Chapter Text
They’d been something for about six months when Dorian first brought it up.
“How are omegas in heat treated, under the Qun?” he asked.
“Pretty well, for the most part, I think,” the Bull said. It wasn’t the information Dorian wanted to hear, but whatever clarification he wanted to be provided with, the Bull wanted him to ask with the knowledge that as far as Bull was concerned, an omega in heat should be treated well.
“One hears all sorts of propaganda, growing up in Tevinter. Mass breedings, omegas in heat fastened to stocks and left open for any alpha to avail themselves upon,” Dorian continued.
That was closer to how Tevinter viewed omegas than how they were viewed under the Qun. Being an omega didn’t automatically turn you into a slave, but it was one of those things that made it more likely, like being a non-mage from a family of mages, or a girl in a poor family with too many kids to take care of. From the moment he presented, Dorian had been told how lucky he was to have a family that would allow him to hide rather than selling him around to the highest bidders to be used as a fucktoy for the rest of his life.
“Sounds kinky,” the Bull replied.
Dorian snorted.
“It does happen in groups,” the Bull offered after a moment. “Generally the tamassrans pick out somewhere between six to ten alphas, based on whatever they want the kids to be and the omega’s preference of partners. Everyone sits down first, gets to know one another a little, talk likes and dislikes.”
“And the omega?” Dorian challenged softly.
“Part of the everyone,” the Bull told him. “The most important part, really. As an alpha attending to an omega in heat, it’s your job to make them as comfortable and happy as you can.”
“And as pregnant,” Dorian said.
“That too. I mean, there are breaks for naps, but most of the time an omega under the Qun is in heat they’re getting fucked. Once one alpha deflates, another steps in to take their place.”
Dorian made a thoughtful noise, the dark not quite enough to mask the wistful expression on his face. “Have you ever had sex with an omega outside of breeding? I mean, while they’re in heat, and without trying to get them pregnant.”
“Yeah, sure,” the Bull said. “Lots of times, especially since coming down South.”
“Do you still enjoy it?”
“Shit yeah, I love spoiling pretty little omegas,” the Bull said, running his hand up Dorian’s thigh.
The distraction worked. Dorian turned his head to give the Bull a withering glare. “I can only be considered little when standing next to your ludicrous bulk.”
“Only then, hm?” The Bull asked, moving quickly so he was pinning Dorian down, the smaller man almost completely covered with his body. Dorian gave a token struggle that was more of a moaning squirm, stilling instantly when the Bull capture his wrists and gave them a little squeeze. “Not when you’re under me?”
“That- that too,” Dorian said, slightly breathless, and it was no hardship at all to bend down and kiss him.
It came up again some months later, just before the defeat of Corypheus’ forces in the Arbor Wilds.
“I’d like to spend a heat with you,” Dorian said.
“Okay,” the Bull replied.
Dorian blinked. “That’s it? Okay?”
“Did you want me to say no?” the Bull asked.
“I- no, I just. You know that I still don’t want you to get me pregnant, right?”
“Yeah, I kind of figured,” the Bull said. Having kids was a much bigger deal when you were in a place where it wasn’t automatic that they would be cared for and looked after by people who knew what they were doing, just you and, if you were lucky, your mate.
“You aren’t going to ask me what’s changed?” Dorian asked.
The Bull looked him up and down. He was clearly upset, but shit if he knew what was causing it.
“What’s changed?” he asked, as gently as he could.
“Absolutely nothing, you overbearing lummox,” Dorian huffed, and refused to speak to him about it again for months.
He waited until the first Corypheus-free day to have dawned since before the beginning of the Chantry, actually.
“I think I’ll stop taking my suppressants today,” Dorian said.
“Oh?” the Bull said, smiling. He was a little giddy at the thought of seeing Dorian through his heat. Of being chosen to see him through. Of having that purpose again.
“Yes,” Dorian confirmed. He sounded nervous, so rather than rolling on top of him again, he scooped him up, encouraging him to straddle the Bull’s middle and lean down for a kiss. “You understand that the heat won’t actually hit for at least another month, right?”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t practice,” the Bull pointed out.
Dorian laughed against his lips. “Do you think we really need the practice at this point?”
“Well, sex in heat is different.”
“I’m aware.”
“My knot's going to get bigger, you know,” the Bull said.
He could feel the way Dorian’s breath caught.
“I’m going to come a lot more, too,” he added.
“As will I, presumably,” Dorian replied.
“Oh, you think so?” the Bull asked.
“Well, you’ve never disappointed me before,” Dorian retorted fondly. He leaned down for a kiss, through the half-inch or so of breaths they’d been sharing, and there was nowhere else the Bull would rather be.
The Bull was in the habit of arranging things so that if he was seeing someone through their heat, he would arrange for some comforts. He’d see to it that some finger foods were sent up when the milk delivery came at dawn, have all his bedding cleaned, and turn the mattress. He’d let the sanitation crew know that there would be an extra chamber pot in his room for the next week or so, and to expect that when they came around to switch out the used ones with clean ones overnight. If it was winter, he’d order more wood for his room too, and shift the bed over so that it was easier for him to bank the fire without leaving the omega for longer than necessary.
He’d never thought there was anything lacking about that. But it seemed like not enough effort for Dorian, somehow. Maybe it was because he had a month before the heat hit, and more time to plan. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t attended to an omega in heat since just after he and Dorian started hooking up regularly. Maybe it was just Dorian, vain, fussy Dorian who cared so much and who had chosen to spend so much time and effort on him, had chosen him…
He kept thinking back to the breeding temples, which were replete with tasty snacks and comfortable cushions. He kept picturing Dorian in one of them, a fantasy that ignored the way that a bas saarebas would never be bred, a human would not be bred with a Qunari, and they would never have been allowed this close to one another in the first place under the Qun.
He pictured him in the temple, the scent of frangipani drifting in through the window as the strong tropical sunlight illuminated his skin. Thought about watching him be attended to by a half-dozen men: thought about Dorian seated on the cock of one while another sucked him off, of a third hovering, ready to provide him with food or drinks, two more in the wings, keeping themselves hard and ready to fill him.
He thought about watching Dorian’s face as he came, writhing in ecstasy between the cock in his ass and the mouth on his dick. Thought about the kneeling man pulling off, revealing the come staining Dorian’s thighs and the way he’d grown fat with their seed.
He thought about kissing the citrus tart taste from Dorian’s lips as that other man knotting within him, about asking him if there was anything he needed, if he was feeling okay, doing okay.
“I’m happy,” he thought about hearing Dorian reply: not a begrudging admission this time, just a simple truth. “You make me so happy.”
The fantasy was about as selfish as it was impossible. So maybe the Bull was just compensating a bit too.
“You’re nesting,” Adaar accused him, if accusations could sound gleeful.
“No I’m not,” the Bull said.
“Yes, you are,” Adaar said. “You are, and I’m happy for you. This is good!”
The Bull grunted.
“Dorian will be happy too,” Adaar assured him. “Believe me, finding the nest Josephine had made me was the third-happiest moment of my life.”
The first happiest moment of her life was probably either the defeat of Corypheus or the day she found out about the child she was carrying, so that was saying something.
Dorian didn’t look happy, exactly, when he saw the repairs done to the roof of the Bull’s room. “For me?” he asked, almost painfully uncertain.
“Yeah, for you,” the Bull admitted.
As Dorian’s heat drew nearer and nearer, he changed. Not a lot, not in any fundamental way, but his musk got stronger, his senses a little sharper, and the way he responded to the Bull’s touch…
Dorian had always been responsive, sensitive. He’d been almost touch starved, when he’d first stalked into the Bull’s room and demanded to be conquered, and had arched into every little caress like a starving man would lay into a buffet. He’d been quiet at first- habit, more than preference, and he’d largely abandoned it by now, and fuck, even that first night, he’d leaked everywhere, precome dripping down that thick, delicious cock of his and slick coating the inside of his thighs.
Now… shit. It took almost nothing to get him going. Time was wringing three orgasms from Dorian in one night was an accomplishment: now he could regularly pull six or seven a night, and that was just at night. The Bull was waking up more and more often with Dorian on top of him, kissing him, asking for his permission before he sank down on the Bull’s cock. They started taking their lunches in Dorian’s room, where Dorian would go down on the Bull and remain kneeling at his feet, as the Bull told him how to get himself off.
A heated look and a little innuendo as they left the sparring ring used get him an eyeroll, some sass, maybe a fond insult. Now Dorian shoved him behind the sheds used to house the Inquisition’s practice gear, dropping to his knees right there in the dirt.
“Please?” he asked.
The Bull shook his head, and pulled Dorian back up to his feet, before crowding him against the back of the shed. “I want to fuck you,” he growled in Dorian’s ear. “And I want to see my come on your thighs when I fuck you again tonight.”
“Yes yes-that- good plan,” Dorian managed. His hands gripped the Bull’s horns, and his legs wrapped around the Bull’s waist before pulling back, so he could undo his trousers.
Dorian was quiet again when they fucked that afternoon, and he was quiet again the following night, as he guided the Bull’s hand over the bulge in his trousers, and let him dip his hand inside, using his own slick as lubrication to bring him off as they all shot the shit over a game of Wicked Grace.
“We putting you to sleep, Sparkler?” Varric asked.
Dorian had his eyes closed, his face pressed against the Bull’s chest and the Bull’s arm wrapped around him.
“Must I remind you that I have a very strenuous week upcoming?” Dorian retorted, not moving.
“Coming soon, from the look of things,” Josephine said. She was probably the only one at the table who had been able to tell that the Bull had brought Dorian off.
“So if you don’t turn up to breakfast tomorrow, shall we just not bother to even knock until next week?” Adaar asked.
“At least a week,” Dorian replied primly. “I understand that you’ll be bereft, but I’m sure you’ll find some way to while away the hours while I’m busy.”
“Maybe you and Ruffles can try for twins,” Varric suggested.
“Oh, we’re way ahead of you there!” Adaar told them. “I’m pretty sure I’m carrying triplets!”
The Bull’s body was changing too, to accommodate Dorian’s upcoming heat. He ate more, put on weight, got himself an extra layer of fat to draw on while they were both too busy to do much eating, and he would be prioritizing Dorian’s comfort even more than usual. His refractory period shrank until it almost didn’t exist, but he didn’t come very much, in terms of how much he spent: his balls were swollen with how much seed he wasn’t spilling.
That didn’t mean they were sensitive, that he couldn’t feel every follicle of mustache and stubble on Dorian’s face as he nuzzled at them later that night, after they’d gone back up to the Bull’s room and laid down on the bed.
“Fuck, you’re going to make me come,” the Bull said.
Dorian hummed, and planted a sucking, open-mouthed kiss between his balls before replying. “Just from this?”
“If you keep- yeah, fuck, just like that,” the Bull babbled.
Dorian, the contrary little shit, stopped.
“What will you give me, if I play with these until you’re ready to burst, and then let you come on my face?” he said, sounding way too matter of fact.
“What do you want?” the Bull asked.
“I want you to fuck me,” Dorian told him.
“That all?”
“Do you have a suggestion, then?”
“How about I suck you off? Eat you out? Do it again, and again, and again until you would swear that you couldn’t come any more- and then fuck you until I prove that wrong? How does that sound?”
The Bull could feel Dorian’s smile.
“That sounds like you have a deal,” he replied, and lay down between the Bull’s legs to be comfortable while he sucked.
“It really will be soon, won’t it?” the Bull asked later. The lights were out, the fire burning low in the fireplace, and they’d were all cleaned up and cuddled together beneath the blankets, ready to fall asleep.
“It certainly feels like it,” Dorian told him. “I wouldn't be surprised if we woke up tomorrow and found ourselves in a state.”
The Bull liked the sound of that, and hummed as he drew Dorian closer. Dorian resisted his pull, so he stopped.
“You know,” Dorian said slowly. “At the same time, this doesn’t feel anything like the heats I’d had before. In Tevinter, it was always so desperate, so sordid. Just because I knew I shouldn’t be ashamed of myself didn’t mean that I didn’t sometimes…”
His voice trailed off. The Bull traced his fingertips down his arm until they were holding hands, and gave Dorian a gentle squeeze.
“I’d been worried that this might bring some of that up, but it hasn’t. It- I’m so happy, Bull.”
The Bull got unexpectedly choked up. “I’m happy too,” he managed. “I’m- I’m really happy you chose me to do this with.”
“Like I could have ever chosen anyone else over you,” Dorian scoffed. “Maker, listen to me. You’ve turned me into a giant sap.”
“Yeah, kadan, I love you too,” the Bull replied, and this time Dorian let himself be pulled until he was draped across the Bull’s chest.