Dorian's eyes slowly opened to find a dull, grey darkness. His fuzzy thoughts tried to recollect precisely where he was and how he had gotten there, but his mind rebelled against such trivial attempts to use it. With a groan, he blinked a few times and tried hard to focus, hoping for some hints. There were… grey blobs, greenish grey blobs, and - he squinted - yes, definitely some brownish grey blobs, all familiar enough to make him frown as he realized that he hadn't awakened after all. The Fade was a tricky mistress at the best of times, but for some reason, it was particularly difficult to cudgel himself into action this time around.

Suddenly a distant pulse of pain swept up his left arm just as a woman's giggle reached his ears. Sufficiently galvanized at last, he jerked himself upright and backed away from the sound, still trying to pierce the darkness with his gaze. When his back hit something solid, he blinked a few more times in an attempt to force his eyes to function. When the giggle was answered by a man's indistinct rumble, Dorian looked around in a panic, wondering how much he'd had to drink to end up stumbling into some unsuspecting couple's dream. It only slowly dawned on him that he actually couldn't do that, as he was not a somniari. Only once that had settled in did he realize whose dream he must be visiting. Given that he hadn't shared a dream with Cullen since before the coronation, Dorian had to admit to more than a little curiosity.

With the mystery of where he was solved, Dorian gradually moved towards the hum of conversation. Ahead of him, the light brightened, and the words shifted from blobs of sound to almost discernible words. The Fade teased him with a word here or there, but it wasn't until he stubbed his toe that the scene in front of him abruptly coalesced into a coherent whole.

The toe-offending blunt object turned out to be the couch upon which he'd fallen asleep. His last waking moment came back to him all in a rush, lying on the couch in the Inquisitor's quarters with a little smile on his face as he stared at a peacefully slumbering Cullen. Blinking to clear the image, he raised his gaze to look around the room, taking in the surroundings with a quick glance.

There were differences, of course, between the Inquisitor's quarters in reality and where he found himself now. An archery stand now stood in the corner, the bow and arrows impeccably arranged in direct contrast to the haphazard piles of clothes around it. The desk spoke of chaos crowding in on order, and the windows were flung open to reveal what passed for a sunny day in the Fade. The bed was violently, incredibly unmade, with pillows and blankets flung hither and thither, and the two voices came from it.

As he focused on the two figures on the bed, the blobs of sound clarified into full words. "-and that's when I threaded his trousers with an arrow," Mailani said with another giggle. Her hair was down and loose around her shoulders, but thankfully for Dorian's sanity she was fully clothed, albeit in a loose tunic and pants. More worryingly for that same sanity, she was sitting astride Cullen, who was lying face-down on the bed. A moment's glance proved that Cullen was also fully clothed, and Dorian breathed a bit easier knowing there were some things he would not witness between the two of them. "Close enough to his bits for the arrow to kiss, as Sera would say."

"Maker," Cullen said with a chuckle. His head rested on his forearms, and the reason for Mailani's position atop him became clear as her hands lowered from their demonstration of her shot to settle on his neck. As she began to knead that, he added, "I daresay Dorian and Bull suddenly developed hunchback disease."

Mailani slapped her hand lightly on his back. "You're awful. And yes, they did. But that man! Setting an ambush for us just to get at Red Jenny, and then having the gall to try and negotiate with me in favor of himself and his toadies. Ugh," she said with a disgusted sound.

"I think you've been spending too much time with Cassandra," Cullen noted. "You're beginning to sound like her."

"Oh, hush, you," Mailani said affectionately. "Besides, I thought you said I was spending too much time with Dorian."

"I didn't say too much time," Cullen protested. "I just noted you were spending quite a lot of time with him."

"Well, he lets me put flowers in his hair," Mailani said primly. "As long as it's not plaideweave, he's given me leave to adorn him as I wish."

Cullen gave a mock shudder at the mention of plaideweave. "Leliana told me once that they use plaideweave as a punishment in some Val Royeaux bardic schools. Mess up on an assignment, and they force you to wear it for a week."

"Thats awful!" Mailani said with a laugh.

"Leliana was sufficiently horrified by the notion," Cullen noted with a warm chuckle. "Still, if anyone could pull it off and still look handsome, it would be Dorian."

Mailani gave a little gasp, then leaned down so she could look into Cullen's face. "Handsome, is he?" she asked in a teasing voice.

Cullen's ears darkened, and he turned his head to the other side, obviously trying to avoid an answer. "Shouldn't you be working on my shoulders by now?"

Mailani simply moved her head so she could grin at him. "I remember when I found you two playing chess that one afternoon," she told him. "A very handsome pair of men, I thought."

"Mailani," Cullen groaned, burying his face in the pillow.

"Did you notice that when you first met him?" Mailani wondered, tone artless as she sat up and began to knead his neck. "You were very quick to catch him at Haven, after all."

Dorian blinked, completely shocked that apparently, one of the things Mailani had once teased Cullen about was him. Shocked and far, far more enthralled by the notion than he had any right to be.

"He stumbled, and I caught him. There's no great mystery to that," Cullen groused. "Besides, he compared me to a blood mage later, remember?"

With a giggle, Mailani leaned down and nudged Cullen's ear with her nose. "And you still played chess with him," she reminded him. "Apparently even being called a blood mage wasn't a bridge too far for you to want to spend time with him."

"Mailani!" As she laughed, Cullen pushed himself to his elbows and looked over his shoulder at her. "Is this because I teased you about watching Bull practice with Krem?"

Mailani blushed instantly and looked away.

"Ah ha," he said triumphantly. "I knew you enjoyed watching all those rippling muscles."

Obviously wanting to give as good as she got, she shot back, "Well, who's to say you don't enjoy watching Dorian? You used to find excuses to go talk to Leliana more often, you know. More trips through the library, and all that. I wonder why?"

Dorian blinked. He had?

"How did you-" Cullen coughed, then let his head fall to rest on his forearms again. "Minx," he muttered.

"Well, I admit, I was watching you a lot back then," Mailani admitted, running her fingers through his hair. "Perhaps I'm a bit selfish, but I rather like how things turned out."

"Me, too," Cullen said with a smile. "Come here."

Mailani complied, bending down to share a tender kiss with him, then frowned when Cullen winced in pain. "Your shoulder?"

He nodded and rolled it before settling back into position again. "This bed has done it no favors, sadly."

Mailani's fingers smoothed over his neck and shoulders. "It's always seems to be this one muscle here," she mused, running her fingers along the tightness that ran from one shoulder to his neck. "If I didn't know better, I'd say the lyrium withdrawal was hitting your sword-bearing side harder than your shield side."

And again, Dorian's brows shot up. Lyrium withdrawal? He knew that Cullen had once been a Templar, but had assumed the man had continued to take the lyrium supplement despite leaving the order. That explains why the scent doesn't linger on him as it does the other Templars I've met, he mused. Perhaps there's nothing left of it to smell.

"There might be something to that," Cullen admitted. "Defensive techniques either use a lower amount of mana over a wider area or simply infuse it into a shield. Most Templar attacks are fed through the sword arm using short but powerful bursts. I wouldn't be surprised if that's affected my muscles in that arm over the years, and now that I'm not using lyrium to replenish myself… Huh." He hissed again as Mailani dug in with her fingers, then sagged beneath her. "Oh, yes. Right there."

"A good thing I use elfroot in my massage oil mix," she told him. "You know, I could ask Vivienne if we can add lyrium to it. It might-"

"No," Cullen said swiftly, then took a deep breath and added in a softer tone, "No. Nothing lyrium, love."

A sympathetic look came to Mailani's face. "Nothing lyrium," she agreed, then leaned down and kissed his cheek. "Go on and relax while I go fetch some of the oil with a higher elfroot content. You can't drill with your shoulder in this condition."

"I most heartily agree. I can only ask Cassandra to take over those drills so many times." As Mailani pushed herself off the bed and walked out of sight, Cullen buried his head in the pillow and stretched his arms up along the mattress. After a moment, he grasped the sleeves of his shirt and tugged it over his head, tossing it to the side before stretching once more. Dorian tilted his head, admitting privately to himself that he was quite enjoying the view.

Dorian was so taken with the play of muscles on Cullen's back that he didn't even notice when he took the first step forward. Drawn as a bee to honey - and given the capricious nature of the Fade in dreams - it seemed as if he merely blinked, and then suddenly he was standing next to the bed.

And next to temptation. Cullen remained blissfully unaware of his presence, and that bare, muscular back practically begged to be touched. Dorian licked his lips, then looked around, almost desperate for Mailani to reappear and remind Dorian that this wasn't his place. When no such thing happened, he felt his gaze drawn inexorably back to the source of his temptation and bit his lip.

Finally he succumbed to the inevitable. A quick spurt of magic saw his fingers covered with grease, and he reached out to set his hands on Cullen's shoulders. They were as tight as they'd been in the waking world, when Dorian had tried to chase away the headache plaguing Cullen, but this time… this time it was warm skin under his fingers, and nothing else.

And that sent a primal thrill through Dorian.

"Maker," Cullen moaned softly. "Just like that."

Dorian bit his lip again. Sweet Andraste, did he have to moan like that? The sound proved to be a strong encouragement, however, and in one of those odd Fade twitches, he suddenly found himself kneeling astride Cullen on the bed. Not sitting on the man, but with knees planted in the mattress on either side of his hips, and definitely far closer and far more intimate than before. Dimly Dorian noted, with raised eyebrows, that his own shirt had somehow vanished as well.

His hands glided over the man's shoulders and ventured down his back, exploring the set of muscles and the sensation of grease-slicked fingers over hot skin. Slowly the massage shifted from therapy to sensual, despite Dorian's struggle to remind himself that this wasn't taking place in the privacy of his own mind, or in the loneliness of a true dream. This was different. This was actually Cullen, not some simulacrum of desire summoned forth from the Fade for its own amusement as had appeared in some of his other dreams.

He really shouldn't be doing this, especially since Cullen obviously believed the hands belonged to someone else.

He really shouldn't follow the line of Cullen's spine with his thumbs, slowly drawing them all the way down to the tailbone, only to then draw them out and over the tight, curved musculature of one of the finest backsides in all of Skyhold.

Or push his hands up, fingers splayed wide so he could feel the entirety of Cullen's broad back under them.

Or move his hands to run down Cullen's sides to his hips, clasping them tight as his fingers found and traced down the line of muscle and tendon which poets called the lower love line.

Yet Dorian's mouth still went dry as Cullen groaned and dug his hips down into the mattress. "Maker, please, just like that."

Sweet blessed Andraste.

Tempting as it was to continue - and Maker knows, when the man made sounds like that and moved in that fashion, Dorian felt the temptation quite keenly - Dorian exerted a signal effort of will to pull his hands away. It took him a moment after that, and a long deep breath, before he trusted himself to set a hand on Cullen's shoulder with a far more chaste intent. "Commander," he said softly. "We're in the Fade again."

Cullen started at the sound of Dorian's voice, his whole body jumping enough that his hips momentarily pushed up into Dorian's aching groin. As Dorian fought a groan of his own in reaction, Cullen turned his head to look at Dorian, eyes half-lidded above flushed cheeks, and both beneath a crown of tousled golden curls. "Inquisitor," he breathed. "So it was you."

Dorian's eyes widened as they took in the sight of Cullen in such a state. It was beyond tempting, it was alluring in a way which had his fingers twitching to run through that blond hair both above and below. The vision of Cullen in dishabille combined with those particular words to make Dorian stare for a good, long moment as he tried to remember precisely why he had tried to remain virtuous. Finally, he cleared his throat and licked his dry lips. "P-pardon?"

As Cullen answered, however, a thunderous sound echoed throughout the Fade and drowned out his voice. Dorian looked around them wildly, remembering the nightmarish demon from before, but Cullen seemed to take no note of the cacophony. Indeed, when Dorian didn't respond immediately, his mouth moved once more, but the return of the mysterious boom again filled Dorian's ears so thoroughly that Cullen's words were forever lost. Suddenly it felt as if Dorian's limbs were encased in stone, and everything around him dimmed and became as indistinct as they had when he'd first opened his eyes.

With a muffled cry of frustration, Dorian struggled to move, but found himself immobilized. Vaguely he realized that he was losing the dream, but so desperate was he to hear Cullen's response that he tried to force himself to stay in the state of slumber. What had Cullen meant?

In the end, it proved futile.