aban_aqun | Exalted Plains

He deserves that, he thinks--that sharp gaze, the admonishment of Bull's answer. This isn't the occasion for debate. He wants to understand and support Bull, not antagonize him. Bull accepts his apology, but Dorian's guilt lingers.

Carefully, Dorian moves closer again, tentatively reaching out to place a hand on Bull's shoulder, steadying him as he leans down to press a tender and repentant kiss to Bull's brow. His stomach twists with nerves.

"Let's go to bed," he urges, more imploring than when he'd asked before. Apologetic, still. A little apprehensive, as though worried that this time Bull might tell him no. "Please."

Bull's hand slides up to cover Dorian's and he squeezes gently. "Alright," he agrees quietly. He does want to be with Dorian, and he knows it will be better if he stops sitting here and remembering. He lets go of Dorian's hand just so he can get up without pulling him down. Soon enough he's looming over the mage again, and, as if nothing sharp had passed between them, he leans down to kiss the top of Dorian's head. They're enough apart from the camp that he isn't worried about being seen.

He lets his hand run down Dorian's back as they turn toward the camp, but he lets it fall away before they draw any attention.

Someone has already sent Bull's tent up and he is grateful for the effort.

Dorian is constantly immensely thankful for the Bull's kindness and understanding, but perhaps never more so than tonight. Granting him forgiveness when he's clearly stepped in it, and seeming to actually forgive him. There's a weight lifted from his chest the moment Bull's hand squeezes his, and again when he leans down to kiss the top of his head. He hasn't completely ruined it. He just has to do better. The Bull deserves better.

He wouldn't even have minded, tonight, if Bull's hand had lingered on his back as they walk through camp. In the moment before he ducks through the tent flap, he reaches for Bull's hand, tugging him in after him with an air of playfulness. As soon as they're inside, he rocks up onto his tip-toes, lays his other hand at the back of Bull's thickly muscled neck, and kisses him. It's brief, but warm and openly affectionate. He has something to make up for. The last thing he'd want is for Bull to think that he doesn't care about him when it's just the opposite.

"Why don't you settle in?" He suggests. "I'll take care of your leg, then balm your horns."

Bull ducks into his tent and as he straightens, he finds Dorian pressed against him. He tips his head down to meet the kiss and takes comfort in how familiar it feels now, how easy it is to kiss Dorian. He slides his arms around him, holding him closer until Dorian starts to pull back again.

He touches his brow to Dorian's before he lets him go entirely, then carefully moves past him to settle on their joined bedrolls. Bull stretches his left leg out to remove the boot and brace first. He sighs heavily as the brace slides off. Reluctantly, he says, "Ankle, too."

Bull gets his other boot off and looks back to try to adjust his gear so he has something to lean on. He watches Dorian find the balm. The moment feels-- domestic. A tamassran would do this for him: see to his hurts, physical and mental, see to his needs when he didn't know what they might be.

There is something about the way that Bull touches him--how wonderfully familiar it feels now to have his arms around him. How well he knows the press of his lips. Yet it's never lost any of its excitement, its allure. He could probably kiss Bull for the rest of his life and never tire of the experience. He draws in a soft, shaky breath as Bull's brow touches his.

It's...something to consider.

As Bull arranges himself, Dorian find the balm and a small towel, and then gets comfortable as well, removing his boots and his outer robe so that he can settle on the bedrolls by Bull's outstretched leg, depositing his materials beside him. Rubbing his hands together quickly, he summons warmth to them, like fire lingering beneath his skin. This procedure is one he's become familiar with over the last couple months, and it makes him glad that Bull trusts him to do this for him. It's an intimate thing, especially considering Bull's wariness of magic.

"I'll start there, then," Dorian decides, and closes both hands gently around Bull's ankle. The heat seeps from them into Bull, and he rubs at the tendons there carefully with his thumbs. Though the scarring here isn't as bad as around Bull's knee, his ankle has taken a lot of strain as a result of that injury. Dorian tends him diligently--lovingly, one might say. There's an unspoken devotion in the way he's learned to care for the Bull's injuries, the way he regularly offers to do so. He likes knowing that he's helped to alleviate at least some of his pain.

As Dorian warms his hands, Bull carefully works off his eye patch and sets it aside. He rubs over the empty socket, feeling the phantom pain. It comes and goes, and it's worse when he's been ruminating, he knows that. He drops his hand to watch Dorian work, feeling the warmth sink into his leg as Dorian rubs him down. It's difficult for him to submit to healers, even when it's a good idea, even when he needs it. But this is different, he thinks. There's no fixing the old wound but it-- helps him feel better.

Dorian has learned how to take care of it in a way that doesn't put Bull off, and Bull has noticed. Their physical intimacy makes accepting his care even easier, and Bull isn't sure how deeply he should read into that.

But he's started to look forward to these quiet moments between them.

Dorian works slowly, making sure that he's actually helping Bull to relax. From his ankle his hands move up his calf, fingers digging more firmly into the thick muscle there to massage away some of the tension. As he does so, he chances a smile up at him that's nearly shy, and finds that he's removed his eye patch for the night. He's struck by the strong urge to lean up and kiss the scarred skin beside the empty socket. Dorian has done that very thing several times before, to the point where he thinks Bull believes him now when he says that he doesn't find it off-putting in the least.

Instead he merely smiles a little more, and keeps at his work.

A little more time passes before he makes it up to Bull's knee, pressing his heated hands around it through the fabric of his pants. This part in particular will be much easier without them.

"All right," he says, playfully admonishing, "time for these to come off. But don't get any ideas."

Bull rolls his eye but he smiles at the admonishing. He removes his belt and he works his trousers off. He works them down carefully and lets Dorian take over after a certain point, leaving Bull in his smalls. As much as he might like to get ideas, the day has left him feeling worn down to the bones.

He shifts his weight down, bending his leg just slightly at the knee as Dorian's hands find their way back to it.

"You'd have to do all the work," he teases quietly.

"Well, we can't have that," he teases right back. He considers it for a moment, bringing Bull off after he's done tending to his leg and his horns, giving him release with the same devotion. It isn't a bad idea. He'll hold onto it, revisit it later when he can decide whether or not he has the energy.

With Bull's trousers removed, it's far easier to do what he needs to with his knee. He rubs around it slowly at first, letting the heat sink in down to his bones, before he begins to massage carefully, patiently, at the thick scarring. This part takes the most time, naturally, as it's the worst injury of the lot, but Dorian is in no rush. He's glad that Bull still allows this, still trusts him with this, after his untimely remark earlier. He won't disappoint him.

His eye nearly closes while Dorian works. Bull tries to let his mind drift pleasantly, focusing on the immediate sensation of Dorian's hands on his knee, the warmth of the treatment, even Dorian's scent and the quiet sounds he makes when he runs into knots of tension or spots of pain.

When he feels himself drifting too far, Bull forces his eye open again, intent on staying awake until Dorian joins him beneath the blankets.

"Thank you," he murmurs. He wants to make sure he says it on the off chance that he does fall asleep. Which is entirely possible once Dorian breaks out the horn balm.

Dorian wouldn't mind it if Bull fell asleep. It would mean he was doing this well. He takes his time with his knee, repeating motions that get a positive reaction and radiating heat into Bull's skin until his muscles feel relaxed. He moves a little further up as well, fingers kneading into the thick muscle of his thigh.

It's sweet how Bull refuses to nod off, though, despite how much he clearly wants to. Finally finished with his leg, Dorian gathers the horn balm and shifts up the bed close enough to press a kiss to his brow.

"Feel better?" He asks, trailing fingers lightly from Bull's temple up to the base of a horn. "How would you like to do this? Your head in my lap?" That's how Dorian prefers it, anyway, finding it both intimate and practical.

Bull closes his eye as Dorian's fingers trail along the surprisingly sensitive skin at the base of his horn. "Yeah, that," he agrees. He knows Dorian likes it and if he does fall asleep... well. It'll be relatively easy for Dorian to get out from under him if he needs to.

Slowly, he slides forward and waits for Dorian to settle the way he'd like before resting his head in the mage's lap. He looks up at Dorian and there's something on the tip of his tongue that he swallows back. Dorian wouldn't understand, so there's no point in saying it in the first place.

"You put a scent in it when you make it. What is it?"

Bull has to admit, the balm Dorian makes is more or less identical to what he'd had when he lived on Par Vollen and Seheron. Stitches had done the best he could with what he knew, but it was never quite this good.

Pleased, Dorian settles with his legs crossed, and helps Bull ease his head down until it's resting in his lap. His horns curve out on either side of Dorian, and he smiles at Bull's question as he releases the lid on the tin. "Clove," he murmurs, sounding happy that Bull had noticed. "The oil has pain relieving properties, and it smells quite nice." Sweet-spicy. It reminds him a bit of home.

He scoops some of the balm into the palm of one hand before he smooths it across the Bull's left horn near the base, taking care to rub it thoroughly into each groove, and especially where it meets his skin, as he's told him before that's where it tends to itch most. Dorian is slightly gentler there, as he had been when massaging Bull's leg, but as he works his way further up along the horn itself his hands become firmer as he uses both hands to work the balm into the ridges of growth. The smell of clove wafts strong and spicy from his hands, and now from the Bull's horns, made smooth and slick and fragrant.

"It smells like home."

Bull's eye drifts shut again as Dorian works the balm into the dry, cracked skin right where his horns erupt from his skull. One hand drifts back, careful not to interrupt Dorian's work, so that Bull can loosely drape it around the mage's back. It isn't long before he's drifting off in Dorian's lap. The weight of his head settles more on Dorian's legs now that he isn't making any effort at all to hold it up.

He sleeps through the application on his other horn but starts to wake when Dorian stops. Bull forces himself back to consciousness, vaguely aware that he has Dorian pinned under him. It probably wouldn't be a hassle for the mage to free himself, but--

"Sorry," he says, still groggy. "Didn't mean to drift off."

It smells like home. The comment startles Dorian for a moment, given how he'd been thinking much the same thing. But it makes perfect sense. They're both from the north, where clove is used far more frequently than here in the south. Some things transcend borders, wars, cultures. It makes Dorian smile to hear it. He's glad to have brought Bull a little comfort this way, and that this is something they can share.

It's quite sweet, actually, that Bull falls asleep as Dorian works the balm into his horns. It's an immense show of comfort and trust, and it makes something in Dorian's chest twist in quite the opposite way to how he'd felt not long ago. He covers the right horn as diligently as he'd done the left, though this time he works from the top down. Bull wakes eventually when he gets to the base, slick fingers rubbing soothingly over the skin there.

"It's quite all right, Bull," he says quietly, a smile in his voice. "Now's the time for that, anyway." He lets his fingers drift a little down Bull's face, following the firm line of his jaw. There's nothing he wants more right now than to curl up at Bull's side and drift off as well.

"C'mon," he urges quietly. "Get down here." Bull wants to feel Dorian close, too. He lifts his head to make it easier for Dorian to get out from under him, then settles down on his bolster. He feels heavy and tired, but in a better way than he had just an hour ago. His skin smells like cloves and the scent is lulling him as much as Dorian's touch.

He moves over more on their combined bedrolls so that Dorian has room to actually settle in next to him. Bull keeps his eye open, intent on staying awake at least until Dorian is at his side. He likes likes watching Dorian's evening routine.

"All right," Dorian laughs, slipping out from beneath Bull's horns and helping to place his pillow there instead. "A moment, please." If the promise of being in Bull's arms makes him hurry through his nighttime routine, only Bull will really know.

He twists his hands together, rubbing the excess of the balm into his skin. Not its intended purpose, but it does serve as an effective moisturizer for him as well. He removes the rest of his clothing swiftly down to his smalls, tossing everything into a bit of a haphazard pile atop his other belongings. He thoroughly rinses his face of the day's dirt and sweat and his makeup, and then there's a scrub for his teeth. There might be another step or two at times, depending upon his needs, but tonight he forgoes any extra. He meets Bull's eye with a quirk of his lips, and then moves to lay down with him, pressed to his side and within the crook of his arm, a position that's become usual for them.

Strange to think of this gradually becoming normal.

His head rests between Bull's shoulder and chest, and a hand wanders low on his belly, tracing idle, aimless patterns into his skin. Lips press to Bull's clavicle as Dorian tilts his head up, eyes still open. Before the adoring look in them can give him away, Dorian flicks a finger and extinguishes the lantern, plunging them into semi-darkness, only the campfire still burning outside their tent filtering a sliver of light through the front flap.

Bull breathes a quiet sigh as Dorian settles against him. He welcomes the familiar weight of Dorian's head on his shoulder and he slides his arm around the mage to keep him close. The flickering lamp goes out with Dorian's gesture and for several long moments, Bull lays there without completely relaxing. He listens to the sounds in the camp outside, the river not far away. He'd been so lulled just a moment ago and the darkness makes things shift in his mind. Bull tries to push it aside and he twists carefully. Since Dorian has known him, Bull has slept on his back. But now he manages to get on his side, half on top of Dorian but in a position that keeps his weight braced so that he won't crush the man he's holding against him.

He buries his nose in Dorian's dark hair and makes himself breathe deep and slow. Even if he can't quiet his mind, he can quiet his body. He listens to Dorian breathe ans closes his eye. "Is this alright?" he asks after a moment, realizing the position might not be comfortable for Dorian.

It's somewhat surprising, after nearly two months of sleeping one way, to have Bull turning onto his side and pulling him close. There's nothing bad about it from Dorian's perspective, and in fact there's something about the certainty of Bull's weight over and around him that he rather likes. But that isn't all there is to consider.

"It's all right with me," He says slowly. "But it doesn't seem particularly comfortable for you." How is Bull going to keep his weight braced like that all night? Dorian can't help but notice that all the loose-limbed relaxation he'd managed to bring Bull with the massage and horn rub down has dissipated like so much smoke now that the light is gone. Bull is tense again, too awake. A stark contrast to how he'd been dozing off in his lap not so long ago. Both Dorian's hands rub soothingly up over Bull's chest in wide, gentle circles. "Don't you want to sleep?" He wonders softly. There's one thing that he still hasn't done that might help.

Bull shifts a little more: he stretches out the arm he's laying on and uses it to hold his bolster beneath his head. His horns are too unforgiving so he has to keep turning his head until it's tipped down and his horn is resting on the ground behind him. The position would put Bull on his stomach if he let his weight shift any further. It means being closer to Dorian, nearly wrapped around the mage, but it also ensures that the majority of Bull's weight is supported by his side and braced on the outstretched arm. It is, actually, relatively comfortable.

"I want to sleep," he confesses quietly, allowing himself to sound as exhausted as he feels. "I don't know if this place will let me."

Usually, having another body near his own helps keep the worst of the memories and nightmares at bay. But the Veil is apparently thin and everything about this place brings him back to Seheron.

That confession bothers him. He's been working for the last hour to make Bull calm enough to rest, and he'll be damned if he sees him go without sleep tonight. "I'm here, Bull," he assures, and leans up to kiss him, lingering. His hands continue to wander Bull's chest slowly, then back down over his stomach. "Let me help you."

Without any rush, Dorian slides a hand further over Bull's belly and between his legs, fingers brushing over his smallclothes until he finds the shape of his cock--not difficult--and cups as much of it as he can in a gentle palm. Kissing the corner of Bull's mouth, Dorian makes a soft, pleased noise as he strokes him languidly through the fabric. Masturbation before bed is a time-honored method of inducing sleep and relaxation, as Dorian well knows, except that with him here, Bull doesn't have to do it himself. He just has to let Dorian take care of him, as he's been doing all evening.

Edited 2019-10-02 19:35 (UTC)

Bull doesn't actually realize what Dorian is getting at until his hand disappears between them. He huffs a quiet breath and turns his head as much as he can, burying his face against Dorian's hair. At first, Bull thinks he might be beyond even this. But it's Dorian, and Dorian knows him well now. He thinks, briefly, of tamassrans and their ways of helping people. He exhales heavily again but this time it's in response to the desire finally stirring in him. He presses a kiss to Dorian's temple and he keeps his arm tight around the mage.

Before long his cock is hard beneath Dorian's gentle insistence, but Bull's mind has already shifted to other comforts. It takes nothing for him to roll onto his knees, to push close between Dorian's thighs so that he as more than just Dorian's hand to rut against. As sudden as the shift is, Bull remains tender: he braces his weight on his forearms and one hand gently frames Dorian's head.

It's quite relaxing for Dorian too as he works Bull gradually to hardness with the patient grip of his hand. He'd have been happy to do this with some variation--pulling Bull's cock out of his smalls, for example--until Bull spilled, but apparently he has other ideas. It's almost automatic the way Dorian's legs spread to accommodate Bull between them.

"You're supposed to let me do all the work, remember?" Dorian huffs, though it's undeniably fond. But in truth, whatever works for Bull at the moment works for him. Bull is warm and heavy and laying over him close enough to kiss his cheek, at least, with the way the qunari has his face buried in Dorian's hair like the scent of it is tethering him to this moment. "Just let me--here," the mage fusses, getting his hands between them to ease Bull's cock out of his smalls.

He keeps a loose grip around the warm, thick flesh as he guides Bull to rut against his stomach and his silk-clad cock. He hadn't really been intending to include himself in this, but it's impossible not to become aroused when so much about this plays into his own desires. Bull's hard cock slides against his with only a thin layer of fabric separating them, and Dorian can't help but make a soft, wanting noise.

The only answer or acknowledgement Dorian gets for a moment is a slight nod of Bull's head against his own. He knows he's supposed to be letting Dorian take care of him, and he still is. Bull is seeking comfort without thinking and he doesn't resist as Dorian tries to fuss between them. His breath catches and his fingers tighten briefly as Dorian draws his heavy cock out to let Bull rut against him. He can feel Dorian's arousal grow as he moves.

Dorian's voice, soft as it is, sends heat sinking through him. Bull works his hips steadily, falling into a now-familiar rhythm as he seeks relief from-- something. From the thoughts plaguing him, from a restless mind searching for something to be worried about. He is here, with Dorian, and they are as safe as they can be.

He just has to be here.

"Dorian--" Bull's voice is quiet and heavy and he speaks his lover's name like a question. He needs to hear him.

It takes hearing his name in that voice for Dorian to fully realize that Bull is still letting Dorian take care of him. He's doing exactly what he needs to be doing, wherever his head is at. That is somehow even more meaningful, that Bull should finally, finally seek something that Dorian can give to him for a change. That he should show Dorian his needs and allow him to fulfill them.

It feels, at long last, like something equalizing between them. This is not an indulgence on either of their part, but a necessity for both.

"Bull," he replies, equally quiet but lighter, earnest. Relieved, almost. He's hard beneath the smooth silk of his smalls, and Bull's hot, heavy cock leaks onto the warm tan skin of his stomach as he ruts against him in a way that borders on demanding, desperate. "I'm here, I'm here," he assures, and lets one arm loop over Bull's shoulder to settle a hand at the back of his thick neck, gripping there to ground them both. Whatever you need, he nearly whispers, for you, anything. "Keep going," he breathes instead, reassuring and encouraging.

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