For the first time in weeks, Dorian relaxes. The hot water loosens his muscles, the steam soothes his throat, and of course, Bull's big hands in his hair, the scratch of blunted claws against his scalp, are better than anything. His eyes slide closed, and the only sounds he makes are satisfied sighs, or the occasional word of instruction to Bull about what he should do next. In the end, Bull washes his back for him as well, and Dorian has to finish the rest of his bath up quickly after that to avoid falling asleep in the water.
"And now to bed," he yawns as he steps out of the tub and into a towel. "I think I'll need that nap before anything else." He hesitates a moment before he asks, "Will you stay with me?"
Rather than press for information, Bull lets Dorian relax. He talks idly, filling the silence himself instead. Random gossip from around Skyhold, interesting or strange or just silly happenings.
When Dorian's finished in the bath, Bull helps him out of the tub. His expression softens at the hesitant request.
"Yeah, of course I will."
Bull sits on the edge of the bed so he can get his brace and boots off. He watches Dorian while he does, drinking in the sight of him. Bull doesn't like being left behind, but more than that, he doesn't like being left when Dorian goes.
Wearing something clean--his housecoat, of course, kept more often than not in Bull's room, and thoroughly washed since he'd worn it that night on the balcony in Val Royeaux--Dorian settles into bed, gladly breathing in Bull's familiar scent on the sheets and pillows. There had been no hesitation on Bull's part when he'd asked if he'd stay. As it is, he's undressing, carefully removing his boots and brace. Sneakily, a bare leg slides out from beneath the layers of his housecoat, and he brushes a foot over Bull's thigh.
"My feet are quite sore," he mentions, seemingly innocuously. "I did far too much traipsing through fetid swamp water. It ruined my boots, I think. Who calls a place the Fallow Mire, anyway? Surely that can't be what it says on the map. Who would want to live there?"
Bull chuckles when he feels Dorian's foot against his thigh. He turns slowly, tucking his right leg as he leaves the rest hanging over the edge of the bed so that Dorian's foot is properly in his lap.
"Pass me that lotion," he says with a nod toward the nightstand. Dorian's closer to it. The small bottle is another one of Dorian's things that's migrated into his room. Something he hasn't bothered to try to return to its proper place because he likes thinking that this is its proper place.
"Sure whoever named it that wasn't from there." A dry smile curves his mouth as he gets started on Dorian's foot. The pressure is gentle but firm, and he absently hits the spots he knows will be sore. He pauses, then adds, "Red said the area saw plague, though. Might've gotten that name in the aftermath."
Dorian passes the little bottle, recognizing it as his own as he does. He really does keep quite a lot of his things in Bull's room now. It makes sense. When they're together in Skyhold, he inevitably finds himself sleeping here at least half the time.
As Bull takes him up on his unsubtle hinting with apparent ease, Dorian relaxes back into the bed, making a low noise that sounds dirty even to his own ears as Bull's fingers dig into the arch of his foot.
"Well, whenever the name came about, it was apt," Dorian grumbles, and proceeds to tell Bull of their experiences there--demons, corpses, and Avvar included, but especially all of the inconveniences to him personally. By the time he circles back around to Varric's snoring, however, he's already trailing off, falling asleep gradually as the comfort of the bed and Bull's presence lull him.
Bull gets through both of Dorian's feet and his calves before the mage starts drifting off. Only when he's sure Dorian is out - or nearly there - does he let him go. He gets up carefully so that he can move to the other side of the bed, then eases onto his back next to Dorian. They have a couple hours before a tray arrives for them - he'd told Cabot just to send something up whenever dinner was being served.
He drifts in and out next to Dorian, content to hold him again, to have him close and alive and warm against his side.
When he hears a quiet knock at the door, he gets up again to retrieve their food and set it on a sideboard. He's put more furniture in here since Dorian started hanging around, though the room still looks a bit... savage. He plans to keep it that way for the foreseeable future and is grateful that most of Dorian's complaining seems perfunctory.
When Dorian wakes several hours later, he's pleased to find the indent in the bed beside him where Bull had lain still warm. He rolls over slowly, blinking away sleep, and his bleary eyes find Bull's shape immediately, setting trays down on the table. It was the smell of the food, probably, that woke him.
"I know I've been away too long when food from the Rest starts smelling edible," he sighs. It smells very good, as a matter of fact, and he'll gladly eat it. But the complaint is almost second nature. He sits up slowly, then swings his legs over the side of the bed. "Did you go downstairs to get it?" he wonders. If so, he'd missed that entirely.
"No, I told Cabot to send something up whenever they started serving dinner."
He watches Dorian get up and he can't help the small smile that crosses his face. Dorian is sleep-tousled and his robe is threatening to slide off one shoulder before it's righted again. Bull sinks down onto a stool; there's a proper chair that he's ceded to Dorian. It's not his ass that's just been horseback and on foot for hours.
"I see. Thoughtful of you." That's his way of saying thanks, anyway. "And here I thought you only lived above the tavern for its proximity to the bar. Now I understand that it's both the bar and the kitchen." He smiles slyly up at Bull, and adjusts his robe, pulling it closed and retying it around his waist.
His hair, however, remains an artful mess, as it dries into its natural waves on top of a case of bedhead. His moustache is unstyled as well, though his face has been freshly shaved. He settles into the chair, pulling a plate over for himself. "Did he send beer as well? Or will I have to venture downstairs for that?"
Bull nods to the tankards on the tray. "That's beer. If you want water, one of us will have to venture out. Are you staying tonight?"
He doesn't want to presume, though he's done plenty of it since Dorian set foot through Skyhold's main gate. But this is different. Bull wants him here and that feels dangerous, and so it's one of those things he will always leave to Dorian. Well, almost always.
"So Cabot does care about me," Dorian concludes with satisfaction, and takes a deep drink from the tankard immediately. How something so objectively terrible could taste so refreshing remains a mystery.
Another mystery: the parameters of this thing with the Bull. Dorian had assumed he'd stay, but now that Bull is asking, he feels unsure. "I'd like to," he admits, though he's looking at his food when he says it. "It seemed you had some unmentionably obscene plans for me." Of course, that doesn't mean he needs to stay the night, but the last time he'd actually left after having sex was months ago.
"I want you to," Bull assures, soft and warm. He doesn't think Dorian is here out of obligation, he's perfectly capable of standing up for himself. But it feels good to hear all the same.
And after they've established that, Bull allows himself a more wolfish smile.
"I never did get to show you what I bought in Val Royeaux."
Because Bull's smile makes heat spike along his neck much sooner than Dorian is ready for that sort of thing, he averts his gaze quickly, though it's probably too obvious. He cuts his food, pretending nonchalance.
"No, you didn't. As I recall, we had other things on our mind." He's certainly replayed that encounter in his mind more than once over the last month. "So long as you're gentle with my ass, whatever you have planned should be fine," he says archly, far too imperious for essentially admitting that he's a bit saddle sore. The ride back wasn't pleasant.
"You know I'll take care of you," he says warmly. "For as long as you can stand it."
A few ideas work through his head and Bull resists the urge to look up at the exposed beams in his room. Maybe suspending Dorian would be too much for the first time, but it's an idea to think about for later.
For some reason, that statement makes Dorian flush more than Bull's grin had--and for an entirely different reason. Bull is very sweet. He hadn't expected that, in the beginning.
"I know," he says quietly, and smiles, matching Bull's warmth. The way he trusts the Bull is unlike anything else. How ironic that is, considering how suspicious of him he'd been when they met. If he'd known a year ago that he would trust a Qunari spy more than anyone else alive, he certainly would have questioned his life choices. But how could Bull be anything but genuine?
They talk a little more as they finish their meal, and when Bull assures him that the library hasn't gone up in flames in his absence, Dorian agrees that a visit can wait until tomorrow. "But I would like another drink," Dorian muses. "I suppose I should dress and make myself presentable, shouldn't I?" He's just sat here having dinner with Bull in nothing but a robe and a fresh face, and hadn't felt self-conscious about it at all.
Bull smiles when Dorian mentions looking presentable. "Chargers might be delighted by your house coat, but if you don't want any of them making comments, yeah, you might want to get dressed."
He rises to collect their plates and bowls and tankards onto the tray again. He'll bring it down with them and hand them off to some kitchen maid or another.
When they do make it downstairs (delayed slightly by Bull helping Dorian dress), the Chargers are in their corner, already a few drinks in.
Dorian, dressed in the nicest set of robes he's worn in a month and with his hair and face tamed and made up, makes his way to the bar to order their drinks as Bull drops off their trays. He keeps a close eye on Bull's progress, trailing him to the Chargers' table with tankards in hand.
In truth, he doesn't quite know what to make of the Chargers. There are times that he likes them very much, and thinks perhaps he's liked back, and others when he feels like he's still regarded with suspicion. After it was apparent that he and Bull were fucking (and, additionally, sharing a room) regularly and unlikely to stop, it seemed that his presence had been accepted on a conditional basis. Yet he still gets the sense that he's mostly tolerated for Bull's sake.
Still, what can he do but armor himself in his typical confidence? He lets Bull take his usual seat, and then sweeps in to place a tankard in front of him. "As thanks for dinner," he says, as though he needs a real reason to buy Bull a drink.
Bull settles down and accepts the tankard Dorian offers. He gently kicks out a seat next to him, dragged over so that Dorian could join the already-settled Chargers. Krem is the first to offer a little welcome, and soon after the rest of them chime in.
Stitches launches into asking about plants and the Avaar, and Dalish is morbidly fascinated whenever Dorian mentions the walking dead. Bull smiles as he listens, content to let his boys play as long as they behave. And if anyone sounds more catty or sharper than he likes, it's a quick warning look their way.
Dorian doesn't need harassing, regardless of his relation to the Bull.
Dorian is happy to expound upon the details of his trip for the amusement of the group a large, occasionally overplaying his own irritation or discomfort with mundane things to get a laugh from the group. Dorian knows how to fool others, too; how to draw their attention away from true problems by fabricating smaller ones. He's quite good at the high and mighty noble Tevinter act, sniffing at southerners and complaining at every inconvenience. Some find it amusing, others irritating, but it's worked well enough for him so far. No one pries too far into his personal affairs.
Apart from, of course, his affair with the Bull.
There are a few teasing words about how the chief might have welcomed him back after that display in the courtyard, and Dorian--as per usual, when this topic comes up--clams up almost at once. "I don't see how that concerns any of you," he says tightly.
Skinner, several seats down the table, gives a lazy half shrug. "Chief doesn't fuck anyone for this long," she drawls, the vowels of her lower-class Orlesian accent drawn out. "Just want to know you didn't put a spell on his dick, shem."
Dorian had known already, of course, that as far as the Bull's sexual history is concerned, he's a special case. But if even his company is noting it as unusual, it must truly be unprecedented. Arching a single brow, Dorian turns to Bull beside him, and with a remarkably straight face asks, "Have I put a spell on your dick, Bull?"
Bull is content to listen and watch, but his gaze cuts to Skinner when she decides to chime in with that. Dorian's voice is already tight before she jumps in.
"No one fucks me for this long," he counters in a heavy drawl of his own. He sees Krem lean forward, ready to call order or jump to some kind of defense, but he knows timing and he stays silent for now.
Dorian's question, his recovery, makes Bull want to smile. But he keeps himself solemn.
"I wouldn't put it past a Vint," he says slyly; his eye is bright. "But I think I'll survive."
Bull wants nothing more then than to kiss him or touch him, but he doesn't want to ruin Dorian's spiky momentum. Serves Skinner right.
Bull's response brings a smile to Dorian's lips, enough that he reaches beneath the table to slip his hand into Bull's. "See? He'll live. A relief for us all."
Apparently that's enough to satisfy Skinner, who leans back and begins talking to Rocky around Dalish. Dorian is aware that it was (probably) a joke. He's also well aware that Skinner is the slowest of the bunch to warm up to anyone new, let alone a human Tevinter mage, and that if she can manage to tolerate him, the rest probably like him just fine. Still, it's a relief to have it over with.
Their chairs are close enough that Dorian can lean into Bull--and up--to murmur at least near his ear, "I think it's time we had a proper reunion, yes?"
Bull brushes his thumb over Dorian's knuckles and relaxes back in his chair. He listens to the conversation carry on, but soon enough he has Dorian's voice in his ear.
"Mm, yeah. You go ahead, I'll catch up."
Might as well give Dorian a slight head start. Or maybe some dignity in leaving before him - without him - directly on his heels. Everyone knows, but he can give Dorian things like this.
"No need." If Bull is making the suggestion for his sake, then Dorian decides that tonight it isn't necessary. Everyone knows. Everyone knows. Let him, for once in his life, go upstairs with the man he's sleeping with. Everyone in the tavern can turn and look, for all he cares. He squeezes Bull's hand.
Walking up the stairs to Bull's room has never felt so exhilarating--not even the first time. Dorian feels relieved, excited, but above all, proud. The world hasn't ended because he and Bull had gone upstairs together, nor because Bull had kissed him in the courtyard today. Everyone knows they're intimate, and no one respects him less for it--or if they do, they're hardly someone worth knowing in the first place.
Brimming with restless energy, Dorian turns and reaches for the Bull as soon as they hit the landing, still half the hall away from his door and within view of the tables upstairs. He lays his hands over his biceps, squeezing gently, and he steps close enough that the fabric of his shirt brushes the Bull's bare chest. He tilts his chin to look up at him, a greater distance when they stand so close, and his expression is open and warm.
"It was terribly rude of you," he says, "to spend a month here cozy and drunk while I was freezing to death in a coprse-infested bog." In other words: I missed you.
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"And now to bed," he yawns as he steps out of the tub and into a towel. "I think I'll need that nap before anything else." He hesitates a moment before he asks, "Will you stay with me?"
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When Dorian's finished in the bath, Bull helps him out of the tub. His expression softens at the hesitant request.
"Yeah, of course I will."
Bull sits on the edge of the bed so he can get his brace and boots off. He watches Dorian while he does, drinking in the sight of him. Bull doesn't like being left behind, but more than that, he doesn't like being left when Dorian goes.
"Dinner is coming up later."
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"My feet are quite sore," he mentions, seemingly innocuously. "I did far too much traipsing through fetid swamp water. It ruined my boots, I think. Who calls a place the Fallow Mire, anyway? Surely that can't be what it says on the map. Who would want to live there?"
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"Pass me that lotion," he says with a nod toward the nightstand. Dorian's closer to it. The small bottle is another one of Dorian's things that's migrated into his room. Something he hasn't bothered to try to return to its proper place because he likes thinking that this is its proper place.
"Sure whoever named it that wasn't from there." A dry smile curves his mouth as he gets started on Dorian's foot. The pressure is gentle but firm, and he absently hits the spots he knows will be sore. He pauses, then adds, "Red said the area saw plague, though. Might've gotten that name in the aftermath."
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As Bull takes him up on his unsubtle hinting with apparent ease, Dorian relaxes back into the bed, making a low noise that sounds dirty even to his own ears as Bull's fingers dig into the arch of his foot.
"Well, whenever the name came about, it was apt," Dorian grumbles, and proceeds to tell Bull of their experiences there--demons, corpses, and Avvar included, but especially all of the inconveniences to him personally. By the time he circles back around to Varric's snoring, however, he's already trailing off, falling asleep gradually as the comfort of the bed and Bull's presence lull him.
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He drifts in and out next to Dorian, content to hold him again, to have him close and alive and warm against his side.
When he hears a quiet knock at the door, he gets up again to retrieve their food and set it on a sideboard. He's put more furniture in here since Dorian started hanging around, though the room still looks a bit... savage. He plans to keep it that way for the foreseeable future and is grateful that most of Dorian's complaining seems perfunctory.
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"I know I've been away too long when food from the Rest starts smelling edible," he sighs. It smells very good, as a matter of fact, and he'll gladly eat it. But the complaint is almost second nature. He sits up slowly, then swings his legs over the side of the bed. "Did you go downstairs to get it?" he wonders. If so, he'd missed that entirely.
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He watches Dorian get up and he can't help the small smile that crosses his face. Dorian is sleep-tousled and his robe is threatening to slide off one shoulder before it's righted again. Bull sinks down onto a stool; there's a proper chair that he's ceded to Dorian. It's not his ass that's just been horseback and on foot for hours.
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His hair, however, remains an artful mess, as it dries into its natural waves on top of a case of bedhead. His moustache is unstyled as well, though his face has been freshly shaved. He settles into the chair, pulling a plate over for himself. "Did he send beer as well? Or will I have to venture downstairs for that?"
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He doesn't want to presume, though he's done plenty of it since Dorian set foot through Skyhold's main gate. But this is different. Bull wants him here and that feels dangerous, and so it's one of those things he will always leave to Dorian. Well, almost always.
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Another mystery: the parameters of this thing with the Bull. Dorian had assumed he'd stay, but now that Bull is asking, he feels unsure. "I'd like to," he admits, though he's looking at his food when he says it. "It seemed you had some unmentionably obscene plans for me." Of course, that doesn't mean he needs to stay the night, but the last time he'd actually left after having sex was months ago.
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And after they've established that, Bull allows himself a more wolfish smile.
"I never did get to show you what I bought in Val Royeaux."
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"No, you didn't. As I recall, we had other things on our mind." He's certainly replayed that encounter in his mind more than once over the last month. "So long as you're gentle with my ass, whatever you have planned should be fine," he says archly, far too imperious for essentially admitting that he's a bit saddle sore. The ride back wasn't pleasant.
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A few ideas work through his head and Bull resists the urge to look up at the exposed beams in his room. Maybe suspending Dorian would be too much for the first time, but it's an idea to think about for later.
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"I know," he says quietly, and smiles, matching Bull's warmth. The way he trusts the Bull is unlike anything else. How ironic that is, considering how suspicious of him he'd been when they met. If he'd known a year ago that he would trust a Qunari spy more than anyone else alive, he certainly would have questioned his life choices. But how could Bull be anything but genuine?
They talk a little more as they finish their meal, and when Bull assures him that the library hasn't gone up in flames in his absence, Dorian agrees that a visit can wait until tomorrow. "But I would like another drink," Dorian muses. "I suppose I should dress and make myself presentable, shouldn't I?" He's just sat here having dinner with Bull in nothing but a robe and a fresh face, and hadn't felt self-conscious about it at all.
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He rises to collect their plates and bowls and tankards onto the tray again. He'll bring it down with them and hand them off to some kitchen maid or another.
When they do make it downstairs (delayed slightly by Bull helping Dorian dress), the Chargers are in their corner, already a few drinks in.
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In truth, he doesn't quite know what to make of the Chargers. There are times that he likes them very much, and thinks perhaps he's liked back, and others when he feels like he's still regarded with suspicion. After it was apparent that he and Bull were fucking (and, additionally, sharing a room) regularly and unlikely to stop, it seemed that his presence had been accepted on a conditional basis. Yet he still gets the sense that he's mostly tolerated for Bull's sake.
Still, what can he do but armor himself in his typical confidence? He lets Bull take his usual seat, and then sweeps in to place a tankard in front of him. "As thanks for dinner," he says, as though he needs a real reason to buy Bull a drink.
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Stitches launches into asking about plants and the Avaar, and Dalish is morbidly fascinated whenever Dorian mentions the walking dead. Bull smiles as he listens, content to let his boys play as long as they behave. And if anyone sounds more catty or sharper than he likes, it's a quick warning look their way.
Dorian doesn't need harassing, regardless of his relation to the Bull.
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Apart from, of course, his affair with the Bull.
There are a few teasing words about how the chief might have welcomed him back after that display in the courtyard, and Dorian--as per usual, when this topic comes up--clams up almost at once. "I don't see how that concerns any of you," he says tightly.
Skinner, several seats down the table, gives a lazy half shrug. "Chief doesn't fuck anyone for this long," she drawls, the vowels of her lower-class Orlesian accent drawn out. "Just want to know you didn't put a spell on his dick, shem."
Dorian had known already, of course, that as far as the Bull's sexual history is concerned, he's a special case. But if even his company is noting it as unusual, it must truly be unprecedented. Arching a single brow, Dorian turns to Bull beside him, and with a remarkably straight face asks, "Have I put a spell on your dick, Bull?"
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"No one fucks me for this long," he counters in a heavy drawl of his own. He sees Krem lean forward, ready to call order or jump to some kind of defense, but he knows timing and he stays silent for now.
Dorian's question, his recovery, makes Bull want to smile. But he keeps himself solemn.
"I wouldn't put it past a Vint," he says slyly; his eye is bright. "But I think I'll survive."
Bull wants nothing more then than to kiss him or touch him, but he doesn't want to ruin Dorian's spiky momentum. Serves Skinner right.
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Apparently that's enough to satisfy Skinner, who leans back and begins talking to Rocky around Dalish. Dorian is aware that it was (probably) a joke. He's also well aware that Skinner is the slowest of the bunch to warm up to anyone new, let alone a human Tevinter mage, and that if she can manage to tolerate him, the rest probably like him just fine. Still, it's a relief to have it over with.
Their chairs are close enough that Dorian can lean into Bull--and up--to murmur at least near his ear, "I think it's time we had a proper reunion, yes?"
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"Mm, yeah. You go ahead, I'll catch up."
Might as well give Dorian a slight head start. Or maybe some dignity in leaving before him - without him - directly on his heels. Everyone knows, but he can give Dorian things like this.
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"Let's go together, Bull."
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"Tavern better still be here in the morning," he warns his boys with a pointed nod to Krem. Then he follows Dorian up the stairs.
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Brimming with restless energy, Dorian turns and reaches for the Bull as soon as they hit the landing, still half the hall away from his door and within view of the tables upstairs. He lays his hands over his biceps, squeezing gently, and he steps close enough that the fabric of his shirt brushes the Bull's bare chest. He tilts his chin to look up at him, a greater distance when they stand so close, and his expression is open and warm.
"It was terribly rude of you," he says, "to spend a month here cozy and drunk while I was freezing to death in a coprse-infested bog." In other words: I missed you.
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