aban_aqun | Exalted Plains

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dorian pavus,
psl

Exalted Plains

As they cross Orlais back toward the Frostbacks, a message arrives for the Inquisitor, diverting them to the Exalted Plains. The civil war between Gaspard and the Empress has seen the land war-torn again, ravaged by soldiers and by mages. Bull has been here before, and if he had a choice, he would not be here now.

But he doesn't. This is where the Inquisitor is and so this is where he will be. Their first order of business is to rid the ramparts of demons and spirits and to burn the dead.

Bull hates the close quarters of the ramparts. He can fight in them - he can fight almost anywhere - but he doesn't like it. It reminds him of battles and ambushes in city streets. Qunari didn't use ramparts like this no dug-in fortifications.

The smell of dead and decaying bodies and fresh blood, the sound of far-off skirmishing keep Bull hyper-vigilant and alert. As best he can, he keeps his state to himself. The Inquisitor doesn't need to be preoccupied with him, nor does the rest of the party.

After they set camp between the river and the ruins of Ville Montevelan, Bull sits apart, lost in the sound of the water and a battlefield far away.

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As Dorian presses against him, something in Bull shatters. He wraps his arms tightly around the mage's shoulders and his back and he tries to avoid crushing Dorian in the embrace. He closes his eye, feels the tears slide free as Dorian tries not to sob against his chest. Even now, Bull tries to give him privacy, tries to shield the mage from anyone that might see them.

You would never hurt me.

Bull wants to believe that's true. He knows what he's capable of when his mind becomes untethered, and what is he now if not that? But there are no tamassrans here, no Ben-Hassrath to turn himself in to. He was reassigned here to prevent this from happening again, yet here he is.

He can smell blood and he knows that it's a memory, but it feels very real. He murmurs something against Dorian's hair, voice thick; his accent is heavy when he repeats the apology in a language Dorian will understand.

Vividly, he recalls the things he heard as they walked through the Fade at Adamant. He holds Dorian tighter.

This is precisely what he needs. Bull holds him tight against his body, and Dorian is comforted by the strength of his arms. As there's no use pretending he isn't crying, at this point, he lets the tears fall, and lets himself use Bull's strength to stay upright, leaning heavily against him. He doesn't cry loudly, keeping the noise quiet by forcing himself to draw softer, more even breaths rather than the sharp, hard ones his still panicking body wants him to take.

Bull mutters in Qunlat, then translates in common, as sincere and remorseful an apology as Dorian has ever heard. He sniffles against Bull's chest, and then, feeling that he can do little else to express the full depth of what he's experiencing, he leans back just far enough to wipe his eyes with the knuckles of one hand. And then, without hesitation he reaches up and cradles Bull's jaw in his palm, and urges him down to meet him when he rises up on his tip toes for a desperate kiss, regardless of who may see. Resolutely, he is not ashamed.

"I shouldn't have said that, this morning," he whispers against Bull's lips after, feeling that he, too, must apologize at once. The mania of it grips him, urges him to say his piece. "You must know that I didn't mean it," he pleads. "Regardless of what you meant, it was a cruel thing to say, and I am sorry."

I would have you, is the fleeting thought that accompanies these words, if you had the slightest inclination.

He relaxes his hold as Dorian starts to pull back, not wanting him to feel trapped. But then he's pulling Bull down and they meet in a kiss, and Bull tightens his hold all over again. Dorian kisses him like he's making a point, and in that moment the impact is deep.

What he isn't expecting are the apologies. Bull strokes his thumb beneath Dorian's eye, sweeping away fresh tears before he leans in to kiss him again to accept them all. Part of him knew but part of him had doubted and it left him off balance. Whatever happens, he has no intention of changing their sleeping arrangements now. Kadan, something in him whispers. He doesn't dare breathe the word, even if there is no reason why he shouldn't. The Chargers are kadan, his tamassran is. But this-- this is different and he knows it.

It's dangerous.

But Bull is too tired to worry about it now. Dorian is in his arms, alive and vibrant and safe. He wants to leave. He wants to get out of this citadel.

"It's alright," he murmurs, realizing he should speak. "It's alright. I'm here."

Feeling much lighter after making his apology, Dorian drifts back down onto his heels and lets his forehead rest against the Bull's collarbone again, closing his eyes as he lets the tears finish running their course. He's immensely grateful to have this man in whatever capacity he can. It's some few minutes before he moves again, simply letting himself breathe and exist in the circle of Bull's arms. He still feels safe here. He can help Bull through this.

"You are here," he agrees, grateful and warm. "And so am I, Bull. At the risk of sounding overly syrupy, I'm here for you. Whatever you need."

Looking up to meet his eye, and then drifting up further for another kiss, this one slower and sweeter. Just as he draws away, there's a whistle behind him. Startled, Dorian turns to look over his shoulder, and is unsurprising to see Varric standing some few paces away with Lavellan beside him, both wearing deeply satisfied grins.

"So this is where you two got off to," Lavellan teases. Varric snorts.

"Think we found them before they got off, but yeah," he chuckles. "Tiny, Sparkler, are you coming back to camp with us, or should we just leave you here?"

Dorian forces himself to separate slowly, no rush to be out of Bull's arms. No shame to be caught in them, he consciously reminds himself, despite how deeply he's beginning to flush. Maker, today's been an emotional whirlwind. "If you leave me out here, Varric, I will set fire to your notebook myself," he threatens, and bends over to pick up his staff. He'd get Bull's ax while he was down there, if he had any hope at all of lifting it.

"And be responsible for the destruction of Thedas' next great work of literature before anyone can lay eyes on it?" Varric feigns disbelief.

"All of Thedas can thank me later," Dorian sniffs. When he turns back to Bull, his gaze visibly softens. "Shall we, Bull?" He asks, and makes it a point to remain at Bull's side as they return to camp.

By the time they reach it, night has nearly fallen, and Dorian is feeling exhausted to his bones. He sits close enough to Bull at dinner by the fire that their knees touch the whole time, and their shoulders and elbows brush occasionally.

He shouldn't be laying this burden on Dorian, but having him here has been a balm that Bull didn't even realize he'd been missing. He carefully wipes beneath each of Dorian's eyes, brushing away the trail of his tears and any smudged kohl. Bull leans down more for the next kiss so that Dorian doesn't have to strain so much leaning up.

Somehow, he manages not to jump when he realizes how close their companions have gotten without him noticing. His arm tights around Dorian protectively before recognition sinks through him. Bull slowly relaxes and reluctantly releases the mage as Dorian and Varric banter back and forth. He leans down to heft his ax over his shoulder and he says relatively little on the journey back to camp. Trailing behind Lavellen and Varric, now and then he lets his hand brush against Dorian, reminding himself that he is there and whole.

Bull cleans up before dinner and appears to eat without armor and looking as tired as Dorian feels. He's quiet through dinner though he does his best not to seem withdrawn, tries to make his presence palpable though he speaks little. Every brush of Dorian's body against his makes him want to retire, to sleep for a week. But he waits until at least Lavellen has given up before turning in. As he rises, he waits a breath to see if Dorian is coming with him.

He is. Nearly as soon as Bull heaves himself to his feet, Dorian stands as well. He tells himself that he doesn't care what it looks like, the two of them getting up to turn in together. Everyone already knows about them. And it shouldn't matter anyway; he's taking care of Bull, which is what's really important.

He bids who's left a good night, and endures the suggestive comments and the amused murmurs when their backs are turned. He stays close to Bull, and once they're ensconced inside their own tent, finally away from the rest of the world, he reaches for him. He moves into Bull's space, settling his hands at his waist as he looks up at his face. "How do you feel?" He asks gently.

Dorian, too, had cleaned up before dinner. He's wearing something much simpler now, and he'd taken off most of his makeup--what he hadn't already cried off, anyway. As he looks into the Bull's single eye, he's reminded of that moment earlier when Bull completely failed to recognize him, the rush of fear and sadness and shock that had come over him. But even after Bull had taken a swing at him, he'd been far less afraid of Bull than for him. He just wants him to be all right, and he'll do whatever he can to help him through this.

Bull leans down as Dorian touches him. "Tired," he answers. His brow creases along old lines. I don't know why I'm doing this anymore. That can't be the answer because Bull knows where that answer leads, and he doesn't have the resources here to help him.

He runs his hands over Dorian's arms, thinking again (and again, and again) of the afternoon, of the look on Dorian's face after Bull's ax slammed into the barrier, after he dropped the weapon. He considers the words weighing heavily on his tongue. There are no tamassrans. Krem isn't here. He has no one else to talk to. This information isn't secret among the Ben-Hassrath but it isn't known here, save for what he's told Lavellen.

"I feel like I'm going mad again," he confesses quietly.

"Bull," he says softly, concern and dismay touching his voice. He remembers--had never truly forgotten, really--the headstones in the Fade, one for each of the Inquisitor's companions. The fear that resided deep in each of their own hearts. His own, Temptation, he had scoffed at even as he recognized it in the sick feeling deep in his stomach. He hadn't been able to keep himself from glancing at the others. Beneath the Iron Bull's, a word that had struck Dorian then as much as it does now; Madness.

It seems so very antithetical to the man the Bull is; careful, conscientious, critical. It's difficult to imagine him losing his mind, powerful as it is. But, Dorian supposes, under the right circumstances, anyone could be driven to lose control.

But there is something more here than he knows. He speaks slowly, as though unsure he'd heard correctly. "Again?"

It's a vulnerability, a weak spot. But Dorian has already seen that, hasn't he? In the last day he's seen that. Still, Bull is quiet as he considers how to relay the information. It isn't a secret. But it also isn't widely known.

"On Seheron," he starts. "I was there for eight years. I watched my superiors and my comrades burn out or die but I stayed."

He looks away, staring at some point on the ground as he continues. "There was a baker that supplied bread to my men and most of the settlement. He was jumpy one day, uncomfortable. Found out too late that he'd been threatened into poisoning the bread. Killed a few of mine, but it also killed a tamassran and all her kids."

He still remembers their little bodies curled up near hers. Bull shivers.

"I took what was left of my men to a known Tal-Vashoth stronghold. Some died. Some retreated to get reinforcements. When they came back, they said I was standing in the middle of the slaughter, still and covered in blood. Reports after that differ slightly. Someone said I asked to be taken to the Ben-Hassrath right then and there. Someone else said I did that the next morning."

His own memories are slightly fuzzy on that point.

Dorian knows already about Bull's length of service on Seheron--knows he was there far, far longer than anyone should rightly be. Assumed that there had to be quite a lot of baggage that went with that. Bull had asked him once, in those early days when Dorian had been constantly antagonizing him, if Dorian had ever used his magic to burn down a dormitory full of children. He'd almost sounded like he was joking, but it was the specificity of his words that had quickly shut Dorian up.

The number of horrors that the Bull must have had to bear witness to, survive, and perhaps even perpetuate--how could anyone possibly understand? He'd spent nearly a decade in the worst place Dorian can think of, and he'd still come out of it a good man.

He listens to Bull recount this incident with growing unease, feels dread clench cold and hard in his stomach when Bull reaches I asked to be taken to the Ben-Hassrath. He knows what that means. "You volunteered to be re-educated?" He asks softly, almost disbelieving. But Bull had lost his memory to the point where he doesn't recall when he made that request; it seems he'd blacked out entirely after rage consumed him, and Dorian fully understands the meaning of the word on that headstone now. Bull is afraid of becoming untethered; losing his self control. He is afraid of hurting others. He is afraid of precisely what had happened that day, when he'd drifted far enough into his memories to nearly hurt Dorian.

"You aren't going mad," Dorian asserts at once, gentle but unyielding. "You've been reminded of something horrible from your past, and you need help processing it. Anyone would, Bull."

“I did,” he says quietly. “I wanted them to fix me or put me down, but I didn’t want to continue on like that.”

Bull lifts his gaze to meet Dorian’s.

“I was a danger to myself and to others. And I couldn’t think of a single reason to keep doing my job. So I went back to Seheron for about a year, and during that I went through re-education.”

He’s quiet again, considering it he wants to continue.

“I wanted them to rip all the pages out. Everything that led up to that moment and everything after. But they left them.”

He still remembers Seheron vividly. It haunts his nightmares and his memories and sometimes in waking moments like at the citadel.

“I could have killed you, Dorian. For a moment, I wanted to.”

Fix me or put me down, he says, and Dorian's chest aches. How close had it come to the latter? How close had he come to never meeting the Bull at all? And that he'd asked for it himself--that more than anything proves to Dorian the Bull's dedication to to keeping those around him safe. He is right to trust him.

At the moment, however, all he wants to do is hold him. He thinks of last night, of the Bull's head heavy in his lap, smoothing the cardamom-scented balm over his horns until he'd fallen asleep there. Leaning down to kiss his brow. How the soft sleepiness had lingered after--until he turned the lights out.

"No," he asserts. His hands slide from Bull's waist around to his back as Dorian steps closer. "You'd never want to. Not really." He meets Bull's eye carefully as he adds, "I won't let you deal with this alone, and I won't have you condemning yourself. Though if it makes you feel any better, in the unlikely event that you actually go on some sort of rampage, I am by far the most qualified person in this camp to deal with you."

Bull gives Dorian a sad look. Maybe the mage is right, but he wonders what he might be capable of if his mind snaps again.

“Feint on the left and go low,” he murmurs. “I leave myself open.”

Dorian could kill him from a distance if Bull doesn’t see him first, but he gives the advice all the same. He leans down to kiss the top of Dorian’s head. He refuses to think of what else might put them at odds: an order from Par Vollen.

“I’d see a tamassran if I were home,” he admits. “Or— well. Definitely a tamassran.”

His doubt isn’t enough to send him back to the Ben-Hassrath re-educators yet. Yet.

Dorian takes the advice in stride, but determined that it will never see use. In his heart, he doesn't know that he could, especially when Bull's lips press to the top of his head. So gentle.

Though he is hardly a substitute for a tamassran--and indeed, still doesn't entirely understand their full purpose, with all the nuances Bull has described--he'd done well enough last night, hadn't he? Thoughts of the uniquely intense connection they'd shared, of the trust that the Bull had placed in him, make his pulse beat faster. Fondly, he reaches up for Bull's face with one hand, fingers tracing lightly along the familiar scars toward his lips. "Let's go to bed then, shall we?"

He kisses where he can easily reach just below Bull's collarbone, and smiles up at him. "I'll even pamper you again if you like."

Bull stays as he is for a moment, holding on to Dorian while the mage wraps around him as much as he can. He turns his head into Dorian's touch and lets his eye close. "Alright."

After the past two days, Bull doesn't have much fight left in him. He wants to set his burdens down; he wants to rest. That won't be possible for a while yet - none of them know how long Lavellen will conduct business here before they return to Skyhold. He will endure, as he always does.

Dorian's smile shifts something inside him and Bull leans in, hesitates just for a breath, then brushes a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I'd like that," he concedes.

"Shok ebasit hissra," he says quietly, mostly to himself. He needs the Qun: Seheron proved that and despite living as the Iron Bull for a decade, he keeps his ties to his people as tight as he can. He can't lose himself like that again. He might not come back.

Edited 2019-10-20 05:10 (UTC)

Dorian tilts his head just enough to turn that brush of lips into a proper kiss, happy for Bull's agreement. He'll do everything he can for him, and gladly.

He wishes, in what is truly a singular and strange moment in his life, that he knew more of the Qun. He thinks it would calm Bull to hear it, especially the poetic verses he had recited for him back in the Hissing Wastes. But as he doesn't, he settles for allowing Bull to murmur, and speaking encouragement and admiration in the common tongue instead.

Dorian doesn't remove any clothing just yet, having changed into something more comfortable earlier after returning to camp and washing up, but he encourages Bull to strip, both for better access to his leg and--as he puts it with a smirk--some incentive. He jokes, but it's at least partly true. The Bull is magnificent, and Dorian will never tire of looking at him, let alone touching him.

Then he lays him down and pampers him, just as he'd promised, and just as he had last night. A thorough massage for his left leg with the magical warmth of his hands, and then a slow rub down of his horns with his specially made balm. When he's finished with that, he leans down to kiss his brow, where the strap of the eye patch he'd already removed would normally fall.

"How are you feeling, Bull?" He speaks low and soft, so as not to disturb him too much if he's been dozing.

There is something simple and lulling about being touched. Before Dorian, Bull didn't really have anyone - other than tamassrans - that would do things like this. Stitches does the best he can with making horn balm or poultices when Bull's leg is bad. He nearly falls asleep under Dorian's touch, drifting in and out until he feels the press of lips against his brow.

"Tired," he admits. The kind of bone-deep tired that won't fade easily, but Bull can live with it. A good night's sleep will help, he just hopes he can manage one. His hand slides back to touch whatever part of Dorian he can reach.

"What about you?" he asks after a moment. As quick as Dorian is, Bull still swung an ax at him today. His body might be in one piece but Bull can't imagine that dealing with that - or the fallout after - is easy. The last thing he wants is for Dorian to hit some wall of compassion fatigue from taking care of him.

Bull's hand touches his knee, and Dorian smiles at his concern. "Tired," he admits in return. "But all the more reason to go to bed, yes?"

For his part, Dorian has been largely avoiding thinking about that moment. It's come back to him again anyway occasionally throughout the day, a surge of shock fear. But he isn't afraid of the Bull. Truly, he isn't; hasn't been for a long time now. He knows he could take care of himself if it ever came to a direct fight. He knows that Bull was not himself in that moment, and he wants to do whatever he can to ensure that doesn't happen again.

This is part of it. He's found that he enjoys this, making Bull feel good and relaxed. It's something the Bull does for him so often.

"Let me up, and we'll lie down," he bids. After last night, he can't help but wonder what it is Bull will need from him tonight, but he's confident that he'll be able to figure it out.

Bull props himself up so that Dorian can get out from beneath his head. He settles back down again and carefully settles his bolster beneath his head. He stays on his back rather than wrapping around Dorian the way he had the night before. Still, he reaches for the mage as soon as he starts sinking down to the bed roll.

He isn't entirely sure what he needs or how to articulate it, but he will take what Dorian offers him and he will do it gratefully.

"It was the civilians," he says after a long moment. Seeing soldiers dead on battlefields is one thing - it bothers Bull but in a different way. Seeing the people that had been left behind to die made something snap inside him. "The room they barricaded themselves into-- it was full of soldiers. How could they just leave him."

Dorian takes a few minutes to finish his own routine and remove his clothes before he settles down with Bull, settling close at his side and allowing a thick arm to pull him closer still.

"I know," Dorian murmurs as he rubs a soothing hand slowly across the expanse of the Bull's chest. It had bothered him too--quite a bit, actually. Though he doesn't have the Bull's years of experiences with such atrocities, doesn't have his memories. "It wasn't right. I don't know how people justify these things to themselves, but...no matter how terrified I might be, I wouldn't leave innocent people to die like that."

Dorian hates to think of himself as an idealist, given how easily those types are crushed by the wheel of Tevinter, but at heart he truly is. Which is perhaps why he believes so strongly that he can still help Bull, even being a poor substitute for the tamassran he truly needs.

He lets his mouth wander slowly up the thick column of the Bull's throat with soothing, affectionate kisses. "Do you want to talk about it more?" He asks. He'll give Bull his ear for as long as he needs it, if he does--or he'll give him another way to work through his disquieting frustration, a simpler outlet for his distress.

Bull brushes his fingers along Dorian's hip and stares at the ceiling of the tent. He's already voiced his feelings about the civil war in general. He doesn't understand how anyone that professes to know what's best for their people could do this to them. All it's doing is ravaging the population, sowing dissent and division, creating long-bleeding wounds.

He sighs and pushes it out of his head.

"I don't know," he admits softly. He doesn't really talk about Seheron. He's spoken about it with the Inquisitor but only because Lavellen asked, and even then he'd hedged his answers somewhat. A quiet part of his mind whispers that he could teach Dorian how to make the concoctions the Ben-Hassrath use to facilitate re-education, to make the mind more malleable. But it takes more than that, and he knows Dorian wouldn't want to do it. Perhaps he wouldn't be capable.

He closes his eye and breathes deep, comforted by the scent of the balm Dorian had rubbed over his horns.

It hurts in a way Dorian's never quite experienced before to hear Bull's quiet I don't know. Ridiculous, honestly, that he's never felt so protective of anyone as he does this seven and a half foot tall Qunari warrior. Laying against his side, skin to skin, he wants to do more for him. He leans up to kiss his cheek, and then the scarred corner of his mouth.

"You don't have to," Dorian assures him. "We'll take this one step at a time, yes? And you can talk as much or as little as you like." He doesn't know either, but he's determined to figure it out. Will what had worked last night work again? Does Bull need something else? "For now, why don't you kiss me?" he suggests, sliding one thigh over Bull's to press flush against him. He guides Bull's hand from his hip to his thigh, encouraging him to hold there.

He's instructive, but gently so, leaving room for Bull to take this in whatever direction he pleases.

Bull tips his head and gently draws Dorian into a kiss. There isn't much heat behind it but there is something else-- Something like need. Dorian is alive and vibrant against him, despite what could have happened today. He pulls him closer, hand gentle but firm on Dorian's thigh. Dorian always wears clothes that flatter him; Bull remembers the first time he saw the mage in those leathers that left so little of his shape to the imagination. His thumb strokes over the warm skin.

He wants to distance his mind from everything that happened today.

"Talk to me about-- something," he says uselessly. Bull nuzzles Dorian's cheek. "Anything. What did you think when you saw me in Redcliffe?"

Edited 2019-10-22 01:23 (UTC)

They kiss, and Dorian settles comfortably against Bull, as he has done for so many nights now that it's almost begun to feel normal. Almost merely because every time he does it, some part of Dorian still can't quite believe it. Bull's stubble scrapes over his cheek, and Dorian laughs, amused and incredulous about his choice of question. "I don't know that I should tell you what I thought," he hedges. "You'd never let me live it down."

He really wouldn't if he admitted aloud how his eye had been drawn immediately to the Bull's form; the way his impressive body moved in battle, and the sheer expanse of him up close, the reality of his size.

But there had also been that...wariness. That instinct that told him that Bull was dangerous, not to be trusted; decades of Imperium propaganda manifested in front of him. Of course, that only served to make him more attractive, damn Dorian's tastes, but somehow he doesn't think that telling the Bull here and now I thought you'd kill me at a moment's notice would be reassuring.

"Maker guide me," he sighs, resigned. Because if there is anything that's certain to suitably distract the Iron Bull, it's Dorian admitting to some of his early confused attraction. "Fine. I'll confess that there was an initial...fascination. An allure, perhaps. Something about the bare chest and bulging muscles and horns--I'd never seen a Qunari quite so close before, and you were the very picture of the savage brute I'd always been warned about. There was only so long that I could convince myself that you were only interesting to me because it was all so obscene."

He buries his face against the side of the Bull's neck and groans. "Ugh. And next I suppose you're going to tell me you knew all of that already, and just wanted to hear me say it out loud."

Bull smiles faintly as he listens. He remembers the look on Dorian's face, but he'd been too preoccupied reading the rest of the situation to really focus on picking apart what was happening there. Most of it doesn't surprise him, especially now that he knows Dorian better.

"It was the way you beat the crap out of a demon with your staff," he says, sounding downright fond. "That's the first thing I noticed. You didn't try to gain distance to keep working spells, you just whacked it. Then it was the elegant curve of your neck, your high-born, well-educated accent. And the way your lip curled when you set eyes on me."

Bull strokes his fingers along Dorian's thigh.

"After dealing with Alexius, I didn't trust you. But damn, you were pretty."

Exalted Plains

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