A/N: "It makes it seem like I'm not even a person" aka the Qun and depersonalisation.
Mostly more of the same from me (that is to say, rambley crap that pretty much goes nowhere), but with actual oblique references to sex. Feels a bit like a betrayal to my little ace heart, but I'd probably be the only one to read an ace!fic for them. Likely I'll do it anyway, even if it's for my eyes only. Aim for an ace reading of everyone.
I like to try and write different interpretation of characters than fandom's established portrayal, so I'd really love to know what you think; whether that be a slightly different way to look at things, or "you've ruined my favourite character devil woman". I live for either reaction.
Timeline is all over the place. Forgive me.
It starts, really, when the Boss asks him for his opinions on the rest of her Inner Circle, and he's forced to admit that, while most of them seem pretty straight-forward in their actions and motivations, he can't quite get a solid read on Dorian. She scoffs at that, actually scoffs at him, and tells him to leave Dorian to her, then. And the thing is, she isn't wrong. The Inquisitor seems to get Dorian, in a way that the Iron Bull just can't quite manage, and honestly, it's as much of a blow to his professional pride than it is something that he feels he should worry about. The Iron Bull is sure that Dorian - for all he surprises him - isn't here to hurt anyone, so every time the Inquisitor has to push him out of the way of Dorian's spells when he misjudged what direction the mage would cast in, every time Dorian laughs at a joke Bull thought he wouldn't or looks as if he's about to cry at another, every time he flirts with Dorian and the smile slips off the mage's face after the Iron Bull pushes it too far without realising, he files it all away in the effort to read Dorian better.
And every time he thinks he has it down, Dorian will do something the Iron Bull doesn't expect. He watches him constantly, how remarkably easy he is to read when he's with the Inquisitor, relaxed and happy, and how closed off he is at every other hour of the day - hiding behind the mask of a true politician, someone who has had to hide everything from circling sharks looking for even the smallest drop of blood. The fact that the Iron Bull knows it's a mask doesn't really help. It's really no different from the physical ones the Orlisians wear - if you can't see who's behind it, then just knowing that it's someone doesn't help you identify them.
But the Iron Bull needs to see, needs to rip off that mask and get a long look at Dorian. The real Dorian, not just the cocky Teviner mage that he wears, although he doesn't doubt that there's at least a kernel of truth to that. No mask is that good. Although he'd be lying if he said that professionalism is all there was to it. Because he has been watching Dorian, and he has noticed that the only time he's predictable is when he's feeling vulnerable, and the Iron Bull doesn't think he can get Dorian to trust him quickly enough to get him comfortable being vulnerable around him. There's only one other way he knows to get people to a that place willingly. And he's been flirting with Dorian since the day he first saw him, so it's only the next step to sit down next to the mage at the bar, and ask him straight out if he wants to have sex with him.
It hadn't been his plan from the start, truthfully. The flirting had always been genuine, but he'd only half-seriously considered actually following through. He can't help but be wary of mages, Dalish and the Boss notwithstanding. The Qun names them dangerous, and that name, like all names under the Qun, comes from truth - they're unpredictable, surprising, all power waiting to break out from under fragile skin. Even the slightest of them can take down an attacker before they even realise they're a mage, and Dorian is not slight. But over top of his wariness, there is the fact that Dorian is almost impossibly pretty, and the Iron Bull is not at all ashamed to admit that he has a type. If not for the mage thing, Dorian would be completely it.
He's never taken a mage to bed before. He fights with them, drinks with them, hell, he's working for one, and he follows her orders with as much confidence as he would anyone else. He's been South for longer than any member of the Qun he knows, it's only natural that his views are somewhat more relaxed than those who have only ever fought against the world outside of Par Vollen. But he's always drawn a firm line at sleeping with mages. Vulnerability during sex is not just confined to the emotions.
Dorian is a mage, and a Tevinter mage at that, and the Iron Bull has never had a mage before, but when Dorian looks up at him from under dark lashes, throws back the ale in his hand and practically leads the Iron Bull to his own room, he can't for the life of him think of why.
-00000-
He remembers not long after, with a lazy flick of Dorian's wrist to put out the curtains that had burst into flames as Dorian came and the Iron Bull laughs it off, later, brags about it even, making Dorian lose control like that. But for a moment, just a moment, he was blindly afraid.
It's a stupid thing to forget, fear. It shouldn't be possible. But the Iron Bull spends most of his time around mages these days, and sometimes it's easy to forget that they're dangerous, that they're not just regular people. He remembers when he's fighting, of course, that mages need to be dealt with quickly in order to even the playing field. But the Qunari keep their mages bound except when they need them, and in the South those with magic are kept out of sight taught their magic is something to be ashamed of, something to fear, and the Iron Bull has never really seen a mage use their power so casually before, for something so superfluous. And it's easy to forget, sometimes, easier to forget, that magic exists off the battlefield too, that mages are always only one slip of control away from, well, burning his room to the ground, as it happens.
And Dorian, for all his bragging about his power, for all his insistence that magic isn't something that should be hidden away but celebrated as a gift, doesn't really show off what he can do. He knows that, whatever he believes, most of the people around him are still scared of magic, and he doesn't want them to be afraid of him. He wants them to see that mages are not something to fear, and with the Venatori mounting a pretty convincing counter-argument, Dorian's consistent efforts are admirable. But still, he knows magic makes people nervous, and he doesn't use it for mundane things, at least not when the Iron Bull has seen watching him, and he watches Dorian probably more than he should.
So the only time the Iron Bull really sees Dorian use magic is when they're fighting, and then it's quick glances, checking his position, no time to watch Dorian at work. And when a spell comes flying past him to take out an opponent coming at him, his immediate thought isn't to thank Dorian, but rather of the saarebas that missed him and is going to pay dearly for that mistake, even though intellectually he knows it's the colour of Dorian's magic.
It's different, seeing it here, in his room. Different, being reminded that what Dorian can do on the battlefield he can do anywhere and for the briefest of moments the Iron Bull's mounting pleasure screams to a halt and he looks down at the mage, expecting to Dorian to shift, for a demon to be in his place, let in by his loss of control. But he just sees Dorian, eyes clear and bright and slightly embarrassed and that's enough to put all other thoughts out of his mind. The knowledge that even when he's not in control, Dorian's will is still his own, still strong and unbreakable. He will not let the demons in.
Even so, when they're lying there afterwards catching their breath, the Iron Bull reaches out with the arm not wrapped around Dorian keeping the mage pressed close and gropes around until he finds the long piece of rope that he keeps in the chest next to his bed. He dangles the end in front of Dorian's face, like he would to a cat that he wants to play with, and Dorian doesn't take up the teasing, but he does look at him with his eye's dark and a smirk on his lips as he tells him "yes".
Dorian comes harder and faster than before, and with a little whimper and no accidental magic and that's great, that's fantastic, the Iron Bull can definitely work with this.
The third time is only half just to make sure it's not a fluke.
-00000-
He finds Dorian in his room again a week later, smug grin on his face and a shrug of his shoulder that suggests it was inevitable that he would end up back here, and truthfully the Iron Bull can't decide if he's surprised that Dorian would still be interested in him, but he knows that he doesn't care if he is. He is happy to have the mage back in his bed, even if he still isn't sure what Dorian wants, other than that he wants him. Dorian is an enigma, but when he's spread out on the Iron Bull's bed he smiles and sings like anyone else, and it's fascinating, the contrast. He'd like to understand him. It's not just a professional curiosity.
They take it slower, this time. Knowing, not just experimenting. He asks questions, sets boundaries, and the only thing Dorian says an outright "no" to is when he asks if he can order the mage around, with a bone-deep conviction that speaks of a past that hurt him, a secret Dorian isn't ready to divulge. Dorian is made of his secrets, and his past. The Iron Bull thinks that it will be a pleasure to uncover them. When Dorian is ready.
Until then he asks him about the things Dorian is only too happy to talk about. Mostly about the research he does for the Inquisition, but there's only so much talk of genealogy he can listen to before all the names start to sound the same. He's sure that some are the same; Magister's named for Magisters in the hope that some of the older's spirit or history would be found in the younger. For two cultures irreconcilably at war, beneath the surface the 'Vints could be remarkably similar to his own people. The Iron Bull wonders who Dorian was named for. Irony demands some uptight, conservative Magister. For Dorian's sake he only hopes that whoever he was, he was happy.
Dorian, it seems, could likely go on forever about the long-dead and their achievements, but the Qun has never held overmuch reverence for the deceased. Once you're dead, you're no longer part of the living whole, no longer useful. He'd tried to explain it to Dorian once, but that only seemed to upset the mage. Dorian had sighed sadly and told him that all that came from forgetting the past was making the same mistakes in the future, and then he changed track abruptly and made a joke about Necromancy and the usefulness of the dead, and the Iron Bull took the retreat from a sensitive topic to ask about Dorian's other research.
He has always played to the idea that he's nothing but big and dumb. But you don't get to be Ben-Hassrath without being smart, without being able to figure things out, make connections that no one else would. Even so, he only understands about half of what Dorian tells him about magical theory. He's never had the inclination to learn, never really wanted anything to do with magic except knowing how to get passed it, how to kill mages. And it's only more difficult given Dorian's tendency to slip into Tevene in the middle of sentences because he claims that a concept can't be translated into common. The Iron Bull may not understand magic, but he's getting to know Dorian, and he's reasonably sure Dorian's excuses are a load of crap. After all, Southern mages must have their own way to express magical theory. More likely, Dorian doesn't want his magic, the one freedom he has always had, to be associated with the system and the Circles they have in place South of Tevinter. But he lets Dorian keep his defenses, and listens to the lilt of his voice instead.
And there's a lot of it, once he gets Dorian started. The mage doesn't seem to realise, or maybe doesn't much care, that the Iron Bull isn't quite keeping up with him. He powers on regardless, like the words give him comfort to be said out loud, even if no one is listening. He only trails off once, in the middle of explaining the experimentation he had been conducting with time magic, and the Iron Bull doesn't realise that he'd been clawing gouges in the bedsheets until Dorian abruptly stops talking and wraps his hands around the closest of the Iron Bull's to his, gently prying his nails out from where they had begun to sink into the mattress. He hadn't even noticed, had heard Dorian mention being able to travel through time, thrown it out there so casually like it was a foregone conclusion that he'll be able to puzzle it out, and the Iron Bull's mind went into overdrive with the thought of what Tevinter could do with that kind of magic, that power. Would he wake one day to find the Imperium spread over Thedas again, mages from the future going back to stop its collapse in the past? Would he even have left Par Vollen, if that were the case? Would there even be a Par Vollen? How would the power and influence of the Tevinter Imperium spread, if they had the magic to change history? And how could Dorian, who never forgets the darkness of his country's past, want to offer it to them?
Dorian never mentions time magic to him again.
But he sees, the first time he gets Dorian to spend the night with him, wraps his arm around him when they finish and whispers into his skin for him to stay, he sees the way that Dorian flicks his wrist to put out the candles instead of getting out of bed.
And it starts happening more and more often. Just little things, small pieces of magic to make his life easier. Levitating books to himself. Keeping a quill hovering in easy reaching distance with the nib facing towards the paper. Cleaning them both off. Sometimes Dorian will curl up next to him and his hands and feet and even nose will be unnaturally warm, and the Iron Bull will pull him closer and feel the heat sink into his bones.
The first time he sees him doing real magic, really watches him, Dorian is searching through the library's bookshelves and the Iron Bull decides to surprise him and narrowly misses getting a spike of ice to the face for his troubles. He doesn't try to sneak up on Dorian again, but he's left to ponder why it is that Dorian's first instinct is to attack without even knowing what or who was coming up on him. To leave himself open with no defence. More secrets. More past.
The Iron Bull goes to watch him spar, after. Once, to remind himself of all that Dorian is, and all that he can do. He's been too complacent, plucking things out of the air when Dorian sends them his way, enjoying the way he's free to lie back and bask after sex because Dorian will take care of it, wrapping himself around the mage's heat, soaking it in, even though his natural temperature is warm enough. He's been letting a mage run free in his bed, he's forgotten what mage's are. Saarebas. Chained and collared for the good of all, for safety, until they're needed. Weapons. Dangerous.
Dorian, it turns out, sets himself up as a kind of target for the mages in training. Someone for them to sling their spells at that isn't a stationary dummy, but who they also can't hurt, who can defend himself without having to try to take their staffs away. Cullen is supervising, ready to step in if one of the trainee mages looses control of their magic, but he doesn't even spare a cursory glance for Dorian as he runs about dodging and deflecting when necessary. Seems to trust him to keep everything in hand.
But the Iron Bull watches, keeps his eye fixed on him, and he's not just a target, not really. He's sparring, against six other mages. Trainees, yes, but he's still helplessly outnumbered, dodging and weaving and having to focus his energies into maintaining a constant barrier. But when he manages to get a spell out of his own it explodes from him, nothingness to lightning or flames without warning, and his barrier is assaulted by multiple spells at once and it absorbs them like nothing touches it, and it's probably the first time that he's had occasion to notice, really see, how powerful a mage Dorian is, how nothing the other mages do even seems to even threaten to touch him, though the fire and ice and lightning comes streaming at him from all angles.
It's different from what the Qun tells; that mages are dangerous, that they're always only one step from slipping and killing everyone around them. That they need to be controlled and suppressed, that they're a tool, that they can not be given any leeway, that they should fear themselves. There are things that the Iron Bull knows to be true. The Qun is right, it knows were beings of all types and specialisations belong to create a functioning, stable whole. But maybe there are exceptions. Maybe some are different. Dorian isn't courting possession. He is strength and will and beauty.
And it's different from the way Dorian is with the Iron Bull as well. He's never really known to look for it, truthfully, but when they're together, Dorian's magic is softer. More deliberate. He moves in ways that make his intentions clear, his hands shifting slowly as if through water. Languid. And his eyes fixed on the Iron Bull's in confirmation every single time he uses even the smallest spell. Now that he knows that it's not simply the way that Dorian casts, his hesitance is an odd quality for a self-proclaimed and boastful pariah to possess. Watching him now, watching him weave the very fabric of the universe around himself, pull lights like stars into his orbit and send them flashing out without warning, the Iron Bull puzzles over Dorian's contradictions.
Perhaps Dorian feels his eyes on him, or perhaps he is thinking especially loudly, but Dorian plants his staff in the ground with a huge burst of light and the trainees immediately stop casting. Dorian, it seems, has them well in hand, because he's not even watching them to check for one final spell, he's facing the Iron Bull instead, grinning at him as he lowers his barrier, and the Iron Bull realises that he's been wrong about Dorian again. It would be tiring, even frightening, if it weren't so interesting. Because Dorian's smile is teasing, challenging, and he's never been hesitant when casting spells around the Iron Bull, he's never been asking for permission. Dorian, he thinks, wouldn't know what to do with permission if he had it, would fight it just because he could. He's been teasing, prodding, testing how far he can push people, how much magic he can use before he sees fear or anger or disgust in the Iron Bull's eye, how much he can push until he won't have him anymore, and if he keeps crashing against a barrier, will it fall on him, or away? Looking at Dorian's grin now, the Iron Bull feels a tingling of something in his fingers, his toes, when he realises he's just as interested as Dorian to find out.
He's pulled from his thoughts when Dorian calls out to the world at large, expecting everyone to listen to him. "Well as useful a strategy as throwing spells around until you collapse is, I'm afraid that it's not the only one you will be using in battle. Inevitably your thick-headed warrior-types will forget about you when they see something they can hit with a sharp piece of metal, and you will come toe-to-toe with some charging brute who has rushed past the rest of your attacking line. You need to know how to stop them before they stick you with their sharp piece of metal." He pauses here, and makes a exaggerated bow that makes the Iron Bull smile and Cullen snort half a laugh, half a note of surprise, not noticing that the Qunari was standing behind him. "Bull. If you would be so kind?"
It's not a question, not really. It's another test, another prod. Is the Iron Bull comfortable enough to have Dorian shoot spells at him and not feel an overwhelming need to stop him, to treat this as the training exercise it ostensibly is?
The Iron Bull has a reputation to maintain. He excels at tests. He catches the blade that Cullen tosses to him without looking, and nods at Dorian, prepares himself to charge. Trusts that Dorian's magic won't hurt him.
-00000-
When things eventually get messed up, it's not a surprise. The Iron Bull is done being surprised by Dorian, expects him to do as he pleases, leave bits of information for the Iron Bull to pick up as he trails after. It's not what he's used to, but it's good, in its own way. And he's always been interested in trying new things, in learning. So it's not a surprise when things change between them again, because the Iron Bull knows to expect the unexpected when Dorian is involved. Though he hasn't decided yet if it's the mage's magic that draws it to him, or just Dorian himself that tries to bend the world around his will, tries to make it in his image of what is right.
In some ways it is the same as their first night, Dorian drinking alone and the Iron Bull approaching. But he has a glass of wine in his hand, this time, curled up in a chair in the Iron Bull's room with a book in his other hand, rather than propped up at the bar. And the Iron Bull isn't bringing him an offer, but a letter, shoved into his hands by a harried messenger. Dorian wouldn't be overly thrilled that messengers apparently knew that he could be reliably be found with the Iron Bull, but it certainly was convenient.
Dorian reads the letter, and his skin drains of all colour under its natural tint. He looks stricken, but he doesn't drop everything like the Iron Bull has seen some people do when receiving bad news - he's too well trained for that, for displays of emotion on that scale, even as his eyes plead desperately for the words on the page to be wrong. Instead he simply puts his book and glass on the ground and stands to leave, muttering something about needing to see the Inquisitor. The Iron Bull makes an aborted move to reach for him, to offer some comfort, but Dorian walks out of the room before he's decided whether or not to follow through with the impulse. Likely that is for the best.
The letter flutters out of Dorian's hand before he reaches the door, and he doesn't stop to pick it up, only slips out silently, and all the Iron Bull's instincts as a spy scream at him to read the letter, to know what can bring a core member of Inquisition hierarchy down so swiftly. How it can be used later, if necessary, if the Qun feels the Inquisition have become too powerful. He has little on Dorian, truthfully. Oh, he knows what makes him smile and laugh and sigh, what gets his hackles up, what he looks like when he's flustered, what makes him shut down and end a conversation. Frankly, he knows too much about Dorian, about what the mage looks like when he wakes, squinting furiously at the morning, grumbling when the Iron Bull smiles at his face and kisses him on the cheek, but nothing that would provoke the reaction that he just saw, nothing that would make him less dangerous, and not more. Nothing that the Qun could use, but enough that it tells him to stop sleeping with him. Too personal. Reading the letter, the Iron Bull senses, would show him more of the wrong kind of information than the right.
He's glad Dorian left, he tells himself, glad that Dorian takes his emotions to the Inquisitor, rather than in the Iron Bull's room. Glad that Dorian doesn't expect or even seem to want anything other than sex and a warm bed from him. He is glad. Reaching for him before he left had just been instinct, not a conscious thought. He can almost believe it. Years in the South and he has become good at lying to himself. Keeper of Illusions indeed.
He picks up the letter though, still, knows that Dorian would not appreciate someone else reading it. Puts in on the floor with the rest of the things Dorian left behind, is careful not to look. Even so, he catches a word out of the corner of his eye. "Dead".
-00000-
The Iron Bull is finishing his latest report when the Inquisitor stumbles into his room a few hours later without knocking. Stumbles, because she's practically dragging Dorian along with her, the mage's arm is wrapped securely around her neck, face is hidden against her shoulder, but the Iron Bull can see the state Dorian is in from the way his feet scramble for purchase even though he's standing still, the way that the Boss look at him with tears in her eyes, knuckles white from how hard she's gripping his hand.
"Josephine received an urgent summons for me and I have to leave in an hour." She tells him, and she look apologetic, but there's steel there that demands the Iron Bull rise to the occasion. "There's no one else that I can take him to."
And that is a sobering thought. That there is no one else. For all Dorian is left alone now from the sneered words and mean-spirited pranks that followed him around when he first joined the Inquisition, he is just that. Alone. In a way that the Iron Bull himself has never been, always surrounded by other fighters, other spies, always a part of a network or a company, with comrades and brother's in arms. Dorian has the Inquisitor. He plays chess with Cullen, is forming a tentative friendship with Sera and indulges Cole's questions with a patience he pretends he doesn't have. There had been no one with him when they first came across him in Redcliffe, though there was the sickly boy who bought them together. There's a twinge in his heart when he wonders how long Dorian has been alone, and how he could stand it.
"I'll watch out for him Boss", is all he says, and the Inquisitor's apology turns to gratefulness, but the steel remains. She looks away from him to nudge Dorian gently with her cheek, like a cat, and whisper softly in his ear, pressing a light kiss to his temple when she finishes. Dorian looks up, then, and the twinge in the Iron Bull's heart turns into a squeeze when he gets a good look at Dorian's face, still colourless, waxy, corpse-like, and Dorian has an affinity for the dead, but now he looks like one behind red-rimmed eyes and kohl streaks and the Iron Bull finds that the steps he takes to take Dorian from the Inquisitor aren't as measured as he had planned, that the way he wraps his arm around him to keep him upright also turns Dorian in to his body, hides his face against his chest.
The Inquisitor hesitates to hand him over, hesitates to leave, and hesitates a last time at the door. Turns around. "Bull." She says, and she's back to giving orders. "Whatever you do, don't let him sleep." And leaves, shutting the door behind her.
The Iron Bull manuvers himself and Dorian back to his bed, arranges them so he's leaning back against the headboard, Dorian on his lap. Once he settles, he feels Dorian's lips moving against his skin, and he's about to put a stop to whatever that is when he realises that Dorian is talking, mumbling under his breath, too quiet to hear properly. And he has to keep Dorian awake somehow. "You want to speak up there, big guy?" He asks, keeps his voice low, but Dorian startles in his arms as if he didn't notice the Iron Bull was there, or perhaps didn't realise he was talking out loud. He does raise his voice though, after a brief pause, and the Iron Bull knows why he didn't pick up on the words before. Dorian is speaking in Tevene.
The Iron Bull speaks enough of the native language of the Imperium to get by, to move through the streets of Minrathous without drawing more attention to himself than his race garners alone, but not enough to know what it is that Dorian is saying now, slurred and hitched with grief. There's a name in there, Felix, and that was the boy who helped them in Redcliffe, and context would suggest that he is the death in the letter, a shame. But it seems that Dorian speaks a different dialect than the Tevene he learned, on top of stumbling around everything he's saying.
For a moment, the Iron Bull considers fetching Krem, asking his lieutenant to translate, to make sure that Dorian isn't saying anything that needs immediate attention rather than comfort, but he's sure that Dorian would never forgive him for it, would rather hurt himself than have Krem, have anyone, see him like this. So he will look after him himself, keep him safe and warm in his arms, pressed close and grounded, tell him stories about the Chargers, even if he's not sure that Dorian can understand his Common at this point any more than the Iron Bull can understand Tevene. But he won't let him sleep, and he will watch over him, even if it hurts to do so.
"Kadan" he thinks as he looks down at the mage curled in his arms, dark hair a mess and fingers fluttering uselessly against his leg. Heart. To be protected. To be kept safe. If he's done being surprised by Dorian, he should probably stop lying to himself about him too.
-00000-
It's the Boss who tells him to blow the horn to save the Chargers, but truthfully, he thinks he would've done it anyway, if there was no one with him. He doesn't know, doesn't know anything anymore now that he doesn't have the solid foundation of the Qun, didn't know anything before, either, just trusted that the Qun did, that someone knew for him. But the Chargers are his, and that was his first dangerous thought. More likely that alone, he would have jumped off the cliff and ran to help them instead, died betraying nothing. He's always been too soft.
So it's the Chargers that make him hesitate, and it's the Inquisitor who tells him to save them, but it's also Dorian. The knowledge that the Qun is wrong. Not often, not even usually, but sometimes. It's wrong about mages. Not all of them hurt. They're dangerous, but everyone can be dangerous with a weapon. And they're more dangerous than most, but that danger can be used to help. Not because they have to, not because they're kept in chains and collars and know that their mouth will be sewn shut if they disobey, but because they want to help.
It's the thought of what they Qun would do to the Boss, to Dalish, to Dorian, if they were ever captured. Dorian at least would get a quick death, they'd see in his eyes that he would not submit, and the Iron Bull has seen Dorian half a corpse already. He has no desire to see him a true one. And his end would be kindness. The Boss was too important to kill, but too mouthy and powerful to allow even the slightest freedoms. And Dalish is a soldier through and through, but her insistence that she wasn't a mage, wasn't sarrebas, would have to be beaten out of her. She might keep her mouth, her voice, but it would not be her own.
And that small crack, it's enough, to know that he can not follow the Qun any longer. It requires absolute servitude, no doubts, and the Iron Bull can not. It is no longer right for him. His world is bigger, now. He has others to serve.
-00000-
By the time Skyhold is within their sights the Iron Bull has lost his conviction that leaving the Qun was necessary, and once they cross the bridge pass under the gates, his only thought is to turn and leave again, to protect those inside from what he is to become. But when he looks behind the Chargers are following, Krem at the head and smiling at him, and he would have to hurt them to leave. There is no win here, no right answer. He doesn't know if there ever will be again.
The last time he had doubted the Qun, he had turned himself in to be re-educated, had done what he was taught. Tal-Vashoth were mindless, structureless, slaves to their own emotions, emotions they were never taught to deal with without the support of the collective. Mad. The Iron Bull had had a duty not to become one, and he had submitted himself to the Tamarassans without hesitation. Years on Sehorn, years hunting Tal-Vashoth. He knew what they would do, what leaving the Qun would do to them, running from their place for selfish desire. Until everything overcame them, until nothing was like what they knew to be true all their lives, and they went mad with it. Or they weren't mad. And that is not something he is ready to face yet. Not when he is so unstable already.
How long would it be until it happened to him? How long could he hold on to sanity? How long until he drifted away without the foundation of the Qun to guide him? And who would he hurt when he did?
He shouts the Chargers drinks, and then a second and a third and they celebrate living, a battle gone well. The Iron Bull sits amongst it all and soaks in the cheer, the knowledge that his boys are alive. Revels in it while he still can. Before he forgets it, forgets who he is. Krem offers to buy him a drink, a celebration and a commiseration, but he turns it down. Alcohol is not forbidden by the Qun, but casual indulgence is not encouraged. He has a naturally high tolerance from size alone, and since he came South he has been steadily building on it, but drink still makes him unsteadier than he could stand to be now.
The Chargers are still celebrating when the Iron Bull leaves the tavern. He had thought to wander a while in the fresh air, clear his head, maybe leave Skyhld when no one was around to try to stop him, but he finds himself knocking on the door to Dorian's room instead. He's never been here before, isn't sure if he's allowed in Dorian's space, but when Dorian swings open the door to look up at him, hair fluffed and face make-up free, he looks confused and concerned, but not upset.
Dorian walks back into his room after a moment, leaves the door open behind him, but when he notices that the Iron Bull isn't following he turns back around, confusion more plain. "Come in. Or don't. Either way don't leave the door open. You'll let all the cold in." And that's what the Iron Bull needs, clear boundaries, order and structure, Dorian telling him to enter, and so he does, closing the door behind him.
Dorian sits himself on his bed and picks up the book he must have been reading before the Iron Bull interrupted him and he could wait for Dorian to tell him what to do again, to show him a way, but this he knows, this he understands, and he walks to the bed, plucks the book out of Dorian's fingers and kisses the mage hard, settles himself on the bed next to him. Dorian makes a little surprised sound, but it's pleased too, and he kisses back, reaches up to cup the Iron Bull's cheek and shuffles around a little until he's half lying on his chest.
The Iron Bull breaks the kiss then, looks up at Dorian's face hovering above him with a lopsided smile and just wants to give him everything. It's terrifying, but everything about Dorian has been slightly terrifying from the start. The powerful mage from the land of powerful mages, diametrically opposed to his own people for centuries. Uncontrolled except by his own will, untamed, and willingly given increasing influence over one of the most powerful women in all of Thedas. But he'd forgotten about it, put it aside. Slept with Dorian, repeatedly, even after he knew how much he cared for him. Spy's have deliberate blind spits, places relegated to superfluous information so as not to distract from the mission, and somehow Dorian fell right into his. The day they met him, the Iron Bull remembers warning the Boss about Dorian, making a note to keep an eye on him for everyone's sake, and he can't pinpoint when that changed, when he started reaching for Dorian when he was half-asleep, how he came to be laying beneath him in Dorian's bed and asking him to do whatever he wants to him, to use him, make him feel like an object again. Not this unsteady being of emotions, teetering too close to madness.
Dorian doesn't say anything in reply, swings his leg over so he's straddling the Iron Bull and kisses him again, slowly, softly, and there's no magic like he expected, no sudden movements, just Dorian's steady hands, his mouth murmuring Tevene against his lips, his chest. The Iron Bull has been getting Krem to teach him the language, and Dorian's words are as gentle as the rest of him right now, his sarcasm and anger stripped away.
When he finishes Dorian slides his legs back to one side, but keeps his head resting on his chest, curled up against him. Dorian hasn't done any magic since the Iron Bull entered, so the feet pressed up against his leg are like two blocks of ice, and the Iron Bull shifts his leg so it's covering them to warm them up. He feels Dorian smile, then, and looks down. From this angle he can only see the mage's dark hair, dark eyelashes fanned out against bronzed skin. Dorian's eyes are closed and he's breathing steadily and he would think he was asleep if not for the way Dorian reaches and takes one of his hands in his own, tracing its shape with his fingers.
Even from this angle, seeing so comparatively little of him, Dorian is pretty. It's the second thing that the Iron Bull noticed about him, after dangerous, but pretty things are to be admired, put on a shelf and kept out of harm's way, and Dorian would never stand for that, no matter how he pretends. Dorian is beautiful, but not in the way the Iron Bull thinks of human beauty; humans are not extraordinarily durable or big or strong, but soft. Fragile. Dorian is sharp lines, hard muscle. The hands that hold the Iron Bull's are calloused, built up from wielding a staff since his magic first appeared, from rubbing up against something that wants to blister, that wants to make him bleed. Dorian is all callous, inside. Or, more truthfully, Dorian likes to think of himself as such, likes to pretend that no insults or rejection or harshness can hurt him, like he hopes that if he pretends hard enough, that will make it true. It only makes the soft parts more vulnerable.
This time the Iron Bull is the one to shift, rolls over so he's half on top of Dorian instead, but holding most of his own weight on his arms. Humans are breakable, and Dorian is human even if he thinks him an exceptional one, and so he brackets the mage with his own arm and body and Dorian sighs happily when he feels the Iron Bull's weight settle over him. They breath together for a time, before Dorian starts to talk "I wasn't forced from Tevinter, you know. I fled. Many years before we stumbled across each other in Redcliffe" and as Dorian tells him of his father, what his father tried to do to him, for a moment the Iron Bull allows himself to forget why he was worried about leaving the Qun. He's not mindless, he had a purpose. It started with Krem and then with his Chargers and it ends with Dorian. He will protect those that he cares about.
-00000-
Dorian's nonchalance in the Fade is a lie, but it is a convincing one. The Iron Bull doubts he would have noticed it - noticed the way his eyes dart to the Inquisitor, and then to the Iron Bull, making sure they're alright but also screaming for reassurance - before they started sleeping together. It's gratifying, in some abstract way, that his initial hypothesis was correct, that he would find out so much more about Dorian if he had sex with him. Though he hasn't thought of it in a long time. Though it hasn't been his purpose in even longer.
The Iron Bull is sure that Dorian will boast of being here later, to Vivianne and to Solas, to anyone that he knows it will make feel jealous, but he is not much more comfortable here than the Iron Bull himself. But he is grateful for Dorian's brave face, lie or no, grateful that Dorian is here when they are surrounded by demons. There's no one he would rather have his back in a place of magic.
And there are so many demons. Most wear Krem's face, and Dorian's careful mask reminds him that it's not real, but killing even a demon Krem is nearly impossible. He gave up everything he was for the boy, even the thought of losing him now is almost too much. Some are his Tama, pleading for him to come home, to give up the mercenaries and the mage who corrupted him, stole him from where he belonged, to come back to where everything made sense. That was easier, Cole's voice in his head telling him that she is glad he got away. Some are the last Tal-Vashoth he killed on Seheron. They were harder. The face of what he could become, what he did become, what he may never become, because it was never real in the first place.
But he keeps his eye fixed on Dorian when he's not fighting, follows the mage through the Fade as Dorian forces out laughs with the Inquisitor and Varric, joking about the words the demons spit at them. Grumbles about Krem to add to their humours, to remind himself that it isn't the real Krem, here. Otherwise, the Iron Bull keeps his mouth shut and his hands tight on his hammer.
The demons seem to largely avoid Dorian, which is strange, him being a mage, but maybe they realise there are easier targets, better ways to get at him. Turn Dorian's friends against him and then take him as a bargain to get them back.
One approaches him, throws itself at his feet and Dorian hesitates, stops in his tracks for long enough that the Iron Bull walks straight passed him. He spins quickly, doesn't want to let Dorian out of his sight, and the look he sees on the mage's face is one of pure hunger, before he takes a deep breath, composes himself, and steps over the demon at his feet. Doesn't look back. Brushes his hand against the Iron Bull's wrist and keeps walking.
The demon on the ground snarls, face twisting beyond anything natural, and disappears. The demons must be getting desperate, the Iron Bull thinks, to play their hand so early. Dorian's friends are as safe as they can be now, unpossessed. He has no need to deal with them.
-00000-
It's only later, after he's gone a few rounds with Cassandra and a stick - she knocks him to the ground and before Dorian his most genuine flirtations had been with her for a reason - after he's got his wits about him again, that the Iron Bull looks back on the trip to the Fade without the haze of fear and anger and realises the kind of demon that had thrown itself at Dorian. Desire. And all the new foundations he had been rebuilding his life, his self, around, the ones he thought so solid, start to crumble again.
Dorian had gone off with the Inquisitor once they had returned to Skyhold. To make sure she was alright, he'd said, but the Iron Bull was sure that what they were going to do was drink until they couldn't think about what had happened. So he knows were Dorian is. He only hopes that he's not too drunk when he gets there.
He knocks on the Boss' door. Just because she barges into his room all the time without announcing herself doesn't change the fact that she is in charge and it wouldn't be appropriate for him to do the same. When she calls out for him to enter her voice doesn't sound slurred, and the bottle sat between her and Dorian is only half full, so they clearly had tried to talk a little about the Fade before drinking.
"Sorry to break up the fun, Boss" he says "but I need to speak to Dorian". Dorian opens his mouth as if to complain, but some of how the Iron Bull feels must show on his face because he shuts it again and stands.
"Terribly sorry, my dear, but it seems we must find another night to drink until we forget our names". Dorian says, and bows low and extravagantly to the Inquisitor before leaving her room.
The Iron Bull lingers for a moment, hears the Boss snort a little laughter and shake her head fondly at Dorian's back before she catches his eye, and he really must be losing his touch, because her's looking back are worried rather than annoyed that he's dragged Dorian away from her. For a moment she looks as if she's going to say something to him, ask what's wrong, and the Iron Bull doesn't know what he'd do if she did, so he only grunts out "Sorry again" and leaves before she can get a word out.
Dorian is waiting for him by the time he gets to his room, pacing. The Iron Bull looks around at all the stuff Dorian has left in here - books and clothes and quills and small jars of make-up and he feels sick. Has Dorian ever wanted any of this, or has he just gone along with what the Iron Bull asked of him because he feels obliged?
He doesn't move into the room, crosses the threshold and closes the door, but only to lean up against it. "That was a desire demon in the Fade" he says, and Dorian starts and most would think it was because he didn't know he'd come in. But Dorian always knows, always pays attention to where everyone is in relation to himself. Something drilled into him to avoid political assassination, the Iron Bull is sure. No, the jump is one of guilt. Dorian looks at him and nods.
"Is that what you want?" the Iron Bull asks, and Dorian doesn't say no, doesn't look any less guilty, and the sick feeling only winds its way up the Iron Bull's throat. He's been forcing his own desire on Dorian this whole time. But he has to hear him say it. "Do you even like what we've been doing?" he asks, and it sounds pitiful to his own ears, horrified, and Dorian doesn't answer straight away, walks over to the bed and sits on the edge first. "Sit Bull" he says, patting the bed beside him, and the Iron Bull hesitates, can't contemplate being near Dorian now incase he takes advantage of him again, but Dorian pats the bed again. "Please, Bull, sit. I'm going to tell you something that I'm uncomfortable talking about, and I'd rather not have to say it loud enough that anyone walking passed might hear."
The Iron Bull moves then, sits on the bed, but out of reach for either one of them. "That will have to do" Dorian says, closes his eyes, breathes in and out. "I don't dislike it, if that's what you're worried about." he starts. "I would have said something if I was unhappy with what we did. You would never have heard the end of it. And besides, you tie the most beautiful knots, it is a privilege to wear them." He smiles at the Iron Bull and it is soft. "I won't lie and say I wouldn't like to change it up every now and then, but you enjoy it, and I am happy to oblige."
And that's not what this is supposed to be about. The Iron Bull is the one who ignores his body to give his partners what they need, not the other way around. But Dorian has not finished speaking, sighs loudly and runs his hand through his hair. A nervous habit that would have been trained out of him a long time ago. That it's making an appearance now is telling. "Do you know why I like it when you tie me up?" he asks, and for a moment the Iron Bull has no answer for him, nothing just for Dorian. He's surprised him again.
"Most people like the freedom of letting go." He says instead, but it's strained, hoarse. "Not having to worry about themselves. Trusting someone else to look after them for a change, to know what's best."
"Kaffas, Bull" Dorian says, and he looks annoyed now, his soft smile falling off for something harsher as if he knows the Iron Bull is deflecting. He likely does. Dorian has gotten under all his barriers. "I would have thought by now that you would have noticed that I am not most people. You're the spy, put it together. Give me an honest answer, oh great Ben-Hassrath."
The words are mocking, but the trust and admiration of the Iron Bull's skills are real, so he thinks it over. What he knows of Dorian. His story. Since birth his life controlled by others, his decisions made for him. And when he didn't obey, how his father tried to change him, to betray his ideals, to murder others, to force him. To take away his ability to choose. It's no surprise that Dorian categorically refuses orders now unless given by the Boss in combat, and sometimes even then. It's not hard to see how he would not want to give up control, give up choice even a little now that he has it. The Iron Bull would be offended by the implication that Dorian doesn't trust him, except he knows that he does. Dorian lets him tie him up when he could crush the mage with his bare hands. He told him his story, laid out his vulnerability for the Iron Bull to see and hasn't run away. Dorian has such a solid front, it's all everyone sees. The spoilt, conceited, showoff 'Vint mage. And Dorian might be all those things, but they're not all he is. The Iron Bull sees passed it. Sees the hurt. The solitude.
He's pulled away from his musings at the sight of a spark of lightning darting between Dorian's fingertips and he only does that when he's nervous and the Iron Bull suddenly remembers that first night and the fire and his fear, just for a second, that Dorian would lose himself to possession. Dorian must have noticed, somehow. Must have seen it. He's startlingly observant for someone who has been told since he was born that he is naturally better than everyone else, that it is his birthright for others to be beneath him. Although just as likely, fear is an emotion he has been long trained to sense and exploit. Either way, Dorian noticed, and the Iron Bull is not the only one who can give people what they need.
Dorian has probably had more practice than most. Pretending that he doesn't want, that he doesn't care, just to be safe.
"You wanted to make me comfortable."
"Yes, I suppose that is part of it" Dorian says flippantly, a caring impulse he is not comfortable acknowledging yet. "Although you are affording far too much to my supposed decency and not enough to self-interest, because that is certainly not all." He shifts closer, close enough to touch but he twists his hands together in his lap rather than reaching out.
"Do you know what my headstone said? In the Fade?" he asks, and the Iron Bull doesn't. He didn't look. It wasn't his place. Some things are private. Dorian seems to know this, trusts in the Iron Bull's decency - and that's something, not many people expect the Iron Bull to be decent - because he powers on as if he needs to get everything out all at once. "Temptation. Giving in to my power, to magic. Far better and stronger men and women than I have fallen to it, including the two people who taught me almost everything I know about it. No magic is inherently evil, not even blood magic, truthfully, no matter how I despise it. It was a comfort to know, when Necromancy emerged as my speciality. But it always comes with the temptation to do a little more, push further. Because you know you can. Magic demands that you use it, because it always promises that you can do anything with it, that it's your right to do anything with this gift you have been born with. Tied to a demon I could do anything. I could save my homeland. But at what cost? And would I even care?"
The Iron Bull could put it together now, but Dorian looks like he needs to say it. "It's not even really about sex, for the most part, see. I like it when you tie me up because it reminds me that I'm not all-powerful. That I can be stopped. Or that I choose to be, maybe. After all, it's not like a rope could actually hold me. I don't like to feel powerless, I've had enough of that for a lifetime, but I do like to be reminded that power has limits. And it makes me feel safe. From myself, mostly. I know it sounds arrogant, unlike my usual charming confidence, but I never am without reason. I was bred, as much as you, Bull, to be as powerful as possible. Magic comes easily to me. I am always tempted to push it." Dorian's hands stop twisting. He looks straight into the Iron Bull's eye and everything about him is rigid, nervous. Vulnerable. "And I'm not just telling you this to hear the sound of my voice, although it deserves to be heard. What I'm saying is that maybe you should try it. Maybe you need to be reminded that you can be stopped. That I can stop you."
The truth is, when he's on top, the Iron Bull can feel like a thing. Like a strap-on that the Tamassaran's use, an object to fulfill a certain job. It's how he's always justified having sex without permission and outside of the Qun, that he's just something to give pleasure to another. It's never been about him. So he's never really thought about doing it the other way. About wanting. About giving and taking and having. But he's not Qunari anymore. He's Tal-Vashoth. And with Dorian, he thinks, it's different. He'd like to try. With Dorian, he'd like to try to be a person.
"Kadan" he says, and Dorian can't possibly know what it means, but he smiles like he does, bright white teeth and crinkles next to his eyes. The Iron Bull reaches out across the divide between them to touch them, traces down around Dorian's cheekbones to rest his thumb on the corner of his mouth. "Prove it".
A/N: ...I don't know I just wanted to write about Dorian not liking being told what to do and next thing I knew it was this.
There may be more.
This got wildly out of hand
Now with sequels: Every New Beginning (Some Other Beginning's End), The Enduring Moment, The Heart Of Warmth, Maul The World Like A Carnival Bear Set Free and Burn Down The City Just To Show You The Lights