Chapter 13: Audeamus (Epilogue)
"If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you."
― Sue Monk Kidd
"Dorian… What the fuck!" Bull complained as he surveyed the room.
A newly arrived winged reading chair occupied the left corner of the room. It had made its appearance on the heels of a wardrobe, two nightstands on each side of the bed, and a large gravure of a dragon on the wall over the headboard. Bull had actually admired the gravure when Dorian had hung it up, but in doing so, he'd inadvertently given the mage carte blanche to change the room around.
"It's more comfortable this way," Dorian argued. "Now there's somewhere to sit and read."
"I can do that in bed," he protested, unconvinced.
Dorian glanced at the chair.
"But I like to sit and read in a proper chair. Maybe even put my feet up," he explained, patting the footstool.
He expected the Qunari to say something like, "Then go do it back in your own room," but to his relief he said no such thing. Instead, he marched up to the chair and attempted to sit in it.
"I don't fit—" he objected.
Dorian grimaced. He hadn't thought about that. He realized that even if Bull fit, the chair's forward-jutting wings would hit his horns.
I'm going to have to find a better solution.
"Ugh! Now I can't get out," he grumbled, awkwardly trying to extricate himself.
"My chair…" Dorian lamented as Bull struggled against the armrests.
"Nice to see you have your priorities straight," Bull pointed out sardonically.
"It's just that the chair makes it much more relaxing— I can sit over here and read while you're sleeping, for example."
Or when you're away from Skyhold, he thought.
Bull stared at the chair pensively.
"Fine. But stow away the stool, so I don't trip and crack a horn or something."
"All right," he agreed.
"It might actually be nice to have the chair there for reading," Bull mused.
"But you don't fit," Dorian reminded him, poking at his waist.
"Not for me to use—for you."
Dorian looked at Bull suspiciously. He could never be sure when he was going to be emotionally sucker punched by one of Bull's jokes.
"It's good…I like watching you read. You get this…this intense, serious look on your face…It's very…" He let out a grunt and gave him a lusty look.
Dorian felt a bit dazed.
He says the sweetest things out of the blue, the giant bastard. Makes it impossible to resent him.
"Good," Dorian said, clearing his throat. "I'm glad you feel that way... because I am having one of my bookcases brought here tomorrow."
"Where the Fade are you going to stick a bookcase in here, Dorian?" Bull protested, exasperated, as the mage crossed his arms, unmoved by the commotion.
"Do you always wear that to sleep?" Dorian turned towards Bull from his side of the bed, watching him stash away his folded pants in a drawer. Bull glanced down at him, confused.
"Wear what?"
"The eye patch."
"No, I didn't use to," he said, heading towards the bed.
"How come?"
"It's for your benefit. So you don't have to look at it. It's pretty gruesome."
He slipped beneath the covers and reached over to shut off the lantern. Dorian stilled his hand.
"You don't have to, you know. Not for my sake."
"It's not a big deal. I'm used to it." He attempted to lean over towards the lantern again.
"Just take it off," Dorian urged him.
"I like that!" he exclaimed. "Why don't you say it just so when I'm wearing my pan—"
"Eye patch. Off," he commanded.
Bull slid the patch back, revealing the red jagged line sprawling across an uneven mass of scar tissue over where his left eye once was.
"By the Imperium!" Dorian cried out. "Was a butcher moonlighting as a surgeon when you were brought in?"
Bull slipped the eye patch back on quickly.
"We were in a desolate area when it all went down. Slim pickings."
"Does it hurt?"
"Only when people point and laugh. It hurts me deeply, even as I pummel their heads into the ground," Bull deadpanned.
"Why did you put it back on?"
"For fuck's sake, Dorian! What do you want?"
"Take it off." He held his ground.
"You were freaking out," Bull argued back.
"That was NOT freaking out. That was outrage."
"Neither one is going to let me sleep peacefully."
He looked at the mage's serious expression and after a momentary pause, pulled off the eyepatch, tugging it over his head, carefully unhooking it past his horn and dropping it onto the nightstand.
"See? Was that so difficult?" Dorian struggled not to gape at the horrible mess.
"Nice choice of words," he noted gruffly. "Shut off the lantern when you're ready to turn in," he stated, beginning to turn away from him.
Dorian reached for the massive shoulder and halted him with a firm touch. When Bull faced him and cast him a questioning look, he raised his hand and brushed his fingers gently over the scar, caressing it.
"Ouch!" Bull bellowed in apparent pain. Dorian drew his hand back instantly, terrified he'd hurt him only to see that he was rumbling with barely contained laughter.
"That is despicable," he accused him.
Bull laughed openly now.
"That was too funny. Your expression…Oh…" he gasped for air.
"I was trying to show you that your eye doesn't bother—"
"Save your pity. I don't need it." The smile faded from his lips.
"It isn't pity, you lummox!"
Bull searched his face.
"Then what?"
Dorian stared at him.
That I hate this happened to you. That they did such a hack job on it. I loathe the thought of you injured or in pain. Because you have become precious to me. That is why.
He raised his hand again, and stroked the menacing, angular face, tracing his fingertips over the scars he now knew well, the sharp, pointed, downturned nose, and the rough black mustache over his lips.
"Bull," he said, in a quiet, intimate tone. Bull observed him curiously. "I can't…I can't tell your ugly scar from the rest of your ugly face, and your ugly face from your ugly ass, so it's all the same to me," he teased.
Bull balked for a moment before erupting in uproarious laughter.
"You bastard! Good one!"
Dorian grinned smugly. They remained in a comfortable silence, held in each other's eyes, as he tenderly continued to stroke Bull's face.
"I want us to stay this way." Bull placed his large hand over his, pressing it against his cheek.
"So do I," Dorian replied sincerely. "Very much so."
They smiled at each other.
"Provided Corypheus doesn't pulverize us—" he continued, jokingly.
"Peacock!" Bull said loudly, furrowing his brow and shaking his head. "Just stop right there. We're coming out of this in one piece, together," he uttered with determination.
"I thought 'Peacock' was my word!" He attempted to interject some lightheartedness into the conversation to mask how deeply touched he was by Bull's reaction.
"I don't like to think about it— if something were to happen to you—" he confided, a haunted expression on his face.
I know.
Dorian lowered his fingers over Bull's lips and shook his own head in return.
"Let's not indulge such thoughts, then."
He felt Bull's arm move beneath the covers and reach over, embracing him.
Damn him for being able to say these things so easily. He is far less cautious, far less reserved, far more willing to take a risk and face the consequences head on. He contemplated the rugged face with admiration. Even his battered flesh is living proof of it.
Dear Mother, Dorian recited in his head. Not only have I slept with the enemy and tastefully redecorated his quarters, I regret to inform you that I've fallen in love with him. Cue your smelling salts.
A/N: Those of you who've done the Bull romance will recognize some aspects/dialogue I borrowed...I really love these two together. ;-)