields (not like, the tripping balls type of druggie strawberry fields) were red and sweet, and if they went on for miles and miles. “I wish I could go too - I mean, I learned so much about battle times from you.” She tipped her face up and grinned, pressing a kiss to the edge of Cullen’s jaw. “I’d like, totally impress your family with all my knowledge.” For instance, did you know the lance could be thrown overhead but also gripped underhand, parallel to the body of a horse? Way cool. “My parents would like you too,” she added. “And like, everyone in town. They’d be all swoony over you.” A real knight in shining armor! Goodness knows Alexis swooned over her hot boyfriend pretty regularly. Cullen laughed at the idea of people swooning over him. He'd gotten more than his fair share of attention, but no one had ever been quite that dramatic about it. Alexis's penchant for hyperbole was always a grand source of amusement, though. "You'd do marvelously in Thedas," Cullen said, and he meant it. Most people wouldn't look at Alexis and think she was someone who could manage in a sword-and-sorcery world full of hardships and low on luxuries, but most people didn't know her well enough to understand that one of her greatest strengths was her adaptability. Not only did Cullen think she would do well in Thedas, he thought she'd do well just about anywhere the multiverse dropped her. "Perhaps we'll get the opportunity to see each other's homes and families and friends one day. Maker knows Vallo has done stranger things." Alexis sighed happily, considering the possibility of that. “True,” she mumbled, feeling comforted by the way she was resting on Cullen and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Sometimes she fell asleep this way but other times she liked to spread out in bed, maybe starfish before curling up and drifting off into the land of nod. “This place does do a lot of weird things. I think even once people saw what their future selves would be like here? Or potentially,” she mused - because she wasn’t some card-reading psychic (no, that was all Twyla - the tarot she did was all for funsies, a prime part of sleepovers), but she knew the future could always change. It wasn’t set in stone. “I wonder what we’d be like, in the future.” She’d already seen what would happen in Schitt’s Creek, thanks to a very long and detailed dream - but here? Well. Alexis guessed the paths were endless in terms of possibilities. That was the fun of it. “I know some of what I hope for our future,” Cullen quietly replied. A soft, sleepy smile came to his face, thinking of the life he sometimes imagined for himself in Vallo. It was far different than what had ever seemed realistic for him at home, where it had seemed likely that it would just be him and his dog forever. “Whether any of that will come to pass...there’s nothing to do but see how it goes, I suppose.” Alexis had said that in her dream-memory, David and Patrick got married. Cullen wondered what weddings were like in their world, and if they were anything like what a marriage by the Chantry looked like in Ferelden. “What do you hope for?” Alexis asked, already feeling like she was floating back into a state of sleep - having such a vivid, purposeful dream really shocked her but it was beginning to sink in now and she could appreciate it for what it was: closure, a little, and a chance for her to reconnect with her family and friends if only for a little while. It was also possible she’d get up and make some tea in order to make her even more tired and ready for sleep but that entailed, like. Actually getting up. For the moment she was pretty content, and she’d try not to nod off mid-serious conversation though she doubted Cullen would mind if she did. He was near enough to falling back to sleep himself, settling into the warmth and softness of Alexis and the bed. Cullen’s awful insomnia was mostly a thing of the past now; even when it was a nightmare that woke him, he could usually drift off again fairly quickly. A brief waking like this, where there were no dreams but happy ones, was easy to put to back to bed. “I’d like to marry you one day,” he murmured, going straight into a yawn from there. “Have a home of our own, perhaps. A cat to go with the dogs, maybe a horse or two. And we should learn to make pizza.” He wanted to what now?? Alexis felt like there was an explosion of confetti right in her brain - or maybe in the center of her chest, where her heart was beating. That same heart that seemed to gush - and quickened as gravity slipped away from her, her stomach turning over. Definitely not in a bad way - more like a carefree roller coaster sort of way. She giggled sweetly, drowsily. Like she was drunk on cough syrup - or maybe just amore, that too. “I’d say yes,” she promised. “And, I mean - yes to all of that. Especially the pizza.” A home of their own sounded so nice too - someplace in the forest, for that rustic life (since she couldn’t picture Cullen wanting to live in a congested city), with animals and all the happiness they could manage for themselves here. That was the dream. “Though I’m terrible at cooking, so - I may have to practice the pizza a few times.” Her words were getting even softer, as her eyes closed and she began to ease back into slumber. “...no anchovies. Love you, hot stuff.” "Love you," Cullen echoed, nuzzling her hair as he followed her into sleep. Anchovies weren't that good anyway, there was no need to sully a perfectly good pizza with them. And they would certainly figure out how to make a perfectly good pizza eventually. They could learn together. They were good at that, Cullen thought as his eyes fluttered shut. Unfortunately, all that thoughtful consideration was only verbalized as "Garbage fish." Then consciousness slipped away. |