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Crossing the bridge to Skyhold at dusk, exhausted and sore from the road, an idle memory finds Dorian. Is it some quality of the light that does it, some smell or colour? Is it some remnant belatedly stirred up to the surface by the formal games of the Winter Palace? Perhaps there is no reason at all.
It was one of his good years. His days were research with Alexius, work in the circle. Alexius' wife's indulgent smile when Dorian left the town house, laughing with Felix over everything and nothing at all. The paving-stones of Minrathous radiating warmth under the afternoon sun. They were immortal, then.
But it is his nights that he thinks of now.
There were plenty of parties, always, for such a promising and distinguished young man as Dorian Pavus—or for such a scandalous one, perhaps. That year it was all intellectual affairs, for ambitious young things in perfectly tailored robes. An elegant circle reception room, or an evening garden filled with hanging globes of light, faces half-shadowed, the sound of carefully pitched laughter. Through the warm air, the scent of honeysuckle; Dorian, a glass of wine in hand, leaning in a fraction too close to a fascinating, sharp-featured man, meeting his gaze and very nearly lingering unacceptably. I see. Am I to understand, then, that our friend here is musically inclined? A hand on the arm, but a very brief touch—not theoretically correct behaviour, but not blatant. A little thrill.
Dorian, Dorian. This isn't how the game is played. There are places for this. More discreet ones. A fierce look directed his way—not from his flushing friend who was probably not so very musical after all, but from a man to whom he had not been introduced. Unruly hair, dark and curling. Very soft-looking lips. Not a small man—well, so much the better.
Naturally, they fucked, quick and rough; fumbling hands under clothes they couldn't afford to remove entirely, a stifled gasp of hot breath against his neck, hidden away at the bottom of the orchard. Dorian learned his name, but had already forgotten it the next day. Why that memory in particular should linger, he couldn't say; it was an unremarkable encounter in every way. One of many. What did he feel, that night? Detachment. A kind of free-floating unreality, where nothing could touch him except the awareness of danger, the defiant heat of it twisting in his stomach.
The pleasure of a dirty secret. As though it could all be one big joke. As though it could be enough.
At the gates of Skyhold Adaar leans down to kiss a reminder about proper diplomatic procedure from Josephine's lips in front of the entire courtyard, smiles fondly into it. Lamplight glints off her curling copper-covered horns, off the gold thread of Josephine's dress. Dorian remembers how daring he felt, returning to a very proper party five minutes after the acquaintance of the moment, clothing very slightly out of order. Remembers other, worse years. Such a taste for provocation. Oh, he has been caught in moments of what might be called intimacy before now. With whores, with friends of a sort. He has invited all manner of scandal. But imagine—to openly kiss a man in public—to kiss, perhaps, someone for whom one felt a definite fondness—
Josephine giggles, a little breathless, unbearably sweet in her open affection for the Inquisitor.
"How perfectly nauseating," he says, to no-one in particular.
The Bull, coming through the gate behind him, laughs—claps one big hand on Dorian's shoulder, a comfortable weight that brings him back from the edge of memory. It shouldn't be like this; the Bull's touch should be too heavy, should make him stagger. The Bull ought to be a brute. How dare he be companionable. Kind.
They are only two people who fuck.
It's a very unfair thought, and he knows it; feels the following rush of shame as soon as it has passed through his mind. It's a terrible thing, to know when one is lying to oneself.
Does the Bull say something? Perhaps he does. Dorian loses it in the disorientating moment of contact, in the clink of tack and the sharp echoing tap of hooves under the arch of the gate as their horses are led away to the stables.
"Oh," Dorian says, a breathy exhale that's hardly a word, a stunned little noise against the Bull's skin. The Bull's answering laugh is a low, rumbling thing; his fingers tip Dorian's chin up, drag across his cheek, brush across his lips with a gentleness Dorian is always disconcerted by. He lays Dorian back onto the bed, startlingly cool sheets against his shoulders.
"Yeah," the Bull says, agreement with some statement Dorian never managed to make. "Hey. Easy there."
There is no possible answer to be made that won't just give the Bull more ammunition. A warm thought. For just a moment, lax from orgasm, legs trembling and breath only just beginning to even out, there are almost no sharp edges in Dorian's head.
I should get up, Dorian thinks, already drowsy, and lets the Bull settle him against his side, allows the soothing strokes of the Bull's hand down his back, submits to this too as he submitted to being tied down, to teasing touches, to being fucked any way the Bull wanted him—always, perfectly, wonderfully balanced on the edge of too much. The Bull still has him safe, even now. Holds him, in more ways than the obvious.
It's as he smiles at that thought that fear finds him again, a small bubble of unease growing in his chest. There are memories here, never far away in these moments when he slips far enough to forget to lie to himself.
Rilienus smiling against Dorian's skin in the dark, pressing gentle kisses to his sternum, to his stomach. Gorgeous, the word breathed into the curve of his hip. Rilienus and his beautiful face, that sweet turn of his lips, his clever hands—far too good for Dorian, always, always, but coming to him again and again anyway, until Dorian wondered—it doesn't matter what he wondered. Had he ever been held like that before? Certainly not. Perhaps he had some foolish hope—a childish idea he believed he had outgrown long before. Drowned.
Robes fastened carefully over love bites, very exactly adjusted. Check three times in the mirror, sidelong glances at Rilienus applying shimmering powder to his cheeks, his eyelids, quick sure movements, a complete focus on his task. Moments when their eyes met across a room and Dorian felt his cheeks heat at memory alone, certain every touch they had shared was visible to everyone. Unvoiced questions heavy on Dorian's tongue. One thing to make a wreck of one's own life, to be infamous, but to bring someone like Rilienus down to his level—no. Not even in the worst year he has ever had, at his most self-absorbed and ignorant and terrified.
In public, no teasing touches—no innuendo, no sly comments. An absolute correctness. What fine weather we've been having. Would you be so good as to pass that bottle. No touch of fingers as he took it. Maddening, how none of it was enough; how he only became more and more intensely aware of Rilienus' presence, the heat of skin he was not touching, every nuance of expression. All the shapes his mouth could make, the quiet amusement that only showed in the eyes, the irritation that tensed the muscles in his shoulders. At night, Rilienus kissed away nightmares about things that had never happened, all blood and knives and the sick twist of magic inside his head. Or things that had. A locked door. No questions, only something for Dorian to lose himself in.
No mornings together, no quiet moments of peace in daylight. Everything he sees when he thinks of Rilienus is candlelit, flickering and guttering.
The Bull favours brighter light, for Dorian to see everything that's done to him. Watches Dorian's face as he pushes into him, expression full of something Dorian doesn't understand at all. Tells him: keep your eyes open. Tells him: fuck, you're gorgeous like this, you should always look like this. Not quiet words against skin, but spoken aloud, clear through the unsteady buzz of arousal in Dorian's head. As though he were saying something obvious. Dorian doesn't know what to do with it, what to do with the familiarity of the feeling it coaxes into life in him. He's never experienced anything like the things the Bull does to him. The things he does with the Bull. But at the same time—
Rilienus is married now. Dorian heard the news in a letter from Maevaris just before he finally left Tevinter, read it over breakfast late one too-bright morning, stared at the squares of sun scattered wildly across the table by the window-panes and hardly felt anything at all. A curious detachment. How else could it have been?
A grey morning, sleet tapping sharply on the windows. Anxiety is a slowly growing creature that follows Dorian through his day. Follows him up the stairs from the hall; curls itself tighter and tighter around him as he sits and reads. Squeezes around his chest, around his head, until his whole body feels heavy and tight with tension. What is it that he thinks of? In a way, it is still Rilienus who haunts him. The unasked questions. Could we—do you—am I—?
More troubling than this: it is not Rilienus he thinks of now when he holds these questions in his mouth, feels the shape of them.
Enough to have almost made a fool of himself once over a good man who showed him a little kindness. He knows better than this. Perhaps they do things differently in the south; he is not from the south.
Neither is the Bull. There are no relationships under the Qun. The Bull loves sex. He loves caring for people, possibly almost as much as he loves hitting things. That doesn't mean he loves—
Dorian slams the book he hasn't been reading closed with enough force to raise a cloud of dust, and considers, for a brief and hopeful moment, setting it on fire for good measure. It would give him considerable satisfaction, for perhaps a heartbeat or two.
And then Vivienne would never let him hear the end of it.
He drops the book carelessly onto the top of an already unsteadily balanced pile of rejects, and does not sigh, and of course, this is the exact moment at which the Bull decides to put in an appearance.
It would be. His sense of timing remains indescribable.
"You're not busy sweating?" Dorian asks, raised eyebrow, mouth twitching involuntarily - a sneer, a smile? He dreads to think how he looks. But the Bull just laughs.
"Nah," he says, looks Dorian over with obvious appreciation. "Maybe later."
This, Dorian thinks, with a certain amount of despair, is the man that I—this is the man for whom I feel—
With some effort, the thought remains unfinished. It's enough as is. The man for whom I feel. All evidence points firmly in the direction of Dorian's life being entirely out of control.
His alcove, with the Bull in it, feels suddenly very small.
"Just heading up to see Red," the Bull says. "She's got a job for the boys tomorrow."
A beat. The Bull has something else to say, Dorian thinks, and feels obscurely terrified. What will it be? An admission? Something flat and final? He backs away from the thought. He doesn't want it.
"I," the Bull starts. I don't want it, Dorian thinks again. I don't want the Bull here being the Bull when I'm too much in love with him to stand it.
There. There's the thought.
"Well then," he says, fast and dismissive and too sharp, looking away from the Bull toward the pile of books, the grey window, "you'd better run along and take care of that, hadn't you? Some of us are trying to work, here."
Is he being fair? Is he being rational? Certainly not. But there it is.
His hands, reaching yet again for a book, are less than steady. He sighs, deflates. Eyes closed, a deep breath. Another. "I apologise. That was uncalled for."
"Alright," the Bull says.
"This is not one of my better days," Dorian says.
"Alright," the Bull says again, careful, as though Dorian is some wild animal he doesn't want to spook. Lovely.
"Go and see Leliana," Dorian says, and to his own ears he only sounds tired now. "I'll be in the tavern later."
The Bull goes, and Dorian wishes that the Bull would've touched him, a hand on the shoulder like that day in the courtyard, a hand on a wrist in a way that wasn't carefully measured at all, just one of those casual little touches that he has always thought were so counter-intuitive.
And whose fault is it that there was no touch?
"Shit," Dorian says, without heat, and tries not to think about love.
A group of scouts have just come in on leave from Emprise du Lion, and between them and what seems to be the full force of the Chargers the Herald's Rest is rather overfull. Laughter and music and the scrape of chairs. No stillness here.
An empty seat beside the Bull is apparently reserved for Dorian.
Dorian has never belonged in a tavern before. That isn't to say he hasn't been in plenty, but this? A place where he might reasonably be expected to sit, where people are waiting for him? Never.
No, his taverns have been dirtier things, in the parts of town a well-bred young man was to maintain a polite fiction of ignorance about, although he might visit discreetly. Brothels in the back rooms, no questions asked. Still: Dorian was never particularly discreet.
A memory, again: down worn stone steps into a basement room, fingers trailing over cool uneven walls for balance. A mattress on the floor. The hot burn of bad whiskey in his throat. He stared up at torchlight on the ceiling and focused in very carefully on the sensation of having his cock sucked. Don't think about it too hard. Doesn't it feel good. Won't it make father angry. Won't they talk. The Pavus boy, slumming it again—
He jerks back from the memory as though it could burn him; hurries to the Bull's side although a part of him is strongly inclined to flight. From every terrible decision he's ever made, from the weight of his feelings. He couldn't deserve Rilienus. He is uncertain as to whether he can ever deserve the Bull, with all his steady affection. But he has always been weak in this particular way, despite his very worst efforts. He knows this about himself, for all the good it does him: that he is desperate to be loved. That he will take practically any kindness in its place. Quite ridiculous.
I cannot love her, Dorian said once. I am—constitutionally incapable. As I'm quite sure you're aware.
Love, his father said, with no emotion in his tone, has nothing to do with duty. It is for the soporati. Never any emotion to him when Dorian wanted to fight.
Sorry, father, for this too.
Across the table Scout Harding laughs at Krem, and he flushes, grins. They share a secretive little look full of fondness. Have they even kissed yet? Certainly they will.
The Bull's hand is warm on Dorian's knee, a tiny hint of something that could be possessiveness to the way his fingers curl. Surely that's only Dorian's wishful thinking. He cannot decide if he feels comforted by the gesture or uneasy because he wants it.
Bull, don't, he wants to say. Bull, stop it. I'm not a good person.
Because he is not a good person, he remains silent. But the thought stays with him, makes relaxation impossible. Goodness knows he tries; takes an ale and makes it last, tries to follow the steady flow of jokes back and forth among the Chargers. Fails, on the whole.
The Bull gives him a questioning look, and Dorian shrugs. He can't think of a single reasonable topic of conversation.
Rocky's storytelling is getting more involved. Wild and somewhat obscene gestures are beginning to work their way in; Dalish is going to be making the acquaintance of his drink soon if he doesn't remember to put it down, and then they'll all be for it. Skinner is watching the situation develop with sharp eyes.
More laughter. People jostle past behind Dorian on their way to the bar. In some other corner, a yell that must be Sera; a chair clatters to the floor.
There's no end to it.
"I find myself tired," Dorian says. "And I suppose I ought to pack."
Both of these things are technically true, so it ought to pass as an excuse. The Bull lets it go, at any rate; lets Dorian go.
He retreats to his room, and misses the warm bulk of the Bull beside him every step of the way.
Tomorrow they set out for the Exalted Plains—smouldering rubble is always a favourite, of course, and undead compliment the setting perfectly, so the whole thing should be a delight.
Dorian stares at his clothes, and at his pack, and does nothing with either; just sits himself down on his bed and watches the short Summer night draw in.
It is not quite fully dark when the Bull finds him. He stands silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky in Dorian's doorway, and doesn't cross the threshold. What is his expression? No way to tell.
Dorian flicks his fingers in the direction of the lamp to spark it into life, and looks up at the Bull, and certainly doesn't sigh. "Come in, then, if you're coming."
The Bull doesn't take him up on his opening for innuendo, which is a little worrying, but he does take a step forward, swing the door closed behind him. The sound of the catch falling home is loud against the Bull's silence.
"Right," the Bull says. "Planning to tell me what's wrong?"
Dorian—does allow himself to consider it. Tests the idea properly in his mind. He could tell the Bull, and then—
"No," he says, finally. If they are to have this conversation and quite probably mess up a perfectly good arrangement beyond repair then they are certainly not going to do it immediately before several weeks of enforced proximity. "No, not tonight. I promise you I will, but please, Bull—"
The Bull considers him, and Dorian tries not to squirm under the scrutiny, meets his gaze as steadily as possible.
"Alright," the Bull says, and rather than feeling relieved, Dorian finds himself feeling a certain regret at being given an out. A contrary personality is on occasion a curse. "We'll talk later, then. I'll let you get on with shit, unless I can do something."
He doesn't move to go, just lets the words hang there like a question.
This is more familiar territory. Dorian smiles. "Well, if you can stand it, you might come over here and fuck me."
No matter how tangled his thoughts might get, this is a comfort he can accept. Perhaps he doesn't deserve the Bull; very likely he can't have him, not in the most important way. But he certainly wants him, now, like this.
"Yeah," the Bull says, steps towards the bed with a little half-smile of his own that makes Dorian's breath catch in anticipation. "Think I can manage that."
The Bull tilts Dorian's face up to meet him with a careful hand, fingers curling under Dorian's chin. A kiss. Much more gentle than Dorian expects.
Perhaps it should be embarrassing that it sends heat straight through him just as well as anything demanding could have. Perhaps it should be embarrassing, too, that it's enough to make him moan, when set against all the more creatively debauched things they've done together. That he's done with others.
It's possible those feelings will catch up with him later.
Tomorrow is tomorrow.
Here in his darkening room he is too in love to care, and too much in need of reassurance he can't quite bring himself to ask for; lets himself come apart easily and entirely under the Bull's careful hands, shuddering as he is undressed, rolling his head back against the pillows as the Bull touches him, grinds slowly down against him. Kisses him again and again, a hand on his hip, a hand in his hair. Perhaps the simplest it has ever been between them.
"Please," Dorian says against the Bull's lips. "Please, please."
He hardly knows what it is he wants; what he gets is the Bull's hand closing around his cock, soothing noises that are nearly words breathed against his neck.
He comes like that, surrounded by the smell of the Bull, the heat of him.
It is, for a moment, very nearly enough.
The roads are coming to meet Skyhold now, rewriting the difficult terrain of the mountains piece by piece, but the way down to the plains and dales of Orlais is a slow one all the same. The horses struggle, must be led rather than ridden for the most part.
But it is not an entirely uncomfortable march, although he might complain a little for the sake of appearances. This stony southern landscape is beginning to become familiar, for all its austerity, and the day is a clear one, mild. Adaar and the Bull are arguing theology, though there isn't a scrap of belief between them, at least not in any sense the Chantry would grasp; this, too, is becoming familiar.
If he could stop thinking, everything would probably be quite pleasant.
"You're quiet today, Dorian," Cole says, "but it's very loud inside your head."
The Bull's hands on his skin, the Bull's breath against his neck. To be held and to wonder what it means. Rilienus' reluctant smile before he turned away for the last time, the hesitation, Dorian, do you think—no, never mind. Only a passing thought.
Loud? Yes. Perhaps.
He is ready for the whole thing to be dragged out then and there, with the Bull five paces ahead; is prepared for it. But Cole, unpredictable in his timing, falls silent. What is it that he sees? The most persistent thoughts, the most recent? Can he pick where to look?
It is, at least, something outside of himself to focus on—to turn over as they make their way down the last of the day's slopes to their planned camping place, a shadowed clearing between spindly pines, filled with the smell of damp moss.
But he ought not ask his questions out loud. That, of course, is his mistake. He realises it as soon as he speaks, that little trick, Cole, when you dip into someone's mind and take a drink… Yes, how does it work, Cole? Why don't you give us a little demonstration?
"It has to be a hurt," Cole says, "or a way to help the hurt."
"Rilienus," Cole says, and oh, it is a shock, for all that the name has been on his mind, to hear it spoken aloud.
"He would have said yes," Cole says.
He would have said yes.
Dorian falters, stricken; looks up to see that the Bull has stopped walking, turned to face him. Adaar looks away, up at the tree-tops, politely pretending not to see.
"I'll thank you not to do that again, please," Dorian says, and it certainly wouldn't take a Ben-Hassrath agent to catch the unsteadiness in his voice.
"Cole," Adaar says, without looking around, "come and help me with the packs." Not a tone to argue with, Dorian thinks, distracted. But possibly Cole would hardly notice either way. Always so very happy to help.
The two of them lead the horses away, Adaar's head bent attentively down to speak with Cole. The scouts they're travelling with have already gone ahead, are only voices in the distance, indistinct among the trees.
And this, then, is it: just Dorian and the Bull standing facing each other on the slope, and the terrible ache in Dorian's chest.
Dorian collects himself. Back straight, chin up. He doesn't quite manage to look the Bull in the eye, focuses just over his left shoulder. Good enough.
"Yes," Dorian says, flicks the word away from him with a wave of the hand, as though he could manage to make it dismissive, "he was someone I was in love with. Would you like the whole story now, or shall we invite our beloved Inquisitor and Cole for a nice little sit-down chat around the campfire later?"
"Dorian," the Bull says, takes a step closer. There's still space between them. Far too much. Not nearly enough. "Hey. Look. You don't owe me anything."
He sounds so gentle. Dorian has never been dismissed with such kindness before. Yes, he was dreading having to explain himself. But this—
"I see," he says.
"We've all got shit we don't want to look too hard at," the Bull says, still with that same awful kindness. Another step. Dorian stands his ground, but has to look away entirely. "It's not my business to tell you what to do with that. You want to talk, we'll talk. You want me to piss off? That's fine." As though it didn't matter either way. I want, Dorian thinks. I want you to want—
Cole said: he would have said yes.
Why did he say that? What did he think it would do?
"What if," Dorian says, with a certain amount of effort, the feeling of balancing on the edge of a precipice, "I don't want it to be fine?" A gulf at his feet. Stray thoughts skitter away over the edge.
He cannot look at the Bull. He doesn't want to; doesn't want to see irritation or incomprehension or sympathy. But at the same time, he has to know. Has to see. This effort is greater than the one before, but he manages it; one more impossibility overcome by pure stubbornness.
Dorian meets the Bull's gaze, and, across the small space left between them, sees—
"Wait," the Bull says. "That's what this is about?"
Understanding. "What?" Dorian says, and if he sounds a little sharp, well, this has been a very trying conversation so far. "Just say it, if you please."
"You're in love," the Bull says. A pause in which Dorian tries to remember how to breathe, tries to hold himself together. A lost cause, if ever there was one. "With me."
There is a real hesitation there, and it is this that kills Dorian's incipient rage before it can truly take hold. Two words which had very nearly become a question.
A realisation:
The Bull is uncertain. As uncertain as Dorian, in this.
Dorian swallows. "Yes," he says softly. "Maker save me, I am. For all the good I expect it'll do either of us."
"Well—shit," the Bull says, but he's sort of—sort of smiling. Despite it all, Dorian can feel himself smiling back, a strange wonky little thing, but still: a smile. Terror and reluctant hope. Rilienus would have said yes. Someone has loved Dorian before. Perhaps it could happen again. But the Bull—does he even—
"It would be traditional," Dorian manages, "for you to tell me that we're through now. If you're going to, I would very much appreciate your getting it over with. Don't worry. I've heard far worse."
"Dorian," the Bull says. His hand comes up to touch Dorian's face, thumb brushing over a cheekbone. Dampness spreads after it. Dorian has to blink hard, take a deep breath, shuddering. His eyelashes are wet. He controls himself. "Dorian," the Bull says again, helplessly.
"Don't you dare feel sorry for me," Dorian says. The Bull's hand falls still against his face.
"That's what you think this is?" he says. He's studying Dorian's face for—something. Intent as only the Bull can be.
"What else?" Dorian says. "Please, Bull, I'll be fine, but I need to know."
"Right," the Bull says. "We're not done. Not until you want us to be. You want to walk away?"
He still has no idea what the Bull feels for him. If he feels anything in particular beyond a need to make things better, and Dorian certainly does seem to be surrounding himself with little helpers these days, doesn't he. It would be perfectly reasonable to protect himself and walk away now.
"No," Dorian says, and grasps the Bull's shoulder for balance. Stretches up.
It's an embarrassingly desperate kiss. Messy. The Bull makes a muffled sound, indecipherable against Dorian's lips; his hands slide around to cup the back of Dorian's skull, angling his head, holding him exactly where the Bull wants him. The Bull's tongue against Dorian's lips, the slight drag of nails on his scalp.
The spike of feeling in Dorian's stomach at being held so firmly is perhaps a little more relief than lust, although he has always enjoyed the strength of the Bull's hands.
Dorian is gasping when they part. The Bull looks stunned.
"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," he says, and that's funny. It is. Dorian laughs, at least. Perhaps he's only feeling off balance still.
"Please don't imagine I do," he says.
"Oh," the Bull says, "don't think anyone would go that far," and then they're both laughing again into the inch between their mouths. Slightly out of control, slightly lost, but miraculously intact.
Dorian's hand curls harder against the Bull's shoulder. He wonders how he's ever going to convince himself to let go.
Dorian finds himself uncertain, reaches for the Bull by the campfire and pulls away when Adaar comes back from the river, kisses him hastily behind a tree but startles at the slightest sound. He finds he does not know his own boundaries any longer, much less anyone else's. Imagine, the Bull bending to kiss him in front of half of Skyhold, as Adaar bent to kiss Josephine—he flushes at the thought, the idea of that intimacy placed on display. Hates himself a little for the fact that it feels obscene. Hates, too, that it feels so large. He has done so many things, displayed so much of himself.
What has he not done, in fact? He prided himself on his daring, once. In golden afternoon light that streamed through the high windows of a public bathhouse in Minrathous, he stood with a stranger's hand between his legs, the tiles of the walls warm against his folded arms; what kept them from the eyes of the entire establishment? A convenient corner, nothing more than that. On occasion, less. People passed by laughing, bare feet on the damp floor, and Dorian was fucked roughly against the wall and did not care for a second if they heard him. It was that sort of place, of course, where one might reasonably expect a young man to be looking for sex; but all the same. Given the choice between more discretion or less, he has tended to put on a show. Tested the limits of respectable spaces, of everyone's patience and tolerance. Crossed all the lines and taken a sort of perverse pleasure in wrecking his own life.
But not with Rilienus, of course. Never with Rilienus. Rilienus was not—
Rilienus was not a tool for Dorian to debase himself with. He was—a secret. Desired and forbidden.
It was the first time he realised that he could ruin more than himself and his family. How blind one can be when one is not particularly interested in seeing.
On the Exalted Plains he shares a tent with the Bull. In sleep the Bull's breath comes deep and even, and Dorian watches him, thinks about touching the scar on his lip, dragging his fingers along the line of the Bull's jaw and feeling the roughness of stubble. In the field the Bull is never relaxed, exactly—jolts himself awake and straight into readiness at the slightest hint of movement outside, expecting a fight. He's full of tension even now. Seheron, of course.
Dorian would like to soothe it away, but it's a deeper wound than that. Watches, instead, and thinks.
The Iron Bull, who chose his name, like I'm not really a person, like I'm this dangerous thing, you know?—a tool, a weapon to be wielded. Who turns his full attention to Dorian's pleasure in bed, as though that's all he needs. Who looks at Dorian with such care, kisses Dorian breathless when he's feeling foolish and upset and needs things he can't name. Ties him down, marks him, pushes him further and further but never too far. Holds him after, always, as long as Dorian will let him.
He tried to push him away, to begin with. Walking back to his own room in the dead of night on unsteady legs, feeling cold and small and wanting so many things.
It was a shock when Adaar asked him about the two of them. Friendly curiosity. He wonders if she thinks he's ashamed. He wonders if he is, a little—not of the Bull, but of his own all-too-transparent weaknesses. But no. He refuses to be.
"Stop thinking and come here," the Bull says, eye still closed, and Dorian, with a sigh, goes to him.
In Skyhold there are new vendors by the stables, unfamiliar faces outside the Herald's Rest. Three weeks is plenty of time for change in the Inquisition. Soon even this huge fortress will be too small for everyone. Dorian refuses drinks in favour of bathing for what is probably an unreasonably long period of time by Southern standards, and when he's done, the depth of exhaustion he feels encourages him to move directly on to crawling into bed. That the bed he chooses is the Bull's, despite the fact that the Bull himself is in the tavern, is something he refuses to examine too closely.
He half-wakes to the Bull settling into the bed beside him some time after dark, and then properly to morning light, the Bull's hand stroking down his side—an idle, repetitive motion that still manages to stir a certain warm interest low in Dorian's abdomen. The Bull is warm and reassuringly close against his back, propped up on his free elbow.
"Oh," Dorian says, draws the sound out into a yawn and reaches for the Bull's hand, tugs at it, encouraging it downward. Presses the Bull's fingers to his cock. "Am I awake? That seems—unfortunate—oh—oh—mm—"
The Bull strokes him slowly, his grip loose, and Dorian lets his hips roll lazily forward into it, back against the Bull, into it again. Groans again at the feeling of the Bull's cock hardening against the back of his thigh.
They fuck, eventually, with Dorian on his stomach, the Bull stretched out over him, grinding down into him. Dorian feels so full, can hardly contain so many sensations and thoughts, desires. Pinned between the Bull and the bed, his movement is limited; he goes to reach back to grasp the Bull's horns with one hand, but finds his wrists held, trapped against the sheets as thoroughly as the rest of him. The Bull doesn't have much leverage like this, but the slow shift of his cock inside Dorian is enough. Huge and wonderful. Unhurried.
Amatus, Dorian thinks, and says, as imperiously as possible in the circumstances, "tighter—around my wrists. I want to feel—"
The Bull groans, a hint of laughter under it, a lot of heat. Twists his fingers harder around Dorian's wrists, and Dorian hisses in pleasure, writhes as well as he can beneath the Bull, clenches down around him. Amatus, amatus, amatus.
They are both rather late to breakfast; steal leftovers from the kitchens and walk slowly together towards the library. There is, Dorian realises, still a very small kind of thrill to walking around in public when you've just been so thoroughly fucked—but it has a different feeling now, warmer. The knowledge sits between him and the Bull, quiet and intimate. To do with sex, but not only with sex. Here we are, together, in there and out here.
He thinks: I would not mind, after all, I think, if—if—
They have reached the library, quiet and cool, dim even in the middle of the morning.
I would not mind.
"Bull," he says, urgent, reaches for the Bull's arm, grasps him by the elbow as he turns to leave and pulls him back into the alcove, feels the pull in his wrist, a little spark of satisfaction despite his nerves. "Bull, listen—I—"
"Something wrong?" the Bull says, steps in closer, not quite crowding. Lifts a hand to Dorian's face—Dorian's whole body remembers the mountainside, and the Bull's careful touches then, his concern, you're in love with me—
"Not exactly," he says, keeping his voice low. "But it occurs to me—it occurs to me that I may have been—a little too cautious, in some respects."
The Bull makes a noncommittal noise, I'm listening. Dorian sighs.
"You must understand, I've had a great deal of sex in my life. Some of it I'm not terribly proud of, and a lot of it was—well—I didn't take a great deal of care to hide it." He looks up at the Bull, manages a small smile. "I know you're very well acquainted of the idea of casual sex, but I doubt you usually do it looking to annoy people."
"Uh," the Bull says. "Not usually. No."
"I suppose," Dorian says, "it's simply difficult for me to not think of all public displays, however innocent, as some sort of provocation. I'm well aware of the flaw in my reasoning, but some habits are quite hard to break."
"You're not ashamed of me," the Bull says, with absolute certainty. "I'm not worried about that. Maybe the first time."
"Maybe," Dorian says, remembering it with faint horror—lays his hand carefully over the Bull's heart, fights with himself over the gesture, reflexive embarrassment. Lets it stand. The Bull knows how he feels—what could happen? "I'm not sleeping with you to prove a point. And it isn't—I don't know what it is. But it isn't only sex. You know I—intimacy has always been a very private thing. Something I had to protect."
The Bull gives a snort which sounds suspiciously like 'vints. Dorian opts to let it slide. It isn't as though he could disagree, on this particular point.
"But I'm not ashamed," he says, steadily. "And it isn't the same. I won't compare it. Frankly, you could take me up against the courtyard wall and I doubt I would mind terribly."
It's only meant as a figure of speech, but he can see the way it settles in the Bull's mind, becomes something more definite, a clear image passing back and forth between them. The Bull raises an eyebrow.
Dorian shrugs, feels another tiny smile on his lips. His cheeks are very warm.
"Fuck," the Bull says, and drags him into a frantic kiss.
Afternoon. Dorian sits in his corner of the library, and doesn't read. His fingers rest lightly on the pages of an open book, trace the shapes of its old words. It is not anxiety that he feels now, but something else. A sense of unfolding possibilities, still untested.
"Deep in thought, aren't you?" Adaar says, throwing him a smile in passing. Always on the move, taking the stairs up to Leliana's roost three at a time. The world moves around Dorian and hardly touches him.
After dinner, the Herald's Rest. He sits close to the Bull, lets himself lean a little more obviously against him, head to shoulder, the full length of his leg against the Bull's under the table. Doesn't drink.
Although there's no spoken agreement between them, the Bull doesn't either.
Once there was Rilienus, sitting to Dorian's right one evening for dinner at Maevaris' estate. Even there, in a place that could have been safe, they measured inches between them. A maddening longing for touch, Maevaris' gaze flicking to one of them and then the other, a knowing smile for Dorian, a polite one for Rilienus. The tap of her perfect nails against a tall glass decanter, making it sing; the scattered blue-green light it threw across the table as the liquid in it swirled. Rilienus looked sidelong at Dorian and there was heat to it, only for a second, before he smoothed over his expression and smiled and said—
Dorian does not remember what he said. Only the utter blandness of it, as though he had not had his lips around Dorian's cock an hour before.
Now, the Bull laughs, loud and unrestrained, and drops a hand onto Dorian's leg, strokes his thumb firmly along the outside of Dorian's knee. Dorian tenses, of course—reflex, unavoidable. But it's the briefest moment before he manages to let it go, no danger here, only the Bull, and Dorian wants him, all of his touches, intimate and sexual and private and public. Even if he is afraid to be seen, he wants.
We're not done until you want us to be, Bull? Do you know what you're offering?
There are temptations which Dorian can resist, but he is not strong enough to let go of this.
Another song. Another, filthier. Encore. More laughter. He could drag the Bull away whenever he wanted, Dorian knows. It would only take a hint. But he lets himself hold onto the fluttering sense of anticipation long into the night, filled with a restless arousal which is, in a way, its own satisfaction. A quiet thrill every time the Bull's hand brushes against him, a touch to the back of the neck, to his bare shoulder.
They leave after the last of the Chargers, step at last out into the cool night, stars spread above them, the courtyard still and empty. Dorian takes a deep breath, lets it shudder out of him again.
"Dorian," the Bull says, voice a low rumble that Dorian feels through his entire body, pitched just for him. "Shit, you're so hot. I've been thinking about you all day. Up against a wall out here, desperate for me to fuck you—"
Maker.
"Well," Dorian says, hoarse, "if you're offering, I suppose I might be persuaded to consider it," and means: yes, yes, yes.
The Bull bends his head, careful of his horns; stoops to bury his face just below the corner of Dorian's jaw, inhales with a groan. "Going to need something a bit more emphatic than that."
Dorian raises his hand to the sensitive skin around the base of one of the Bull's horns, strokes it reverently and feels the Bull's breath stutter hotly over his skin. Closes his eyes. It cannot be that hard to say it, can it?
He cannot possibly be shaking.
"Yes," he says. "Do it."
A short stumble to a dark corner, tree-shadowed, obscured from most of the bright windows. Heat flares through him. The Bull's hands are urgent now, directing and encouraging, shoving Dorian back against the rough stone of the wall, tipping Dorian's face up for a kiss. The Bull's litany of familiar reassurances, you just say the word and we stop, I've got you, you're gorgeous, you're fucking amazing. Quiet words for him alone.
If somebody sees us, Dorian thinks, this still won't be theirs. A savage thought, all defiance.
The Bull's hands are back on his hips, taking his weight, shifting him; the Bull's leg shoves between Dorian's thighs, and Dorian bites back a noise of pleasure at the pressure against his cock, tries to gain a little friction to go with it and feels the Bull's hands tighten. The Bull's laugh against Dorian's forehead is almost silent.
Dorian has to press his own hand to his mouth to stifle a moan.
A hasty, ungentle thing. They fuck like this, fully clothed, only a little unlaced, enough for them to grind together, skin to skin. The Bull holds Dorian where he wants him with one hand, pushed up against the wall, feet off the ground, and isn't that enough to make Dorian want to moan some more, to make his breath hitch uncontrollably. That casual show of strength.
"Next time," the Bull says, "I'll finger you open like this—turn you around and screw you senseless while you fight not to scream, fingers scrabbling at the stone—fuck, you're so good—Dorian—"
Dorian shudders, gasps, imagining, feeling. Rolls his head back against the wall. His breath comes sharp and uneven. The stars shift and dance between the leaves of the trees. Once, in a garden, at a party, golden lanterns glowing between the trees—
It was nothing like this. It was nothing compared to this.
The Bull wraps his hand around both their cocks, strokes them together, firm and quick. Whispers, frantic: I'm yours, I'm yours, Dorian, Dorian, Dorian, I want you—always—
Dorian comes with a choked off cry, too close to a sob, the Bull's words trapped in his head, in his chest, indelible. Terrifying, how much he wants them. Terrifying, to need to hear something this much.
They sink to the ground together, damp grass under their knees, breathing heavily against each other. Absolutely filthy.
"You," the Bull says, groans, seems to lose his train of thought, hands brushing Dorian's disheveled hair from his face, smoothing his clothes, touching him everywhere, still, always. Tucks Dorian's cock away, an absurdly careful little gesture. "You—"
"Mm," Dorian manages. "I know. I'm—quite incredible."
"Yeah," the Bull agrees, so easily, as though it were obvious. Dorian has to close his eyes, lets his head rest heavily against the Bull's shoulder. The Bull's hand rubs soothing circles between Dorian's shoulderblades. Breathe, breathe. "How're you doing in there?"
Dorian's laugh comes out as a breathy huff. To his horror, there's a tiny catch in it.
"Try words," the Bull suggests.
"I," Dorian says, "I—you—said some things."
"Yeah," the Bull agrees. "Said all kinds of things." Terribly non-committal. I'm yours, he'd said, fervent. Dorian doesn't want to ask—would like to just assume—to take the fragments he has been given.
He has lived on smaller scraps than these.
"I wouldn't hold it against you if you didn't mean them," he says carefully. "Goodness knows people say all sorts of things in the heat of the moment."
"Hey," the Bull says, but there's no indignation to it, no anger at the implication. He's so gentle. How can he be so gentle? "I don't tell you shit I don't mean."
"You're mine," Dorian says. "That can't—qunari don't—you aren't meant to feel—"
"I do," the Bull says. His arms are tight around Dorian's shoulders now, trembling with an unfamiliar tension, as though the admission costs him dearly. "Don't know anything about this stuff. I'll probably screw it up. But I do."
This is quite probably the most ridiculous thing that's ever happened to me, Dorian thinks. This cannot be real.
But he could never have imagined it. The Bull, hunched against him, whispering confessions into the night. He's covered in their come, shivering a little as sweat cools on his skin. They're barely concealed from sight. Anyone could walk past at any moment.
It's absolutely ludicrous. More ludicrous still that he doesn't care.
It's more than he's ever allowed himself to dream of.
"I have you," he murmurs, shifts them carefully around until he can stroke the Bull's huge neck. They tremble against each other. Two people who know nothing about love. "I have you. Amatus."
"Yeah," the Bull says.
And Dorian believes him.