A/N: Chapter 2/3.

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Aleeri Adar could hear them through the fitting room door, and everything seemed so surreal as he awkwardly tugged on his tuxedo's vest. It barely buttoned and he was pretty sure if he turned or moved, the seam in the back would split.

He wasn't really sure what he'd expected would happen in this sort of scenario, but it hadn't been this.

Though, to be fair, he hadn't intended to start anything today, either. It was funny how the most important days started just the same as all the others.

The mirror in the fitting room was a little low, but he could see most of himself—really he was just headless in the reflection—and he wasn't really sure what to make of what he saw.

He was barefoot, and the pants were several inches too short, but…

"Oi, you. You doing better? Taking those deep breaths with all the counting?" Sera's voice interrupted his thoughts as she rapped something against the door. It sounded too hard to be her knuckles. "I got ya something. Somethings. Some things?"

She trailed off at the last word as though she were confusing herself, and he heard Dagna giggle.

He was surprised by how much that simple, joyful sound made him feel better.

Aleeri had met Dagna at university. They'd been roommates. Dagna had just been leaving a rather oppressive, conservative household, which had basically disowned her for deciding to follow her own path, and Aleeri…

He'd been the first of his family to go to school, and there weren't a lot of Qunari at their university. If not for Dagna, he probably would have dropped out from all the stares alone.

All the stares…

That was the problem with being seven and a half feet tall. No matter what you did, people were going to notice right away. And if he did something like this…

At this point, he felt like he should have been used to this lack of subtlety, and yet the changes this meant still made his stomach do flips.

There was another loud rap on the door. This time, though, Dagna's voice was what came through, her words soft and not for him. "Don't rush him. He might…he might need some more time."

Sera's response was considerably softer than usual, though it still hardly counted for a whisper. "I get that, Widdle, yeah? I just thought…"

There was shuffling and mumbling too low for him to hear.

Even so, he held on to that earlier giggle, to the fact that even with this outburst, things really hadn't changed between him and Dagna.

They'd be friends forever.

Taking in a breath that threatened to pop off a button from his shirt—it was far too tight in his shoulders to begin with, the sleeves were inches too short, and it wasn't nearly wide enough for him—he turned to the door and swung it open.

He'd intended to make a joke about how ridiculous he looked, but when he moved to take a step out of the room, his foot hit cloth, and he looked down to see dozens of undergarments scattered across the floor.

Sera was holding what looked like it might have been an entire shelf from…

Where had she gotten all this from?

There were sports bras, what looked like they might be binders for people considerably smaller than him, and something that, when he picked it up, he was sure was used to hide stomach fat.

"I realize it ain't necessarily your…area of concern for the fitting, but I thought maybe if we cut it we could…" Sera trailed off frowning. "It made sense in my head at the time."

"We could always come back in a few days for the fitting," Dagna offered, bending down to pick up a few of the things her fiancé had dropped.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't really thinking when I—" As he spoke, his gaze was drawn to a long, bright blue bridesmaid dress that had been fitted perfectly for him.

The thing that had started all this.

It was strange that something that shouldn't have been such a big deal had felt so…wrong. Dagna had been examining him as he gave them the obligatory twirl in the dress, frowning as she suggested maybe something a little less flowy for him, when Sera had wagged her finger at Dagna and said something against finding Aleeri something more flattering that went somewhere along the lines of, "It's a blighted long standing tradition that all the ladies that ain't us gotta look bad."

She hadn't meant anything by it, and it wasn't like she could have known, really.

Somehow, that statement was the drop that burst the dam.

"I'm not," he'd been declaring before he could stop himself, "a lady."

And there it was.

The detail that he'd kept to himself his whole damned life.

He'd panicked, locked himself in a dressing room and jerked the dress off, feeling like it was strangling the life out of him. His horns had left a few notable scratches in the wall when he'd tried to bend his head back to rest against the wall.

Part of him felt like the declaration had come out of nowhere, but it had been brewing for a while, the pressures of pretending to be something he wasn't growing stronger and stronger as he helped Dagna and Sera plan their wedding. It was one of the most important days of their lives, and he'd wanted to be himself for it, to not stand there, a lie wrapped in that ungodly bright blue.

It felt a little selfish. Today was supposed to be about preparing for their future, not about him.

It had to be the damned wedding. People always said they were stressful, but he'd assumed that was for the people who were actually getting married.

He wasn't sure how long he'd sat in there when he'd heard Dagna on the other side of the door, offering that she had something for him to try on, though she wasn't tall enough to toss it over to him.

A tuxedo.

He'd had a feeling she'd known for a while. Since they were first roommates, really. She'd never said anything about it, but he'd always been able to be more himself around her than anyone else, and he'd always liked to think that she knew him as he really was, even without words.

And it turned out she did.

When he'd first traded the dress for the tux, he'd noticed that it was just the two of them still in the back, and had felt terrible about it as he closed himself back in the little room. Sera had always been a good friend, and he'd snapped at her during a damned fitting for their wedding.

And yet…

To know she'd disappeared to find him a way to bind himself for his measurements for a tuxedo without so much as a quip about how he was messing up everything—and so last minute, too—meant so much more than he could put into words.

"Andraste's tits," Sera swore softly, appraising Aleeri. "They said they didn't have much in the tall department, but this is just sad."

"Adjustments can be made, though," Dagna nodded quickly. "It'll be like the dre—like anything else you've worn. Once it's fitted, you'll be amazing."

As Aleeri reached up to scratch his temple near the base of his horn, he heard fabric tear. This vest really was way too small.

The three of them stood there in silence for a few minutes before Dagna finally shrugged. "If it makes you feel better, Sera's torn her wedding dress three times so far."

"No telling—" Sera started before turning to eye Aleeri skeptically. "She probably would have told you anyway. Not another soul hears about it, though, yeah?"

With a slow smile, Aleeri nodded to her and then to Dagna.

His family.

"My lips are sealed."