Disclaimer: I own none of the characters, ideas, etc., of Dragon Age in any medium.
Summary: Matters come to a head for the Bull and Dorian on an otherwise routine mission.
You might ask, "Where and how does this fit into the game?" and I reply, "Shut your mouth, it's art crawl." So let's just call this AU-ish and be done with the mess. "But seriously-" Shut your mouth! It's art crawl!
The Heart of the Labyrinth
The whole business justified, by the darting look Dorian shot the wall beyond the Bull's shoulder.
"Oh," he said, "it's that sort of party," but fired it at the wall. Poor wall. Innocent of this most heinous crime.
The Bull sucked at his gut and tugged the newly tailored jacket flat across his chest. All the cloth constrained. He felt like a sausage, meat packed in a sleeve.
"Put that smoke out, Dorian," he said. "You'll set the estate on fire. And Josie's friend wouldn't like that."
Dorian fussed with his sleeves, cut up the insides and sewn with contrasting flaps so that the wrists hung like bells. His mouth pulled.
"Well, we wouldn't want to upset Josephine's friend, forced to entertain us with little warning. What is that?" He eyed the Bull's shoulder with a suspicion to warm the heart. "Canvas?"
"Linen," said the Bull, "and silk." He particularly savored the sibilants, his tongue on his teeth.
Dorian's nostrils flared. Here a man tottered, on the verge of apoplexy. As he stepped around Dorian, quite careful not to brush Dorian with chest or thigh, the Bull bent and spoke the nudge:
"You could touch it. If you want. I won't tell."
"I'd rather slit my wrists," said Dorian, but he delivered it with only the usual heat. So perhaps they were again on even ground.
The Bull laughed and drew away. Again he pulled at the jacket. What marvels, buttons.
"You wouldn't. It'd ruin your perfect arms."
"Fine," said Dorian, though his temper had subsided. "I'll slit your wrists."
"After dinner," said the Bull, "I'm half-starved."
Dorian rolled his eyes, with a little trill of his painted eyelashes. "Heaven help us," he said, "if you shouldn't eat your weight in chocolates."
At the door the Bull paused to raise his brow at Dorian.
"If I passed out from the hunger—"
"How mortifying for Aginas," said Dorian. "And Josie's friend. And me. A Qunari warrior swooning."
"Would you carry me off the floor? To save the party," the Bull clarified.
Dorian snorted and crossed to the door, too. "Oh, yes. I'll take you in my arms and…" Absently he brushed a finger along his mustache.
"And?" prompted the Bull.
That finger settled on his lip. His mouth curved. A sliver of Dorian's teeth showed, sly as a cat.
"Drop you," said Dorian.
"Hm," said the Bull, straightening. "You could try. But you're small and delicate."
Dorian was no such thing; smaller than the Bull, but hardly delicate, and all of him lean and practiced muscle disguised by the frippery of his clothes. His keen, summer-hot gaze flicked up the Bull.
"I don't think you could pick me up."
"Throw you over my shoulder," Dorian muttered, "and then throw you on your head. Are you ready?"
"Are you?" asked the Bull politely. Then, because it would vex Dorian, he tapped the square-backed stone set in Dorian's ear. "Done preening your feathers?"
Dorian turned his head so his ear was out of reach, though he did not jerk away. "Forgive me for wanting to make a good impression on Lady Montilyet's acquaintance—"
"Ah," said the Bull, "so you're all dressed up for her. Lucky woman."
"You," said Dorian, looking at the Bull narrowly, "are—"
The door burst open, nearly smashing the Bull in the head. He leapt backwards; his elbow punched. With a snapped "Watch it!" Dorian caught the Bull's biceps and held firmly to him. The palm of his other hand passed lightly over the small of the Bull's back. He meant to save the Bull from the floor.
Charmed, the Bull glanced at Dorian, who said, "Honestly, what if you hit your head?"
Lavellan hung through the doorway, suspended by a hand on the doorjamb and a hand on the knob. He was gloved, as usual, green gloves a resentful acknowledgement to the Mark beneath them.
"Are you two done? Oh," he said, "sorry. Was I interrupting? Should I come back?"
"No," said Dorian. "You weren't interrupting anything." The hand so steady on the Bull's arm fell.
"All primped and polished," said the Bull, and he grinned at Dorian.
Busy with setting his earrings at some small, precise angle, Dorian hoisted his chin and thumped out the door, faint floral accents wafting in his week. The Bull sniffed at the air and then covered his nose to suppress a sneeze.
"Do you have to?" asked Aginas.
"What?"
Aginas nodded up the hall. "Wind him like a clock."
"Ask Dorian," said the Bull. "He's the one always itching for a fight."
"Well, do it after dinner," said Lavellan. "If he's going to explode, make sure you're outside."
"Don't worry," said the Bull. "If it's so important, I'll leave Dorian alone."
Lavellan gave him a lidded look. "Oh. You will."
"On my honor."
"Because I seem to recall telling you to stop before."
"You said you'd bash our heads in," said the Bull, "with your little elf hands."
Their vaunted herald rolled his eyes with none of Dorian's art. "Just stay away from Dorian, will you? Just standing next to him is enough to set him off. Mood he's in."
The Bull rose admirably to Dorian's defense. "He's just persnickety."
"Persnickety with you, because you wind him up."
"'Winding him up' makes it sound like I get some weird kick out of messing with him," said the Bull.
Aginas squinted. "You don't?"
"Not a weird one," said the Bull. "Boss. I promise. Wherever Dorian's at, I won't be."
The squint persisted. Then at last Aginas sighed. He gestured the Bull out of the room.
"Just don't set anything on fire this time. Cassandra gets so fussy." Aginas sighed again, all glumness. "And unlike you, I don't enjoy winding up people I'm interested in."
The Bull, testing his high, buttoned collar, paused. "Was someone interested in Dorian? Is it Solas? They talk about that sparkly magic crap."
"I'll pray for you," said Aginas, who the Bull suspected an agnostic. "Now come on. We're supposed to be hunting down leads, not prodding at Dorian."
"Prodding's a loaded word," said the Bull. "Prodding's got … connotations. Nah. Dorian's just a smartass. He likes to kick the dirt and then complain nobody's cleaned it all up yet."
"So stop kicking the dirt for him. Let him get the dust out of his own pretty eyes."
The Bull rolled it from his shoulders. "Look for leads. Ignore the 'vint trying to pick a fight. Anything else?"
"For the love of all the stars," Aginas said, "don't dance."
oOo
"Persnickety?"
The Bull, caught on the veranda with a plate stacked three finger widths high, jumped. A shelf of spiced pepper brownies, lost to the cause. One heroically dashed itself on Dorian's immaculately polished boot, the toe turned out so the inside line of the foot faced the Bull.
The Bull ignored the invitation and looked instead at the martyred brownies with every appearance of woe.
"What," said Dorian, "did you pillage all the desserts?"
"Not all of them," the Bull hedged.
The lights of the ballroom were at Dorian's back. His smile was all quicksilver and swollen shadows.
"Just most."
"No one else was eating them."
Dorian folded his arms beneath his chest, a hand tucked in an elbow and the other languid upon his arm. The first two fingers settled northly. The rings stacked on each finger—two on the first, three on the second—gleamed.
"Traditionally, dessert comes last. Or at least," said Dorian, "that's how we do it in the Imperium, where people are civilized."
"Heathens," said the Bull. "Dessert's best first."
"And spoil your appetite." He clicked the rings once, tapped together. "Well. If that's how you like to do it."
The Bull settled his shoulders upon the wall. Creeping vines swallowed the stone railing that framed the veranda, railings that led out along the steps to the garden with its fresh made maze: not ready for the party, the hostess had apologized. Someone had teased the stalks to twine about the wide glass doors, too, and so green leafery touched at his bare head.
"And what are you doing," asked the Bull softly, "out here with me?"
Dorian, his fingers twiddling, little clicks, walked out across the veranda and at the top of the stairs turned.
"Making my dramatic escape."
"Party too rich for your tastes?"
Dorian raised his eyes briefly to the night sky. His eyelashes fanned. Dark and bony cheeks glittering: he'd put some gold powder on them after shaving. The pale, bright lights in their globes, set on the corner railings at the head of the steps, made him glimmer. Like a knife, thought the Bull, with a very long edge.
"Too low brow?" suggested the Bull. "Ferelden dances not up to snuff?"
"You can go dance with the lady Marsh if you want," said Dorian. "A change of pace if someone stepped on her toes before she could step on theirs. Odd shape for a hedge."
He paced the breadth of the veranda, though he did it at a saunter, as if he thought it might disguise whatever bug he'd got down his shirt.
"Thought you would enjoy a fine party," said the Bull, "with fine people in fine clothes, all standing around patting each other on the ass about how fine everything is."
"Oh, yes," said Dorian, drawing ever closer, "I adore baubles. Dripped on a Ferelden's arm like a gold trinket because Cassandra's too stuffy to flex her arms and startle everything out of the hostess."
"You're the flirt," said the Bull as Dorian at last stood beside him again, nearer now than before. Dorian was looking to the ballroom. "Why don't you go in there and flex your muscles? Give them a show."
"Go flex your muscles." Dorian eyed the Bull from the corner of his eye. His mouth pursed. "You're doing it anyway."
The Bull looked at Dorian. The sick-sugar fragrance of honeysuckle clung to the Bull's tongue. Perfume, of course.
"Not true. I'm just standing."
"Well, you had the better idea, coming out here," said Dorian. "It's all politics. Or I assume it's politics. They think it's politics, but they just sound like parrot birds."
"Pretty birds pulling at their feathers? Singing to hear their own voices? Yeah," said the Bull thoughtfully, "I can sympathize. Must be annoying having to listen to them chatter all day long when you're just trying to get some food in your belly."
"You're feisty tonight," said Dorian, as archly as he smiled. The smile tweaked his brow. "Finally sharpened your tongue? Tired of being bested?"
His gaze slid southerly, in a fashion he would deny if pressed about it. The Bull considered pressing. Properly provoked, Dorian was a fire-spitter, and catching him tangled on his tongue was about equal to being lashed by it.
Then Dorian shifted his weight forward and turned a leg to one side, his hips canted. His gaze had landed on the Bull's laden plate.
"Is that a tart?"
"Hey. That's mine," said the Bull as Dorian plucked the pastry from a key foundational point of the pyramid. He had to tip the plate severely to compensate and then bat the treats into a semblance of order.
A tragedy, narrowly averted: he almost missed the sudden unguarded delight of Dorian's smile. His cheeks pinched; his smile was narrow and sweet; the end of his lumpy nose wrinkled, and a crow's foot suggested its eventual residence.
"Oranges," he said, and he tossed it up to snap it out of the air with his fingers and bite. Like so: rich lips pulled back from teeth (straight and white) that sank deep. His brow was yet arched.
"How long's it been for you?"
Dorian ignored the feint. "Not since—well. A long time."
"You're spraying crumbs. Minrathous?"
With his mouth now sealed, Dorian chewed. His jaw worked. The oils he used on his skin after shaving left his jaw sleek and scented and as suggestive of gilding as his cheeks.
"Vyrantium," said Dorian shortly, then he directed the mood to lightness. "Clearly our host is wealthy if they can afford oranges in this god-awful clime. All my criticisms I reverse."
"Snob," the Bull teased.
He pushed off the wall, leaving the vines to mourn his shoulders. The gardens were dark. A velvet rope closed the entrance to the hedge maze. The Bull glanced across it then turned his back on it.
"Well, I am a 'vint, after all," said Dorian lightly. "Morally bankrupt. Concerned only with appearances."
"Snobby isn't a 'vint thing," the Bull told him, half-fond. "That's a Dorian thing."
Dorian's eyes lidded. He surveyed the Bull, weighing—this clear in the sleek and southern cant of his shoulders—whether to take offense. Then Dorian shrugged as a duck did water.
"Ah, well," he said. "My curse. As you see." Another low shrug, then, that teased his throat where it peeked from his unbuttoned collar. He sucked at his broad-tipped fingers.
The Bull cocked his head to one side. He lingered on Dorian, finishing the rest of the pastry. The night was black but softly so beyond Dorian's long back, and the moon a fat crescent slow to fill. No rush at all. They'd two more nights of dancing to suffer.
"Lavellan's looking for you," the Bull said when Dorian had done with the meringue.
Sighing, Dorian clapped his hands to dust them. "Lovely. More chattering."
"And you hate that."
"When they haven't anything interesting to say."
"Unlike you," said the Bull as Dorian turned his foot to the doors. His heel scraped upon the stones.
"I'll have you know," Dorian said, "that everything I say is deeply fascinating to anyone with brains enough to understand it. You're not coming?"
The Bull grinned. "Coming? Right now, you mean? Or do you mean later—"
"Don't," said Dorian quickly.
"Then I won't come inside," he said. "Since you've got your britches in a twist."
"Maybe it's best that you stay out here," Dorian said, "where you can't horrify everyone with your tongue."
"Hey, Dorian," the Bull called at Dorian's back.
"If your tongue is out—"
The Bull tossed two tarts to Dorian, who, though still turning about on his heel, caught them neatly, one to each hand. His left wrist bent, tucking.
"Oranges," said the Bull.
Dorian's lips—very full—moved. A fractional purse. He sucked at his tongue and he glanced away, and that was all the thanks the Bull got before Dorian had left him to stand alone upon the veranda.
The Bull took a brownie from the plate and bit into it. A warm night, he thought. What a shame no one else was outside to enjoy it. Already he wished Aginas had asked Solas on the mission, or Cole rather than the Bull. But then he wouldn't have got to see Dorian smile like that at a tart.
Tunelessly the Bull hummed and perched on the rail with his legs stuck out before him. A very warm night, with a sly flirt of a moon. He wouldn't have been at all surprised to see one or two people sneak under that velvet rope for a lover's assignation in the maze, but the maze was dark all through the night, long after the party had ended, long after the lights on the veranda were gone.
When it seemed that no one intended to profane the maze, the Bull retired. Very kind of the host, to leave a summer mint on the pillow. He hadn't expected that.
oOo
"Oh," said Dorian, "you're still here?"
The Bull, yawning hugely so his jaw cracked, plopped onto the thickly padded bench beside him. The sun very unkindly blazed through the windows on the little enclosed porch. Squinting, he guessed its position.
"Mornin'."
"Lunch was an hour ago," said Cassandra.
She was without armor, a concession to the tone of the fete, but plainly dressed for all that. There was something to be said for a severe woman in a trim black jacket.
"We were betting on whether you'd died in your sleep," said Dorian. He was peeling an orange with his thumb. Three more oranges sat on a napkin unfolded on the table. "Will you please cover your mouth? Spare us your breath."
The Bull made to cover his next yawn then, realizing, let it rip freely. Next to him, Dorian muttered and dropped orange peel in a bowl.
"Where's Lavellan?"
"I'm not here," said the man at the other side of the small, round table. The Bull had mistaken him for a pile of coats someone had forgotten in a chair. "If anyone asks, I did die in my sleep."
"He's sulking," Cassandra said, "because everyone wants to shake his hand, and he doesn't want to shake their hands."
"Or dance with them," said Aginas, pushing the wide-brimmed hat back from his eyes, "or bless their marriages, or run off with them to a dark corner."
"Which you will not do," said Cassandra, then, quickly, she added, "as we've only two more nights to find what we seek."
Aginas hid his face in his long, dark hands. "More dancing. Dorian. Please just seduce the mistress of the house and ask her if any of her friends are sending money to the Venatori."
"So!" said Dorian. "This is what we've come to. Now I'm to prostitute myself for the holy cause."
The Bull scrubbed at his face and felt for an orange. "'s'not prostitution."
"Please," said Dorian, "you're a Qunari. Isn't there something in your scriptures about that? 'Thou shalt not lay in the gutter.'"
"It's not prostitution," the Bull said more firmly. He cracked the orange open with his thumbs and split it in two. "Better term's the honey trap."
"The pardon me?" asked Dorian. His eyes dropped to the orange as the Bull shucked its peel.
"Or, uh, maybe it's the honey pot? Might wanna cover your ears," he told Cassandra, who stuck her jaw out.
"I'm no ignorant child," she said coldly.
Aginas, struck, stared at her. It was the look of a man who thought he'd stuck his bare foot right into a cow pie. No doubt he was thinking he'd callously trod over some open wound Cassandra nursed, nobly speaking never of it.
Poor sap, thought the Bull. He considered saving Aginas from this; but Dorian was looking aggrieved at the Bull's hands, and the orange smelled wonderfully, and perhaps the Bull had no business intervening here.
Aginas said, "You mean—"
"I've read Varric's books, Bull."
"Pretty basic spy stuff," the Bull explained as Aginas pulled the hat over his eyes and laid his head on the table. "Seduce the target. Fuck 'em." Dorian made a face. "Get 'em to tell you what you're looking for. You can do it after, but during's usually better."
"That can't possibly work," said Dorian.
The Bull shrugged. "Depends on how good you are in the sack."
Dorian's mouth curled to fit his mustache. "And you do this?"
"Used to," said the Bull, and Dorian's brow nearly leapt off his face. The Bull popped an orange wedge into his mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed. The citrus tang of it stung his tongue, his gums. "But there's other ways to get intel. That don't involve, you know."
"Well," said Dorian, blinking and looking to their herald, "prostitution or honey trapping, whatever you degenerates call it, I'm not doing it. That's morally reprehensible."
"Oh, god," said Aginas, his gloved hands wrinkling the hat, "I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to seduce her."
"You aren't pretty enough," said Dorian, to comfort.
"No one is seducing anyone," Cassandra said. "Dorian's right. It's morally reprehensible. Interrogating all the guests would be the best option."
"Well, did anyone notice anything last night?" Aginas lifted his head again. As ever, he looked to Cassandra first.
She flushed faintly. "I was … too busy, looking after you."
"Oh-ho," whispered Dorian.
She squared her jaw. "Many people approached the Inquisitor—"
"Aginas," said the Inquisitor. "You can call me Aginas, Cassandra."
"—and if they were to have been Venatori agents, then what laxness would allow them through?"
Discreetly Dorian thumped the Bull on the arm with his elbow. As the Bull glanced at him, Dorian leaned close. His hair was finger-teased and he smelled of water and rose hips. He'd worn a shirt with a low-set collar, the top buttons unfixed so a long scoop of his brown chest flashed. Not a mark to mess that pretty skin.
"She's very good at justifying this attraction of hers," he murmured, "don't you think?"
The Bull drew in a breath. Rose hips, he thought, and water, clean water, cold. He exhaled warmly.
"I think," said the Bull, "I want more oranges. There's the chance we won't learn anything."
Aginas shook his head. His black curls moved around his ears, those sharp, elongated tips masked by the hat's flopping brim.
"Josie said her source was very insistent that one of the guests was involved."
"And who is Josie's source?" wondered Dorian. "Is it possible—just perhaps—we've all been had?"
"They should have met with us on our arrival," Cassandra said slowly. "Surely if they're truthful, they'd have no reason to remain hidden."
"Other than being found out," said Aginas.
The Bull agreed. "'Sorry' doesn't count for crap when you're a spy. Especially if you're just lowly staff. Snitches don't usually get bouquets and love notes. Easiest way to plug a leak is…" He drew a claw along his throat.
"So," said Aginas, leaning back in his chair and looking at them each in turn, "I say we see the party through. And I was just joking about seducing the hostess, Dorian." He sighed. "That probably wouldn't work."
"Always so trusting." Cassandra's brow fussed. She gazed deeply at Aginas and spoke as surely: "The Venatori are no joke, Lavellan. If they've an agent among the guests, and their agent thinks you vulnerable…"
"What do I have to worry about?" Aginas laughed. "With three of my strongest companions with me."
"I'm only here because you couldn't find Cole," Dorian said.
Aginas touched the brim of his hat. "Do you think he'd like this as a souvenir?"
"You kidding?" The Bull smiled at the thought. "The kid'll pop."
"You'll have the poor boy looking the clown," said Dorian, "and those are my oranges so will you please stop pilfering them right in front of me?"
"Three and the debt's clear," said the Bull.
"What debt?" scoffed Dorian.
The Bull raised his brow and clucked softly. "Forgot last night's tarts? Dorian." The Bull held up three slightly crooked fingers and bent them one by one. "One. Two. Three. Three tarts for Dorian."
"I should have kept looking for Cole," said Aginas wearily.
Dorian said, "Well!" and stabbed his thumb into an orange. "It's nice to know I'm appreciated by you louts."
"Gotta have something to look at while we're waiting for something else to do," said the Bull.
"Cassandra," said Aginas, "why don't we corner a few nobles and ask them pressing, personal questions?"
"I'll come with you," said Dorian.
"Leave the oranges," suggested the Bull. "Then I'll owe you a few tasty treats."
"The oranges," Dorian said, as Cassandra rose hastily from her chair, "are coming with me. Thank you."
"No," said the Bull, as he watched Dorian rise, too, "thank you."
He rather enjoyed Dorian's approximation of outrage. It was nearly as nice as the orange he picked out of Dorian's hand, and nicer even than the slow, dark flush of Dorian's bare throat.
Aginas flicked his hand at the Bull, another clear warning: end the game. But the Bull was only playing by the rules Dorian had set. The stakes were Dorian's to set too.
The Bull yawned again, covering his mouth. Idly he cracked his toes in his boots. A bath later, he thought, since it was a festive occasion. No rose hips. Dorian would look pleased, as if he'd won at something.
"Well, maybe," said the Bull out loud. A servant passing by with a heap of folded quilts glanced at him, and the Bull grinned at her. She reddened to match her hair and hurried on, though she snuck another look at the end of the corridor.
The Bull finished Dorian's orange and then stood, bracing a hand on the table as he shook the kink out of his bad knee. The ache lingered, hollow in the joint. He ought have massaged it last night but then he'd other things at hand.
No time for it now. The Bull sighed. His hands smelled of oranges, and he wished he'd a pair of warm hands, steady, to cup his knee and wring the old hurt from his calf. Ah, well. The evening's grandeur was yet hours off and he'd wandering to do.
oOo
"You were right about the oranges," the Bull said, leaning near to Dorian's shoulder to deliver this peace offering.
Gratifyingly, Dorian did not startle. He went on pouring punch into a clear glass and then handed it to the Bull so he might fix another drink.
"Am I ever wrong?" Dorian wondered. "List at least three occasions."
"The Hissing Wastes," said the Bull.
"No one would think a dragon's weakness was fire," Dorian muttered to the punch bowl.
"Dead now," said the Bull, with some wistfulness. What a thing that had been, the monstrous beast with its shivering wings and sharp cries. "You came through in the end. You usually do."
"That's it?" asked Dorian. "No smart remark?"
The Bull held his glass delicately. The punch had the characteristic sharp fragrance of strong, cheap wine.
"I was just thinking," said the Bull mildly. "It's not so bad going on a mission with you. Even if you're always pecking for a fight. When the weird shit starts raining down on us… There's worse men to trust with your life."
Dorian eyed the Bull. "What's brought this on?"
The Bull chuckled and looked away to the dance floor. The jacket was too tight; it pinched at his shoulders so. The tailor Krem had hired swore it would fit, and perhaps it did.
"Probably had too many oranges," he said. "Gives me gas something fierce."
"Your poor tum-tum," said Dorian dryly.
He moved away from the table, and the Bull followed. Of course Dorian had brought a change of formal dress. Blue this evening, a very slim jacket that stuck to his waist and flared at the hips. Cuffs for the wrists. His throat was modestly hidden.
"How's your leg?"
The Bull paused with the glass at his lips. The punch was indeed spiked. Dorian gestured impatiently to the Bull's knee.
"Fine," said the Bull, shrugging. "No worse than usual."
"You're favoring your left side," Dorian said. "Certain you can survive the night?"
He affected a deep sigh. "Now I have to let down all those pretty girls who wanted a dance."
"As if you dance."
"I dance."
They'd circulated to a stretch of the wall devoid of flowers. Gold inlay decorated the white-faced stone. To the Bull's eye the room was very grand but Dorian paid no mind to the decorations or the glittering dancers. He was looking again at the Bull's knee, and then, as he stopped beside a drape, he put his hand on the Bull's arm. The Bull, too, stopped.
"You were right about the staff, by the way," said Dorian. He picked at a miniscule thread at the shoulder of the Bull's white jacket. "A young man who tends Josie's friend has a very strong accent. Qarinus, would be my guess."
He watched Dorian's face. Blue ear drops. The fragility of the hooks offset the strong bones of his cheeks.
"Talked with him a while, did you."
"Only about the weather," said Dorian, "and how Josie's friend takes her tea."
The Bull said, "With honey?"
Dorian withdrew his hand from the Bull's pressed sleeve. "She doesn't drink tea. Coffee, without cream. Do you want to know the interesting thing?"
"Dorian," said the Bull. "More interesting than coffee?"
"It seems Josie's friend has closer friends." He leaned in to emphasize this point. "Much closer. Apparently she's a lover she means to rendezvous with tonight."
"Shit," said the Bull after a moment. "You tell Aginas?"
"Cassandra's watching him entertain our hostess."
The Bull glanced casually about the ballroom, in the guise of seeking out watchful eyes. As he did this, he wound his arm around Dorian's waist and tugged him to his side.
There: Aginas was waltzing poorly with Josie's disloyal friend, chatting gaily at her as Cassandra skulked dangerously along the wall and watched them with her mouth folded and her eyes dark.
Dorian, quick learner, fitted snugly to the Bull, the fine and finely boned width of his shoulders sloping. The Bull slid his fingers from Dorian's waist to trace his hip.
"Astonishing," said Dorian.
"What?"
"You bathed."
"Come on," said the Bull.
Dorian followed him on to the veranda, his hand light on the Bull's hip. The tip of his little finger brushed the Bull's arse, but that was surely in error. Dorian's eyelashes were dusted with some fine, glittering blue powder.
He leaned into the Bull. Perhaps to anyone looking they were as lovers. Dorian leaned into the Bull like an archer drawing taut the string of a long bow.
"You don't think they'd be stupid enough to carry on now that we're here."
"Venatori's plenty stupid," said the Bull, "and plenty crazy too. That's the problem with fanatics. They don't take the time to think crap all the way through."
"They'd hardly be fanatics if they did." Dorian pulled out from under the Bull's arm. He twitched at his jacket. His shoulders roiled. "The hedge maze?"
Bull gestured with a finger. A tiny star flickered, not in the sky but in an otherwise unlit corner of the maze.
"If you haven't noticed," Dorian said, though he was as quick to descend the steps as the Bull, vying for the lead, "I don't have my staff, and you haven't your axe."
"Don't need them."
"Oh, naturally," said Dorian. "Why ever would we need our defenses when we're rushing out to face a desperate fanatic?"
"Maybe if we were doing that, yeah," the Bull said. He lifted the velvet rope and Dorian slithered beneath it, his long legs sliding lowly.
"Please," Dorian drawled, flapping his hand to encompass the shadowed maze, "illuminate."
The Bull grinned and offered Dorian his hand. "You and me, we're just a couple of drunks sneaking somewhere forbidden for some dirty, shameful canoodling."
The dark was far too profound to see whether Dorian flushed, that darkening of his throat. The collar would have hid it anyway. Dorian ignored the Bull's hand.
"The only shameful thing," Dorian whispered, "is that you call it 'canoodling.' Exactly how are we supposed to pull this off if we're caught?"
"Relax. Everyone at the party thinks we went out to screw," said the Bull. Good-naturedly, he thumped Dorian's shoulder. "Caught on quick enough. Always light on your toes. That's good."
The moon was so thin, its light but a ghost. The high planes of Dorian's face were veiled; his eyes were swallowed in black pools.
"It wasn't difficult," he said, preceding the Bull into the first lap of the maze. The pale blue stone swinging by his collar winked. "Geese have more subtlety."
"Hm," said the Bull.
A ring on Dorian's thumb glowed softly when he twisted it a certain way, but he left it unlit. Smart man. Any other light in the maze seen from the ballroom's windows would give warning.
Only once did Dorian give way to temptation. "You know, in Tevinter we have a story about a maze, and a bull."
"And what's that about?" asked the Bull. "They put a saddle on his back to break him?"
"Ah, never mind," said Dorian. He shook his head. The Bull's eye had adjusted to the dark, and so he discerned the slight regretful twist of Dorian's cheek.
"Now you have to tell me," said the Bull.
"It ends badly."
The Iron Bull looked down at Dorian, whose gaze was unwaveringly fixed upon the turn ahead.
"For the bull."
"Yes," said Dorian, "for the bull."
The trick with a maze was to always turn to the left, or the right. Possible, the Bull supposed, that they might miss the hostess' friend entirely. Charging through the hedges might get them there sooner, but then they wouldn't have any cover.
Dorian heard the voices before the Bull. Retracing three steps he whacked the Bull on the chest and signaled for him to stop.
The Bull jerked his head leftwards and moved to the leafen wall. Somewhere on the other side of it. Dorian joined the Bull. The horns left the Bull unable to turn his ear to the hedge, not without getting stuck in it, so Dorian did this.
Dorian flashed two fingers, but the Bull could have told him that. Another moment as Dorian listened and the Bull, too, listened. He considered the stars. Tomorrow night the moon would be half full.
One of the conspirators said something in a strident tone. The Bull, leaning forward, turned his head sharply. From the look on Dorian's face he knew he'd heard correctly. He also knew he hadn't leaned forward far enough: the Bull's horn dragged noisily through the hedge.
Dorian stared at the Bull, and the Bull stared at Dorian. The voices were gone. Dorian mouthed: Run; and he felt for his rings.
The Bull covered Dorian's hands with his right hand, before Dorian could focus and channel his raw power through his fingers, as substitutes for the staff he'd left in his room.
"Do you trust me?" asked the Bull quietly.
"Do you trust me?" Dorian countered. He cast off the Bull's hand, and the Bull grasped his shoulder instead. Dorian, startled, looked furiously at him.
Again the Bull asked, "Do you trust me?"
"Well, I don't have a choice!"
"You do," said the Bull strongly, "always."
"Oh, for god's sake," said Dorian, "if you don't mind, I'd like to avert our deaths. Yes! Fine! I trust you!"
"All right," said the Bull. He sucked in a breath. His jacket strained. "Well. Don't take this too personally. And, ah, for what it's worth, I'm sorry."
Dorian swore and grabbed his thumb to twist both rings. That was when the Bull yanked Dorian forward and on to his toes and kissed him on those full lips. Their teeth clicked; the Bull's lip mashed on Dorian's chin. The bristles of Dorian's goatee, trimmed to his lip, scratched him.
Under the Bull's hand, Dorian's shoulder tensed powerfully. His fingers hooked on the rings.
Oh, well, thought the Bull. He could probably break one of the conspirators over his knee. They'd go for the Bull first. Men tended to discount Dorian till it was too late. The Bull could hope it wouldn't be too late for him. If he were lucky Dorian wouldn't hold it against him.
Dorian stepped backwards. Their lips separated. His heel ground the gravel. The Bull set his shoulders. Perhaps they should break through the hedge after all, though it would give the conspirators an easy trail.
Then Dorian curled his fingers about the Bull's nape and said, "Put your back into it," and rose on his toes of his own volition. Dorian kissed as he always did, as if he thought it was the last kiss he'd ever have and he meant to take everything he could.
The Bull faltered. His horn was yet in the hedge, and Dorian's eyes were lidded but open, and his hand was firm on the Bull's neck and rough despite his fineness with calluses from handling that staff, and the Bull encircled Dorian's back with his arm to keep him there.
Stepping near again Dorian tipped his chin high, the smooth underside exposed, so that the Bull had to bend to continue to kiss Dorian's warm lips. He splayed his left hand against Dorian's jaw, the Bull's palm at the side of his throat and the second knuckle of his thumb at the corner of Dorian's mouth and a finger curled to touch the black mole so high on Dorian's cheek. The blue drop at his ear was caught against the Bull's wrist.
Dorian's teeth were hard on the Bull's lip: he did not bite but pulled his lips so that the Bull, seeking him, kissed that lower row of teeth. Dorian's fingers pressed into the Bull's neck, the tips and not the nails.
The Bull cupped the back of Dorian's head and pressed to him in turn. The hair clipped just north of Dorian's nape was soft, incongruously so given the shortness of his hair. The Bull urged Dorian bring his head forward.
Hotly did Dorian open his mouth to the Bull, who had opened to ask for Dorian's doing so. Hotly did the Bull submit to Dorian, who offered submission as a swordsman might offer the cup of his foil.
Neither rose hips nor honeysuckle, but a suggestion of sweat and another of water and a third suggestion after this, of oranges peeled bare, and beneath those three the harsh and husky scent of shaving oil.
Dorian's finger pushed into the vulnerable spot beneath the corner of the Bull's jaw, and the Bull thought of picking Dorian up in his arm and pushing him into the hedge and sliding his hand from Dorian's cheek to that high collar that the Bull might rip it from his throat.
The Bull swallowed. His arm tightened about Dorian, and Dorian finally closed those pale eyes of his. Very, very kindly, but not gently, Dorian drew on the Bull's lips. He was smiling, was Dorian. This too was ungentle.
The Bull pulled the breath into his chest. Oranges, again. His thumbs itched. He wanted to peel Dorian out of his finely tailored dress. Instead the Bull let Dorian go.
The night rose coolly between them. Dorian's lips were made swollen. That long squared jaw, the harsh cut of his cheeks, that dark brow and his outlined eyes: he was as dangerous as the Bull had first thought him. More so.
"And what," said Dorian, "was that?"
"A distraction," said the Bull, husking.
Dorian who swallowed then. His lips, well kissed and wanting kissing, shaped a round consonant. Then he cleared his throat and said: "For whom?"
The Bull looked about. Dorian said, "I think they've scattered." He was husking too. That high collar clung to his thick jaw. Press him into the hedge, the Bull thought, and ask him for a kiss.
He sucked another breath through his nose. Water and oranges, and Dorian's sweat, and Dorian's eyes narrowed as he looked up at the Bull and touched two fingers to the Bull's scarred jaw.
"We need to find the boss," said the Bull.
Dorian lowered his hand and gestured grandly toward the distant lights of the grander house. He bowed.
"By all means," he said. "Lead on."
The Bull turned back the way they'd come. "I told you it wasn't personal."
"Oh, of course," Dorian whispered. "Nothing personal about shoving your tongue down my throat. That's just how we say hello in Minrathous. So really I feel right at home."
"And I did say I was sorry," the Bull told him.
"For what?" asked Dorian. "You think this is the first time someone's manhandled me in a hedge maze? First time when my life might be in danger, certainly!"
"Do you have to argue with me right now?" the Bull whispered. "Or could you shut your yap?"
But Dorian would not let well enough alone.
"Did they teach you that at Ben-Hassrath school?"
"Didn't go to school."
"Shocking," said Dorian. "So I suppose it wasn't because you wanted to kiss me."
The Bull rounded on Dorian, but Dorian was not startled; he wasn't cowed. If anything the Bull's suddenness stoked Dorian.
"Fine," said the Bull. "Let's have it out. We have until tomorrow night anyway before they slaughter everyone."
"There was a line and you crossed it," Dorian said, stabbing the Bull's shoulder hard with two fingers, "and after you gave me your word—"
"Better to avoid a fight we didn't know we could win, with a cover we already had—"
"You really think they would have stood a chance?" Dorian scoffed and touched his chest, offended. "Against us? You're the one always going on about your muscles—"
"No," said the Bull, "that's you."
"Unbelievable! This isn't even remotely about me—"
"Of course it's about you," said the Bull. "Everything is. That's why we're sniping at each other, when we should be telling Aginas what we've found out."
"We're sniping at each other," said Dorian venomously, "because I told you it was done, and then you go and kiss me like a, like a—"
"Brute?" asked the Bull. "A savage? Why not barbarian. Try that one on again. See if you like how it fits. Makes you feel better, doesn't it? Blaming me for everything? So you can pretend I've taken advantage of you when everything I've done was because you asked me." Put your back into it, he'd said.
Dorian shoved the Bull out of his way, and the Bull allowed him to pass.
"You had no right," Dorian said, his whisper harsh as shark's skin. "You had no right."
"And you're afraid."
"Because you crossed the line," Dorian said, rounding on him, "you crossed it. You know you crossed it. And you stand there acting as if it's nothing, as if it didn't even matter."
The Bull watched him. "This isn't about the kiss."
"Of course it's about the kiss!" Dorian fired.
The Bull said, "And it's not about you showing up in my bed last night."
Dorian swallowed. His throat pumped, the knob in it rising then plunging. In the moonlight he was dark as shadow and he was gilded and he was far beyond the reach of the Bull's unwanted touch.
"A moment of weakness," said Dorian flatly. "It won't happen again."
The Bull exhaled through his nose. Between his teeth. Like water, let it flow. Close your hand in the pool to claim the water and you'll find your fist empty.
Again, Dorian turned from the Bull, and again the Bull said nothing to stop him.
"Let's go," said Dorian at last. "At least pretend to care about the mission."
That was the end of it.
oOo
The plot unfolded swiftly, swifter than some. Corypheus' hand was at work on the estate, but not through the Venatori's ideologies; it was simple greed had done the lady of the house in.
"The hedge maze is a seal," Dorian explained to Aginas, "that's why it looked so odd. They're going to use the guests—noble blood," he added, "not that nobility matters for this—as sacrifices at key points to open the rift tomorrow night."
"What's tomorrow night?"
"Half moon," said Dorian, scratching at his mustache. "Not as good as the new moon, or even a full moon, but with enough blood…"
"You didn't happen to see either of their faces," said Aginas. He sighed. "No. Of course not."
The Bull crossed his arms. "I'd know their voices."
"How lucky," said Dorian, "since you couldn't even hear what they said."
Looking at Dorian, who was looking in his turn to Aginas, the Bull said, "I heard their timber. I'd know them."
"Better if we knew what they looked like," said Cassandra.
"There's a Tevinter boy in the lady's service," Dorian said to Aginas. "He knew a few things, and he doesn't know how to hold his tongue." He did glance then at the Bull, but only in passing.
"All right," said Aginas, "well." He rubbed at his covered arm. "Why don't we try to keep the rift from opening before we have to close it? I like that idea. Cassandra—"
He turned to her, and Cassandra, made as like hard-forged steel, bent her face gently to hear him speak.
"Come with me. We're going to find our hostess to thank her for her hospitality."
Her mouth flickered then resolved into a stern line. "Ser Lavellan," she said.
"Dorian, see if you can't find that serving boy," said Aginas. "And Bull—"
He looked away from Dorian. "Hm?"
Andraste's chosen herald smiled beatifically. He raised his palms in blessing: "Burn it to the ground."
oOo
The lady Montilyet pressed a hand to her brow, then she touched her mouth and then, fleetly, her throat.
"Please," she said in distress, "tell me you did not do this." She clutched both the inquisitor's report (a single sheet of parchment) and, in the same hand, a much thicker letter. "Surely the baron exaggerates. These reparations he requests…"
"The estate only exploded a tiny bit," said Aginas.
The Bull glanced at Dorian, who made a show of studying his fingernails.
"And the fire was mostly contained to the garden."
Reluctantly Cassandra, stationed at Aginas' elbow, added, "The garden, and the surrounding woods."
"To be fair," said Aginas, squishing his mouth at Cassandra, "we were so busy saving everyone's lives that we didn't realize the fire had spread."
Josephine held the letter up. Her brow was knotted. "Baron Turanett writes that the only road leading across the lady's property—a highway that connects two Ferelden trade routes—has been completely devastated."
"Not completely."
Cassandra cleared her throat, and Aginas, thus shamed, scratched his nose. Then she pulled her shoulders back and stepped precisely forward, in such a way that Cassandra stood between the great desk and the inquisitor.
"Not all the blame goes to Ser Lavellan," Cassandra said. "We were all of us responsible."
Seated on the other side of Aginas, Dorian—sprawled with his legs crossed before him—murmured, "Some more so than others." It was the closest he'd come to speaking with the Bull in three days.
Josephine startled. "Oh, I don't blame you at all. Preventing the rift from opening, that was the only possible choice. To save so many lives…"
"So many noble lives," said Dorian.
In unison Aginas whacked Dorian's leg and Cassandra, scowling, cuffed his shoulder.
"No," said Josephine firmly, "what was done was done." She sighed. "I only wished to verify the veracity of the baron's claims before setting aside funds to help repair the road. If I may have a moment, Ser Lavellan?"
"Oh, boy," muttered Aginas. "Here it comes. Here's the nice trip."
As the Bull rose from his chair—the seat groaning unkindly—he clapped Aginas' shoulder. "Could be worse," he said. "Could be Leliana staring you down."
"Cassandra," said Aginas, "won't you stay?"
"Ah," said Cassandra, caught, "I—do not think that I should—that is to say—"
"Oh, be kind to the poor girl," Dorian said sotto voce to Aginas. "Before her head pops off from her struggling."
Aginas sank low in the seat with his gloved fingers at his brow, and gently the Bull closed the door to the lady Montilyet's office.
Cassandra looked to the door. All those severe lines of her face coalesced into a particular, quiet sadness.
"Another rift," she said, and she said it without despair. The Bull could have loved her for that: that acceptance of what had to be done. The strength needed for such.
He patted her back. "Probably."
"Assuredly," Dorian corrected, but it was for Cassandra and not for the Bull. Yawning, Dorian made a show of rubbing at his shoulder. "Oh, well. They won't write songs of our heroism if we just sit around twiddling our thumbs."
"Every rift he closes," said Cassandra, her gaze like winter passing over Dorian, "the mark grows. It will kill him."
Dorian dismissed the thought. "Surely it won't come to that. Not when the Inquisitor has such brave companions as we to help him with his holy quest."
"Where are you going?" she called.
"You can stand around all day smelling like smoke if you want," said Dorian. "I am taking a bath." He held his hand up in a mocking wave. The rings on his fingers and thumb glinted.
Cassandra grumped in her nose and then turned to walk the other way.
"Hey," said the Bull. "How you holding up for real?"
"Fine," she said.
"That big fight didn't wear you out?" He walked leisurely alongside her, keeping pace with her long and clicking stride.
"No."
"'Cause you got pretty heated there at the end, when you were choking that guy out with your elbow. Nice move, by the way."
"Everything was on fire."
"Boss is still breathing, thanks to you," said the Bull, glancing down at her nose, her high cheeks: the set of her jaw as she braced against something. He'd an idea of what.
"Thanks to all of us."
"Nah," he said, "thanks to you. That necromancer—he would've taken Aginas' head off his shoulders if you didn't take his off first. Never seen a guy's neck snap like that before."
"I'm happy to have entertained."
The Bull stepped around her, to the front, and Cassandra, her mouth hardening, moved toward the wall. He followed.
"Out of my way."
"Say it nice-like."
"Out of my way," said Cassandra, "or we'll see if I can't snap your neck."
"Flirty," said the Bull, and Cassandra, smiling thinly, inclined her head. "You ever think about telling the boss that?"
The smile vanished. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You keep holding all that inside," he said, "you're going to lose that level head."
She set off down the hall again, her armor plating clinking. "It doesn't signify."
"'Doesn't signify,' my ass," said the Bull. "Look—you wanna know how I see it?"
Stopping on her toe, she turned halfways about on her heel. Her chin jutted.
"How do you see it?"
The Bull considered her, this champion of truths, in her black armor with her hair sweat-clumped and grime yet at her ears.
"You could tell him how you feel," the Bull said, "and live with what happens after that, or you can forget it."
"It's not so easy," said Cassandra after a long and hollow beat, "to do these things. Not when there are other matters at hand."
"So forget it." The Bull crossed his arms and said, "But that's not so easy either, is it?"
She was still but for the minute trembling in her cheek; then this too was stilled. Torch light glimmered off her armored boots.
"And if I do say something," she said, looking to her shadow as it shivered along the wall, "what then? Nothing will change. Nothing of importance."
"Well," said the Bull. "At least you'll have told him the truth."
Her head rose. Like justice, impartial and cruel and very beautiful, Cassandra looked through the warm fire light and the thick shadows at the Bull where he stood.
"And are you happy?" she asked him. "To have told the truth?"
Old habit bid silence. Everything done or not done must be borne.
"Not yet," said the Bull, and he smiled to say: well, hey, could be worse. Everything could be borne.
Her lips pressed together, and Cassandra, watching him, seemed to recognize what he had recognized in her.
She said, "I hope that you'll be happy."
"Same to you," said the Bull. He made his smile quick and rakish. "But hey. If things don't work out with Aginas. You know where to find me."
The torch light limned her cheek. Cassandra quirked her eyebrow.
"And what would Dorian say to find me in his bed?"
The Bull rubbed two fingers against his palm. "Hm. Probably a lot."
"Then good night," said Cassandra, bowing her head as she gave him her back. "And—I will consider what you've said."
"What more could a guy ask for?" said the Bull.
oOo
"Chief's back!" Krem yelled into the tavern. "So you louts best start drinking like real cutthroats."
"Ahhhh," said the Bull, "it's good to be home, with proper swill." He thumped Krem between the shoulders, shoving him forward into the tavern so the Bull could bend and fit through the door.
"And the swill is properly swillish," said Krem. He rocked his shoulders so they both of them cracked. "Now that introductions're done, you going to tell me what's crawled up your ass and died?"
The Bull grabbed a chair by the wall and dropped it on its fat feet by a table. "Nothing a few rounds won't flush out."
"Beer!" Krem shouted toward the bar. "Make it foul." He, too, snagged a chair but turned it so he straddled it with the back before him. "So what did you do to the 'vint?"
"Who said anything about a 'vint?" asked the Bull. "That's bias, Krem. A 'vint seeing 'vints."
"All right, chief," said Krem agreeably. "If you want to keep your ass clenched around it, that's your business. I won't pry."
"Then stop prying."
Draping his arms over the low, curved chair back, Krem hooked his thumbs together. His hands stretched. Thoughtfully he contemplated the ceiling.
"Must have been something really stupid."
The Bull frowned at Krem. "Nothing happened."
"Right," said Krem, "that's why you're making that face."
"What face?"
"That one," said Krem. "Like you forgot how to fart. Come off it. What did you do?"
"What the chief do?" Frugg plopped onto a chair tilted away from the table. She was sloshed enough the distance didn't matter; she oozed slowly table-wards.
"Mucked up with the 'vint."
Frugg squinted. "Who's a 'vint?" The fog cleared. "He muck with you?"
"The chief mucked a 'vint?" asked Stitches with interest. Grim trailed after her like rain did a dark cloud. Like this the Chargers gravitated toward the Bull.
The Bull sat back in his chair with his hands on his thighs, fingers turned in. "Good. Bring everyone in."
"Was it fancy man?"
Rocky joined them. "'Course it was fancy man."
"Krem's not fancy," said Frugg, puzzled.
Krem mimed hitting Frugg and Stitches, ever helpful, did it for him.
"Ain't you a healer?"
"Listen up, you assholes," said the Bull.
"Oh, we missed you, chief," Dalish drawled as she moved to stand beside Krem. "Missed that tender love. Krem's no replacement."
"I don't have any tender love for you, Dalish," shot Krem, and Dalish made an O with her lips and pressed the flat of her hand to her collarbone.
Frugg roused and said happily, "Beer!" and indeed the beer had come, three large pitchers and several empty tankards besides. The scramble was on. The Bull relaxed into the madness. When Rocky reached for the pitcher nearest the Bull, he gestured for Rocky to go ahead and take it.
"That's the fourth time you've looked at the door, chief," said Krem. The tankard was at his lips. He grinned, showing his teeth to Dalish.
"You're counting?" The Bull rolled his tankard between his palms. The metal accents scraped his skin. "That's sweet. A little creepy, though. But I get it. Good-looking guy like me. Hard not to look."
"I'll try and resist the temptation." Krem let the tankard hang from his fingers by its handle. "You want to tell me or not?"
"Not a lot to tell."
"Something on the mission," said Krem. "Told you we should've gone."
"And sat around at the fancy dinner parties with your thumbs up your asses?"
Krem grinned and said, "There you go again. Thinking everyone else shares your fetishes." That got him a look. Unrepentant, Krem drank deeply of his beer.
"Before the mission."
The Bull scoured his cheek, the stubble abrasive to his fingers, his palm. Rougher than metal. He dropped his hand to his knee. His gaze had dropped, too. At last he breathed out and said lightly,
"Ah. Doesn't matter. It's over and done with. Dorian's got his thing," said the Bull, "and I've got mine. And if he's ashamed, then it ain't good for either of us."
"'Ashamed'?" repeated Krem. "Well, what did you do to scare the asshole off? Tell him you loved him?"
The Bull scratched the inside of his knee, the bad knee. The old, poorly healed scar in the muscle was pulling at him again.
"Oh," said Krem. "Well. Shit."
"Hm," said the Bull. He hunted for a pitcher of beer to refill his tankard.
Frugg was snoring with her head pillowed on her arms. She only ever really let go the once or twice a month. Admirable, that: not the control, but the absoluteness of her lapses.
"That's, ah, rough," Krem said as the Bull poured another drink.
"Had rougher," said the Bull. "I'm Tal-Vashoth, remember?" He saluted the winding missteps of the past with his mug and then he drained half the contents in a long and sour gulp.
"So," said Krem. He scratched at the tip of his nose and then yawned, crooked teeth showing in their uneven rows. "What exactly did the mage say when you dropped that on him?"
"Nothing," said the Bull. "Might have told him it in the Qunlat." Krem stared. "Guess he, uh, looked it up later with someone. Dunno. What?"
Krem was still staring. "You, what— You let him find it out himself?"
Stretching to reclaim the pitcher, Rocky paused. "Chief," he said, "you didn't."
"Doesn't concern you," said the Bull, "doesn't concern any of you, it's in the past—and I didn't mean to do it."
"You said it on accident?" said Stitches loudly.
Krem pinched his nose. "When he confronted you…"
The Bull flexed his jaw. "I told Dorian the truth."
"That it was an accident?" said Stitches even more loudly.
The Bull glowered at all of them, perched about the table like buzzards avidly awaiting a man's death in the Wastes.
"That it needed only mean something if he wanted it to mean something."
Stitches threw her hands into the air. "That's even worse!"
"How is that worse?"
"He thinks you didn't mean it!"
"What's happening?" Frugg mumbled. Then she rolled her head over and went back to sleep.
"Chief," said Rocky. "That's a hell of a blow-up."
"Did you talk to him again?" asked Grim.
"We talked, yes," said the Bull, "and then we didn't talk, and then everything was like it was before. If he doesn't want—" He clicked his teeth together.
"More?" said Grim.
"Yes, please," said Dalish, whose attention had wandered, but Grim hadn't spoken to her.
The Bull drank the rest of his beer and set the tankard quietly on the table. The Chargers fell to their silences. He spread his fingers along the table's edge and studied his chipped knuckles, the few coarse hairs on the back of his hand.
"I'm not going to force it," he said.
Krem said, "More beer!" and then he turned to the Bull and said, "Chief, life in Tevinter—for a man like Dorian—" He broke off. Irritated, Krem sucked at his teeth. "Look, just talk to him. All right? For both your sakes. For my sake. I'm starting to like it here at Skyhold."
"Chargers aren't going anywhere," said the Bull. "We're hitched to this inquisition for better or worse. Fate of the world at stake. All that crap."
"Then you'd better make it for the better," said Krem. Grim clapped politely. "Nobody likes to see you moping in the corner, chief. It makes us uncomfortable. Emotionally."
"And physically," said Stitches. She raised her hands. "Sorry. Just trying to be supportive. Go get 'im, chief. Or don't. Whatever works for you two." Grim clapped for her as well.
Rocky suggested, "Have another beer," and pushed the pitcher to him.
oOo
He slept soundly enough but woke to the muted click of a door settling into its frame. The Bull, who slept on his back to accommodate his horns, raised his head. His hand slipped across the sheets toward the headboard, where a small axe hung from the post. The Bull paused.
At the door, in a white linen shirt and dark trousers, Dorian had also paused.
"Well," he said, "don't kill me for waking you up."
The Bull closed his hand and then eased the grip. "You didn't wake me up." The yawn betrayed him. So, too, did the pained rasp of his voice.
"Yes," said Dorian, lingering at the door, "so I see."
The moon, its belly filling with the month's progress, shone through the gap amidst the rafters. Slowly the Bull sat up in bed. His head ached with the movement, but he did it anyway. The sheets slithered to his lap, and Dorian's gaze was steady upon the Bull's cheek.
"Let's get the formalities out of the way," said Dorian. "I'm not a dream, and I'd thank you not to joke."
"I wasn't going to joke."
"You were."
"Not now," said the Bull.
He knew Dorian was no dream. The smell of him was dark and clinging in the air, fresh-scrubbed skin and violets, or something like to violets. No mistaking, either, the way the unfolded collar of that shirt framed his throat.
"Qunari don't dream," the Bull added. "Not even if they're disgraced."
"Everyone dreams."
"Not me," said the Bull. He flicked his claws out to encompass Dorian, half-shadowed by the door. "How do you want me to take this?"
"Don't take it as anything," said Dorian.
The shadows held him. He made no moves toward the Bull; he made no moves away. He made no moves at all, but for a little motion of his hand against the door knob.
They were watching each other across the distance. His head just went on hurting. So did his bunged up leg. The Bull rested his brow in his hand. The eye patch was on the post, too.
"So. Here you are. At—what hour is it?"
"I don't rightly know," Dorian admitted.
At last he left the door. Avoiding the bed and the Bull in it entirely, Dorian crossed to the window, where he set his back against the sill and folded his arms. The Bull followed this. Dorian looked at the moon through the rafters.
The Bull breathed in violets and then he closed his eye.
"What is it you want, Dorian?"
The click-click of Dorian's fingernails on the window sill sounded through the quiet.
"To talk to you."
"Hm."
"About what I want," said Dorian.
Violets and water. Water and oranges. He thought of Dorian's sweet-moving smile as he'd looked at the orange tart on the veranda. The Bull lowered his hand.
He thought, too, of the left wing of the estate exploding, white-hot fire lancing into the sky, and of Dorian emerging from the wreckage, and of the ash that had smeared Dorian's face and made his hair wild.
"I'm still furious with you," Dorian said. "You had no right to kiss me in the hedge. Or at least you could have warned me before grabbing me by the arm and doing—that."
"That's good," said the Bull. "You should be angry with me."
"Oh, stuff it," said Dorian. "Listen when I'm talking. Don't interrupt all the time, it's deeply aggravating."
The Bull smiled. He hadn't meant to smile, but he was glad he did when Dorian rolled his lips.
"Sorry," said the Bull.
"Thank you," said Dorian. "What you need to understand is that you make things very difficult for me."
"Oh," said the Bull. "I do. Do I?"
"Constantly."
The Bull cupped his brow again.
"If you're worried that I'll make another move on you," he said. "Forget it. You've made it clear that you aren't interested. And pushing people—that's not my thing. I'm not gonna…" He elided the rest with a shrug.
"Stop interrupting," said Dorian, almost gently.
"Sorry," said the Bull again.
Dorian uncrossed his arms; then he folded them anew over his chest. He looked to the wall; he looked to the moon. Lastly, and with his chin tipped and his eyes turned, he looked to the Bull.
"Did you mean it?" he asked. "What you said. What you called me."
The Bull searched Dorian. Cleanly washed, but bare of make-up, bare of oil for his skin and gels for his hair, bare of everything but the shirt he wore and his trousers and his boots.
"Yes," said the Bull.
Dorian's throat jumped. At his elbow he moved three fingers, coiling them. The white linen creased.
"In Tevinter." He closed his eyes. "Back home. Do you know how many lovers I've had?"
"If you're looking to compare histories here…"
Dorian opened his eyes to roll them. "The answer, you pig—"
"Hey."
"—is none."
The Bull stared at him. With his eyes cast down and his shoulders bent, Dorian gave the Bull a smile that was like a knife turned inwards to one's palm.
"Bullshit," said the Bull at last, knowing how it sounded only after he'd said it. "No way were you a virgin when—uh."
"Sleeping with someone isn't the same thing as having a lover in them," said Dorian. "Surely you know that much."
An answer was not expected; but the Bull did know that. He began to walk about the room, pacing with his hands tucked to his elbows, fingers long upon his arms.
"As the only son of the noble Altus house of Pavus, I might be allowed an indiscretion here or there, with someone of a lower class, but." With practiced indifference, Dorian heaved his chin high and wound his shoulders.
"That's where it ends," said the Bull for him.
A reflex picked at Dorian's cheeks. Something like a smile, if he'd permitted it. He sighed once and then he did smile again, that swashbuckler's scornful grin.
"So," said Dorian, "there you have it. The whole of my tragedy."
"Heard of worse," said the Bull, and Dorian huffed through his nose.
"You're Qunari," Dorian said to the Bull. His jaw was firm, the breadth of his face horribly handsome and so very far away. "I thought perhaps that you would—" Another heavy breath. "Of all people, you might understand."
"Thought we weren't anything alike."
"We aren't," said Dorian witheringly.
He dug his knuckles into his brow, the first knuckle of the little finger at his beating temple. The Bull said, "We are. Even if you don't like it."
Dorian was quiet.
"Well," he said. "I never said that."
Across the moonlit expanse, dappled shadows cutting through the silver lighting, the Bull watched Dorian, and Dorian waited for the Bull. Briefly the Bull shut his eye against the light and thought of what it cost to hold something dearly in your hand.
Then he stood out of bed. He was naked, of course, as he was always naked when he slept, and Dorian did not flinch from the reality of this as he had startled at the Bull in clothes. Nor did the Bull flinch from the cold.
He quoted the Qun to Dorian. He'd years of the teachings to draw on: teachings he'd learned as all children of the Qun learned them, by heart and with faith.
Dorian knit his brow. "Translation. For those of us who didn't grow up in the church."
"If you try to grab the water," said the Bull, "you'll come up with jack crap."
"Poetic," said Dorian. "How many lovers have you had, then? Real lovers. I don't want to hear you bragging about how you've tupped every chamber maid and chimney sweep from Rivain to Anderfels."
"Not as many as you're thinking."
"Illuminate," said Dorian, his eyelashes sweeping drolly.
"About the same as you," the Bull said. "Qunari—you get an urge, you take care of it without a big stink. Tamassran. In and out, or— No lovey dovey spooning after."
Dorian nodded, considering this.
"That boy at the estate," said Dorian. "I didn't—" He grimaced. "Honey trap him."
The Bull shifted his weight and said, "Figured when you blew the left wing up. You don't get that excited unless you're pissed."
Clearly this did not require acknowledgement. The Bull flexed his knee. Dorian's gaze dropped.
"You're favoring your left side again."
The Bull tipped his head and looked upon Dorian from above.
"Eh," said the Bull. "I can live with it. Not that bad when you get used to it."
"You don't have to get used to pain."
"Neither do you," said the Bull.
"In the hedge." Dorian's gaze was sharp. He would not turn it aside. "When you kissed me."
The Bull said gruffly, "It was the best plan."
"Also," said Dorian, "you wanted to kiss me."
"Yes," the Bull admitted. "But you wanted to kiss me too."
"Not right then," said Dorian. Then he grimaced. "All right. Yes. I did. But it was still a stupid idea."
The Bull copped to that too. He neared Dorian, till the warmth of Dorian's breath warmed his shoulder.
"This thing," Dorian said. "Whatever it is we're doing. What exactly do you want out of it?"
"Thought it was obvious," said the Bull.
"Pretend it isn't."
The Bull rubbed at his chest.
"You," he said, and then he winced his mouth to the side and shrugged. "What do you want?"
As Dorian thought, the Bull thought too. It would be easy to dislike Dorian for this: to assume his often purposefully callous judgments of the Qun and the Qunari and the Bull in particular were true.
But Dorian wasn't the same person he'd been when they had met any more so than the Bull was the same person he'd been when the Ben-Hassrath had made a spy of him. Still it surprised the Bull when Dorian spoke. Dorian, his lips pursing, said the Qunlat a second time.
"That word," Dorian said. "I know what it means now. No thanks to you."
The Bull, caught, dipped his horns.
"This probably won't end well," said Dorian. "You like to talk about how similar we are but at the end of the day I'm still Tevinter and you're still Qunari."
"And you're selfish," said the Bull, "and I'm generous. Got it."
"Nobody likes a show-off."
"You do."
"Against my reason and better judgment, yes."
Smiling, for he had to smile, the Bull cupped Dorian's face, a hand to each cheek. He brushed that beauty spot. Dorian brought his hands up, too, to take in each one of the Bull's wrists and then hold it.
"Besides," said the Bull, "you're the real show-off. You love a crowd. The cheering audience. Everyone clapping for you."
"It's a condition," said Dorian, "and it's very serious."
The Bull asked, "May I kiss you?" very seriously.
"Well, if you have to," said Dorian, "then yes."
First on the right cheek and then on the left: the Bull bowed to kiss Dorian chastely upon his face. He felt Dorian's smile against his lips.
Dorian was probably right, the Bull thought, but not about it ending. The condition was very serious. Dorian rose on his toes and kissed the Bull's scarred eye. His lips were warm, his breath warmer.
"Will you regret this?"
Dorian hesitated. Then he kissed the rivulet of scar tissue that moved like a valley over the Bull's nose.
"I haven't yet," Dorian confessed.
The Bull was smiling as Dorian let go of his wrist to grip his chin and hold him there to kiss thoroughly on the mouth.
"Sit down," Dorian said into the kiss, "before your knee snaps and you take us both to the floor."
"You like the floor."
"My back doesn't," said Dorian. "Neither does your knee."
"If it broke," said the Bull, overcome, "you'd rush to my side. Feed me crumbly cakes and ice cream while I healed."
"If it broke," said Dorian, "I'd promptly abandon you to your deserved fate."
"You wouldn't."
"No," Dorian said angrily, "I wouldn't. Go to bed. Lout. Ingrate."
"Say it," the Bull asked him. "Say it."
"Savage."
"Not that," the Bull said. He stroked Dorian's nose, which was so utterly Dorian: beautiful, and strong, and not kind in any way whatsoever except for all of them. The Bull pitched his voice lower: "The other thing."
"You say it first," said Dorian, and the Bull, bending to Dorian, pressed his lips to the ghostly hairs on Dorian's jaw and said, "Kadan," just once. That was enough. He didn't regret it.
In the morning the Bull woke in bed with his knee sore and his head a great stone and his calf a single, large knot and Dorian snoring into the Bull's shoulder. Careful not to shift Dorian, the Bull reached tentatively to touch his brow. He was real. This was real. He covered Dorian's jaw with his hand.
"I'm trying to sleep," Dorian grumbled.
"All right," said the Bull, "you keep doing that. If it makes you happy."
Dorian mumbled, "Very much so," and then he yawned and rested his cheek on the Bull's chest and the Bull rubbed his hand in a loose circle between Dorian's shoulders.
The moon fell. The sun rose. Dorian stayed.