Author's notes
SPOILERS! This section of the story takes place after "Here Lies the Abyss" and Before "What Pride Hath Wrought". I've been writing this story under the assumption that you have played the game before. At this point this story diverges heavily from the main plot. A lot of what goes down is extrapolating from a variety of tidbits through all three games that explain the nature of demons, mages, magic, and possession. I took a bit of my own spin in this story, and I'm sure there's some rules I don't know about or just plain get wrong, so please forgive and keep reading.
SMUT WARNING (I know some of you have been waiting a long time for the sexier parts to return. I hope you enjoy) - Some parts of this story depict sexual acts, but I hope in a tastefully vague way (this chapter is clean aside from a few offhand references to their sex life). If you're not okay with that, then at least you were forewarned.
Please review! This is my first time ever posting to this site. I've written and drawn other stories, but this sort of blindsided me from nowhere. I'm just hoping others enjoy the story as I try to spin it out of my head.
LASTLY! I do not own Dragon Age or the characters, nor do I receive compensation for this work.
Habrynn finally returned to her room much later, after making temporary accommodations for her mother in Skyhold's barracks. Josephine and Master Dennet seemed intrigued by her descriptions of her father's work with irrigation systems. Her parents were to go to Dennet's holdings, where they might be welcomed more openly for their farming experience and domestic skills than they might be elsewhere, while still staying just a day's ride away if they needed her aid.
But Habrynn refused to let them bring her parents into Skyhold itself, despite Josephine lauding the aid her father's Qunari craftsmanship might give to the Inquisition. After the disaster at Haven, she could never allow herself to endanger her family by having them living within a military base. At the same time, Lord Solviari would waste no time taking advantage of her father once word arrived that he had the Inquisitor's father in his service. There was simply no choice but to uproot them a second time.
When the long tiring negotiation with her advisors was finally wearing down, Cullen finally summoned the nerve to ask, "Why did you not tell us about your family before? Your parents would have both been excellent aids to the Inquisition- and your ties to the Orlesian Nobility, however minor-"
Habrynn cut him off with a simple sentence, "Because Adaar is a lie. I had to keep it that way." When they asked for more, she limped back to her room, grumbling about ill fitting second-hand uniforms and shouting to the nearest steward to have a bath brought up.
Bull looked up from a copy of 'The Tale of the Second Blight' to chuckle at her return, "That fight! Now that was something! I have no idea what Helaine was thinking, but man! You can still kick ass with the best of them!"
Habrynn felt empty, tired and drained. All she could think of while looking at his casual expression was her mother's worried face and shaking grip on her hands. The accusation left her before she could even filter it, "My mother spent two weeks in the cold, in a tent in the dirt in Skyhold's yard with the common refugees because you didn't think to mention it to me?"
"Oh. That. I didn't-" He began.
"Didn't think?" Habrynn snapped, "Didn't think that maybe, just maybe, I would like to know that the mother I haven't seen in twelve years was WAITING for me?"
"Hey." Bull grumbled, "Those twelve years were not my fault!"
Habrynn fumed, but couldn't look away. He had shoved a hot poker into a nerve she had long thought dead. "Are you saying this is my fault because I left home? Or are you saying it's not a big deal that you didn't even let anyone know she was here? They've had her in the quarantine tents because they thought she was mad for claiming to be the Inquisitor's mother!"
"I had more important things to worry about! Like YOU!" Bull growled, knocking the chair aside as he stood and marched towards her. She stepped back nervously, and the energy changed around them. What had begun to feel like an angry seed of need froze in an instant, reminded of the Balcony and secrets.
Habrynn whispered low, staring down at her bare feet. They were filthy from a day spent in another person's clothes, dragged from responsibility to responsibility as soon as she stepped out into the daylight. She wanted to smirk at the irony. Everyone was eager for the Inquisitor's attention, and either they didn't dare mention her lack of footwear, or they were too insistent to have her solve their problems for them to notice. But her heart was heavy, and her mouth was fixed in a frown. "I… can't pretend nothing's changed."
Bull looked at her hesitantly with a wide eye, "Vashedan… what is this?"
But only silence answered him. She continued to look down at her feet.
He stepped forward, reaching for her shoulders, but she avoided his touch, clinging to her chest to keep the buttons tight. He sniffed a growl and threw his head back, "What do you want me to say?"
"Tell me you're really happy…" Habrynn growled through clenched teeth and eyes shut tight.
"Is this a trick?" Bull snapped, "A joke? Or do I not understand Common as well as I thought I did?"
"You told me," Habrynn licked her lips, throat and chest tightening with concern, "That whatever you regretted… this is where you wanted to be."
Bull grew silent as she continued, "I'm not… there's no way to sugar coat this! I wish you were mine. Just mine! I wish I didn't have all kinds of bullshit for you to deal with, and I wish that the Qun wasn't breathing down your neck for the rest of your life but that's how it IS. Asking you to leave the Qun again is a death sentence for you, and probably me as well."
Bull just shook his head, "You're thinking too far-"
"Am I?' Habrynn snapped. "I may not think much of my own life, but I care about you, Bull. And I don't want to just be your… coconspirator!"
"But," Habrynn murmured, running fingers tight through her hair, snagging on bits of hay and strands clumped by dirt and blood from the morning's fight, "I can pretend… in the end, it's not much different than when I first met you. Only, you were straight with me back then-"
"Hey!" Bull growled,"That's not fair-"
"Isn't it?" Habrynn snarled before glaring, "You were more honest with a stranger than your lover."
He pondered with a distant, broken look on his face, "Alright. Maybe that is fair."
"I want a favor… need a favor," Habrynn continued. "It's my brother. I found out today… that he left to join the Qun about a year ago."
"Really?" He laughed. A single guttural cough echoing out of his chest, "Didn't even know you had a brother."
"This isn't a joke," she pleaded, "Can you get him out?"
Bull scoffed, "Short answer? No. Long answer? Vasbas'an NO!" He chopped the air for emphasis as he ranted, "If he wasn't your brother? If this was recent? MAYBE he could choose to leave on his own."
Habrynn bit her thumbnail as she stared into the masonry, her eyes growing hotter and damper with each word. Bull continued, a frustrated scowl growing as he began to pace. "You haven't seen him in a decade. And you're the Inquisitor! Trying to drag him out would paint a target on his back and yours!"
"I just," she croaked, "just want to know that he's alive… that he's all right..."
She covered her face as she desperately tried to hold back the tears, only succeeding in crushing them into suffocated coughs and hiccups with an all too obvious wet sound. Bull grumbled and snorted, tossed his head as he scratched a fussy spot at the back of one horn. "Ugh… fine. I'll try. I can't promise anything. This shit is so complicated now. What happened to the Habrynn who kills bandits and slays dragons?"
She looked back at him pitifully, sniffing to clear sinuses clogged by tears. "That Habrynn is dead… she died in the Fade. An abomination stepped out in her place."
Bull glared back at her, "Stop that."
She continued, "Now I have to learn to pretend to be her again…"
With a single long stride Bull closed the gap, grabbed her arms and shoved her into the bed, a hand already sliding up to her neck. "Not another word." He put a hand into her shirt, already open nearly to the waist to accommodate the difference between a large human man and a small qunari woman. Buttons clinked against the floor after he yanked, and Habrynn admonished, "Bull!"
He just frowned back, hovering over her stomach, eyeing her chest where one breast still lay partially obscured, and the other stood proud and suspiciously erect.
"This isn't my uniform," Habrynn hissed.
A smile slowly curled onto his face. "Well, we'd best get it off you, then-"
"That's not what I mea-ahnt!" Habrynn yelped as he thrust a fist between her legs, shoving upwards to push her up onto the bed by her hips, force pressing into her stronger than she'd felt in weeks. She could already feel her body responding from just that first blunt impact. What was normally an intoxicating distraction was irritating now. She felt confused by him, physically needing him with every nerve and inch of skin, but wanting to throw him out the window at the same time.
The hand at her throat pressed down into her collarbone, dragged down her chest, pressing the open-front tunic aside to crush a nipple in his competent fingertips. She cried out despite her anger, her hips bucking into the grip of his other hand as he fumbled to remove the breeches.
Pain shot out from her thigh as her right knee connected with his stomach. She cried out again with real pain edging her voice. Bull coughed from the knock to his abdomen, and paused, searching her face as her cry subsided and Habrynn remained glaring up at the ceiling.
"You know the word," Bull reminded.
Habynn scowled back and yanked the belt from the loops of the breeches in one move, arching her back to make room. It was one of those rare moments she missed her normal pants - men's hip seams were full of weird overlaps, folds and ties, and the shaping was all wrong, digging in to her hips all day and loose in the most unflattering places.
With a smile Bull cupped her her butt cheeks into his hands and yanked the pants away. Habrynn wasn't sure how to feel as his gaze trailed over her. Her own pain pricked and throbbed from her shin to her thigh and up through her ribs where the bones were still knitting, but a deeper pain burned the back of her heart, weighing her down. It had taken her this long to understand that it wasn't her pain at all, but Bull's that she was feeling. The sensation was blisteringly raw and deep red with longing, but tinged with sticky blackness and chilled with an older fear.
Bull slowly crushed her nipples between the first joints of his fingers, tugging enough to coax her to sit up to avoid a stronger pain. She grimaced as her leg throbbed again with the pressure of sitting up, but soon the pinch at her nipples brought her from that pain into a more pleasant one.
A soft moan, a cut-off whimper, and soon Habrynn's eyes were rolling back behind her eyelids as he toyed with her breasts. He leaned into her, knee pressing between her legs as he bent down to bite from her ear down to the nape of her neck. "You're that turned on?" He chuckled.
With a growl she tossed her head to the side, swallowing a gasp as he pinched her nipples harder again, tugging lightly to enunciate a twist. He laughed breathily at her response, and trailed down to her chest to suckle one of the abused buds, gradually teething harder.
"Mo Daieu," Habrynn sighed. With a sudden nip from his mouth, she yelped and then whimpered as he returned to a softer nibble. Her fingers traced over his horns, gripping fast as he pinched harder for a moment, rocking her hips against his knee needily. She hated how he could toy with her. It took every ounce of willpower to remember that she was mad at him, but each time he bit or twisted, urgency overcame fury a little more.
Bull finally moved his mouth from her abused breast, leaving small kisses in a trail up her neck, before holding her head to his, hungrily capturing her tongue with his own. When the kiss finally broke as she gasped, she knew the battle of wills was over, and she had given up before it had even met the halfway point.
With a mocking whisper, he chastised her, "Aren't you worked up?"
She tried to shove him away, but she ended up with her back on the covers with him grinning victoriously down at her. "It'd take care of it myself!" She growled, "But I haven't had a moment alone for two weeks!" She slapped a hand to her own mouth as soon as she'd said it.
Far from angry, he seemed eager to hear more. "That so?" he purred. With a smooth slide, he brought his feet back to the floor, and slipped her small cloths down her legs. "Show me how you satisfy yourself when I'm not around."
Habrynn peeked at him through clasped hands, shaking from the cold of nakedness and revelation. "Right now?"
"Sure," he chuckled, bending down to scrutinize her intimate folds. "How often do you please yourself, then?"
Habrynn's voice cracked to a squeak, "Honestly?!"
He squinted back at her, taunting her with a cat-like grin. "Yeah. Give me all the lovely sordid details." She glanced away, burning beet red from breasts to temples. With a primal grunt he rumbled, "That often? Dirty girl!"
"It's not like that! It's been two months since I touched myself, alright!" She snapped.
Bull continued to leer, "Two months? You must be-" until realization dawned on him.
"Yeah," Habrynn spat, "I haven't needed to touch myself with you around!" Bull watched her silently with that unknowable look in his eyes. She nervously continued, "I just… it's not as good… nothing's as good as you. Not for me..."
"Here," He snapped, pointing to the edge of the bed. She didn't think twice, she scooted forward as best she could despite the way her leg was growing stiffer. She grasped his arm before she understood why he offered it out. He tugged and she toppled forward, and with a little reposition in mid-movement, he had her ass-up across his lap before she understood what had happened.
She wiggled uncertainly, trying to peer back at him. He kept one hand firmly between her shoulders, and the other began to caress the other end of her backside, drawing spiraling trails towards the crevice of her butt.
"Now," He inquired, "What were you saying before?"
Her body went tense, arms pinned in with her hands pressed under her own shoulders like a roasted hen and her legs propped up by her toes. Her right leg immediately went limp as a jolt of pain reminded her of all the abuse it had endured that day, and how far it still had to go in healing. She grumbled something offensive into the covers about where Bull could go for answers, and was rewarded with a loud smack across her buttcheeks.
At her reflexive yelp, Bull chuckled warmly, "You were saying something before about how good I was?"
She clenched her hands into the furs and growled. Another smack replied to her non-verbal challenge, and then another. Bull's eyes were fixated on the flex of her back as she continued to whimper and grit her teeth, until as he laid the last smack harder the then first few, she turned her head to the side to glance up at him and released a pleasant whimper.
The edge of Bull's mouth curled up wickedly as he bit his lip. "That so?" The hand that had pressed her back down before reached under to find her breast again, and pinched while his other hand pressed lines over the red-hot flank he had just been spanking. His fingers curled under and found her dripping wet and already warm and inviting.
Her whimper lowered to a husky sob of need as he rocked downward, stroking from her nub to her entrance back and forth, pausing a moment to spread her open to gaze at his own handywork.
He watched as she closed her eyes and grinned, lost in his touch, until he withdrew his hand, tracing a wet line back up her bottom. "Now," he drolled, "where were we?"
She shot daggers back at him with her eyes, and began to wriggle away. With a deft hand he pinched the nipple he still held, and she gasped as he returned to stroking her. His tempo was even and unhurried as he watched her anger dissolve into distraction again. This time he continued longer, twisting several fingers in, and then spreading her lips further to swirl his hand against her clit, tempering his attentions to the faces she made as he continued to toy with her.
It was getting difficult even for him to stay focused, as she rocked her hips into his digits she inadvertently rubbed her warmth over his hard-on. Even with his pants still on, her desire was infectious. Once again, he withdrew his hand, but this time, he reached to unfasten his belt. She glanced up at him expectantly, a confused flick of her eyes between the mattress and him as he opened his pants and reached inside to grip his erection. "Tell me again why you haven't touched yourself in over two months."
His right hand returned to her breast, idly pinching, just a little at a time, rolling the hard bud between his fingertips as he began to stroke himself within his pants, pressing the head against her mound through the fabric, brushing back and forth across her cleft.
He moan was little more than a loud breath at first. As the minutes wore on and he did nothing more than barely tease her as he pleased himself, she finally panted, "It was you."
"Louder," Bull demanded.
A whimper, then silence, and then a hitch in her breath as he rocked his hips up the tiniest bit. "Anjun clé!" She pled, "Tailler es … jun."
His fingertips coaxed into her scalp, clenching her hair to lift her face, "You know I love to hear that accent, but I want to hear it clearly."
She gulped for breath, licked her lips and explained, "You carved a lock… you are the key." with a sigh, she closed her eyes and pushed into his grip."It''s an old Orlesian ballad. What good are my hands, when I have yours? Why imagine a lover, if I … have you?"
He lifted her to her knees, hand still gripping her hair, holding her so she only saw him through the edge of her vision. She winced as her weight settled on her leg, but it was only a moment before he repositioned her with a scoop of his arm. He rotated, and settled her on his lap, their hips parallel as she faced away from him, before he leaned back into the headboard.
When he pushed his pants off the rest of the way, she sniffed sarcastically, "Done with the interrogation?"
"Not quite," He whispered into her ear. "Lean back."
For a moment she froze, glancing at the bright pink wounds freshly healed across his chest. He pulled her back despite her resistance, and she was surprised that sitting on his lap, her head aligned just above his shoulder, avoiding scraping him as her back eased against his chest.
"Lean back," He repeated. She did as he asked, and he raised her legs with a gentle hand under each thigh, until she was straddling him, each leg over his so she could barely move except to twist her hips a little.
With the slightest thrust of his hips, his rod slid across her valley, compelling her to reach down. He extracted her hands before she could connect, and lead them to her sides, placing them to his hips as he growled into her neck, "Not yet. You didn't finish."
He didn't use this position often. Usually he wanted her skin to be raw, to be in a place where he could pound her; grip and crush and feel every inch buried to the hilt in an instant, but the way she was avoiding that leg, it seemed the funnest way to keep her in place while he continued the game. The best part of this spot was that she couldn't bring them together without her hands or his help.
Just a few more undulations of his hips sliding his length across hers and she was almost howling, "Maker's Fire, Bull! Are you this egotistical?"
He just sunk his teeth into the muscle where her neck met her shoulders, sucking hard enough to mark the skin, and savoring the shiver that coursed up her back as his canines traced fine white lines through her golden skin..
"Well you win!" She cried, "I want to feel your cock inside me! Every night since I left I thought of you. The way you pin me down, leave bruises with your hands griping my-" Her words descended into an uneven moan as he reached around to take her breasts in hand again, clasping the tips and leaning his hands away to tug them just enough to elicit a new higher cry.
"You leave me too weak to move, let alone masturbate," She exclaimed. "I want to feel your blood pumping against mine! Your teeth in my skin, unf!" She grunted as he pressed his shaft against her, grinding his turgid length over her entrance and clit as he rolled his hips underneath her.
She groaned out her arousal, and her hand snapped up to his horn, tugging at him to pull them together more tightly. Her horns slid over his shoulder as she arched against him, leaning her face up to his as she closed her eyes and babbled ecstatically,"You make me feel amazing. Like I'm going to break apart, or melt. Sometimes it's all I can do not to burn Skyhold to the grou-ahnd!" She gasped as he coaxed the helm of his cock into her, the position grinding into her quim at an angle that made it hard to speak, hard to even think as pressure exploded against her center.
It was all he could do to hold back as she squeezed around him with her hand clenching his hip. The way she was close to sobbing as he rutted against her was maddening. Each thrust and motion was his, and at first he rocked slow but powerful, but the way she continued to entice him with her reverant praises made him burn at her touch, alight with their shared sweat, eagerly memorizing each twitch of her lips, the strained pinch of her eyebrows, the streched curve of her neck as she tethered herself to him. Each response to his pinches was succulent, each moan at a rough caress was exhilarating, until he could barely keep his eyes open as he clenched her hips as he pounded into her.
"Please, Maker, please, Bull, your hands, please-"" She whimpered between racing breaths. He thrust his fingers down through her hips, lifting and spreading her outer lips as he grunted into her neck, snorting and gulping in breaths as he tried to concentrate on the distance, hoping the stained glass might delay the inevitable peak, all the while dragged back by her voice, using his name as an exaltation and cry of defeat in one.
"Tell me what you need," He growled, twisting to take her ear in his teeth, holding her still, savoring the way she cringed as he flicked a finger over her bean experimentally, cruelly withholding the strokes he knew she needed. She started to tug away, was caught by his fangs in her earlobe, and panted in time with his breath filling her hearing.
"I-ah," She cried, moaning and keening painfully, words broken and spiked with pleasure, "I need you, Bull-" She squeaked as he flicked softly and bit down just a little harder. "The Iron Bull, touch my clit. Please, help me come-" Her voice descended into a non-verbal undulating cry as he pressed in, cupping into her and swirling as he thrust harder, glad that she broke before he crossed the precipice himself.
Her groans extended, jumped in pitch and then broke into a gasp, before she frantically announced her climax in a race of syllables he could hardly make out, Orlesian and Common and even a few bursts of Qunlat mixing together in a growling slur. A tense burst of fire in his groin, and he pounded into her for the grand finale, impressed by the stamina voice as she wailed incoherently in a long breath, warbling into soft sobs as he thrust a little longer to complete his peak, breathing heavy in her ear as he slowed, savoring the way his nerves flared as he pressed past his climax and hers lingered around him.
"I love you!" She sobbed, gulping in breaths as her hips clenched and the rest of her went limp against him, her horns hooked over his shoulder as she exhaled a long contented sigh.
Bull slowly withdrew his hand from her cleft, inhaling slowly to appreciate the scent of coppery sweat and pyrophite, fresh linen and the overpowering musk of their love-making. He tried to ignore her words and just linger in that comfortable moment with her weight balanced over his, connected together through a primal, physical bond that was shrinking by the moment, even as the warm slick residue remained where his hand idly massaged her hip.
"Bull?" Habynn asked fearfully.
He grunted back quietly, and she repeated, "Bull. I… umm... I can't move."
He chuckled at her planned helplessness, and rolled his hips against the back of hers once and then twice, smiling at the quiet hum of pleasure even his softened cock elicited from her. With a gentle lift of his arms, he extricated her legs from around his, and looked down at the leg where the splint had been before, where a soft purple bloom was spidered over her skin.
She looked down with him, chuckled, tried to move the leg and then winced to show that it wasn't a good idea at all. He helped her settle back into bed, avoiding her gaze, because each time their eyes met, it was like those last words repeated again in his mind.
I love you.
He couldn't bring himself to reciprocate. Even knowing that the dragon's tooth lay just beside his bed every night, confirming her feelings before the words were ever spoken. Even knowing the inscription she had written for him. Even with all they had been through, a wall still held in his mind and heart, unmoving despite the bond they had forged against his best intentions.
She snatched his hand as he rose from the bed, "Amon… Bull," She asked, "You're still staying the night?"
He looked down at her two hands, grasping his. Her hands were delicate, the smallest he'd seen on any Qunari. But they were strong, agile and remarkably smooth for all that fire she threw around. As she rubbed her fingertips from his wrist to his knuckles, he could feel her father's gifts there, the pin-point touch of an artisan, at the end of arms marred by a decade of battles and harsh wilderness.
"Yes," He soothed, turning his hand to set hers back in her lap. "You should rest."
Even after the last toss in Habrynn's fitful attempts to calm herself to rest, he found himself pacing the upper loft of her room long into the dark of night. The reflection off the mountain snows illuminated the gloom, enough to see the curve of her horns and the arc of her shoulder beneath the furs. He was mesmerized by the slow rise and fall of her breaths, chained by a desire in his heart that he didn't dare name.
Rest wouldn't come to him even as he heard the midnight shift switching in the yard. he lit a small candle, and began to write to Par Vollen. He doubted the knowledge would ease her pain as much as she thought it would. But unlike the heart, it was a simple question to answer.