Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two hours shy of the port in Jader, the Waking Sea calmed for the first time since Dorian had begun his crossing. A reprieve, but come too late to spare him. Immediately after they’d set sail from the vast docks of Cumberland, the ship’s steady waver took hold, prompting him to empty the contents of his stomach over the railing at intervals until he felt wrung inside out.

Most of the deckhands avoided him lest his mess happen to splatter, the one exception being a wizened fisherwoman who passed by twice to chuckle and whack him on the back. The second time, Dorian expected an anecdote or some grim reassurance, but the old bird simply shook her head and returned to her work.

It never did much for one’s dignity, sea travel. Mere glancing thoughts of the up and down churning of thick water sent Dorian’s stomach into spasm, and as a series of waves slopped about the sides of the boat, his lip curled against another surge of nausea. He’d managed to avoid getting any sick on his robes, yet somehow he could not divest himself of the stink of it. He prayed that the fault lay in his nasal passages, scalded as they were, and that he wasn’t imparting a vile whiff to every person who stood near. There were fresh mint leaves somewhere in his luggage, part of his personal stash of tea, and he briefly stumbled below deck to retrieve one to suck on.

When the docks came into view, he rallied. They arrived well before dark—a welcome mercy—and after a few wobbly moments following his disembarkation, he wound his way through the cobble streets to see about lodgings and a mount for the morning. He had a lot of ground left to cover, if he recalled his time in the south accurately. So far the weather was holding—another welcome mercy. Fall tended to come early, this side of the sea. That much he remembered well.

Installed in a cozy tavern in the last available room, barely larger than a broom closet but plenty warm and equipped with fresh smelling sheets, he stripped out of his salt-mist and sweat-soaked clothes and had a basin brought up. There was no space for a full bath, but a hot wet towel and some sweet-smelling soap suds were all the kindness he needed. Clean, changed into clothing that wouldn’t call his national allegiances into question, and feeling altogether less repulsive, he meandered down to the taproom where he took a seat at the bar and ordered a shot of something to settle his nerves.

Unbidden, the barmaid thrust a bowl of aromatic soup under his nose. He tried to refuse.

“Nonsense, comes as part of your lodging,” she insisted, and piled two biscuits on a plate as accompaniment. “Besides, those cheekbones could cut a man. You’ve got to be hungry.”

It did smell delicious. Steam rose in quick plumes off the biscuits, hot out of the oven. There were no laws dictating he had to finish it all, and a bite or two might sop the excess acid in his stomach. He picked up the spoon and gave the barmaid a nod. “Thank you.”

Later, after he’d scraped the bowl clean with the last of the second biscuit, she brought him an enormous slice of apple pie. She was sweet—clearly of Fereldan extraction, as were many here in Jader, it being a border town—so he let her fuss. The food was homey and hearty, and it weighed his guts back into their proper place after the discomfiting journey across the sea. He went to bed full and warm, and did not dream.

In the morning, he glanced again at Cullen’s letter, the ink worn at the creases from repeated folding and unfolding, leaving certain lines faint. The contents were otherwise unchanged:

     Dorian,

     I hope these words find you well. If you’re ever in need of a peaceful place to withdraw to, write me. I’ll make arrangements for you here, any time, for however long you like.

There were a few other pleasantries, and a finely sketched map—evidence that someone else had helped in the penning of the letter, given Cullen’s brusque nature—but that was the crux of it. An open invitation. One he’d been five years in accepting.

After all, what business did a Tevinter magister have at a sanctuary for southern templars? He knew precisely the sorts of questions and eyebrows that would raise in Minrathous, not to mention anywhere else gossip traveled.

He ate a bowl of oatmeal and made his way to the livery yard down the road, where they had a horse saddled and waiting for him. Halfway out the door, a young groom begged his pardon and stopped him to hand off a blanket, rope halter, and small bag of odds and ends, all the while wearing a wistful expression. In a flash of understanding, he realized he’d bought the creature instead of hiring its services. He’d forgotten how far a sum of gold could go beyond the grandeur and opulence of the Tevinter courts. Outside those lavish walls what was treated as pocket money by his kith and kin could be a life-altering sum to a stable master. Though, upon reflection, he did remember thinking last night how expensive it had gotten to hire a beast since he’d last done it.

“If you could put a navy ribbon in his mane for Wintersend, I’d be grateful. He likes that,” the girl said.

Dorian nodded. “I’ll be sure to. Does he have a name?”

“Barley.”

A reasonable sort of name for a horse, he supposed. “What does he like for a treat?”

Her face softened. “Carrots. With the greens still on.”

“I won’t forget. I hope he wasn’t your favorite.”

The girl gave a small smile, underscored with a shrug. “They all are, really. Safe journey, ser.”

He stowed Barley’s belongings in the saddle bags as best he could and set out. The plan was to cross the border into Ferelden then ride steadily until dark, or near to it, and find lodgings that could accommodate him and the horse as he went.

The countryside was peaceful with the glow of summer’s end. Hot at noontime, but the morning and evening light had diffused golden edges. Shadows were blue and soft, less desperate than their height-of-summer counterparts. At twilight, the warmth of the world promptly sucked up into the sky, departing with the sun.

To avoid being on the road after dusk, and considering the fact that he’d begun shivering, Dorian decided to cut his travel efforts short for the day.

Barley was thankful for the pause, though he’d proven a steady beast so far. He knew the road and looked weathered enough about the eyes that Dorian presumed he’d completed similar journeys many times before. Once they’d settled into their lodgings for the night, he made sure to feed the horse a carrot. One small gesture of goodwill for a life he’d accidentally taken charge of. Barley snuffled his cheek after he’d finished crunching, and Dorian took that as thanks. He stood for a few moments to rub the velvet of the horse’s nose before he withdrew to his chamber.

It was strange traveling incognito, he thought as he bathed that night. Setting out without having to prepare elaborate speeches and defenses, either verbal or otherwise, felt like neglect. Certainly, the Bannorn had its dangers, but nothing like home. This escape south came on the heels of three months of talks intended to devise and implement limitations on undue magisterial influence in public forums. The discussions were heated, and proposal after proposal, no matter how mild, was dismissed out of hand by families too rich to argue against. Eventually someone put forward a motion to suspend any so-called provocative discussions until spring, since it would be untoward to continue them over the course of the many fall and winter days of celebration that were rapidly approaching.

Dorian had voted against it, since he knew damned well that nobody gave half a shit about the sanctity of festivals but rather only for stalling—yet another attempt on the part of his opponents to exasperate dissenters into silence. So, he’d raised his hand against the motion and, as always, found himself vastly outnumbered.

That very night all those weeks ago he’d penned a letter to Cullen, sought out his fastest bird, and sent the missive winging south. Without awaiting a reply, he made arrangements for a prolonged hiatus from the Senate. Perhaps a permanent one. The grand majority had succeeded: he was exasperated. After more than four years of tireless lobbying without measurable impact, he was losing faith. The Publicanium and the Tevinter people, the soporati, tradesmen, artisans and farmers, the thousands of liberati and slaves still owned, were desperate for a paradigm shift. Tensions built up over centuries of abuses had begun boiling over. The Magisterium, however, remained the same obscenely wealthy, short-sighted, selfish, and corrupt institution it had ever been, crushing any promising bud of change under a swift heel. These refusals to make even the smallest remediation were as endemic to the Tevinter political landscape as witherstalk to the vast shifting deserts of the west.

An answering letter, written in Cullen’s unflowery hand, had come back to him in haste, so now here he found himself. Southbound. Ah, well. Maybe Ferelden’s infamous damp air would act as a restorative, and in a month or two he’d go back home a new man. He sniffed at the very idea and readied for bed.

Traveling in the sun day by day, lulled by the warm smell of horse and worn leather, Dorian began to relax. Movement, the creak of the saddle and the feel of reins in his hands, the steady hoofbeats and swaying motion; it was meditative. Rolling fields sprawled green and gold in all directions, and where they ended, scrubby forests began. They made slow progress into the heart of Ferelden, peppering their days with pauses and spending nights at whatever inn they came across near dark.

On the eighth day, a wooden sign at the foot of a long dirt road bordered by birch thickets indicated that he’d arrived at his destination.

He rode on for several minutes before the trees petered out into lush farmland; hilly, vibrant green. There was a sprawling, if rustic, manor occupying the highest visible point on the property, and several smaller outbuildings dotting the area beside. He knew by the map that the farm stretched farther than he could see from where he sat, all the way to the base of sheer mountainsides rising in the distance.

Barley had gotten the notion that they’d come to their stopping point, and thus began an ornery march toward a well-maintained barn which branched into a long row of stables. A few people moved about the grounds here and there, but nobody seemed terribly concerned with him. No doubt messengers, suppliers, visitors, all manner of folk, came and went in a constant whirling tide, and one man on horseback was hardly worth noting.

He knew Cullen the instant he spotted him, though he was facing away. Upright, stern shoulders, a scruff of blond hair that curled at the nape. He stood against a paddock fence, watching the druffalo on the other side. Next to him, on the second rail of the fence with Cullen’s hand hovering close to their back, perched a young child. A few feet further away, a woman stroked the nose of an inquisitive druffalo calf.

That was just like Cullen, to leave off that he’d married and become a father. Forever reticent to give over personal details. Dorian nearly paused, surprised at how it startled him when of course it ought not to. Cullen was a handsome fellow, one who’d held a command position in one of the most powerful institutions in Thedas prior to its dissolution. Why shouldn’t he be a husband and father, now that the war had lulled?

Dorian dismounted and walked the last thirty feet to the paddock, Barley trailing at his heels. Certain he was within earshot, he stopped and called out: “Is this any way to welcome an esteemed guest such as myself?”

Man and child looked over in sync, then the little girl scrambled for the safety of her mother’s skirts. Laughing, Cullen strode forward. “Dorian!” He was smiling, eyes wide with affectionate surprise. “I didn’t expect you for several days yet.”

“There goes any hope I had of turning up fashionably late.” Dorian peered past his shoulder to offer the woman and youngster a wave hello. “Your wife and daughter, I presume?”

Cullen snorted, and it evolved into a chuckle. That same dry, retiring sound which Dorian had wheedled and worked and teased for from the opposite side of a chessboard so many afternoons at Skyhold. “Ah, no. Cecily’s parents are farm hands. The little one likes to help me feed the animals.” The pretty, dark-haired woman scooped up the girl and they both waved to Cullen, the two moving off further along the fenceline.

“Hm. For a moment there I thought you’d left a number of key things off that extremely brief missive you sent me.”

Cullen dusted grit and horsehair from his shirt and trousers and had another laugh. “That would be quite the omission. No, I—I daresay the only woman in my life is Andraste, and I...am not as faithful as I once was. Besides, everyone always tells me I’m married to my work.”

“You’ve never once strayed, if that’s the case.”

With a quirk of his scarred lip, Cullen stepped closer and clasped Dorian’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, old friend.” His grip was firm and his expression genuine. A truly warm welcome.

Dorian leaned and took hold of Cullen’s arms before planting a kiss on either cheek. Very Orlesian behaviour, but he enjoyed the custom; the unapologetic, whirlwind intimacy of such a thing. “You, too. It’s been a long time.”

A slight blush worked into Cullen’s cheeks beneath the contact point of each kiss. “That it has. Have you not had a spare stretch of weeks before now?”

“I have, but never enough to make the trip worthwhile. No sense hiking all the blasted way across the continent only to have to turn around and hike home again three days later.”

“Very true. No matter, you’re here now.” Cullen waved to a fellow who stood in the doorway of the stables, and indicated the horse. “Antony will see to your beast.”

The young man walked up and held a hand out for the reins, which Dorian surrendered. “Thank you. His name is Barley,” he said as he untied his cantle pack from behind the saddle and shouldered it. “He’s quite an agreeable sort.”

With a nod and tiny smile, Antony led the horse away.

“He’s very good with them,” Cullen said. “Barley will be well taken care of. Oh,” his eyebrows jumped up and he rubbed the back of his neck, “your trunk arrived safely, a couple of days ago.”

He’d sent the bulk of his luggage ahead prior to his departure, in order to make better time. “A relief to hear it. I’m dying to get out of these clothes. The smell of horse has such a way of permeating...”

Cullen only laughed, not unkindly, and gestured toward the main building. They began walking. The house was a sprawling two storey concoction of rough stone, the front of it paneled with ivy trellises between high windows. Stately, in its way, if Fereldan architecture could ever truly be called such. Perhaps this place had been built by Orlesian occupiers, long ago.

“I’ve had a room prepared for you adjacent mine,” Cullen informed him. “I assumed you’d like to be close to the study. Our collection is a bit thin, but since there’s no library I’d hoped it might serve as substitute.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, commander.”

With a snort, he shook his head. “Not commander. Not for a long while now.” His grin had been a rare thing during the Inquisition. Rarer than stumbling across a good bottle of wine, rarer than the candied dates Dorian bribed Josephine to have shipped in for him between treks to the wastes to slay dragons as well as his own less amenable countrymen. Sometimes you sighted a smirk or a twist of the mouth when Cullen won a round of chess, now and then a tooth showed after more than three pints in the back room of the tavern, and Bull—Dorian paused at the thought of him, closed his eyes against the grip it cinched around his heart—The Bull had gotten Cullen going a few times with bawdy tales, but for the most part he was stoic.

How times had changed. Cullen’s grin was genuine. It crinkled his eyes and cheeks, tugged at his lip where the faded scar cut a white path through his beard. The lines around his eyes and on his forehead were deeper, but he had good colour and he’d put on significant weight. Less haggard and all smiles, he looked younger and in better health than he ever had at Skyhold.

When the grin softened to a shyer look, Dorian knew he’d been standing silent too long.

“Forgive me.” He shook his head and shuffled the tied length of his hair over his shoulder. “I’m feeling a bit jostled. I’d forgotten what it’s like to sit horseback for days at a time.”

“Of course,” Cullen said. He put a hand on Dorian’s back, at the center. “A meal, perhaps? If you wish, I could show you your room and I’ll have something brought up?”

“That would be perfect, thank you.”

The inside of the manor was modest but comfortable. Cullen led him up a set of stairs and down a hall, and showed him into a large bedroom with high windows that overlooked vast fields.

“I’m afraid there’s no fireplace, but this wall,” he pointed to the stonework near the head of the bed, “is part of the study’s chimney, so it gets quite warm when there’s a fire lit in there.”

There was a sudden thud, a sound of sneezing in the hallway, and then a clatter of claws. An enormous brown brindle dog tottered in and looked between Cullen and Dorian.

“Ah, Bear, I’m not certain Dorian will be as lax about your presence in his room as I am,” Cullen said to it.

Dorian shrugged, found himself smiling. “I don’t mind, so long as he stays out of my sheets. Hello Bear,” he said to the dog.

The mabari relaxed his ears and walked up to him, wagging his stub tail. Dorian gave him a gentle scratch on the chest, surprised by how soft the short fur was.

“You’ll meet all the dogs in time. They keep their own agendas but they’re around. This one is a lazy old brute, he spends his days napping at the foot of my bed. That’s why he’s a bit fat, right Bear?”

Bear turned to lift his ears at Cullen, still wagging his tail.

“Right,” Cullen repeated, as if that counted as confirmation. “You’re old, you’re allowed.”

They were sweet to watch, man and beast. “How many dogs are there?”

“Six, at the moment.”

“Six!” Dorian gave a little whistle, and Bear tilted his head at him. “That’s a whole pack.”

“Indeed.”

With that, things lulled into an awkwardness where one of them kept expecting the other to speak, and both of them kept waiting out of politeness, but nobody quite got started. Cullen fidgeted with the hair on his nape. “I’ll...go see about having that meal brought up for you,” he finally got out.

Dorian set his cantle pack down next to the trunk, and began sifting through his pockets for the key. “Thank you. Is there somewhere I could take a bath?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Cullen paused, thought for a moment. “There’s a communal bath in the guest wing, but if you’d prefer, you’re welcome to my private bathing room.”

Since acquiring the long scar that stretched from the top of his chest all the way down his abdomen, Dorian preferred privacy. “That would be nothing shy of bliss. I hope it’s no imposition?”

“None at all. I’ll show you the way.”

The room was down a flight of small stairs, tucked in a corner. “My hero,” Dorian said, laying eyes on a wonderful soaking tub. Cullen left him once he’d shown him in, and Dorian delighted to discover that the villa was fitted with running water, both hot and cold. The wonders of modernization finally making their way southeast.

He ran himself enough water to luxuriate in, adding a few drops of soothing oils for fragrance and to help him settle. His body hurt. He was averse to own to it, barely admitted it to himself, but he wearied far more easily than he once did. The injury done to him by the falling axe had marred him beyond the mere superficial. His muscles had been damaged also, and the healers had done everything in their power, but they had not been able to knit him back together without flaw. Magic was, far and away, the greatest medical ally the world possessed, but like all things it was imperfect.

Imperfection, of course, defined worldly existence to the extent that certain philosophers had dedicated years to writing volumes on the subject. Dorian knew this, and still he’d waged a war against it all his life. A losing one, more so with every passing birthday, but he believed there was a certain grace in resisting the inevitable. Not crassly, mind, but with small refusals. He might have to cede that one deep furrow above his brow, but he’d hold territory in well-tailored robes, trim hips, and the sharp groomed beard along his jaw.

After his soak, he climbed back to his room to find a covered tray. Soup, bread, a little dish of cured meats, and a bowl of olives. Eclectic, but tasty.

Cullen reappeared in his doorway a few minutes later. “Did you have enough?” he asked.

“I did. Delicious, though the bread was exceptional. Your bakers do good work.”

Almost imperceptibly, Cullen puffed his chest. “That was me, actually,” he said with a laugh. His pride was mostly in fun, but there was a grain of true feeling in the declaration.

Dorian smoothed his beard and smiled. “So, you’ve taken to conquering the domestic arts now that your soldiering years are concluded?”

“I have.” His grin suggested he knew he was being teased and didn’t care. That he did enjoy it. He came in and collected Dorian’s empty tray. “Shall I show you the house? Or would you like to rest?”

Inside his head, Dorian’s younger self railed, insisting he see the house, meet everyone, charm and dazzle the masses and make an unforgettable impression. He ignored it. “I think I’ll rest a while. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to show me the study, later on?”

“At your leisure,” Cullen said, and withdrew.

Curtains closed part way, Dorian settled on top of the covers. They smelled of spring water and lavender, though the heavier pelt at the foot of the bed had a pungent hint of wet fur. It likely hadn’t been used all summer, and had been taken from some chilly cupboard in preparation for his visit. The smell would fade in a day or two.

So, this was Cullen’s post-Inquisition legacy, endorsed by the Divine herself. Victoria had bequeathed the land and the buildings that stood on it, along with a handsome stipend. Old, solid rafters lined the high ceiling above him, the exposed wood treated to make it shine like a wet chestnut, and the cast iron lamp fixtures were artfully wrought, if adorned with the odd cobweb.

Housekeeping had never been one of Cullen’s priorities. His Skyhold office had overflowed with scrolls, maps, worn quills, notes, messages, books containing supposed theorems and strategies of war. Many a night Dorian had stood in the library watching a dim glow emanate outward through the shattered roof of the commander’s bedroom until finally, in the hours before dawn, it would extinguish. A brief time later, having gotten his requisite two hours’ rest, Cullen would emerge into the main courtyard anew, circles beneath his eyes purple as the sunrise sky. That’s about when Dorian would retire to bed, if he wasn’t being dragged on field missions in the miserable cold and rain, off to frolic through swamps or forests or graveyards at the Inquisitor’s heel.

How times had changed. This place may have once belonged to a Bann or some minor noble family, and he wondered what sorts of ghosts might ride draughts through the house, come winter. Whatever the history of the manor, now it functioned to serve templars too battered or ruined by lyrium to carry out their duties. By the look of things on his ride in, the operation sustained a relatively large population of farmhands and other assorted labourers besides. Cullen had not been made a Bann, as Fereldans had been known to start civil wars over less egregious breaks in social order, but judging by the breadth of the property and the classic beauty of its well maintained house, he wanted for nothing and certainly did not sleep with a blanket of frozen starlight falling silently through a gaping hole in his roof.

Dorian expected to lie there a long while daydreaming in the endless state between sleep and waking, but he soon blinked out like a quenched flame, and slept.

Chapter Text

Cullen had been more than ready to shirk half a day’s duties to help Dorian settle in and learn his way around, regardless of the fact that the unscheduled break in routine would’ve left some important task or other unfinished. In a sense, Dorian’s desire to bathe, retire, and rest proved the wisest choice for both of them.

There was always much to be done and rarely enough time in a day to do it. In spite of this, and his own misgivings about feeling idle, Cullen had long since given up on keeping hours far beyond what his body could endure. He saw to the dogs and helped with whatever matters were most pressing, be it harvesting, pickling, baking, hunting, mucking the stables, or darning socks—that afternoon it had been bundling hay—but he could no longer afford to push past the limits of his own strength without paying dearly with his health. In the early days he’d gone on that way, marching past exhaustion into the realm where numbness overtook body and mind, much as he had with the Inquisition and the Order before that, relying on the same reckless doggedness that had seen him through so many long years of service. Habit or inborn trait, he couldn’t say, but his first winter on the property, he’d fallen so ill that he’d spent several days in the uninterrupted loneliness of his room wondering if he may not live to see another spring.

In the end, he’d rallied, and since then he’d learned to damn well pace himself. He wasn’t twenty anymore, and the intervening years had not been gentle. They rarely were for soldiers in wartime. Back in Kirkwall, after all the ugly business with Meredith, he’d stopped taking his draught of blue and intended to leave off it permanently. That was before the breach, however. Before the formation of the Inquisition. As each day drew to a close, he found himself with one hand on the wooden case containing his kit, fitful in his own mind as to whether or not the strength it gave him would be worth the cost. Due to the severity of his withdrawals he became unable to keep his affliction a secret, thus some months later he’d gone back on the dose at the Inquisitor’s behest. The fate of the world, not just the wellbeing of one Marcher city, rode on their successes or failures. With so great a threat looming, they could none of them afford mistakes or infirmity. The stakes were too high.

After the Inquisition had won, however, and begun shifting its role in the world, he’d ignored direct orders and put his philter down for good. He’d arrived at a point of no return: things had started to blur, at the edges. More and more often he felt stricken with a vacancy of mind, and he knew if he did not stop immediately, he walked a path into dark woods he would never emerge from.

No minor endeavor, giving it up, in spite of knowing the consequences. A willing heart he possessed, but the flesh was corrupted by years of addiction. Weaning himself from the lyrium had aged him in ways he could never have guessed at before doing it, but at least it hadn’t been too late. Eventually, light shone through the treetops, and he felt himself again.

The past five years had been hard lesson after hard lesson with regard to his limitations, but he’d also accepted that taking his time, eating hearty, and resting when he felt tired instead of cursing himself for indolence were all keystones in a foundation from which he might build his strength back. Slowly. Excruciatingly, exasperatingly slowly.

Seated in the study with three of his dogs, he busied himself worrying for Dorian. His long-awaited guest had sequestered himself in the early afternoon and was still closed in his silent bedchamber hours later. It seemed that Magister Pavus hadn’t yet learned how to let himself heal—or more likely was never afforded the opportunity due to political obligations in his homeland. Cullen had noticed upon his arrival that Dorian moved with the stiffness of a man working hard to hide his hurt. Years went by, wounds healed, but injuries like the one Dorian had sustained tended to live deep in the flesh and ache on and on. They were capricious, Cullen knew all too well, having a few of his own, and every change in the weather might bring suffering.

When he heard Dorian’s bedroom door creak open after dark, it was all he could do to keep from leaping out of his seat to check on him. Since light poured forth through the study doorway, he presumed if he simply waited, Dorian would be drawn to him.

Sure enough, he appeared a minute later looking composed and regal, if a bit dazed, in a fresh outfit of black and gold

One palm to his chest, he stood silent a moment. Then, “Tell me I haven’t slept a whole night and day.”

It was unclear whether he meant the question seriously or in jest. “Only a few hours.”

Reassured, Dorian sighed relief. He took tentative steps into the room, glancing at the high bookshelves that lined the walls.

“I take it if you had, it wouldn’t be the first time?” Cullen asked him.

“Hm? Oh. No, definitely not. Though in past cases there’ve always been copious amounts of wine involved.” Dorian strolled slowly through the room, trailing a finger over the spine of a book here, another there. He circled around in such a fashion until he reached Cullen’s chair and looked down. “I know that one is Bear,” he said, indicating the old grizzled dog, “but who is this?”

Cullen smiled. “This,” he patted the side of his youngest dog’s neck, “is Birdie. She’s a bit of a baby. And that,” he gestured to the gray and white patchy creature lain out like a pelt near the fire, “is Fuller, if you recall him. I think he exhausted himself today chasing rams in the hills off the back of the property.”

“He’s certainly chosen the right spot to recuperate.” Dorian held his palms to the heat of the small fire. “It’s been getting cold during the nights.”

“Indeed. We’ll have snow within a month, I’d wager.”

Dorian looked horrified.

Cullen broke out laughing and gestured for him to take the seat next to him. “Not heaps of it,” he added. “But a dusting, that’ll come soon.”

“How did I ever let you bully me into this,” Dorian mumbled as he lowered himself, with the slight hesitation of someone expecting pain, into the second plush chair.

“Two letters over the span of years hardly counts as bullying. I rather think you’ve brought this upon yourself.”

With a smile, Dorian settled further into his seat. “What you’re saying may be true, but I’m still going to complain about it.”

“Huh. Some things don’t change.” Cullen reached for his mug and then remembered himself. “Can I pour you a cup? It’s an herbal.”

Dorian leaned over the table and sniffed. “Elfroot?”

“A little. Mostly lemon balm.”

“Mm, alright. With a dollop of honey, please.”

He poured him a cup from the pot and stirred in the honey, and they both sat holding their mugs like two old men gathered for gossip. In the opinions of some, that was exactly what they were. Dorian angled his face away, to watch Fuller snoring in front of the fire, and Cullen stole the moment to observe him.

They’d last seen one another years ago, in the dying days of the Inquisition before its dissolution. Dorian had been a sick man, then; narrowly recovered from a grievous injury and deep in mourning. It made Cullen feel cruel to think it, but Dorian’s countenance gave the impression he’d never quite recovered. He looked thin, and he’d aged. There were streaks of gray glinting throughout his hair, a concentration at either temple. His cheeks, always well-defined, bordered on gaunt. Half circles of darkness marked the skin beneath his eyes, and he held tension in the corner of his jaw that made him look ill at ease.

None of that could touch how beautiful he was. How beautiful he always would be. That much, Cullen had remembered clear as a chantry bell. Glimpses of the younger Dorian were in subtle attendance: he still favored kohl makeup along his eyelids, for one, and although his robes nearly swallowed him, they were impeccably made and flattered his broad shoulders. And glinting in a lobe, was that…

“Earrings…” Cullen murmured aloud.

Mid-sip, Dorian paused, looking right at him. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Don’t you like them?”

“Oh. Oh, no I…” Cullen felt his cheeks heat all at once, hot as the red that flared when he leaned too far into the hearth to adjust a fallen log. “I mean, yes, I do like them, it’s only that I…hadn’t noticed. Before.”

“Good to know you’re looking now.” There was a flirtatious curl in his coiffed mustache. He might as well have winked.

Maker, this felt like the old days, right down to Cullen never knowing how to respond. He cleared his throat, managed a smile, albeit an awkward one. “Tomorrow when you’re rested I’ll give you a tour of the grounds,” he moved on. “If you like.”

Dorian seemed to consider the offer. There were stray silver strands in his beard, too, Cullen realized. His own was going the same way, though it was harder to tell. Having dark hair set it off more than dull blond.

“I would,” Dorian finally replied. “How big is the property?”

“Well, it’s...large.” The borders were ill-defined, and somewhat nebulously shared with neighbouring farms. “It encompasses a good amount of forested territory to the south, and I’m quite convinced that the vineyard the enterprising Orlesian fellow next door has established is technically on my land.”

A little noise from Dorian, somewhere between a laugh and a hum. “And here you thought moving back to the Fereldan heartland would rid you of those tiresome Orlesians.”

All Cullen could do was shake his head. “If there’s one thing history teaches and that the past decade has proven true, it’s that there’s no escaping the bloody Orlesians.”

“Come now,” Dorian waved his hand. “Don’t give them the satisfaction. Orlais casts a long shadow but not so long as they’d like to think. Look at it this way—Perhaps your neighbour would be willing to pay for the land usage in wine?”

“I’ve been meaning to draft a letter suggesting as much,” Cullen admitted. In truth, he’d been putting off speaking to the man. Marchand was civil but impetuous, one of those people who argued to the contrary even when they recognized they were in the wrong, which suggested to Cullen he knew full well that his grapes were planted on Cullen’s side of their borders and hoped the trespass would go unchallenged. It would not. Cullen had staff, templars, and dogs to look after, and although he still had earnings from the Inquisition and the support of the Divine in his ventures, extra gold never hurt. “Come to think of it, I ought to speak to him soon. I suspect he’ll retreat to Val Royeaux for the coldest months.”

“And what sane person wouldn’t, given the option?” Dorian’s lip twitched up at one corner. “Who in their right mind would come south by choice to spend winter in the Maker-forsaken foothills?” There was a hint of the old brightness showing on his face.

“Someone who enjoyed complaining about the cold more than they hated it, I suppose,” Cullen replied.

Dorian sipped from his mug in an obvious ploy to disguise his amusement. “At least it’s not the Emprise. Had you put down roots there I can promise you never would’ve seen hide nor hair of me again.”

They’d been apart so long that any notion of where Dorian’s humor turned half serious, or occasionally outright mean, had been lost to him. Not that his sense of it had ever been terribly developed in the first place. Maybe fifty percent of the time Cullen would realize Dorian was joking before falling over himself to apologize for giving offense. Tonight, he was mostly sure of the jest and still he felt compelled to ascertain a concrete truth.

“Fortunate for me that I didn’t, then.”

With a sigh, Dorian reached across the table and covered Cullen’s wrist with a warm palm. “I’m being facetious. You always were an obtuse grouch, but I’ve missed you. Do you still have that chess board?”

Buried somewhere under five years’ worth of dust in a trunk containing his meagre belongings from Skyhold, but he did have it. “The very same.”

“I’d hoped so,” Dorian replied, grinning. “Perhaps not tonight, but I’d like a match soon. All the political maneuvering I’ve had to do in daily life will have much improved my strategy.”

“Improved your cheating, you mean.”

Dorian gave his wrist a quick squeeze and withdrew his hand. He clicked his tongue. “Such presumption. Implying that my homeland is a viper’s nest of sycophants who’ll sing your praises one day and celebrate an attempt on your life the next? You’re right of course, but still, how dare you?” He adjusted the fall of his hair over his shoulder and sucked a breath through his nose. “You always were a sore loser.” He was smiling.

The air in the room felt suddenly cold against Cullen’s wrist without Dorian’s hand on it. He tongued his lip, hoping the pink he felt rising in his cheeks was minimal. “You can hardly blame me when you never played fair.”

“It’s scarcely my fault that I used to be so pretty I distracted you.”

“Used to be? Come now!”

“Oh, I may…still have my charms, but I wouldn’t compare them to what they were. They’ve faded. It’s been a hard decade.”

Preposterous. Cullen wanted to tell him so, that he was radiance personified. Instead, he simply shook his head in what he hoped would be construed as disagreement. “Don’t be maudlin. It doesn’t suit you.” If he spoke any further he’d betray his whole heart, and he was too old for the squirming of impossible hope he felt under his ribs. It was too late, now. It had been too late a long time ago. He reached for the teapot and refilled his cup, then offered a top up to Dorian, who nodded a small thank you.

“I think I may be in for a sleepless night,” Dorian murmured. “I did not intend to lie prostrate all afternoon and evening... Another perk of my advancing years.”

Cullen snorted. “You’ve been on a long journey. You needed the rest.”

Only silence in reply. Dorian did not agree, or perhaps he was simply pensive. Nimble fingers plucked a rounded gold clasp from where it weighted his hair over a shoulder, and he brushed the waves out, filling the air between them with a gentle herbal fragrance. The clasp, he tucked away in a pocket.

Maker, his hair had gotten truly long. The sides were shorn close to the skull just above the ears, but the rest had been let grow below his collarbone. It was thick, and very dark, save for the quantity of silver strands lacing the deep black-brown. Radiant.

Dorian turned to look at him, and Cullen quickly lowered his eyes to stare into the hearth. He cleared his throat, internally chastising himself for the tic, but could think of nothing to replace the silence.

“So, this is the study?” Dorian asked. Forging ahead to fill the awkward spaces Cullen left, as he’d always done.

“Yes. A bit modest, but it serves well enough.”

“Sounds like someone I know.” Dorian smiled again. “I imagine the light is good in the afternoons. It’s going to fade the spines of every volume on that bookshelf,” he indicated the one behind Cullen, “but otherwise it’s got a pleasing aspect.”

Most of the volumes were donations, brought from mouldering chantry basements or the dusty shelves of nobles who were looking to feel especially noble through minor generosity. “Most of these books aren’t worth the parchment they’re printed on, but I have been meaning to see about having curtains installed.” One of a thousand minor niceties that would’ve been seen to within the first week of habitation if he’d had the blessing of Josephine’s assistance as they had at Skyhold. Sadly, without her, the details suffered. He had none of her prowess for either diplomacy or creature comforts. “I intend to inquire about extending this end of the house, come summer.”

“An addition?”

He nodded. “To expand the kitchen, mainly. It was part of the original house before its conversion, and a good size for a family and staff, but too small for current purposes. It gets...hectic, in there. The cooks act as if it were a war zone.”

“For them it might as well be. I’ll tell you now, kitchen staff camaraderie looks a lot like mutually assured destruction from the outside. Many chefs simply enjoy yelling. For the Orlesians, it’s a stylistic necessity.”

“When I think of careers for people who enjoy yelling, cooking isn’t the first to come to mind...”

“Ah, thus revealing that you’ve spent very little time in kitchens—aside from baking that bread of yours.”

There was no yelling when Cullen hovered over the proceedings, and especially not when he got his hands into the dough. He found it soothing. He tried to picture Dorian up to his elbows in flour and could only imagine him complaining about the powder tickling his nose. “And where did you come by this intimate knowledge of chefs and their habits, exactly? Should I set aside an extra apron for you?”

Dorian smiled and blew on his tea before placing it on the table. “When I was young, I used to hide in the kitchens to escape my meddlesome parents. There were some dusty half-forgotten cupboards where the pickled goods were kept, just large enough for a small boy to squeak in. We rarely had much use for pickled anything, since my mother believed wealthy people ought not to serve that sort of stuff. Preserves were for the lowly masses who couldn’t afford fresh, I suppose, nevermind that they’re delicious. No fathoming her reasons. Anyway,” he leaned forward in his seat and rubbed his hands together, “tucked in that cupboard, I overheard my share of choice curses in a wide variety of languages, which, as you can imagine, shaped me into the man I am today.”

It was difficult to picture Dorian as a child. His nose and mustache were integral elements of his face, and those were features that only seemed to fully manifest in adolescence. Some men didn’t grow beards until well after it. Harder still to picture him hiding behind a stash of untouched preserves. “But your secret kitchen ventures didn’t inspire you down a culinary path, hm?”

“Not especially. I daresay I was more interested in documenting all those delightful turns of phrase and looking them up in our library. My first efforts at translation. Most illuminating.”

That made Cullen think of the other village children in Honnleath, their clandestine ventures into attics above taverns hoping to infiltrate the adult world and return with one or two of its secrets pocketed for future appraisal. He’d gone with them a few times, though they’d stopped asking him along since he’d been a responsible child and often tried to convince them to play other, less risky games. It earned him a reputation as a wet blanket but he could never shake the feeling that when they snuck about, they were committing an intrinsic wrong. Not that they were necessarily doing harm, or even that he feared punishment if they were caught, (although he was not fond of the implications), but rather that it was a breach of the trust placed in them when given rein to run free unsupervised.

No wonder he’d not had many friends. Children were, overall, strange creatures. Which reminded him...

“Oh. When you arrived today and saw me with the little one… Did you really think she was mine?”

A distinct pause. Dorian straightened out in his seat. “I had no reason to think otherwise,” he replied. “Why wouldn’t you have a family?”

“Well for one, I would’ve told you, but more importantly... It’s me , Dorian.”

Dorian shot him a strange look, then. Bemused, incredulous. “Yes, it’s you, Cullen. Handsome, well connected, a valiant general turned philanthropist with friends in positions of power all over Thedas.”

Cullen scoffed.

“And so humble, too,” Dorian added with a smirk. “Though I confess it surprised me, since I never pictured you with children. Do you like them?”

“They’re perfectly nice,” Cullen said. “Charming now and then, but...when they begin screaming...” He grimaced.

“I regard it as a challenge, actually.” Dorian picked up his mug and cupped it in both hands. “How quickly can I redirect this small person from a tantrum? What might intrigue them enough to quiet their fussing?”

“You like them, then?”

“I do. Not to imply I’d be any good at raising one, but I do like them. They’re peculiar, occasionally horrible, often underestimated. Everything they are and will be is in there, awaiting shaping. I remember seeing the world through those eyes, so eager for the future, always striving towards being grown up and taken seriously...” He shook his head. “Don’t you remember being a young lad?”

Cullen considered his hands as he sifted through the snarled yarn of his fondest early memories. Obviously he remembered, since he’d just been thinking of his boyhood, but he worried about losing hold of those threads, worried about wearing them thin. Some of them had already frayed to mere tatters, revitalized in a burst when he bit down on a ripe blackberry, or by a laugh that shouldn’t have sounded familiar but did.

“I do, but… I remember my siblings, more than anything.” Mia as ringleader, shit disturber, and protective older sister all in one. Bran’s constant begging for more animals. Cullen could still hear his voice: one more kitten, please? And of course, Rosie’s feats of daring in the barn. There wasn’t a thing in existence she wouldn’t climb, and Cullen remembered carrying her back to the house the time she broke her collarbone. Between the four of them and the village children, they got up to all kinds of antics, his own natural inclination toward obedience be damned. “It was such a long time ago, now.”

“Did you ever visit your elder sister? After the Inquisition disbanded?”

“I did. She and her family are in good health. My nephew might visit, come spring. He very much likes dogs.”

“A boy after your own heart.”

“He is, at that. Though he’ll hardly be a boy much longer. Maker, I think he’s turning sixteen in a month.”

Dorian gazed at the bottom of his tea cup. “Time goes by, doesn’t it.” Despite his claim that he wouldn’t sleep, his head was drooping, and his shoulders were lax against the chair back.

“What of you, though? How’s your family?” Cullen asked.

“My mother and I are...on civil terms. She misses my father. For all their bickering, they did love one another.” He lifted a hand to his lips, tapping them with the side of a finger. “She won’t say as much, but I know she feels as though she’s lost me, too, and I can’t blame her. Mother to a pariah son who defected south only to return years later spouting radical reform. A son whose actions directly contributed to her husband’s untimely demise. It’s not a nice story. Not something you chit-chat about with the ladies at tea, you understand.” He paused to give a sniff and shake his head. “Especially because I’ve made myself thoroughly unmarriageable well beyond my little personal problem.”

Cullen waited for him to continue, but Dorian only raised his cup to his lips and sipped.

“You’re...referring to your, ah...” How to say it delicately?

“My penchant for fucking Qunari,” he stated, toneless. “You can fuck all the men you want behind closed doors, elven or human, as long as you never speak of it and never call it love. Qunari though, are apparently a bridge too far. Especially if the relationship is public and equal.”

There was venom in the explanation. And why shouldn’t there be, when Qunari were as much people as anyone else? Unusual, and insular, but what people of Thedas wasn’t? Cullen wet his lips and mentally cursed himself for asking. “I’d only meant your, ah, preference for the company of men. Forgive me.”

“It’s hardly your fault. You needn’t apologize. Honestly it’s a relief to be unwanted, though the rumors and derision wear thin at times.” Suddenly, he laughed, then shook his head. “You should see some of the pulp that’s been written. Florian Parvus Rides the Steel Stag , that sort of trash. All of it pornographic, naturally. Maevaris brings them to me whenever a new one crops up and we drink wine and read them aloud to one another.”

That was one way to cope with public humiliation, Cullen supposed. With bravery and humor. Still, the idea of such books existing left his cheeks cherry red, and he sought a change of subject. “I’d been meaning to ask, how is Magister Tilani? She always struck me as steadfast, in her letters to the Inquisition.”

“She’s well. Better off than I am, politically, and would be better off still if she abandoned all connection to me, but, stubborn woman that she is, she stands by my side and helps me make light of my mess of a life. One among very few willing to do the job.”

“So then, do you...do you have, um,” Cullen cleared his throat.

Dorian turned to look at him, lids half-lowered and a sly smile on his lips. “Do I have...?”

“A man. Someone special,” Cullen rushed. He never dared ask in a letter, in case it somehow came across provocative. Even now it felt like an intrusion, though he’d fielded a similar inquiry earlier that very day. “I’d wondered if maybe, now that people knew, you might have found...” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling more foolish by the second for asking when the conversation thus far had indicated nothing of the sort. “Forgive me. Maker, I should know better than this…”

With a little laugh, Dorian reached over and patted his knee. “No, no one special. Pardon the almost pun, but I haven’t had the stomach for it since my encounter with the business end of an axe.”

Everyone knew the story. He’d seen the wound, too, when Dorian arrived back to Skyhold clinging to life by a nail’s width. Cullen had hovered in the infirmary with clammy hands as the surgeons and mages made sure Dorian’s internal workings were restored to where they belonged. Certainly, this was not a turn he’d intended their conversation to take, tonight. But, he’d wanted to know about his personal life, and now he did. “I am sorry.”

Dorian only shrugged. “As I said, time goes by. It’s simply that I don’t enjoy passing it the same ways I once did.” He set his teacup back on the table and rubbed a hand over his mustache and beard. “And now I’m going to make a liar of myself and retire permanently for the evening. I’m sure I’ll be better company after a night’s sleep,” he said as he rose.

“I understand,” Cullen told him. “Please, rest as much as you need.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Dorian said with a soft smile.

“Goodnight.”

As he watched his shadow fade down the hall, Cullen couldn’t help but believe he’d soured everything with insensitive questions. It was late, to be sure, and Dorian was tired, but he’d pushed too hard. He heaved a sigh and looked down at Birdie, who was still curled by his feet.

She snorted at him.

“Yes, alright, I suppose we’d best get to bed, too.” Tomorrow was another day; hopefully a fresh start. As always, there would be much to do and not enough time to do it.

Chapter Text

He slept a deep, dreamless sleep. Felt rocked as if by an ocean, but instead of making him sick it soothed him like a babe in arms. He woke dazed. It took the span of a few deep breaths to remember exactly where he was. Comfortable, safe, tucked in a soft pelt that smelled of lavender in a room where sunlight made the dust glimmer on the air. Ferelden. Far away. Mid-morning, judging by the shadows.

Dogs barked in the yard, and someone shouted something indistinct, the outcry followed by raucous laughter.

In a torpor he dragged himself from the bed, wondering if coffee had caught on in the south yet. Doubted it, since the southern preference for tea, regardless of hour or occasion, was infamous beyond its borders. Taking stock of himself in a tabletop mirror, he stood over a basin and splashed water on his face, rubbed it down with soft cloth before applying two of his creams and a touch of kohl along the eyes. He loosely braided his hair and folded a small gold clasp over the end to keep it wound. Then he dressed and made his way down to the kitchen.

He was served a blazing hot cup of tea by a rushed Orlesian and told to help himself to anything that appealed. The kitchen was riotous, four different cooks flitting here and there preparing the midday meal, and he settled himself at a small table in the adjacent dining room where he could watch the action unfold without being underfoot.

A dog, gray with the odd white patch—the very one Cullen had taken in during their final trip to the winter palace as the Inquisitor’s entourage—trotted toward the kitchen, staring through the doorway with expectant eyes.

“Fuller!”

Dorian and the dog turned toward the voice at the same moment. There stood Cullen, hands on hips, fresh from the fields judging by the wet leather of his boots.

“You stay out of that kitchen, dog,” he said, pointing to the sitting room. Fuller went to him and sat down at his feet, tail wagging, ears low. Cullen rolled his eyes and patted him on the head. “We’ve discussed this at length, don’t give me that look.”

Fuller gave a half yawn, half grumble, and trotted past Cullen out into the yard.

“You’ve discussed it at length, have you?” Dorian said. “Did you make him sign a contract? Dip his paw in ink and,” he held his hand up and wiggled his fingers, then brought it down on the tabletop with a whap. “Sealed and delivered?”

Cullen let his head fall and he laughed. “I know, I know… I talk to them as if they’re people. They’re smarter than they pretend to be, though. That’s the trouble with mabari, actually. Too clever.” He ambled over to Dorian’s table, eyes surveying the lone cup of tea. “No breakfast?”

“I’m working up to it.”

“If you don’t work up to it soon, it’ll be lunch.” Cullen put his heavy palm on Dorian’s shoulder. “Let me get something for you.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary, I’m—

“I insist.” He pushed past the swinging kitchen doors and disappeared.

Dorian’s stomach took ages to sort itself out in the morning. Hunger was not something he felt often, the past few years, which struck him as unreasonable since he knew he had to eat, that he got miserable and crotchety and his hands shook when he waited too long to put food in his body, but at times he simply hated doing it. Chewing, swallowing, the whole process, it was too much to bear.

A side effect of his grief, he’d been told by the healer his mother had sent him to when she’d decided he was getting too thin. Low appetite was common among those who’d lost someone close to them, be it a friend, partner, parent, or child, and in the past decade Dorian had lost one of each, save a child, though in his most cynical moments he believed that was only because he’d had no child to lose. According to the healer, the effect of loss could be cumulative. She’d been a kind woman, earthy and reasonable, a sort of witch in her way, and she’d reassured Dorian that although he might feel as though he were dying, his wound had healed perfectly. It was his spirit that needed convalescence. He was old enough that he already knew that, but there was comfort in hearing the words spoken aloud by another living being, even if it was a practical stranger; a prim, provincial granny who lived in a house crowded with drying herbs. When she’d said it, he’d felt a wash of calm, as if in affirmation that his interior world were real, and so was he.

Noise, down the hall, and from the kitchen. Two small groups of people had begun making their way to the sitting area when Cullen reappeared with a tray. It was heaped with fresh fruit and hot crêpes, a delicate dish of whipped cream on the side, and he set it down between them and took the seat opposite Dorian.

“I hope you don’t object to sharing?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

Cullen immediately set about stacking berries neatly down the center of a crêpe. “We’ve had a good crop this year.”

The berries were stalwart examples of their types, each of them bright and shapely, as if they’d been magicked from the pages of a masterfully illustrated botanical field guide. Dorian popped one in his mouth: a burst of tart followed by sweet. “Mm,” he went for a second. Berries were a reasonable compromise for his stomach. Small, inoffensive, with just enough sugar to stir his desire for more. “Did you plant all of these?”

“Maker, no, most of them were established when I took over the land. In fact, I’m still waging war against the blackberries. They’re invasive and the thorns are agony when it comes to harvesting or trimming.” He took a bite of his crêpe and dabbed at a spot of whipped cream at the corner of his lip with a thumbpad.

“You need some agronomist mages. It’s a thriving specialization in Tevinter.” Burgeoning gardens and a robust conservatory were sure signs of wealth, and who in his homeland could resist vying for status through any avenue available to them?

“Nn,” Cullen hurried to finish chewing, his brows lifted in eagerness. He swallowed and nodded. “Actually three of my farmhands are mages who found they had a knack for plants. It’s an underutilized skill here, and a practical application of magic even naysayers struggle to vilify.” He took another bite, which reduced what remained to a lone mouthful. “Do you ever make use of it?”

“Rarely.” To revive the languishing houseplants Mother plied him with in a doomed effort to bring cheer into his gloomy chambers, perhaps, but otherwise, living things were not Dorian’s specialty. “I’m afraid I work better with the dead than the living,” he said. “Which is a shame, because my charms are wasted on the dead.”

That got a snort from Cullen, who nudged the dish of berries closer to Dorian’s side of the table. Dorian indulged him and nibbled another small handful.

More people had begun to filter into the room, and a few ventured into the kitchen, returning with trays of steaming bowls, bread, sliced fruit. It was a mixed crowd; a variety of ages and genders. Many were certainly labourers, judging by the size of their biceps, and others were...

Patients. Would that be the word? Ex-templars. Dorian was unsure how to refer to them. Some seemed well enough to crack jokes and rub shoulders with friends, and others were quieter. They had a shaky look, like newborn ungulates. Their trips to the kitchen were tentative, and without certainty. Hunger was perhaps more of a question than a need. He knew the feeling—the incessant gnaw hidden beneath sick discomfort.

Across from him, Cullen tucked into a second crêpe. Sun through the window brightened his face and highlighted that his hair had been bleached shades paler by a summer spent outside. He had a spattering of freckles across the nose as well, which had been entirely absent in his former life. He’d grown older, same as Dorian, but instead of being ground to thinness by the struggle of living he’d filled out as if to spite it: softened about the cheeks and jaw under his incongruously dark beard, bit of a belly curving away from his thick chest. When Dorian chanced a look at his eyes, the sun caught them and lit them up, clear honey brown.

But then, of course, they were looking at one another. Dorian turned his attention out the window.  

Cullen nudged the edge of the plate, sending it a couple inches toward Dorian. “Try one,” he said. “They’re quite light. Er, I suppose the whipped cream isn’t, but otherwise.”

Orlesians did know their way around a crêpe, he’d be lying to claim otherwise. He yielded to Cullen’s prodding and lifted one up, rolling it before biting into it. Light, fluffy, not too sweet, and a perfect base for fruit or savory toppings. “Delicious,” he said.

Cullen grinned at him and spooned a little more whipped cream onto his own.

“You seem in very good humor this morning,” Dorian told him.

Another one of those shy, sweet, painfully young-looking smiles in answer. “I think you’ll find my ill-temper largely absent here, truth be told.” Cullen added a final berry to the heap of whipped cream. “I’m... I’m much better than I was, during the Inquisition.”

From all Dorian had seen so far, that went without saying. “You’re happy, aren’t you?” he teased. “Admit it. You can tell me.”

Laughter, then a quick shake of the head. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m happy you’re here, I’ll say that.”

Dorian paused, crêpe partway to his mouth. Such a declaration from anyone else would’ve been an expected pleasantry, simply the thing you said to a guest to reinforce their welcome, but from stoic Cullen, a man disinclined to effusive displays, it gave pause.

Oblivious, and finished eating, Cullen leaned back in his seat and sighed, rolled one of his shoulders a couple of times. “Do you want to see some of the grounds, when you’re done?”

Just like him to barrel on past what must’ve been a stunned expression plastered on Dorian’s face. “Certainly,” he finally replied. “I’ll eat on the go.”

They strolled out the front door and through a large, noisy flock of chickens, then onward to the barn where Cullen showed Dorian where Barley had been stabled. “He’s out in the paddock now. He seems easy-going enough, so we put him next to my old mare.”

“No arguments so far?” His multitude of travels had taught him that horses were fickle in the extreme, very much like people. They liked and disliked one another on grounds that seemed baseless to everyone save the stable master, and even old Dennet couldn’t always explain why two mounts would shriek and stamp if penned too close together.

“Everybody’s behaving themselves.”

They glanced over as a mabari came snuffling around the corner. The little one, Birdie.

“Hello my darling,” Cullen said to her. In reply she wagged her tail madly and loped to him with awkward limbs, looking puppyish. He knelt down and ruffled her about the ears, which were triangular and floppy. When she finished with Cullen she came over and tentatively nosed Dorian’s hand. He patted her with care, remembering that Cullen had said she was still a bit of a baby.

“I thought these beasts had pointier ears than this,” Dorian said, noticing how velvet soft they were.

“Ah,” Cullen rose from his crouch, one hand pressed to his lower back. “It’s common practice to dock them. Some believe it makes them look fiercer, or spares them wounding in battle. For the role they serve here it’s unnecessary and I’d rather not put them through it.”

The dog wagged her tail when Cullen looked down at her.

“Same with the tails, actually,” he added, scratching under Birdie’s chin. “Few dogs are born with stub tails. Though it does happen, it seems to detract from the health of the line. Certain combinations cause problems.” He tilted his chin at a sleeping white form near the door at the far end of the stables, opposite where they’d come in. “Amrita, for example, is quite deaf. That’s why she was brought here.”

“Brought here?”

“She was meant to be a guard dog in her first home, but as you can imagine, she wasn’t very adept at it.” Cullen clapped his hands together loudly several times, garnering precisely zero reaction from the white dog. He lifted and lowered his brows to sharpen the point. “So, she was brought to us.”

How strange for an animal so reliant on its senses to be missing one. “Poor dog. That must be difficult.”

Cullen shrugged. “Once you’ve got her attention it’s simple enough.” They strode toward her, Cullen intentionally weighting his steps. When they were about ten feet away, the dog lifted her head to glance over her shoulder. She immediately sat up, attentive. Cullen flattened his hand and placed it on his stomach, and she was up and running to him a second later. Another hand gesture, and she sat down on her haunches. Another, and she walked full around him and sat back down at his side. He produced a treat from his pocket and fed it to her, then waved one arm in a gentle shooing motion. She trotted away wagging her stub tail. With a smile, he glanced back to Dorian. He must’ve looked bemused, because Cullen added, “Not that I’m wanting rid of her, just...otherwise she won’t know we’re done.”

“Very clever,” Dorian conceded. “Teaching a dog sign language. Does she read lips as well?”

“She does.”

He’d been joking, but Cullen was not. Fereldans were always saying the mabari had a bit of magic in it. Originally bred by the Circle of Magi, the breed very likely did benefit from mystical augmentation somewhere in its lines. Birdie hovered around them, looking forlorn, leathery nose working the air. “I think this one would like a treat, too,” Dorian guessed.

Sighing, Cullen pulled another tidbit from his pocket. “Up,” he patted his chest. The dog stood and carefully set her paws on his shoulders, revealing a startling height. A small mabari was still a mabari, after all. Cullen mumbled something else, and she dropped down, then he gave her the treat. “They do tend to get jealous of one another,” he said.

“And they all roam free?”

“Within reason. Each of them has a—a job, so to speak. Amrita loves the horses, I think because they’re heavy and she can keep track of them easily, so she tends to be around here. Birdie’s still a baby, but she prefers people, so she goes about checking in on everyone.” Cullen glanced outdoors, gaze keen as if waiting for the other four dogs to march in for their own personal summaries, but the moment passed. “The rest have their preferences, though they all make sure to turn up for meals.”

“Naturally.” Regardless of any magical status bestowed upon them by their Fereldan masters, dogs lived for dinner. Sometimes he was quite sure Fereldans did, too.

With a snort, Cullen scrubbed fingers through the curls on his nape. “I’m sorry, I—all this must seem terrifically dull to you.”

Dorian waved a hand in dismissal of the self-conscious recoil. “On the contrary, your creatures are far less beastly than most of the people I’m forced to contend with on a daily basis back home. I’m eager to meet each and every one.” With a slight flourish, he indicated the fields beyond the stable doors. “Lead on?”

Between them, Birdie gave a little whine and wagged her tail. Cullen righted himself, the cowed sag of his shoulders giving way to broadness as he straightened.

They strolled about sunny paddocks that contained druffalo, horses, a modest herd of snoufleurs, even a few goats. Farm hands worked at different paces across the whole property, and when they came to the vegetable gardens, an older man handed them each a perfect, ripe tomato. The color and smell of it, infused with sun and pollen, brought Dorian no small amount of joy. He knew if he bit into it the juices would dribble down over his wrist and soak his sleeve unless he took utmost care, but when he saw Cullen throw caution to the wind and dab his tongue to the side of his palm to catch a wayward seed, he decided it didn’t matter.

It tasted of sweetness grown over slow summer hours. Sunlight, good earth, and plenty of clean water worked magic all their own. He closed his eyes to savor it. Nudged by Cullen's elbow he opened them again to discover he was being offered another tomato, which he took without guilt or hesitation.

After they’d gone for a sizeable walk, a messenger came to retrieve Cullen. Gloom overtook his brows, deepening as his eyes scanned each line of the missive, then he apologized, promised to be available again later, and darted off to address whatever emergency required his specific attention.

So Dorian strolled steadily back to the house, basking in the sun, only pausing for a moment of surprise when his stomach grumbled. He made a tentative foray into the kitchen, found himself overwhelmed with soup and rolls and some kind of pastry that tasted like all the butter in the Bannorn had gone into it. Then, partaking of a rarely indulged post-lunch proclivity, he fell asleep in his chambers for a pleasant nap.

Over the course of the following week, he settled in. The rhythms of the house began to make sense, as the hustle crescendoed and diminuendoed around sunup, noon, and supper. He grew familiar with Cullen’s personal patterns, too, which tended to mirror those of the house at large. Cullen rose when the roosters crowed or before, retreated after dinner to bathe, and often excused himself in the evenings to retire to bed early, leaving Dorian to his own devices in the study with a half carafe of wine and a low burning fire for company. Usually a sleeping mabari, too.

The days were companionable enough, and they lunched together, though the sudden arrival of unseasonable rain meant additional harvesting had to be undertaken. That kept Cullen occupied as well as weary. It also kept Dorian indoors, where he preferred to remain, warm and dry, though he ventured daily to the stables to offer Barley a handful of hay or some other nibble. The horse seemed grateful for the visits, so Dorian sometimes extended them into a quick groom, which the old fellow got quite excited about. He liked being gently scratched between his shoulders and along the back, and relaxed whenever the comb trailed through his mane. No doubt it reminded him of his stable girl.

Dorian still felt badly about that whole situation. Maybe he’d try to reunite the two, on the journey home. He certainly had no intention of subjecting poor Barley to sea travel, so why not simply return him to his point of origin? He’d think on it. There was plenty of time for that.

For the most part, he kept busy with light walks, reading, attempts to ingratiate himself with the chickens to some small success, and sleeping whenever the desire took hold. Which was often. It had been years since he’d been able to entertain the whims of his exhaustion, and he found himself feeling quite refreshed for it. Headaches lessened, his vision cleared, and he noticed things more easily.

Such as the fact that Cullen left his door open at night. Just an inch, if that, but definitely open. Dorian wondered the night he first noted the gap if it was a mistake, but the second night, he decided it must be an old habit—a small but pointed effort on Cullen’s part to leave himself available no matter the hour in case someone had desperate need of him. However, the third night, from where he stood before the high shelves in the study sifting for a fresh book, Dorian watched a big sandy-colored beast of a dog daintily slot a paw through the gap, widening it until they could fit their blocky snout through, and from there shove their way into the room. As if by enchantment, the door swung back into place afterward, and the gap remained.

The door was an ongoing arrangement with the dogs, then. How whimsical.

That same night, Dorian left his door open an inch. An experiment of sorts, to see if the agreement was with Cullen only, or if it extended to other open doors. Sure enough, sometime in the small hours, he was stirred by a scratch and a creak, and a creature padded into the room. It snuffled his fingers where they dangled over the side of the bed, giving them two small licks, and settled on the thin carpet. He wasn’t sure which dog it was and had no way of telling in the dark, though a couple of them looked so alike to him that light would’ve been of little help. Whichever one had chosen to pitch up, it radiated warmth, even from a distance of two feet where it lay on the floor. The soft sighs of its breathing and later, little whines and huffs of dreams, soothed Dorian’s mind. He slept long, and woke feeling lighter. The dog had gone, but that was understandable. He’d slept in.

Downstairs, after breakfast, he caught the attention of a harried young woman whose arms were piled high with freshly washed sheets.

“Excuse me, but where might I find an extra rug?” he asked.

She gaped at him for a few moments, as if he’d dropped through the ceiling in a cloud of mortar, then came to her senses all in a rush. She stuttered an apology, during which she addressed him as Magister Pavus and indicated a nearby corridor where he could find a storage room. He wanted to tell her that he was no Magister here, that she need not stand on ceremony or fear reprisal, but she zipped away down the hall before he could utter more than a thank you.

After one mistaken doorway, leading into what looked to be a root cellar, he found the storeroom. In it were odds and ends of furniture, rolled maps, moth-eaten wall hangings, stacks of bedding, pelts, knit throws, various military coverlets, and a small pile of woven rugs. He dug through them and chose the softest, thickest one.

He took it outside, shook the dust from it, and then carried it up to set next to his bed, in case his canine visitor chose to slumber there again. They were tough, hardy beasts, but men and dogs alike had sharp elbows—an extra bit of padding could hardly offend.

First task of the day complete, he exhaled satisfaction, then went and stood at the window, not so surreptitiously hoping to sight Cullen somewhere in the near distance. A thin rain had fallen recently if the damp earth was anything to go by, but the clouds had parted, blue coasting in their wake. Along the road a lone rider approached, and he observed them a while, idly curious. Were they a courier, or a merchant? Visitor or prospective resident? As he watched, the figure slumped in the saddle, slid sideways, (demonstrating the universal principle that an accident witnessed from too far off to help happens with excruciating slowness) and crumpled to the ground.

“Shit,” he murmured. Not how he’d wanted his curiosity satiated. At a trot, he headed for the front door.

Chapter Text

Unusual alarm barking rose up at the far end of the field, then a human cry rang out. Cullen clambered from the ditch he’d been clearing to see one of the workers running at top speed toward the road, and he threw down his shovel and followed him.

A riderless horse grazed wildflowers and crabgrass along the far fenceline, and a body lay prone on the ground, the farmhand and Fuller crouched nearby.

“Did you see what happened?” Cullen asked, hurrying to join them.

“No,” the fellow replied. He had fingers pressed to the prone woman’s neck, under her jaw. “But she’s alive.” She wore the light leathers of an archer, the templar symbol emblazoned on her vambraces.

Cullen grit his teeth and knelt down. “Welcome back, Jillian,” he said to her. His letter in response to her last missive, which strongly cautioned against making her return to their fold on her own, had either not arrived in time or, more likely, had not been heeded. So much for abandoning Dorian in the fields that first day to take great pains to send it in haste.

“I... I knew it was a risk, but my brothers were delayed and...” Her voice was weak, crispy with thirst.

“Bring Rho,” Cullen said to the farmhand, who nodded and took off toward the house. He turned back to the templar. “We would’ve sent you an escort, my friend. Do you think you can sit?”

Her eyes were unfocused. She was deep in a fit of withdrawal, and no doubt her head felt as though someone had tried to ring it like a chantry bell. Cullen remembered the intensity of the migraines, the nausea so encompassing it muffled all else, wrapped you in a tight blanket of pain and half-blinded you.

Unsurprisingly, she did not answer him.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, Cullen craned his neck, expecting the healer. Instead, it was Dorian, moving at a quick trot.

“Is she quite alright?” he asked, stooping into a kneel by Cullen’s side.

“Not sure. I hope she didn’t hit her head on her way to the ground.”

“I saw her go. I think her shoulder caught the worst of it. You’ve a flair for the dramatic,” he said to the woman. “I suspect we’ll get along.” With careful slowness, he put a hand on her forehead. “A little warm.”

“She’s been off her lyrium for over a week. Fever commonly sets in about now.” Cullen’s voice felt flat around the words, hammered down and shaped into a blunt statement that couldn’t possibly contain the agony of the experience. Best not to try.

Dorian said nothing. He shook his head and rubbed his hands together, bringing a greenish glow to them. He set one on her breastbone, and the other at her temple.

A few moments later she blinked, and a second after that, tried to rise.

As if by the same breath, both Cullen and Dorian said, “Easy.” Each of them blocked her effort with light palms, keeping her in place.

“I’m... I’m all right,” she insisted. Slowly, she sat up, Dorian’s hand at her back to stabilize her. “I’m here, I’m all right. Bless this merciful haven...”

Cullen bit his tongue. That word held too much agony for him. The bones of the first Haven still lay in rubble at the foot of the mountains.

A few beats of silence, wherein Dorian gave him a look he couldn’t parse. “As you say, you’re here,” Dorian reassured her. “I hope you’re fond of mabari, because you’ll be seeing a lot of them.”

She managed a weak laugh. “I remember that much.”

They helped her to stand, and the truant horse came over to check on the proceedings. It nosed the side of her head with a whiskered snout, as if asking where she’d been. “Fat lot of help you are,” she muttered to it.

Cullen gathered the reins and they began a careful walk toward the house, one of them supporting her by either arm. The healer met them halfway there, and following an exchange of nods Rho replaced Dorian at her right side.

“I’ll see to this menace,” Dorian indicated the horse as he held a hand out to take the reins.

“Just pass him on to Antony, he’ll do the rest.” Cullen gave the leather strap to Dorian, who nodded and began to steer toward the stables. The beast could smell water and hay, no doubt, since he went along eager enough.

Once inside, they moved their charge into the wing of temporary lodgings. It had been built over the course of a year, fifteen bedrooms large enough that two people could sleep in them, if the need arose. So far, the rooms had never been at capacity. In addition to the dormitory, there were outbuildings down the hill from the house for those staying long term, and for the hands and staff.

Jillian would be placed in the eleventh room, where she’d stayed during her first abandoned attempt to rid herself of her dependency. Before her, it had belonged to two other now fully recovered templars, and would belong to more once she moved on. However, first she needed to be steered into the healer’s chambers for a proper assessment. The two of them settled her on a cot and Rho assured Cullen that they could handle the rest without further assistance.

They walked side by side to the door. “All’s well that ends well,” Rho said, though their thin smile matched Cullen’s. “We’ll get her through it this time.” Both knew the weeks ahead of the not so new arrival would be long, and shattering. Not everyone survived the process with grace, and Jillian wasn’t the first or only one who’d returned to the Order to resume a dose. Cullen chose to view it not as failure on anyone’s part, but a necessary, perhaps temporary, step back into the life they best knew how to live. Making a new one required extraordinary strength, and the truth for many was that they were in poor health and may not live to reap any benefit from the endeavor. Jillian was young, and strong; her chances were good. For the sake of all his charges he chose to believe each one would make a complete recovery, no matter their history.

Cullen wandered out to the stables, where Antony told him from behind the flank of a horse up to its neck in hay, munching with relish, that Dorian had just left. Back in the house, he trailed upstairs to his room, presuming to find him there.

The door stood open a few inches. Thinking little of it he glanced inside, expecting to see Dorian perched on the window seat with an open book, as he’d found him no less than three times in as many days. Instead, Dorian stood above an open trunk at the foot of his bed, exposed to the waist. He held a drape of cloth in both hands and seemed to be attempting to turn it right side out. Gnarled tissue, rough and ropey, ran in a thick line across the whole of his abdomen, top left pectoral to opposite hip

It was an ugly, mean scar. As Cullen understood it, had the cleaving wound gone much deeper it would’ve spilled the entirety of Dorian’s internal workings across the floor of the gaatlok factory. The only thing that had saved him was the Inquisitor’s profound understanding of spirit magic. He’d been unconscious and held together with the fade equivalent of stitching glue for the return journey to Skyhold, and once the real healers got to him they proclaimed he would live, but there was little else to be done, aesthetically, to settle the churned flesh back into place. Dorian had slept for a week in the infirmary, and for another week following his release from it. Cullen remembered him going to bed one man and waking up as another; a dull-eyed wraith who made eye contact without ever fully looking at you.

Shortly thereafter, they’d all gone their separate ways, those who’d survived scattered by the four winds. Vivienne on the seat of the Divine, dear Cassandra battling to rebuild the Seekers, Varric to Kirkwall, Josephine managing the flourishing house Montilyet, and Dorian... Home, to Tevinter.

Dorian lifted his head, and their eyes caught. Cullen felt himself flinch at the friction in the gaze, reddening instantly. Dorian made no sound, showed no expression, but turned his back to him without so much as blinking. Tunic still in hand, he glanced over his shoulder. “Have Fereldans forgotten how to knock since I was last here? Did they ever know how in the first place?”

Caught out, Cullen stepped into the room a hair too fast and caused the door to thunk against a sideboard, rattling it so hard it nearly sent a vase to the floor.

By reflex, he steadied the vase, shifted it an inch toward the wall. “I, uh...” He cleared his throat.

“If you’ve come to rearrange the furniture,” Dorian said, “you could save time by burning half of it.” He yanked the tunic over his head and began rolling up the sleeves.

Cullen blinked at the insult. The room had the best furnishings in the house—it was no mistake that Dorian had been put up in this specific chamber. His neck prickled with shame. “I’m sure it’s a bit rustic for your tastes, but I’d thought it serviceable.”

On an exhale, Dorian’s squared shoulders rounded off, and he gave a weak smile. “Rustic is certainly the word,” he muttered. This time, his voice was softer. “Sorry, I’m...a touch unnerved. Did you need something?”

“I’d only wanted to thank you, for your help with Jillian. She’s settled now. The next while will be hard, so for her to feel like everyone here is on her side is no small matter.”

“It’s no trouble, though her horse got a bit familiar with me after I gave him a carrot, which,” he gestured to the fresh tunic he wore, “is why I decided to change.”

“Familiar?” Cullen asked, trying not to smile.

“He had an itch, and I made for a very convenient scratching post. Not the first time it’s happened to me, mind you, but it’s one of the more literal instances I can think of...” He shook his head.

Innuendo or not, Cullen found himself laughing. “I hope he didn’t do any permanent damage.”

“No, just...hair, and some slobber. Somehow, I still prefer that to the dracolisks.” He gave a small shudder. “I never overcame the looming sense that if they got hungry enough, they’d turn around and take a bite.”

“They are...unusual, I agree.” Fast, steady on harsh terrain, superior to horses in the deserts, but with that mouthful of teeth... “I’d not want to travel alone with one, if I’m honest.” He’d never ridden them, even after the Inquisitor had added several to the stables.

“Yes, at least a horse has the decency not to eat you should you die riding it.” Dorian’s fingers trailed over the front of his fresh shirt, flattening out a wrinkle. Silence built around them for a few long moments.

Cullen stepped backward, inhaling sharply. “Well, I’d best...go back to my digging and leave you to, um...” He gestured at the room.

Dorian glanced around, the corner of his lip turning up. “My exceedingly important pursuit of leisure?”

“Yes.”

“If you must. Oh, before you go,” he retreated to the vanity and picked something up, which he looped around his neck. “Fasten this for me, would you? It has a tricky hasp.”

“Ah. Certainly.” Delicate gold chain felt cool against Cullen’s fingertips, contrasted with the radiating warmth of Dorian’s skin. Close as they were, Cullen couldn’t help but breathe in the smell of him, a mild fragrance only meant to be savored if you were standing directly by his side. “I’m afraid I’m no champion with this sort of thing,” he murmured. In the past few years his fingers suffered from a blunt stiffness normally brought on by age greater than his own, and he found fine tasks difficult. He did manage to clip the necklace, only brushing awkwardly against Dorian’s nape twice in the process. “There.”

“Thank you.” Dorian turned to face him, slipping the pendant under the collar of his tunic as he did so. “Are your fingers always so chill?”

Cullen cleared his throat. “Often, yes.” Instinctively he rubbed his hands together, seeking to push heat from the meat of his palms up into the digits, which never worked. “When I took lyrium I didn’t notice it, but ever since I stopped...”

“Hm.” Dorian held out a hand, moved it forward insistently when Cullen only stared at him, blinking. “Let me see, you silly thing.”

“Oh.” Cheeks burning, Cullen gave over his right hand.

Dorian took it and turned it palm up, pushing his thumb into the lifeline as he considered the swollen knuckles. “What does the healer say?”

Cullen shifted his weight, shrugged. “Bad circulation. Worn joints.” Nothing serious, and nothing to be done for it.

Another soft hm in response. “I might have a spell that could help. Give me a day to do a spot of research?” There was eagerness in the arch of his brows, eyes sparking at the prospect of burying his nose in his books or working through theorems.

“I’d...be appreciative,” Cullen said.

With a smile, Dorian let go of his hand. “Alright. I won’t keep you any longer. You said you were digging?”

“Ditches. We’re liable to have more rain, and we want fields, not swamps.”

“The snoufleurs would beg to differ, I’m sure,” Dorian said as he turned to walk to his trunk. He opened it and began rifling, stacking small leather-bound volumes on the floor.

Cullen took his cue and left him.

Digging lasted the afternoon, with only a short pause for lunch. Drainage was an ongoing struggle on the farm, especially in the northeast where the land was quite flat and certain spots were given to holding water. Rain and snow melt during storm season tended to move debris and dirt around, so continuous upkeep had to be done. It was always a slog.

In the evening, someone came trotting down from the southern tip of the property to report that a few of the druffalo had snuck out through a bit of rotted fence and needed to be rounded up and returned to pasture. Cullen sought out his two brightest dogs and saddled one of the stocky but nimble horses to assist in the endeavor. Druffalo were generally amenable to being directed, but gentleness was important, especially if there were mothers with young calves. It took them a couple of hours to track down the missing individuals. Once they had, they found them stubborn about leaving a patch of feed they particularly liked.

As luck would have it, the slow descent of dusk inspired the wolf pack in the nearby forest to welcome nighttime by howling, thus inspiring the druffalo to begin a snuffling, snorting retreat toward their pasture with only minimal encouragement. The animals had shelter and warmth waiting for them, slow burning enchantments built into their byre that radiated heat when the ambient temperature dropped below a certain threshold. It had begun happening in the night, the past couple of weeks. A first frost was right around the corner if the ache in Cullen’s joints could be believed.

By the time he bathed off a day’s worth of caked mud and sweat, it was far too late to find Dorian for a shared supper. Too late to disturb him at all, in fact, neither for a round of chess nor a nightcap. Cullen recalled him being a nocturnal creature at Skyhold; the tireless, owlish shadow perched in his library window, candles glimmering until dawn. He still kept longer hours than Cullen, given away by the visible seam of light beneath his door, but not the way he once had. So Cullen let it be, and ate his meal with only mabari for company.

After he’d cleaned his teeth, he changed into nightclothes and made to settle in bed. He was weary, and tomorrow he’d have to rest more than he liked or desired, to recover himself.

Bodily exhausted, he expected to sleep as soon as he laid down. Instead, his legs were jumpy. Muscle twitches plagued him, reminding him of his long decline after shaking free of lyrium’s grip. Initially, he’d felt like a pup held violently by the scruff then suddenly let go, left to tumble headlong with no hope of being gathered into caring arms once he hit the ground. From that point forward, any progress had to be made under his own power. Not an easy prospect, wracked with infirmity as he’d been.

He’d learned not to dwell in stillness when he began slipping backward. He lit his lamp and got up, stretched his legs for a few quiet minutes, then made his way down the hall for a book to distract him.

A glow emanated from the study, which wasn’t wholly unusual. It saw some use in the evening hours, though most preferred the common room at the other end of the house where there were cards, darts,  table games, a few instruments to play, a collection of books that consisted mostly of folktales suitable for reading aloud. He strode into the doorway expecting to find an ex-templar perusing the shelves. Instead, Dorian sat reading in one of the wingback chairs.

Cullen blinked a few times at the sight of it. Dorian had installed himself as if the chair were his own, as if he’d lived there for years. When Cullen realized he was standing silent and staring like an abject oaf, he moved forward into the room.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked.

“Indigestion,” Dorian replied, without taking his eyes from the book in his hand. “I’d forgotten how much you folk like bread, meat, and cheese. You?”

“Insomnia.” Old restlessness deep below the skin, unshakeable. He didn’t suffer with it as often as he had in the past, but it visited, from time to time. “It comes and goes.”

There was a pot of tea on the table beside Dorian, and a steaming mug. He held a blanket bundled in his lap and one of the few barn cats that dared take up inside the house had climbed aboard and curled there.

“I see you have company already.”

Dorian glanced up at him, brows twitching, and Cullen nodded to the cat.

“Oh. Yes, he was quite insistent. I tried to tell him I couldn’t guarantee more than half an hour of reliable inactivity, but he was not deterred.”

“They’re not much for following orders,” Cullen agreed. The cat gave him a slow, lazy blink, and he returned it. They were less fond of him than the dogs were, generally, but he was trying to amend that. Learning their language required an amount of finesse he had to strive harder to achieve. Dogs were much more straightforward.

“I respect that about them.” Dorian reached for his mug, taking a deep sip before setting it back again. “They make their own decisions.”

“Creatures after your own heart?”

This inspired only a thin smile. “Maybe once, long ago. Now I’m a good boy and I do as my father intended. I took his seat of power and watch helplessly as those richer and more influential than I am make all the decisions. Really, it’s a shame Father is dead. He’d be very pleased with how I’ve been brought to heel.”

A slow breath in, and Cullen lowered himself into his usual seat as he exhaled. Indigestion seemed the least of Dorian’s problems tonight, but far be it from his place to say so. “What of the Lucerni? That was partly your doing. You have some support in your homeland.”

Dorian snorted, trailed into bitter laughter, and shook his head. “Indeed. I sit at the head of the most radical branch of the Magisterium and provide what amounts to comic relief in the eyes of my compatriots.”

One more try, and Cullen would drop it. “Surely it’s not all like that if there are others who’ve backed your cause.”

“Cullen,” he paused, twisted the tip of his mustache. “The Magisterium would prefer to scrape us from their boot like so much errant dogshit, but somewhere along the way someone decided we made a fine spectacle. The only reason they allow us to exist is to be made an example of. Look at these foolish deviants, they say, how they rail and fluff themselves up as if they haven’t benefited from the very system they seek to upend! How droll they should even think to try!” He rubbed a hand over his face, roughly, and blinked several times as his features crinkled into a wince. “Damn, I’ve been petting the cat...” His eyes began watering immediately, and he dabbed at them with his sleeve.

Disturbed by the vehemence of this rant, the cat stood up and hopped down, wandering out into the hall with his tail raised.

Cullen offered Dorian a kerchief from his pocket.

The gesture froze Dorian in place, eyes wide with shock, as if Cullen had thrust a dagger towards him instead of a piece of clean, coloured cloth. “That—That won’t be necessary.” He stood and stalked to the fireplace, leaned with one arm against the lintel, and dug his own kerchief out before blotting the tears.

There was wisdom inherent in stopping while you were ahead, and Cullen had never once in his life learned that lesson or managed to practice it. Here he was, middle-aged, still incompetent when it came to displays of emotion. He should’ve shut his mouth and let well enough alone when it became clear Dorian was in a poor mood. There Dorian stood, trying and failing to curb an allergic reaction turned weeping, and Cullen could only ball his fists, kerchief included, against his knees and sit, feckless. It was all a bit perplexing, and he angled his gaze to the floor as he groped for a proper reaction. Retreat? Excuse himself, leave Dorian alone? What if he didn’t want to be left alone? Would withdrawing worsen everything?

“Maker’s breath,” Cullen mouthed. Nails clicked on the hall floor and Birdie made a sleepy appearance in the doorway, glancing to him, then at Dorian. In an instant, she tiptoed her way to Dorian’s side, where she nosed his thigh.

He made a small noise of surprise, though it resembled a laugh, and set a hand on her head. Cullen watched as his fingers strayed to one of her ears, working at the velvet of it. Slowly, a bodily change came over him. Tension drained from his shoulders, falling away, rain off an angled rooftop, and after a few more sniffs he straightened in place. He folded his handkerchief—it was much nicer than the one Cullen had offered him, he could tell even at a distance—then tucked it back in a pocket. “Forgive me,” he said. “That was...an abrupt and distasteful performance.”

“No, it’s late,” Cullen said. “Sometimes when we’re tired the mind takes us places we’re unequipped to visit.”

Dorian picked a careful path back to the chair, collected the blanket he’d strewn on the floor by accident, and sat back down with it heaped against his stomach. Birdie followed and settled next to him, her droopy jowls propped on his leg. “I’m unfit to be seen,” he murmured. It was as though he wore blinders, gaze set straight ahead like he suffered a stiff neck and couldn’t turn to see Cullen. That was a look Cullen recognized all too well.

“If you’d like me to leave you, please, feel free to say so. You’ll give no offense.” He kept his tone even. “I...know how it feels to need solitude. Conversely, if you prefer quiet companionship…”

Silence, but without anger in it. The atmosphere slackened further, no longer crisp as the air gathering about a storm. Birdie moved her head in Dorian’s lap and he patted her absently. He’d sunk far back into the chair and looked about how Cullen felt: bleary, too tired to be awake but unable to wrestle the feeling into sleep.

“Bull used to give me his kerchief,” Dorian said. His eyes were unfocused, loosely pointed in the direction of the embers in the hearth. “I hadn’t thought of that in years, until just now.”

Cullen swallowed. “Ah.” Heartening as it was to know the outburst hadn’t been directed at him, he felt no less guilty. “I wish I’d known. I apologize.”

A wave of the hand from Dorian. “No, it’s... How could you have known? You never did travel with us. Or drink with us much, either, for that matter.”

Back then, he’d had his reasons for holding himself apart, but the statement dealt him a blow. “Not good for morale to have the commander lurking about the tavern,” he whispered. “Troops go there to unwind, not to sip ale on tenterhooks, wondering if they’re being evaluated.”

“Not good to have them watching you for a slip either,” Dorian added. “I understand the why of it. All I meant was you couldn’t possibly have predicted that handing me a hanky was going to cause all that fuss. Even I couldn’t have told you it would.” He sighed, put both hands on Birdie’s ears. “This one is very darling, isn’t she...”

Birdie’s eyes were half-closed and she looked blissful. “She likes you,” Cullen told him.

Dorian gave a disbelieving sniff, but the corner of his lip turned upward. “It’s nice to be liked.”

“I like you, too,” Cullen said, probably too earnestly. Red warmed to life in his cheeks, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be embarrassed by the truth. Dorian fixed him with a long, indecipherable look that made him understand rapidly that perhaps he’d been mistaken about the embarrassment. Cullen coughed into a balled fist, and got to his feet. “I’d better let you recover yourself in peace, though,” he said. Eyes glued to the floor, he walked to the doorway before chancing a look back. “Goodnight, Dorian.”

Wistful softness had worked into Dorian’s features, almost a smile, very small, and he nodded. “Goodnight.”

Chapter Text

Morning. There was no avoiding the rising sun, no matter how soundly one slept. Outside his door stood a tray on a tall sideboard featuring hot water for tea, a peach, a little pitcher of cream, a fresh scone. Most mornings now he woke to something similar, a quaint spread of seasonal goodies and a hot drink to fortify him against the day. Cullen must’ve put one of the staff up to it since Dorian so rarely made it downstairs in time to formally partake of breakfast.

Birdie looked up from what had become her spot on the extra rug. He did not know when she’d arrived or how long she’d been there since she came and went at will whenever he left his door open a hair’s breadth. She stayed put with a grave sort of patience while he took his meal, and he saved her a nibble of peach for her dutiful behaviour. After that, she nosed his knee, shook herself out from tip to end, and stared at him.

“What?” Dorian said to her.

She wagged her tail, then looked at the door.

“Outside?”

Her rear end wiggled harder and she pranced a few steps closer to the hall.

Rain fell on the other side of the window panes, creating a distinct visual pattern against the glass, but it wasn’t falling heavily. More like a fine mist. “Oh, alright.”

A few moment’s rifling revealed his oldest pair of boots, preserved since his Inquisition days with a lot of mending plus a durability rune or two scorched into the soles. He pulled them on, along with a hooded cloak, and followed Birdie down the main stairs and out the door, where she turned and snuffled her way around the side of the house until they were headed for the orchards.

Apple season. Most of them had already been picked, but he knew from his readings on Ferelden that there were two or three varieties that tasted better once they’d been nipped by winter’s first frost, and those trees were still weighted with fruit, patient pink-green amidst the leaves. He pondered the near visible state of his breath on the air and thought that said frost would come soon. Then Cullen would certainly have his hands full with picking. Maybe they’d be taken to market as well, or given to neighbours, since there were far too many for the house and its denizens to use up before they went mealy. Few things were quite so tasteless and texturally displeasing as an old apple. It brought to mind the sensation of chewing a mouthful of gauze.

He and the dog roamed some distance toward the southern paddocks with the rain as their steady companion before they spotted another living soul. Lying in a field alongside a young druffalo was an immense black dog, sleek and heavily muscled with high pointed ears. It turned to observe them but reacted without interest, as though they were harmless elements of the landscape.

Birdie shouldered under the fence and trotted over to give greeting, and it acknowledged her with a cursory sniff, and that was all. She approached the druffalo and licked its nose several times, then made her way back to Dorian, smiling as if to say, well, that’s taken care of .

Otherwise, the fields were uncharacteristically empty. On the walk back to the house, Dorian remembered it was Friday, and the quietude fell into place.

He stepped into the main hall to see the doors to the common room shut. The kitchen was deserted save for two women who were expertly butchering half of something large and extremely dead, and judging by the waft of cooking meat in the air, lunch was already on the stove.

Dorian made his way into the outer kitchen, offering a smile but not wanting to disturb the work at hand. He poured himself a cup of tea and splashed a generous dollop of cream into it. At home he often took his tea clear, but he’d concluded that if there was one thing Fereldans did right, it was raise excellent dairy animals. Tea in hand, he took a seat by the window to wait.

On Fridays, the ex-templars, including the ones who’d recovered but stayed on as staff, held a meeting in the common room. Cullen had explained the process in depth: it stretched over two hours, give or take, and each templar could speak, or not speak, and the topic was of their choosing. Some elected to discuss their withdrawals while the others nodded along in ill sympathy, and some simply shared memories, or nattered about the gardens and fields, probably waxed philosophical about how it felt to sink their hands into the good black soil and bring green out of it. The idea, Dorian supposed, was to help them feel lighter, less bound and gagged by their addiction. To share the burden and affirm they were among empathetic company.

Cullen always sat in on it, to facilitate. Dorian wondered if he spoke, too, if he ever talked about what he’d gone through as a young man, as a less young one later with the Inquisition. Although Dorian had been invited to join them he’d declined, since a mage in the midst of a circle of recovering templars hardly seemed appropriate—rather more like an interloper, the proverbial snake in a songbird’s nest. Honesty came more easily to people who felt comfortable, and his presence did little to foster such an environment.

He was watching the chickens peck their busy way across the main yard when the doors opened, signaling that the meeting had adjourned.

Cullen left the room last, on the heels of everyone flocking to the kitchen for lunch. He looked dour; the face of a man shouldering weight that wasn’t his to carry. The same way he’d so often looked at Skyhold as he stomped the grounds with an armful of reports, en route to his office after a morning amidst the trainees, drying sweat at his temples.

His eyes lit on Dorian and for an instant he seemed not to see him, but then he stilled, and smiled.

Unthinking, Dorian smiled back. There was something disarming in that. To have that effect on a person, even if only a dear friend. It was an effect they seemed to have on each other. “And how was it?” He asked as he approached the table. “Feeling unburdened?”

Cullen raised his brows in consideration. “The opposite, if I’m honest, but... All’s well. I’m going to check on lunch, if you’d care to join me?”

He did.

In the kitchen, Cullen leaned over a pot on the stove, sampling the contents with a wooden spoon. “Mm,” he nodded at the two women standing next to him. “Is that the ram?”

“It is, ser.”

“Good. What do you think, we’ll eat another lot tonight and cure the rest?”

“Yes, certainly.”

He served two bowls of stew and handed one to Dorian. On their way out of the kitchen he snagged half a loaf of sourdough rye and a pat of butter. They took their bowls to Cullen’s office, which could scarcely be compared to his previous appointments at Skyhold. Merely a single, slender room with an uncluttered desk, the workspace well lit by two tall windows that overlooked a decorative lawn planted with ornamental plum.

Settled in across from one another they split the bread between them and dug into the stew. It might’ve been simple food, but it was delicious, slow-cooked meat and vegetables tender and juicy. Those Orlesians in the kitchen were to be commended.

“Are your kitchen staff also recovered templars?” Dorian asked.

“Ah, no, they were brought on to help last year. After a few people decided to stay permanently.”

“Do others sometimes take turns cooking?”

Cullen nodded instead of speaking around a mouthful. He finished chewing and set his spoon down. “If they’re well enough, they help. Not everyone is cut out for the kitchen, though.”

“That sounds ominous. Did some poor soul nearly burn the place down?”

“There was...a bacon incident. Took a month to get the smell out of the house. Nearly drove the dogs mad.”

Dorian laughed and poked at his stew, trying to imagine six distraught dogs intent on finding bacon in every nook, cranny, closet, and rafter. “Do they thieve much from the kitchens? The dogs.”

Bread crust crackled under Cullen’s fingers as he tore off a chunk. “They’re better about it than you’d expect. There’s almost always someone in there to chase them off, so they don’t try it on much these days. When the puppies come we might have a more difficult time of it.” He dunked the bread into his stew and held it under the broth, carried on as if they were discussing the weather.

“There are to be puppies?” Puppies, as Dorian understood, were harbingers of mud, unpleasant fluids, gnawed boots, and ruined furniture, which was why he’d not been allowed to have one as a boy.

“Ah! I never mentioned, did I? One of my dogs is, uh, with pup, so to speak. It’s the first litter we’ve had here, so we’re a bit nervous.” His smile suggested that his use of the royal we served to diffuse his own nerves amidst imaginary others, and that he was the only one truly anxious over it. Well, perhaps him and the mother dog.

Dorian tried to recall which of the dogs it might be, but aside from Birdie and Bear, and the original gray, he had a hard time keeping track of them. “Puppies in the fall? Is that unusual?”

A firm shake of the head from Cullen. “For wild creatures perhaps, but dogs are so interwoven with us that they don’t pay much heed to such things. They know we’ll keep them warm and fed, and in turn we’ll have their loyalty.” He paused midway through reaching for more bread to glance around the room. “Though, none of them are being terribly attentive at the moment, are they?”

Even Birdie had stayed in the seating area outside the kitchen, lying quietly in wait for table scraps. Cullen was a soft touch when it came to the dogs but Dorian suspected some of the other ex-templars were softer. “Cupboard love, as they say. You ought to be flattered they choose to spend time with you when you’ve no food to share with them.”

Cullen gave a little snort, and went back to eating.

At the end of the meal, Dorian glanced over Cullen’s shoulder, out at the plum trees. Movement had drawn his eye: two figures walking slowly across the lawn. One young man and a woman with a long red braid—the arrival who’d tumbled from her horse—supporting him by the arm as they strolled. It was not the pose of lovers, but of a caregiver and someone too ill to stand on their own feet. His gaze lingered, and eventually Cullen turned to follow it.

“Oh,” he said. He swallowed and his jaw worked as he clinked his spoon in his bowl. Suddenly, his focus narrowed to the crumbs scattered across the desk, and he brushed them away into a dustbin.

The woman, Jillian, helped the boy to a dry spot under one of the trees, set out a small blanket, and the two sat down together. He leaned against her quite heavily, as though he had little choice.

“Is he suffering withdrawals?” Dorian asked, instinctively softening his voice as though they might be overheard.

Cullen fussed with his spoon, picked it up and set it down in the bowl again. “He’s been here over a year,” he said. “He may not recover.”

Dorian blinked. His eyes went back outside, to the boy and his friend. He couldn’t have been more than twenty. “You don’t think he’ll weather it?”

A mabari—Bear, Dorian recognized—joined the pair in the garden, settling on the grass to rest his head against the boy’s hip.

The crease in Cullen’s brow deepened. “He had an unusual reaction to the lyrium. Fogginess, forgetfulness, those are common enough, but in addition he began having severe fits.”

“Fits?”

“Seizures,” Cullen clarified. “He’s...hurt himself more than once, during them. Accidentally, of course. It happens from time to time that someone has difficulties. Most adapt, but this fellow,” he glanced briefly out the window, “kept getting worse. He was brought here to wean him from it gently, only I fear they waited too long.” Cullen crossed his arms over his chest and stared at a water stain that marred the surface of his desk. “Lyrium is, as you well know, a very dangerous substance for non-mages. Sometimes a bad reaction is a death sentence.”

In the yard, the boy had put his hand on Bear’s gigantic head.

Dorian brought a thumb to his lip. “Do your templar hopefuls realize that, going in?”

“Many recruits go to the Order as young children, and for them it isn’t a choice but a...” Cullen shook his head, cutting off the explanation. “No, it’s not talked about. That I know of.”

“And why would it be? Typical of the southern chantry, making martyrs of the unwitting. An army of mage-fearing children brought up to be the champion knights of prisons so riddled with abuses I can hardly begin to enumerate them.” On the next breath, he paused. In front of him sat a man who had been second in command in the Kirkwall Gallows, rumored to be responsible for no small number of atrocities himself, or at the least, responsible for turning a blind eye to them.

Cullen seemed to shrink as he leaned on his elbows. He pushed his bangs away from his forehead, then dragged a hand over his beard. “I know. Believe me, I...” Under his lip, his tongue traced over his teeth, pink darting into the white pit of the scar on the right side. “I can’t justify it, and I won’t try, but it’s... I grew up in the midst of it. When I was young we weren’t dirt poor, but we weren’t well off by any stretch and a templar’s lot... Well, it seemed a reasonable life. Protecting people, serving the Maker. I spent half my days practically begging my parents to send me for training. I went to the Order at thirteen.”

Some flicker of forgotten conversation ignited in the back of Dorian’s brain. Cullen had shared this with him before, years ago, though in less detail. “Thirteen...” Barely more than a child, and sent off to a corrupt institution for indoctrination into a system so broken it would eventually cause a bloody civil war.

“I was wrong, about everything,” Cullen continued. He angled his neck to look back out into the yard at the boy, woman, and dog. “It would be difficult for anyone to be so wrong as I was. Now, I try to help others see their way clear of it, because you’re right, it’s no life, not for anybody. The Order has caused untold pain and suffering, and I no longer believe it can be restored, not when its very foundation is one of misery and death. Perhaps now that Lady Vivienne has implemented more balance, it will improve in time, but…” He shook his head, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the pupils focused on nothing, his gaze turned inward. “You reach a point where you understand you cannot be forgiven your transgressions,” he murmured, “and from there, you either lie down and die, or you try very hard to do better.”

Oh, dear. Too complex a conversation for a light lunch, perhaps. Bit late now. Dorian swallowed.

What could he say? Every word of it was true, and it brought to mind a realization Dorian first had in the beginnings of his time with the Inquisition. Although their national situations did not run parallel, the parallel existed nonetheless: the south might have brutalized their mages, but slaves in Tevinter fared no better, and the soporati laboured under constant threat of losing what little they had and their freedom along with it. A decade ago, Dorian had come south believing slavery and abject poverty to be close cousins, and any Fereldan or Marcher he grazed the subject with had looked at him as though he were a rabid fennec they’d like to beat with a shovel. Being penniless, he realized now, was not the same as being owned. Each phenomenon—suppressing mages, enslaving people, leaving the poor to struggle, suffer, and die—represented fundamental disregard for life.

Silence swelled between them; an ink deep afternoon shadow altogether out of place on a cloudy day. Cullen held tension in his shoulders. His teeth were clenched, squaring out his jaw. Old wood groaned when he stood, the chair scraping across the flagstone. “Forgive me,” Cullen said, toneless. “I’d best see if I’m needed anywhere else today.” In a swift motion he gathered their empty bowls and left the room.

Dorian stayed, unsure what to make of the encounter.

During the Inquisition, he’d been afforded a peculiar pleasure: the time and space to let the severity of his homeland’s issues lapse from his mind. Of course he never forgot entirely, never could, never wanted to, had no intention of it in the grand scheme since the cultures beyond his own had opened his eyes to grave injustice, but there were stretches when he could go days without thinking on it. What more often had his attention was how he stank of pine pitch after sitting too near a cook fire warming his fingers, or that his beard had come in dark and fast on a weeklong trip through the Wastes without a razor or water enough to squander on shaving. Or the way The Iron Bull would leer at him like a salacious teenager whenever he stripped to wash, even after they’d fucked twenty times and had long since learned the scars and tender spots of one another in their shared tent, affection glaring as the sunrise.

Cullen had never been afforded much distance from his past, geographically speaking. Lake Calenhad was a mere week away, Kirkwall a stone’s throw across the narrow sea. To the southwest, Skyhold reared from the mountains, the ruin of Haven hardly a few day’s march below that. Further southwest, Honnleath, where he’d spent his boyhood. He lacked the luxury of putting a month-long journey between himself and what haunted him. As General, he’d lived and worked amongst his soldiers, many of them templars themselves. Instead of walking away, Cullen had severed his ties to the Order while standing damn near in the middle of it.

It wasn’t spoken of, but everyone in the inner circle knew that at the Inquisitor’s insistence, he’d begun taking lyrium again after weathering some months without. Dorian had known first, had known the moment he’d sat down across from him at the chessboard in the gardens. Ozone cut the air, and the way Cullen’s eyes had been dimmed not with the usual pain but with a false focus, made matters clear. He’d looked both serene and disturbing. A cool observer of his own movement, puppeteer of his limbs as opposed to the force of life that inhabited them.

He’d seen defeated men before, but not quite like that. It was an arrow to the chest for a brief time, until he’d come to grasp that Cullen was mostly unchanged, if subdued and vaguely removed. Perpetually surrounded by the buzz of ozone.

Under the plum trees, the sick templar continued to pet the dog.

The office began to feel too small, so he stood, pushed in his chair, and left. He withdrew to his room and closed the door until it clicked shut, to keep Birdie away. He was undeserving of her comfort.

Not everyone was suited to handle where their choices took them in life. Others had no choice in the matter at all, either due to fate or circumstance. Dorian would be the first to admit he’d been ill-prepared to take up his position in the Magisterium when he did. Tevinter politics were nasty, crooked, relentless, as furious as a disturbed nest of fire-spewing hatchlings, and he was a sick man, fallen deeper into disgrace than he’d ever dreamed possible. He’d always intended to go back, but not after being bisected by a person he’d wholly trusted, and never on his father’s terms, certainly not to a seat of power. But, Father had died and, injured or not, he’d been called upon to step into his place.

In his youth, he’d watched his fair share of scandals play out from a safe distance, but nothing could have prepared him for being sucked into the tempest. The first attempt on his life had driven the reality home. By the seventh, it had become routine. Many were angry about him taking up his father’s mantle. Some said it was a trap, but nobody, not even Dorian himself, could decide exactly for whom. Even in his final act, Halward Pavus had made sure his son was bound to him, regardless of Dorian’s plans.

In the last five years he’d accepted that no one, not his father, especially not the world at large, had any regard for his plans. Beginning with Father’s assassination, the entire life Dorian had built from the Inquisition onward dissolved to dust and blood in his mouth. His lover had not loved him enough, in the end. They’d been forced to kill him. Bull’s betrayal, and the slow unfolding understanding that it had been a long time coming, cut far deeper than the wound he sustained in the moment it dawned on him that The Iron Bull had marched beyond his, or anyone else’s, reach.

Dorian had gone home shrouded in the chill of near death. Apathy bloomed from the scar across his chest like a cluster of red lilies, and his own mother had walked past without knowing him in the gardens of their estate in Qarinus.

There was a lot of talk, in those early days. Obvious stage whispers and tittering. The tale of ungrateful, traitorous Dorian Pavus, fallen son who abandoned his birthright to run off south and take up with a brutish Qunari spy who eventually tried to cleave him in half with an axe after he tired of spearing him on his dick. And that was one of the less obscene tellings of it.

Still, there’d been no choice. He’d swept aside the shattered parts of himself and dressed in simple, well-cut robes of black and deep blues, let his hair grow and his beard come in. He no longer had the willpower for complicated fashion—in truth, it hurt too much, dressing and undressing—but he hid behind the guise of austerity. He showed neither disdain nor amusement, but an intransigent, keen poise, like that of a very big cat waiting on its chance.

And his chance had come. Tevinter was fertile ground for a large predator biding its time. His first summer back he’d been given the floor to speak at the end of an evening meeting, and thirty seconds into his speech he’d dispatched three attackers over the rail of a balcony without missing a syllable. There were no further interruptions. Assassination attempts aside, an uneasy truce of sorts dominated his daily political life. The public taunting had mostly ceased because people were afraid of him. Out of earshot, it went on unabated, but what could one do.

Nothing, is what. Keep doing one’s job. That was all.

Sometime in the early evening he fell asleep, and when he woke again it was dark out. And cold. He shivered and stirred himself from his spot on the bed. Chill stone greeted him when he put a palm on the study’s chimney. It was late, or perhaps nobody was interested in spending Friday night in the study. He changed, bundled himself in warm socks, tights, and a thick draping woollen sweater, then coiled under the covers in a ball. The sheets were warm only where he’d been lying, and the rest were ice. His teeth chattered.

The last memory Dorian had of his teeth chattering hailed from the span of months with the Inquisition before he spent his nights at Bull’s side, warmed to the bone not only by the immense heat of the man’s body but by a much deeper burn that emanated from his own chest. The hot coal at his center had glowed deep orange, flooded him in waves he hardly believed could be real. The Bull stoked it with such care and unexpected gentleness that Dorian had begun to think of it as belonging to both of them; their spark.

Long since extinguished. People spoke of feeling gutted when relationships went awry, but he suspected he was one among spare few living souls who could claim literal experience of the sensation.

Not now. Leave it be.

He climbed out of bed and strode into the hall, walking first to the study to find it dark and empty, as predicted, then back to Cullen’s door. Light glowed from beneath it, though he was unsure if it was only his fire or if he might still be awake.

He heard a distinct sneeze. Reassured, he knocked.

“Yes? Come in,” Cullen called.

The door moved freely, and he stepped in and let it swing closed behind him.

“Dorian?” Cullen sat up and set aside a book, serious-faced in a blink. Every bit like a child expecting a reprimand. Three other sets of eyes were on him, too, he realized. Birdie, Bear, and a sable dog he did not recognize.

“I’m sorry to trouble you at this hour, but I wondered if I might nick a spare pelt? There’s no fire in the study tonight, and my room is...quite cold.”

“Oh—Oh, of course.” Cullen roused himself from the bed and his three canine foot warmers turned their heads in tandem to watch him. He stood shirtless, rummaging in a cupboard, thick-armed, thick-chested and thicker bellied, with a plethora of scars under his dark blond body hair. Dorian stared, perhaps too openly, but he could get away with it so long as Cullen was preoccupied.

Except that he couldn’t resist mentioning it, which rather gave him away. “Winter creeps ever closer and yet you sleep unrobed. Miss the nip of the high alps, do you?”

Laughter made Cullen’s belly twitch and he nodded toward the three flopped dogs on the bed. “With all the living blankets who insist on curling up right against me, I overheat more often than not.”

“Hm.” Something fell off a shelf, and Cullen cussed under his breath. Dorian took the delay as a sign. “About what happened earlier, I—

“No, no,” Cullen held up a firm hand. “It’s fine, think nothing of it.” He stepped forward with a lustrous gray pelt. “I’ve a feeling we’re in agreement, but somehow it came out as if we were at odds. It can be hard to...to let oneself move on, from a sore past.”

Dorian accepted the blanket, downy soft in his fingers. “Thank you,” he said. “And I am sorry.”

Cullen winced, but did his best to turn it into a smile. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he countered. “You were right. I’ve... I’m working to make my peace with it. We make mistakes and unfortunately some of them have heavier consequences than others.” As he spoke, he looked tired. Deep purple bruised the skin under his eyes.

“I know,” Dorian said. He meant it kindly—he did know. He caught Cullen’s gaze and gathered the pelt against himself, hugging it. “I’ll ah, leave you to your foot warmers,” he said, tilting his head at the dogs.

“I could light the fire in the study,” Cullen offered. “If you like.” As he moved to rub at the back of his neck, the old familiar gesture of deferral, Dorian jolted.

“Damn! I was going to work up that spell for your hands. I completely forgot. My mind these days...”

Cullen glanced at his own open palms. “Oh,” he said. He folded his hands together and began massaging the joints. “Right. You do like your research, I’d thought you were simply being thorough.” There was a quirk in the corner of his lip.

“No, only brainless,” Dorian replied, rolling his eyes. “I’ll sort it out tomorrow, if you’ve the time?”

“Er, I should. Yes,” Cullen said. He’d begun to turn pink. First his cheeks, down to his throat, the colour working steadily toward his chest and stomach. He was so damnably fuzzy that Dorian wanted to trade the pelt for him instead, but he gave himself a hard mental slap for that particular bit of foolish thinking.

Cullen cleared his throat.

Holding up the pelt in thanks a final time, Dorian made for the door. “Most appreciated.”

“Please, if it’s not enough, tell me and I’ll build that fire up,” Cullen insisted.

With another murmured thanks, Dorian slunk from the room, thinking that he’d built quite enough fires, of some sort or other, for one evening.

Nested in his covers, with the extra soft pelt tucked about him so close it brushed his cheek, he couldn’t shake the image of Cullen’s bared torso. He tried to focus on how all was forgiven for their strange standoff, what it meant that they could have a little row and recover gracefully, but the physical imprint persisted instead, surfacing over and over in his mind’s eye. The wide shoulders, blue veins that lined honed arms, the dark thatch of hair above his waistband, how he’d gone soft in a sturdy way, which seemed to be a Fereldan trait... He groaned. “Not now,” he muttered at himself.

And not Cullen. Nothing against the man, but the opposite: Dorian couldn’t bear to lose his kind regard. If he continued on this way, he’d lower his defenses some night when they got into the wine and run his mouth, and after that any camaraderie between them would evaporate, replaced by the awkwardness of unreciprocated affections.

“Not now,” he repeated, burying his face in the pelt.

Chapter Text

Frost spiked white in the branches of the trees above. His breath billowed on the exhale, mist veiling a pink glow that heralded the sun’s rise over the eastern horizon. The first snows would be falling on the hills soon, and once that happened a heavy blanket would begin its gradual creep down to cover the valleys. No wonder Dorian had come that night a week back, questing for a spare pelt.

Nearby, Fuller snuffled about in the lawn, playing with an old chestnut he’d unearthed, forever the overlarge puppy.

“Where did you even find that?” Cullen muttered. There were no chestnut trees on the grounds to speak of, save at the outer border of the driveway or deep in the woods.

Fuller only wagged at him and made a small ‘boof’ noise, backing away from his prize in the hopes of enticing Cullen to throw it. With a sigh, he did. The dog bounded off, a complex amalgamation of sinewy grace and utter ridiculousness.

The barn was a place warmed by animal heat. Near the main doors Bridget was in the midst of saddling her horse and readying pack animals for the road. Dark-eyed and handsome, skin spotted with freckles, she was an ex-Templar who had overcome her trials and decided to stay on as lead courier and supply buyer. She was exceptionally patient, and possessed of a natural charm that often resulted in good trade prices for their wool and produce.

“Morning, ser,” she called to him with a wink. “Barely.”

“Any minute now,” he replied, chuckling.

“I’ll ask ‘round about the apples today,” she said. “Frosts bein’ here and all. Think this lot’ll be fit for Denerim?”

He nodded. “They’re a hardy cultivar. They’ll weather the trip.” The last batch picked had been tart and crisp, but they bruised too easily to ship them far. Most had been stashed in the root cellar, to be incorporated into pies over the winter. The pack horse nearest Cullen extended its nose toward him hoping to be scratched, and he obliged. “Did you ever find one of those braziers I asked for, weeks ago?”

“Oh! That fancy enchanted one? It’s in the storeroom.” She tightened a final strap and hauled into the saddle. “Got odd looks from the mages when I asked where to drop it. Told me they’ve all got fireplaces, so why bother?”

The horse puffed a little breath and he patted it a final time. “It’s for our northern guest, actually, but thank you, Bridget. Go safely today.”

She nodded and set out into the yard, where two mounted guards waited to accompany her, one of them stifling a yawn behind a gloved hand. Bandits did sometimes make a go at their caravans, but it was rare. For some reason, people occasionally forgot that years of formal combat training didn’t vanish from a templar’s head simply because they stopped taking their draught of blue. A sword’s edge was a fine reminder.

He stood and watched the trio amble away down the road as dawn cracked the sky.

It was to be something of a communal rest day, since there was no pressing work to be done in the fields. Later on he might bring some empty barrels out of storage in preparation for apple picking, but the picking itself was a task that required full daylight, many sets of hands, and arrangements for the apples, and at the moment he had none of those.

Cullen walked back to the house, flexing his fingers at his sides against the chill. A hot cup of tea might be in order.

After tea, he went digging in the storage room. He managed to topple a box of misplaced, now rotten, garlic on his head, which inspired him to spit a few curses he’d not uttered since his days at Kinloch. Once he’d calmed from that he stumbled across a cache left by one of the dogs: ram joints, mercifully dried out.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, heaping the gnawed bones into his arms to cart them away. Someone must have been leaving the door unlatched, or one of the beasts had figured out how to open it.

After he’d tidied, he found the brazier, near buried behind an old suit of armor. He dragged it out and took it upstairs, leaving it beside Dorian’s door. When he turned around, three dogs were staring at him.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Breakfast. I haven’t forgotten.”

Once the sun rose the frost abated rapidly, melted to orbs of clear dew that clung to the grasses and soaked the toes of his boots.

Back in the barn, Antony was up and turning out the remaining horses. Cullen made his way to the smokehouse, whistling as he walked, and by the time he’d emerged from the building with an armful of bowls, all the dogs were arriving. Each one waited as he set their meal down, and as soon as his hands were clear they dove in. He’d learned early that keeping both people and dogs in meat was one of the more costly prospects of running the property. Although they bred livestock and supplemented what they butchered with wild game, additional meat had to be brought in. Some of the staff were avowed vegetarians, which should’ve helped, except it wasn’t the humans who did the majority of the meat-eating, but the dogs. Dragon occasionally hunted for herself—she was the most independent-minded of the lot— but the rest of them were reliant on what went in their bowls.

Especially Laurel. He’d feed her again later, to make sure she got enough for herself and the pups. She seemed a bit more sluggish than usual, but considering her burden and how close her time was, he was unworried by it.

Birdie ate the least and the slowest, and he always had to stand guard at her bowl to ensure Bear didn’t snatch from it after he’d emptied his own. Of course Bear always looked at him as though he were denying him a crucial meal when he did so. “You’re fat enough, old fellow,” he told the dog. Then, muttered under his breath, “We both are.”

Meat gone, the dogs dispersed. Save Laurel, who followed Cullen about as he puttered through the vegetable gardens, picking a few lingering peas and beans.

Chores were mentally checked off one by one as he made his way around the main yard. Antony generally saw to the animals out of a love for their company, but Cullen nonetheless went with him to distribute feed and check on water supplies. They managed a decent chat while they were at it, which given their shared natures amounted to five spoken sentences between them, but it was comfortable quiet.

The sun was already heading for noon when the sound of hooves on the road drew Cullen’s attention. A figure on horseback came to a halt along the fence and waved. Peering, he recognized Marchand, the Orlesian neighbour.

“Rutherford!” He called out, chipper. “How are you doing?”

Cullen made his way to the fence, followed by both Laurel and Fuller. “I’m well. And you?”

“Oh, not bad, not bad. Your dog, her pups will be soon, eh?” He nodded down at Laurel.

“Yes, I think so, if my count is right.”

“Between that and your honored guest you will have your hands full,” Marchand said with a chuckle.

He must’ve heard about Dorian, then. Or seen him, maybe, out and about. More likely, Cullen’s staff had been talking to Marchand’s staff, and everyone, old and young alike, had a keen ear for gossip. Templars came and went so often it didn’t bear noticing, but posh northerners were another matter.

“Speaking of,” Marchand carried on, “you must come over for a drink. I insist. I want you to taste the wine, Rutherford. It’s very good, excellent wine, I think you will agree.” His horse leaned down to nibble at a patch of grass.

Cullen dusted his hands off and shielded his eyes against the sun’s glare to look up at Marchand. “Today?”

“Why not? Your people can manage a few hours without your supervision, no?”

Truth be told, even on their rest day they were probably better off without his meddling, considering many of them had spent their lives farming while he’d lumbered around wearing heavy armor in dank stone fortresses. “I suppose they can.”

Marchand grinned. “Good! Bring your guest along. He will like the wine, too.”

How he’d found out about Dorian, Cullen couldn’t be sure, but he could be sure that Dorian would enjoy any excuse to leave the grounds and seek a bit of excitement.

“I’ll ask him.”

“But of course,” Marchand replied. “Come by as soon as you like.” He turned to ride away.

Cullen retreated indoors, and once he’d made himself presentable he sought out Dorian, who was in the study pacing the shelves with a book in hand. There was a small flute on the table nearby, and a few other stacked books. Music theory, or old collections of folk songs maybe. Cullen cleared his throat. “Would you like to go next door for a wine tasting?”

Dorian paused and looked up. “To the cantankerous Orlesian fellow’s place?”

“Yes, he’s invited us.”

The book closed with a whap and Dorian tossed it aside. “Had me at wine tasting.” He slowed down as he approached Cullen, giving him an assessing stare. “You look nice,” he said, his brows knit slightly.

“You don’t have to look quite so shocked that it’s possible.”

“Ha!” Dorian patted him hard on the chest as he passed by into the hallway. “I’d forgotten, is all. That blue suits you.”

They made their way downstairs and outside, pursued by Birdie.

“Oh, have you been warm enough these past few nights?” Cullen asked. A blush rose into his cheeks at the memory that he’d been caught half-dressed and had ended up standing there exposed far longer than was decent, considering he was significantly less fit than the last time Dorian had caught a glimpse of him disrobed. Back then, he bore the shape of a man who sparred daily, ran constant drills. He’d often had trouble keeping weight on, since he was either sick from withdrawal, frayed from overwork, or had his appetite deadened by lyrium. Now... Well, needless to say he’d been making up for missed meals, and the results were about what you’d expect.

Dorian hummed a noise, smiling. “Yes, thank you. That last pelt made all the difference.”

There were several paths that led to Marchand’s property, and they chose to walk through the fields to a forested one that let out in a meadow. Birdie shadowed their steps, snapping at insects and pausing to roll in something dead. She’d need to be doused later, but for the time being the best he could do was scold her and order her to go home, which she did. Reluctantly.

Above them on the peak of a rolling hill sat a stone house that overlooked the vineyards. Marchand met them at the fence line.

“Welcome, welcome,” he said, ushering them through a gate. “So nice to have you. We haven’t met,” he extended his hand to Dorian, who took it. “Claude Marchand.”

“Dorian Pavus,” he replied.

Marchand’s property was more fashionable than Cullen’s, boasting hints of Orlesian landscaping carved here and there out of uncooperative Fereldan shrubs. It had originally been a summer home rather than a fully operational farm, and the family had wealth to spare for such flourishes. The vineyards were new in the grand scheme, stretching to the west and east in row upon row of curling, trellised vines.

They chatted as they made their way to the house, about the weather and some news from Orlais, finally arriving to a kitchen well stocked with dried herbs and cured meats. Tidy and quiet, it was decidedly less of a thoroughfare than the manor’s kitchen.

The three of them gathered around an island counter and Marchand slid empty glasses forward. “This,” he held up a chilled bottle, “is from last year’s grapes. Our white. You must try it.”

Dorian glanced sidelong at Cullen, obviously ready for the worst glass of wine of his life. All Cullen could do was try to smile politely, though he’d been told by Josephine years ago that he’d best work at the expression in front of a mirror until it looked more benevolent and less like someone had threatened to pull out his fingernails. He’d never followed through.

“I know, I know,” Marchand started, reaching to pat Dorian’s arm. “Trust me. I am an old man, I no longer have time to drink bad wine. I would not lie to you.” He put a palm to his chest, as if to emphasize the degree of his honesty. “Even I am impressed with this batch.”

He uncorked the bottle and poured, handing a glass first to Dorian, then to Cullen. He took up his own. “To a safe season ahead.”

“And many after, Maker willing,” Cullen added.

They clinked rims and sipped. Cullen paused to let the liquid move about his palate. He’d been expecting sickly sweet, the unpleasant burn of old fruit on the swallow. Instead, it was subtle and complex. He took another taste. Fereldans were not winemakers by nature, even if certain pockets of the climate were suitable for hardier varieties of vines. They were better known for their ales, and he firmly believed it took an Orlesian or Antivan touch to make something special of fermented grape juice—still, even he could tell Marchand had outdone himself.

“Mm,” Dorian said, bright-eyed, brows lifted. Perhaps looking a touch more taken aback than he meant to. “That’s very smooth.” The surprise in his voice was carefully tempered to be complimentary. Cullen knew that his expectations had been set more or less as low as the foot of the canyon beyond Adamant, but clearly they’d been well exceeded. He took another sip and made a show of tasting it. “Crisp. And I like that finish.”

Marchand excitedly patted Cullen’s sternum. “You see? Your friend, he knows good wine.” After a sip from his own glass he swirled it and grinned at Dorian. “You are a man of taste. I can tell.”

“Oh, I like him,” Dorian said to Cullen. “A gifted vintner and he’s observant, too.”

Cullen shook his head and smiled. “Wine and flattery. Is that all it takes?” He raised his brows in question.

“It helps if you’re also a bit dashing.” Dorian winked at Marchand, who chuckled.

“Ah.” Sighing, Cullen lowered his eyes. “That’s where I go wrong.”

A scoff from Dorian, who gripped him by the arm. “Listen to this one,” he said. “A big blond ex-knight in shining armor and he frets over how dashing he is.”

Marchand snorted amicably and topped off Cullen’s glass, which he realized was half empty. He’d swallowed quite a bit more than intended. He frowned at Dorian, hoping it would deter him from embarrassing him further, but all he got in return was a coy look before Dorian leaned close and dusted a bit of lint from his shoulder, as if it were an interaction they performed day to day.

“Those who needn’t worry are the ones who always do,” Dorian said softly.

There was a gentle hum from Marchand across the table. “You two,” he held up a finger and waggled it, “you are an attractive pair.” He leaned toward Cullen, “I always thought you must have somebody hidden away somewhere, handsome fellow like you and not married.” He clicked his tongue. “I knew it was not right.”

Blinking, Cullen took a moment to process that information. His mouth opened, but his ability to form words fled.

When he said nothing, Dorian stared at him, face lit up in delight. It was practically a Wintersend bonfire he smiled so ecstatically, his mustache curling in on itself above his beard. “Kept me secret all this time, did you?” He linked an arm through Cullen’s and bumped their hips together. “I’d take offense, but,” he looked to Marchand, “discretion is the better part of valor, as I’m sure you well know.”

Cullen coughed, then cleared his throat. “Yes,” he agreed, battling not to choke and worsen the rise of red that rushed to his cheeks.

With a nod of solidarity Marchand collected the wine bottle and began topping them all up. “My husband, he stays in Val Royeaux mostly. He was injured during the war, and we are not so young as you, eh? It’s a long journey for old men.”

“Injured! I hope not seriously?” Dorian inquired.

“No no,” Marchand waved a hand. “But his leg, it’s bad in the cold. Val Royeaux is better.”

Finishing a sip of wine, Dorian nodded. “A temperate clime, as they go. What does he do there?”

“Actually, he is a sommelier.” Marchand said. He sounded almost nervous. “So, you can imagine the conversations that go on in our house.”

Dorian gave a little whistle. “For the sake of your marriage your wine had better be good.”

“Exactement! ” Marchand’s eyes wrinkled with more laughter. “And you, what do you do?”

Faced with a question whose answer could potentially ruin Marchand’s newly formed good opinion, Dorian took an uncharacteristic pause.

“He’s a diplomat,” Cullen cut in. “We met during our time serving the Inquisition.” It was almost the truth, and he was unsure if Dorian wouldn’t have made something up anyway given the charade they were sustaining. Best not to bring the word Magister into the conversation, just in case.

“Yes, I’m...away on business, more often than not. We live separately,” Dorian added.

“Ahhh, so this is why we’ve not had the pleasure of your company before.” With a spritely gesture, Marchand indicated for them to follow him out onto a generous, sunny brick patio lined with fig trees. “Help yourselves to fruit,” he told them, pointing. “We have more than we know what to do with.”

“Thank you,” Cullen said.

Dorian wasted no time unlinking their arms. He stepped up to the closest tree and examined it, stood on tiptoes, rings glinting on his long fingers, and plucked a perfectly ripe fig from a higher branch.

“Brilliant,” he said. When he bit into it, he closed his eyes as he chewed, lost in reverie. Cullen could see they were the green kind with jewel pink centers, sticky-sweet and foamy. He’d never been terribly fond of them unless they were roasted and sprinkled with chopped nuts and honey, but Dorian tonguing a drop of sweetness from his thumb was nearly enough to make him change his outlook. He was still fixating on that image, contemplating the trees, when an elbow caught him in the side.

“Here,” Dorian held out a fig. “Don’t make that face, either, just try it.”

“I didn’t make a face.”

“Darling...” Dorian said. The word was a farce, but by his tone he was loving every ridiculous second of the turn their visit had taken. The pet name was both tease and warning; an affectionate partner threatening their spouse with hell to pay if they made a fuss in public. “You’ll like it.” With that, he smiled warmly and leaned to peck Cullen on the mouth. Cullen’s brows twitched, but he pecked back. In this glancing intimacy he noticed Dorian smelled of something citrusy with an herbal cut, and his lips were soft contrasted against the prickle of his beard.

Cullen ate the fig in a single bite, so he’d not have to taste it for too long.

Satisfied, Dorian patted him on the side and took another swig of wine. “So, Marchand—

“Please, call me Claude.”

And that was that. They went through nearly three bottles of wine between them, Dorian carrying the brunt of the clever conversation like the artful politician he was, and as the old fellow saw them out the side gate late in the afternoon Cullen found himself having to blink to keep the world in focus. He’d certainly been drunker on many occasions but he’d hardly eaten all day and the alcohol had gone to his head with the delicacy of a falling hammer.

“Well!” Dorian said after they were safely out of earshot. “He’s certainly something, isn’t he? Handsome old wolf. I’d love to meet his sommelier husband.”

Now that Cullen considered it, Marchand was a fine looking older gentleman. Silver-haired and rangy, with a trimmed beard and dark, clear eyes. He shook his head and found himself laughing. “You two got along famously. Though he is still making unauthorized use of my land...”

A tut-tut from Dorian. “That wine is damn good. He offered you a share of it, either product or profits. Take it.”

“I believe when that came up, he was talking to you. He’s quite taken with you.”

“That’s no surprise, I’m very fetching.” Dorian glanced at him sideways from under one raised brow. “You’re in love with me too, don’t forget. Your secret northern paramour.”

Snorting, Cullen reached over and gave him a light shove. “And how in Thedas am I to explain your next five year absence from my life?”

Dorian gave a quick shrug in reply. “Trouble in paradise. Or, here’s an idea, I could come back sooner.”

“You’ll never have time. Besides, one vacation wasted on a Fereldan farm has to be enough.”

“More than enough, actually, but...” He slung an arm about Cullen’s hips, holding him by the flank. “It so happens that I quite like the farmer.”

“That’s the wine talking.”

“Yes, but it’s saying nice things!” Dorian insisted.

The absurdity of it hit him all at once. An entire afternoon spent in a whirlwind of pretending at something he’d forced himself to stop wanting years ago, the rekindling of a forgotten longing from another life. A fine joke, all of it. He started to laugh. He laughed until everything abruptly spun under his feet and he landed in the long grass, winded. It took him a few moments to collect himself and grasp that he’d stumbled over a root. The sky was high blue above him. Dorian stared down into his face, amused.

“We’re drunk,” Cullen said.

“You definitely are. Perhaps we should lie about in the meadow for a bit. Sober up.”

Cullen levered onto his elbows, then into a sit. He held out a hand, beckoning for help. Dorian took it, and Cullen allowed himself a moment for a satisfied smirk.

Dorian’s eyes widened and he managed to yelp a “No!” before Cullen yanked him down into the plush grass alongside him. Another bark of amusement as Dorian retaliated, and they rolled over twice, scrapping while they devolved into fits of laughter. They ended their match half piled together, with Dorian propped against Cullen’s side. “I can’t believe I literally fell for that,” he muttered, giving Cullen’s chest a solid thump mid-sentence to accentuate. “Maybe I am a little drunk...”

Drunk or not, he was warm, his hair was tousled, and the afternoon sun through the grass lit him like golden flame. It was astonishing. Their thighs were touching. Cullen folded his arms under his head and stared into the clouds. “It isn’t even supper yet. We’re disgraceful.”

“Oh, this is nothing ,” Dorian declared with a sweep of the hand. “This is normal. In Minrathous if you last until two o’clock, you’re a saint. You of all people ought to know about hair of the dog.”

Cullen, in spite of his best efforts, was a sucker for awful jokes and huffed in amusement. “I never thought you one to go for the low hanging fruit,” he said, flexing his thigh under the weight of Dorian’s.

A sniff, then those gray eyes were half-lidded and fixed on him. “The south never fails to bring me down to its level,” he said, glancing around them. Then he slung an arm over Cullen’s belly and laid down. “Not that I mind. Much.”

“You were the one who suggested we lie about in the meadow. I merely took your suggestion.” He stretched both legs and rolled one of his ankles until it popped, resettled a hand on Dorian’s back and snickered when he snuggled closer. They were acting like adolescent lovebirds, and it made so little sense that Cullen wondered if he’d fallen unconscious when he’d tripped. Or farther back still, in Marchand’s kitchen. Perhaps he lay dying somewhere, and this was his dream.

Dorian hummed a warm noise and his fingers tightened against Cullen’s side. A late season dragonfly darted past. “It is a very nice meadow.”

There were moments in life Cullen had let slip away, unimpeded. Moments he’d wanted desperately to clutch and keep, to store to warm him when years went by without a genuine brush with intimacy. Most times, he fought the instinct. Other times, an ugly selfishness moved in him, twisting and earnest as a gut worm. It reared up now, and before he knew it he had craned his neck to bury his face against the side of Dorian’s head. A few seconds, that was all he wanted. All he’d take.

Seconds stretched into more seconds, beyond, into a minute. Eventually, Dorian shifted.

Cullen pulled back, enough to see Dorian’s expression. Still smiling, but softer. Not a mockery, nor an apologetic mask. Simply too polite for either, most likely.

“Forgive me,” Cullen whispered. For taking what isn’t mine, for making this more than it is.

To the side of them little birds chirruped and hopped along the ground, drawing his eye with their flitting, on the hunt for dropped seeds. Soon, they’d disappear northwards for winter. The twitch of Dorian’s fingers against his hip brought Cullen back into himself.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said softly. He curled fingers around the shell of Cullen’s ear, scraping back into the hair on his nape.

Cullen leaned just enough to nudge their noses together, then jutted his chin to turn it into a kiss very like the first staged peck; a brief, cautious brush of the lips.

He fell away again as quickly as the birds flitted, loose pebbles of uncertainty rattling around his ribs.

It was the wine. He’d blame that. And Marchand, for mistaking them for a pair. He’d been drunk on the idea as much as the alcohol. Tomorrow they could both begin the work of forgetting, and let their poor decisions fade from memory. He was opening his mouth to apologize again when Dorian caught it with his own, kissed him with a hunger that warmed him deep in the belly, lower, down the inner thighs, up again to the center of his chest.

“Mm.” They broke apart to breathe. His fingers swept into Dorian’s hair, harsh callouses tousling it further. “Ahh, I’m making a mess of you...”

All in a moment, Dorian’s eyes blanked. Tears crystallized in a glint along the lower lids before he could hide his face at the base of Cullen’s throat.

Shit. He thought of the kerchief, the other night in front of the fire. “Forgive me,” Cullen said softly. “I shouldn’t have—

“No,” Dorian croaked. “No, it’s...” He lifted his head and wiped at his eyes. “It’s nothing you’ve done.” More tears were mopped with his sleeve and he blew a breath. “I’ll recover myself momentarily, but...I think I’d like to head back to the house now.”

Cullen helped him sit, expecting him to rise and flee, but he leaned against Cullen’s shoulder and clung to him.

“It’s not your fault,” Dorian said. “Please.”

“All right.” Believing could come at another time. For now, Dorian needed reassurance. Cullen rubbed his hand up and down his back with a firm touch, hoping it might ground him. A minute later, he lifted his head, passed a hand over his eyes. When he rose to his feet, Cullen followed suit, feeling his one tricky vertebra click as he did so.

They walked back to the house in silence, Dorian trailing to the side and a few inches behind. Cullen accompanied him all the way upstairs to his chamber, where he guided him to the window seat but stopped short of sitting him down. “You rest awhile,” he suggested. “Drink some water. I’ll have a meal brought up for you soon.” He turned to go and felt resistance, his own tunic pulled tight, and he realized Dorian’s fingers had curled in the hem of it.

“Please, I’m... It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated softly. “I’m fine, let’s just…” He shook his head and curved his palms around Cullen’s hips, tugging him closer. “Let’s try again.”

The hard bridge of an arch nose nudged his cheek as Dorian pressed into him, and something under Cullen’s breastbone came undammed. His head swam with it. Down in the core of him a river burst its shores and swelled the banks and he kissed Dorian with the fervor of a landscape revived. They surged together toward the bed, but Cullen caught hold of one of the posts and held himself off, fighting the current. “Are you sure?”

His answer was another rough kiss, this time with teeth, and the grope of fingers over his ass.

Cullen inhaled a long breath and closed his eyes. He let go of the bedpost and let the current take him.

Chapter Text

They fell to the mattress, a tangle of frantic limbs.

The door stood open. That wouldn’t do. “Wait.” Dorian squirmed sideways and sent it flying shut with a brisk blast of chilled air. Cullen startled against him, the whites of his eyes suddenly stark. Ice crackled through the room, and a fine dusting fell to coat them. It glittered in Cullen’s curls above a furrowed brow.

“The effect won’t last,” Dorian said quickly. Still, he noted skittish tension along Cullen’s flanks, in his belly where they were pressed close. “It wouldn’t have hurt anyone,” he added, planting a palm against the side of Cullen’s neck. He felt him swallow. Their momentum dwindled every second they stayed still, so Dorian rolled his pelvis, nuzzled in for another kiss, then another once he got it, insistently rekindling former warmth. Cullen relaxed, weighing into him again, heavy and hard-shouldered, the scar on his lip creating slight unevenness under Dorian’s tongue.

Calloused fingertips worked beneath the hem of his tunic, beginning to tug it up. Dorian inhaled sharp panic, cinched his fist against scalp, pulled hard on rough curls. Cullen went rigid over top of him, frozen by the physical reprimand. On the next exhale, Dorian softened his expression, grip slackening. He rubbed the spot where he’d yanked. “Sorry...” It came out in a low whisper. “Just...leave my shirt, please.”

Mercifully, Dorian saw not worry on Cullen’s face but something closer to comprehension. Breathing heavier, Cullen nodded. He rose to suck the side of Dorian’s neck, biting at his jaw. Their noses caught as he pressed for another long, deep kiss, then withdrew, lowered all the way down, avoiding his torso entirely and instead palming between his thighs. He was neither gentle nor rough, but he didn’t fumble either, and his hand found what he sought with ease and worked him through the fabric.

Dorian huffed a pleased sigh. Could he recall the last time a touch had left him wanting rather than recoiling? There’d been a few efforts after his retreat north. Purely physical sojourns, but each man had pried through his careful layers of robes, eyes lit with strange hunger when they’d glimpsed the edges of the scar, its delineation of his torso into halves—a split pomegranate; pulpy, susceptible. They were tourists more than lovers, morbidly curious, ignorant of any subtleties but eager to witness the shape of his ruined flesh. Each encounter had left him more isolated, further divorced from the fleeting pleasure he’d hoped to eke out.  

The man who now sighed hot breath over his freshly bared thighs had seen the wound before it had properly closed, so it held no fascination for him. Undoubtedly he’d made to remove the tunic because they were suddenly lovers trying to touch each other, that was all. There was no need to ascertain whether the axe-hewn faultline was lie or legend—it was as real as the stitches Cullen had once told him he’d watched sewn, textured in memory by tangles of blood-soaked bandages carried away from the sickbed.

Thoughts he tried to banish in order to better focus on the rough scrape of beard across sensitive flesh. Cullen’s eyes were half-lidded beneath heavy brows, the tip of his pointed nose dragging through the crease of Dorian’s hip before he wet his lips and kissed the skin at his root. Without hesitation, Cullen took him in his mouth, the heat familiar but the movement different. He’d been flagging, but the warmth and press of soft, hot tongue around his tip brought blood surging to harden him. Dorian hummed, fighting the urge to thrust.

Cullen took him deeper, leaving him slick when he withdrew focus to the head. He moved more than Dorian expected, kept his teeth well out of the way, and added a hand to the efforts, thick fingers forming a snug grip that he could work into without worry of bucking too hard.

So he let himself buck, slightly, the touch both balming and inciting his need.

Had Cullen thought of this, over the years? The upstanding soldier in his polished plates, daydreaming about kneeling in supplication for something beyond absolution. His bearded cheek curved outward with every thrust of Dorian’s dick. Hot breath through his nose surged across skin in huffs as he worked. Eyes closed, brow lined in concentration, fist squeezing, dedicated to his task. Devout. Blasphemous to think it, but there was reverence here. Divine light through the windows; a coming sunset, pinks as deep as those on Cullen’s cheeks reflected in high clouds.

The Commander, leonine and composed as he walked the ramparts of Skyhold, trailing a thin scent of leather and ozone, whispering hints of prophet’s laurel. A man who, despite his derision of Dorian’s ostentation, understood the fundamental impact of appearance better than anyone. Straight-shouldered, jaw set. Soft voice raised to roughness, issuing orders to the ranks, pretty bow lips pulled to a sneer.

Pretty bow lips wrapped around his cock.

Pleasure made Dorian writhe, drove a quiet, low noise out of his throat. He tightened his fingers in rough, wheaten curls and Cullen groaned around him, free hand curving from Dorian’s hip to his ass.

Years had passed since he’d known such a hungry touch. He pressed his shoulders into the mattress and let his head roll back, swept up in the heat, arriving at the brink all too soon. “Ah, Cullen, I’m...”

At the warning he shifted aside, fingers circled tight, working quickly. Dorian covered his hand with his own to encourage roughness, cupping over the tip to contain the inevitable fluid; it leaked out in bursts as he came.

Chest heaving, he hauled Cullen in for a kiss. Sometimes, he wanted to taste himself on another, the musk and wet of the act. “You’ve done that before,” he whispered, smiling. He felt a mirroring swell, Cullen’s partially hard dick against his hip as they lay together, and had been considering how to best make the situation mutual. Half drunk, coasting on the thrill of unexpected intimacy, he moved to slide a hand down the center of Cullen’s lower belly, fingers grazing the base.

Except Cullen grunted and shifted away. “You don’t have to,” he muttered.

Dorian set a hand against his thick side. “No, but...I’d like to,” he reassured him.

The body over top of him tensed as if he’d cast another spell. Cullen pulled back, and he let him go. Dorian reached down to cover himself and leaned on an elbow, fighting to keep the confusion off his face.

Settled on the edge of the mattress, Cullen planted his feet heavily on the floor. “I don’t... I’d rather you didn’t, just now,” he said. His eyes were lowered, knuckles white as he compulsively worked his fingers into a tight snarl.

“I...see.” Perhaps he was less versed in the situation than he’d initially seemed. Perhaps this was every bit the bad idea Dorian had worried it might be when he’d cautioned himself against this exact scenario only a few nights prior. A little wine, a little mistake, and now the grand finale: alienation.

“Not you specifically, I—I don’t mean... Hells. ” Cullen, burning red from collar to scalp, rubbed desperately at his nape, shook his head, and stood up. “I’ve ruined it. Forgive me.” He tugged at his tunic to straighten where it had rumpled in their efforts. “I’d...best take my leave.”

Unmoving, Dorian traced Cullen’s swift exit with only his eyes. He blinked in time with the closing door. Still rife with confusion, he buttoned his trousers and sat up, making for the window seat and his book, and as he stood there holding the bound volume the world blurred and a fat drop of wet fell onto the cover. “Shit...” He wiped it off, set the book down, then stood with his face pressed awkwardly into his palms, streams of hot tears bubbling to dampen his skin.

As a young man, a good cry had often helped him purge any number of hurts, from being scorned by the majority of his peers for his potent magical talents—and his inability to be humble about them—to being spurned in love. He’d weep into his pillows for an hour, get up, stretch, wash his face, and be done with it. Like sloughing off a layer of pitted stone to reveal a smooth surface beneath.

Now when he wept, it was never so clean. What came to the fore were the hurts that wouldn’t be cried away, interwoven as they were with the very threads of his being. He took a deep breath to still himself, held it a moment in the hopes of redirecting his body’s efforts, but his mind had already begun its march downward.

The last time he’d wept uncontrolled tears they had been, indirectly, for Father. Or rather for the idea of Father, the mutable nature of a singular being as shaped by the minds of those who interacted with them; the specific collection of traits both physical and ephemeral, their simplification into a symbol. He remembered his mother’s face, lovely, lined with grief, as she stood framed in the window of Halward’s study several months after the funeral. Dorian watched her from beside the chaise lounge. They were no more than ten feet apart, but he may as well have been across the sea in Qarinus for how soundly they were ensconced in separate, complicated longing. That was the exact moment sorrow had swept his legs from beneath him. Proud, regal Aquinea vanished from sight, and in her place stood a frail, abandoned woman who bore little more than passing resemblance to his steel-edged mother. He knew her only by her eyes, ever the same river-gray as his own. Aquinea the woman, the widow, had not lost Father, she’d lost Halward, a discrete entity: husband, lover, confidante, builder of legacies. It hurt her, Dorian knew, that her husband and only son had never fully reconciled.

At times, she spoke of his father and the family when they were all young—the early days of Dorian’s talents before the stubborn streak and arrogance that would later ruin him had begun causing agony. They’d been admirable qualities in a scrappy boy of five, for they had given him a preternatural seriousness that adults always seemed to admire in children, perhaps because they found it easier to understand than unfettered joy, so many of them being joyless creatures themselves. Not that it was anyone’s fault, really. Nasty business, living.

“He loved you so much,” his mother would say, absently, fiddling with her sapphire-studded wedding ring. “He meant well.”

And maybe he had. A model patriarch who wanted the best for the Pavus line, a father consumed, like his progenitors before him, with the continuation of a dynasty. He meant well for his son, or rather, for the son he believed Dorian would become when he manifested powers at a tender age and showed such promise. But meaning well for the imagined person you wanted someone to be often translated into meaning harm to a real, living person who was someone else. Who needed different things.

Either way, Father was dead. There would be no apologies, or closure.

Dorian had wept for the loss of him but would never again ask himself if he were truly the selfish one, the way he had in the beginning. There was selfishness, and there was self-preservation. His choices had been about survival. Escape from either annihilation or a future of assured misery and loneliness so profound it rivaled the night sky between stars. What was a life without hope?

Very small, he’d come to know. Small and bleak, with a grayed out wash tinting even the most opulent milieus. Grief was a killer of hope. Hope, however—thankfully, damnably—proved resilient. With or without his necromantical intervention it resurrected itself, smooth tissue beneath where the scab sloughed off. And it hurt. Oh, it hurt. Each time it was hacked to nothing and grew back again, the pain pulsed anew.

Today’s severed branch ached, and he felt bitterly stupid for falling into his own old trap. In one careless afternoon he’d undone years of friendship. Trust lost could not easily be rebuilt.

Crying didn’t aid him, anymore, but he still did it. He cried out of helplessness, knew it would pass and come again. Knew he might sleep after he’d exhausted himself.

He did.

When he woke, evening had come. He felt bleary. Sick.

Head down, stepping quietly, he made his way along the hall to the washroom, relieved again for the thousandth time that indoor plumbing had taken hold in the south. In a strange, merciful turn, there was nobody about. Music trailed through the corridors, emanating from the common room, and he supposed that most who were able had gathered there for an evening of song and drink. As he was about to let himself back into his room, Birdie appeared, somewhat bedraggled. Cullen must’ve given her a bath after her encounter with the stinking dead thing in the fields.

“What is it?” Dorian asked her.

She wagged her tail and looked at his closed door, so he opened it. At a trot, she entered and flopped on her carpet.

“You’ve adopted me, have you?” Then, the customary tray on the sideboard caught his eye. “Or are you simply here because you know I have food...”

The soup was cold, but that was easily solved with a quick spell. Someone must have left it while he slept. He ate very slowly, letting his stomach adjust to the idea in case it turned on him. Although he could handle his alcohol and a bottle of wine was a trifle, or would’ve been in the old days, he found himself feeling watery in the guts. He forced down two biscuits in an effort to soak up the leftover toxins.

After he’d eaten, he took a walk through the grounds. Birdie accompanied him, snuffling here and there, as was her way, and the white dog fell in with them as they went. Dorian knew she’d befriended Barley since he’d seen them touching noses in the barn more than once, and he wondered if perhaps the horse had said nice things about him, thus Amrita had decided he was worth her attention. She seemed to like Birdie anyhow, and the two play wrestled in the dusk.

Their antics cheered his low spirits. Well-adjusted dogs lived for the moment. A tussle, a hunk of biscuit, chasing an unfortunate rodent, a funny two-legged creature giving you a nice rub about the flanks. Simple, to move from one thing to the next as if the past bore no weight. How did a dog remember? What did that look like, inside their big square heads? Mistreated animals learned fear, and lashed out, the same way people did. They could heal, too. Their minds had that much in common. Still, he wondered. What was a moment, to a dog? A scent, maybe. A gesture, or a minuscule twitch of the mouth.

Birdie trotted back to him with a stick and dropped it at his feet.

“I am not touching that for love nor money,” he told her.

With a little whine, she picked it up again and chomped on it until it broke in half. Then she brought him a longer one, and presented the end she hadn’t drooled on. Clever little monster.

“Fine,” he relented. He sent the stick sailing away down the road, carried by a halfhearted spell. Birdie capered after it as though lives were on the line. Instead of bringing it back to him she shredded it to pieces and looked pleased with herself. Definitely still a puppy. And there were to be more puppies, he remembered.

Cullen was going to exhaust himself with all he took on, though he did seem in better shape to handle it these days. Tired still, and careworn out of habit, but heartier.

Fond thoughts sank, along with his stomach. Dorian rubbed at his face, wondering at the finer points of Fereldan decorum. Were he more familiar with their customs he might guess at how long Cullen would wait before gently suggesting he be on his way back north before the snows, and pack accordingly. He turned to stare at the house, its many windows glowing dim orange in the dusk, welcoming even at a distance. A distinct chill had descended as daylight withdrew, and he stuffed his hands inside his cloak. The afternoon they’d spent together followed him like a second shadow—perhaps a third, if he counted Birdie. He didn’t know what to make of it. If there was anything to make of it at all.

Had he known what Marchand was thinking? Did something in him see the other man ferreting about for confirmation of whether or not Cullen was as he was, also? A safe person to confide in, someone with whom to openly share the reality of having a husband instead of a wife? Whether Dorian had seen it or not, when the door swung open he’d certainly walked through it with a charade in tow. Let the old man think what he wanted, especially if it meant he’d be more agreeable when it came to negotiating property lines. When Cullen eventually met a woman and married, he could simply say things had soured between them. He laughed, realizing that it would be the truth.

That thought left a distinctly sad imprint, and Dorian blew out a harsh breath. The kiss that came on the heels of their afternoon of make believe felt all too real, and so had everything that followed after. If he was honest with himself, the intensity had frightened him. For that precise reason, he was no champion of honesty when it came to matters of his own heart.

He could scarcely tell what was worse—that he’d gone and done exactly what he worried he would as soon as the wine flowed freely, or that Cullen had reciprocated beyond the confines of the facade only for Dorian to take it too far.

Calloused fingers catching in his hair... That altogether familiar pull had sent him reeling backward into someone else’s life. A happy person, who had learned to trust and ask for trust in turn. He’d forgotten the words, now. They were in there somewhere; a language learned in youth but neglected, near lost for being so little used to transform thoughts into something spoken.

Maker, they were both so stupid. Stupid, and too old for this. To say nothing of Dorian’s withered heart, charred to ash by the steady, slow burning fire of grief intermingled with rage. They both ought to pretend it had never happened and get on with it. Maybe he’d suggest they try that, before making any travel plans.

His breath billowed on the dark air, illuminated by the far off glow of the house’s windows. Amrita had retreated to the barn, no doubt to curl up in front of the stable boy’s small fireplace. The earth would soon take on a frozen hardness of the kind that had left him sore-footed when he’d first fled his homeland, prior to the acquisition of a pair of proper southern boots. His heels had eventually toughened to leather, and he’d given up on softening them since they’d only blister again, anyway.

Birdie circled him, wagging her tail. Time to go back inside.

A chorus of voices reverberated in the hallways, along with plucky but amateur piano notes. The song itself was unfamiliar, tuned in the major key, designed to uplift. Although it was likely imagination, he thought he recognized Cullen’s voice among those singing. He’d only heard him a handful of times, first in the dead of night on the side of a snowy mountain pass when he’d been half frozen and too exhausted to do more than sit vigil by the side of dying Chancellor Roderick, and later, in the tavern when the Inquisitor would occasionally take over a table so the inner circle and advisors could drink together.

The lyrics tonight were decidedly less bawdy than most things he’d heard sung in taverns. His thoughts turned to Bull’s Chargers, so he closed his eyes and walked away, choosing to leave the memory where he’d stood.

Upstairs, he realized a new object had appeared next to the sideboard by his door. “How long has that been sitting there?” he asked the dog, who simply licked her chops in answer. Heavy brass, disc-shaped. A brazier, one meant to be lit with magefire. He blinked at it a few times and then hefted it into his chambers. The thing was ancient, coated in dust both new and leftover from wherever it had previously seen use. He could tell by extending a hand toward the study that the hearth was still aglow, so there was no need for it at the moment. Certainly he’d be grateful to have it come dead of night when the stones of the house went cold.

He readied himself for bed, finding solace in familiar routines of cleansing and moisturizing. Birdie gnawed at a bone she’d produced from some hiding spot as if by magic.

“Stashing things in my quarters now, are we? That’s a bit familiar of you,” he said to her. It dawned on him that her gnawing was much akin to him picking his teeth with a bit of thin string, which he’d just done, so he left her to it.

Briefly, he contemplated slipping downstairs for a soak in Cullen’s private tub, but decided he felt too dreary and didn’t want to associate such a pleasant thing with bad feelings. Instead, he used the wash basin, gathered up his book from where he’d left it on the window seat, and read until his eyelids could be kept open no longer.

He woke and dressed before first light. Birdie had taken her leave, most likely to find something edible. Although he considered packing up his trunk in readiness to flee, he forced himself to hold off. First, breakfast, or at least some tea. The kitchens would be still be empty.

Bundled in an extra cloak, hair loosely braided and barely presentable, Dorian ventured into the halls of the silent house. Not a soul moved about that he could hear. Sleep was as much a feeling as an act, which meant that even inanimate things could be imbued with a sense of it, and the house was deeply asleep. Stepping lightly, he descended the main stairs and paused on the last one when he heard crunching footsteps approaching the front door.

Cullen stopped cold with one boot over the threshold a moment later, gaping at him in disbelief. His whole body looked poised for flight, like a stag sighting hounds.

Dorian snorted. Pretend everything is as it was. “Yes, yes, Dorian Pavus out of bed before first light—I’m sure you’re thinking either the world’s ending or it’s a miracle.” He strolled over to Cullen as he covered a yawn. “Don’t credit the Maker just yet. I’ve a theory it may have to do with the fact that I fell asleep at dinnertime like an octogenarian.” He rubbed at one of his eyes, and remembered he’d forgotten to put on makeup. He hadn’t thought anyone else would be up yet, though of course he should’ve known Cullen would be. He was probably the one who stirred the rooster so it could crow.

“Ah,” Cullen said. He remained stiff, the whole iris visible in both eyes, cheeks flushing pinker by the second. Dorian had the distinct feeling they were both replaying yesterday’s misstep in unison, albeit from their respective experiential positions. “Er... Miracle or otherwise, you’re awake,” Cullen stated. He gestured to the kitchen. “Join me for tea?”

Another covered yawn, and a nod. This was to be the talk, then.

The kitchen possessed an immunity to the silence of the rest of the house, always a small flicker of flame or waft of rising bread preventing it sinking wholly into slumber. Cullen poked around with utmost familiarity, checking on the aforementioned loaves before he stirred the fire in the oven so it would be hot by the time the staff arrived to begin their baking. He took a kettle from over the hearth flame—some poor soul would’ve gotten up to stoke it in the night—and poured a splash of water into a teapot, swished it about to warm the ceramic.

Determined to be useful rather than stand around dreading the exchange that was to come, Dorian retrieved a sack of tea leaves from the cupboard. “At first I thought you had only one sort,” he said, holding up the bundle and giving it a little shake. “Then I realized you had five very similar sorts.”

Cullen emptied the pot and held it out to Dorian, who checked that the simple mesh strainer was in place before he tapped a generous dash of tea leaves into it.

“Is there a sort you’d like me to get for you?” Cullen asked as he returned to the hearth to pour the hot water.

A hospitable offer, but little more than a formality at this point. “That’s kind, but I’ve brought some spices. I can make do.”

“If you’re certain.” He capped the pot and carried it to one of the small staff tables tucked away at the back of the room. Dorian followed, two mugs in hand. They sat down across from one another. Cullen rose again as though he’d been scorched by a hot coal. “Would you like something to eat?” Away before the question could be answered, he rifled in the pantry for leftovers.

“What have you got?”

“Aha.” He returned with a wooden board covered by a cloth, and lifted it to reveal a spread of small tarts, some sweet, some savoury. He set them down in the middle of the table and settled back into his seat. By the look on his face he was hungry, but out of a strongly Fereldan sense of propriety he’d wait until Dorian had chosen one before taking a crumb.

Dorian had mercy on him, selecting plain vanilla custard with blueberries. He’d have to compliment the baker, later. They always used just enough sugar to bring out the natural sweetness of the ingredients and no more.

In the time it took Dorian to chew his first bite, Cullen had demolished an entire tart. Little wonder he looked so sturdy, these days. It was nice to see him enjoying something, though Dorian did recall Josephine once mentioning that the Commander had a fondness for shortbread that he rarely had the opportunity to indulge. Clearly it was a rarity no longer.

With no more bustling to be done about the room, the incomplete silence crept in again.

“Are these your favorite?” Dorian asked. Small talk, to soften the awkwardness.

Only a shaken head in reply as Cullen finished chewing. He dusted a crumb from his beard. “I like them but I can’t say they’re my favorite.” Some of the stiffness began to drain from his shoulders. “That honor goes to pie. Or crumble, with just a little whipped cream on top.” His lip quirked at the corners and his cheeks flushed where they used to be hollow. “It’s a bad habit that’s caught me up, these days.”

“Oh hush,” Dorian said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

The lines around Cullen’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “I’m afraid I’ve got quite a sweet tooth, and after being ill for such a long time,” he shrugged. “I don’t worry about it, anymore.” He reached to grab a second tart, as if to make his point. The tip of his nose was pink with cold and his eyes still held the glint of a nervous animal, but otherwise he seemed very well. Mornings suited him, which Dorian found equal parts charming and horrible.

Cullen took a big bite of his second tart and then wrapped his hands around the teapot. His knuckles stood out, swollen and rough looking even in low light.

The spell. He’d forgotten, again. “Venhedis, I am such an idiot,” Dorian muttered.

“Hm?” Cullen blinked at him, looking alarmed.

“Your joints, they hurt today?”

He blinked a few more times, as if considering the implications of the question. “Ah, yes. Winter is...unkind to deep aches and pains.”

“May I?” Dorian brought his hands out, palms nearly pressing to the backs of Cullen’s.

“Uh...” He froze in place, a sudden twist in his bow lips.

Dorian chuckled a bit, then covered Cullen’s hands with his own. “The spell. I’d feel badly for forgetting but it seems to have escaped you, too. It won’t hurt more than a little, I promise.”

“Oh. I, um... With the, ah, the teapot?”

“Extra heat will be helpful.” In fact, it would balance off the spell perfectly. “Ready?”

The pinch in his brow under a few flopped curls made him look more nervous than ready, but he swallowed and nodded all the same.

The spell was a slow build. It had originally been devised as a way to safely warm frostbitten extremities while mending any damage done by the ice, and it took utmost control. First would be a slight warming sensation, and then—

“That’s...” Cullen jiggled his leg under the table, undoubtedly fidgeting his lower limb to stop himself fidgeting the upper ones. “Odd.”

“Pins and needles?”

“Mm. Like they’ve fallen asleep.”

“Good.” Thin tendrils of light circled their hands, delicate silver threads. Dorian closed his eyes, working to intensify it.

Cullen hissed an inhale through his teeth. “Ouch.”

“It’s meant to sting.”

“Reminds me of...of when your feet near freeze, and you have to thaw them by the fire.”

“Yes.” Dorian kept his eyes shut. “That’s precisely what it ought to feel like.” He stroked the tip of a thumb over one of Cullen’s, and heard him suck in a breath. “There’ll be another sting, here.”

The spell peaked, Cullen grunted, and Dorian felt his fingers twitch beneath his palms. Slowly, he let the magic fade, then eased away. “How does that feel?”

Cullen pulled his hands from the teapot and flexed them, open and shut, clenched to stretched. His face took on a lightness. He huffed a pleased breath as he rubbed them together. “Better.” He smiled. “A lot better. Thank you.”

“Marvelous.” Dorian set an elbow on the table and reached for the teapot, pouring for Cullen and then himself. “I’m the first to admit I’m only a passable healer, but that’ll hold you for a few days. We can do it again, too, it’s safe. Encourages circulation.” They needed milk. He got up and walked over to the ice box to grab it, lifted a jar of honey from a shelf on the return trip.

“You should let me do that,” Cullen said.

“Nonsense, I hardly expect the master of the house to serve me. Besides,” he reached over and took hold of one of Cullen’s hands and wrapped it about the steaming mug, “you shouldn’t touch anything too cold for a few minutes. And so help me, if you’re going outside to work today, it’s with gloves on, understood?”

“I... Yes,” Cullen said, free fingers skirting his nape. “I promise.”

Somehow, their conversation turned to reminisces of Skyhold, and talk of the coming season. The distant past and future were easier than the present, far safer than the awkward specifics of yesterday. They’d just finished nibbling the last of the tarts as two of the cooks appeared in the kitchen, ready to bake bread and begin the day’s work, so they bowed out and left them their space.

“I thought I might go for a ride today,” Dorian said at the foot of the stairs. Since he hadn’t been asked to pack up and leave, he might as well take in the sights. Though perhaps... “I suppose you’ve too much to do to accompany me?”

“Mm...” Cullen turned his gaze down. He opened his mouth to speak, then squinted and went on to waffle in silence a few moments longer.

“I’ll take that to mean you’ve work to attend to,” Dorian said, beginning to laugh.

“I’m afraid I do. Another day, maybe?”

“I can busy myself until then,” Dorian said. “I should put on my face, for starters, lest I give anyone a fright.”

“You look nice without,” Cullen said. “The makeup, that is.”

So he’d noticed. Dorian had to smile.

“That’s not to say... Um, you look nice with , also, but...” Sighing, he rubbed at the arch of his brow. “Maker, you take my meaning.”

Dorian patted him gently on the shoulder. “I do speak a little bit of bashful. Though you needn’t worry, I already know how dazzling I am.” With a quick grin, he turned and began to retreat upstairs.

“Enjoy your ride,” Cullen called after him.

“I shall.”

When the sun rose, he saddled Barley and circled the property, exploring. He felt light in the saddle, buoyed by the growing sense that their ill-advised tryst had not, in fact, ruined everything. Skirting the issue had given Cullen room to do the same. Eventually he made his way next door to say hello to Marchand, who insisted they stroll the vineyard. As Dorian readied to leave, Marchand gifted him another bottle of wine and invited him and Cullen to dine with him and his husband the following month. He agreed to the idea without setting a firm date.

That night, he did bathe, and he was readying to settle into bed for the duration when footsteps down the hallway stirred his attention.

Two light knocks.

“Yes?”

Cullen’s bearded face peered around the door. “May I come in?”

“Of course.”

He stepped inside, closed the door most of the way behind him, smiled down at Birdie on her rug, and glanced to Dorian with hangdog brown eyes. Ah, so this was to be the conversation.

“About yesterday, I—

“If you’ve come to apologize, please don’t.”

Cullen looked caught between two instincts. Presumably his more rational side, the commander and model soldier, was telling him to flee emotional turmoil and avoid becoming further ensnared in it, but the softer Cullen, the one who cared for the ill and the struggling, who kissed as though he were asking permission, who adopted stray mabaris and let them sleep in his bed, looked like he wanted to reach out. Like a great tension held his arms in place.

No decision was made by either faction, and he remained where he stood.

“Really, no apology necessary,” Dorian said. “I don’t regret what we did, though I am sorry we left it so awkwardly.” Without pausing, he gestured at the brazier. “Thank you, by the way. That will keep me from hoarding every spare pelt in the house.”

“Oh,” Cullen nodded. “Yes, it’s, ah, magical in nature. No use for a regular fire, but magefire will stay alight if cast in the basin,” he said. “Supposedly.”

Dorian smiled, hadn’t the heart to tell him they’d been using similar objects in Tevinter for centuries. Less for warmth than for making a delicious type of slow brewed coffee, but nonetheless, it was a kindness he dared not belittle. “I’ll try it tonight.”

“Good,” Cullen said. “Good. You’re welcome to whatever blankets you need, as well, obviously,” he added, flustered. He began to back up. “I’ll, um, leave you to...sleep.”

“Cullen?” Dorian moved to keep up with him.

He paused accordingly. “Mhm?”

They’d already muddied the waters, and there was no undoing that. Dorian stepped in close, so he could speak quietly. “I want to say again that I’m not upset, about yesterday. I only hope I didn’t...take advantage.”

Cullen’s gaze softened, giving way to a very small smile. “No, you didn’t, but...” His eyebrows remained knit, however, as if the guilt were something innate that could only be moved around, never absolved.

“But?” He cupped Cullen’s scruffy jaw, felt the bristles of his incongruously brown beard poking his palm. The touch felt too intimate to let linger, especially with Cullen tilting into it like a shy pup, so he dragged his thumb across a weathered, lightly lined cheek and let go.

“It’s been years since...” Cullen sighed, closed his eyes. “I don’t always...like being touched. Touching others is fine, I’m—I’m happy to do things for you, but...” He cleared his throat.

The room got very quiet, for a few moments.

“Have you always felt this way?”

Cullen nodded. “Most people don’t... They don’t like to hear that.”

Dorian threw a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I daresay I’m not most people.” He carefully took hold of Cullen’s forearm. “I’m very grateful you’ve told me. We can certainly...work around it, if you’d like to?”

There was something altogether disarming in the way Cullen looked at him, then. With such sweetness that Dorian felt they were already head over heels, already in the beginnings of love. How dire, to understand in a single instant that there were still raw red fibres beneath the layers of soot greying his heart.

“It’s late” Cullen said. It wasn’t, but vulnerability took effort to sustain. “We should talk tomorrow,” he continued, hushed. “Over dinner, if it suits you?”

“I’d like that.”

The shy smile stayed firm in place as he turned and left the room, pulling the door mostly shut on the way out.

Neither of them were entirely fit to reassure the other. At least Cullen seemed to recognize that, bless him. Perhaps in the morning it would be easier, after a night’s rest. Dorian turned to rearrange his blankets, and stilled. Familiar desperation burbled up.

He missed Bull, badly. Hated him for what he’d done, hated him equally for dying. That absence rammed home, pierced through every thought even now, years after the fact. Tears welled and he pressed them away, still sore and blurry from yesterday’s cry. Eyes closed, he summoned the image of a box between his hands, visualized his feelings coiling in it like a snare of wire, visualized setting it aside. His hands mimed the gesture. It had helped at first, to perform such small rituals. Significance existed in the physicality, even if it cast no spell. Sometimes he had to do it over, and over, box upon invisible box stacked at his side.

If putting the memories aside did not help, he paced. He did that now, for several minutes, until Birdie came to him and nuzzled his hands. He knelt to pat her and she leaned against him, putting a large, heavy paw on his thigh as if in consolation.

He cried into her fur and she stayed, patiently. She flapped her ears once, to shake off a teardrop, but that was all the protest she gave.

That night, he invited her up onto the end of the bed to sleep. His feet stayed much warmer than usual.

Chapter Text

There might’ve been better ways to approach what had happened between them—without a doubt, he was certain there were—but as it was, he was thankful Dorian held no grudge about his graceless exit.

After he’d fled their haphazard encounter yesterday, Cullen had been so shaken he’d thought he might collapse at the knee. When he did not, he sequestered himself in his office and dove headlong into a whirlwind of paperwork in order to constructively direct his nerves. The effort failed. In every second of stillness he felt Dorian, heard Dorian’s sighs, tasted him, saw the dark hair at his base, knew the weight of him on his tongue. Could barely believe he’d gone straight for his cock like a starving dog to meat. He’d forgotten the heat that radiated from the pelvic triangle, stoking the blush in his own cheeks, the way veins textured the soft, sensitive skin he slid his mouth over. It was enough to drive a man stark raving mad. Even worse to think he’d behaved so abysmally once he finished the task, and to be frank he half expected to find Dorian’s room empty upon next inspection, things packed and awaiting retrieval in the courtyard, a lone figure in dark robes riding into the distance at a canter.

But Dorian, politician that he was, had been cordial. Kind. Even before they’d sat down to morning tea he’d given Cullen the option of side-stepping any consequences, and for a time he thought he might prefer such a reprieve. By nightfall, though, he’d become determined to face fate head on, otherwise he’d be plagued by insomnia and pangs of anxious embarrassment. He had no idea what he’d expected out of the conversation. A mutual agreement of error, maybe, explicit rather than tacit permission to forget the blunder and resume their prior camaraderie, but instead he’d been offered something else. He couldn’t say what, aside from the potential implication that his decade-old unrequited love might not be so unrequited after all.

Seated on the edge of his bed that night, following their tentative conversation, he rubbed his hands together, knuckles far less painful than usual. After their shared breakfast early in the day he’d watched, starry-eyed, while Dorian climbed the stairs, then thanked the Maker that no one had been awake to witness his overly fond gawping. Once Dorian disappeared, Cullen had walked back outside and promptly turned and come in again to retrieve a pair of gloves. The warmth in his hands lasted through the day’s work, still buzzed in his fingertips now though the sun was several hours gone.

Bashful, Dorian had called him. If he recalled correctly, the last person to apply the label had been Varric, in a recounting of the infamous wicked grace game. To Cullen’s credit, overestimating his ability to read Josephine was a mistake he made only once.

He slept soundly, without guilt, and when he woke to the rooster’s crow his hands had not gone cold.

Today, one of the west fields needed preparation for seeding. It was a bit late in the season, an error he’d made based on reading several different volumes regarding fall planting which all advised different optimal windows, but Nan, the first and most gifted agronomist mage he’d hired on, assured him there would be no issue; if they planted now, they’d have a proper spring crop. He trusted her. She was a stout older elf, and she traveled regularly to teach others her techniques. She also liked to rib him about how he’d gone from suppressing magic to using it to help put bread on the table, and he told her often that he wished he’d known about such applications in his youth. He never tired of watching her sprout seedlings, summoning the fine tips and first green leaves through the dirt, their tendrils drawn by her magic as if it were the sun itself. That was Nan’s great kindness: restoring a fraction of the wonder he’d discarded so thoughtlessly as a younger man.

The field they wanted to plant had most recently been a beanfield, and he’d been told rotating it with wheat was a suitable course of action, since the two crops rarely suffered similar scourges and therefore would not transfer afflictions between them. It required only a moderate pass to weed and reshape the rows, but the soil was moist and had not yet begun freezing in the night. Soon, it would. Tooth-like ice spires would honeycomb through the dirt, crystal cities revealed when crushed underfoot by boots or mashed by curious dog paws.

Morning came and went, he and four others making headway across the stretch of land. Every time he curled his fingers, he thought of Dorian. The sun climbed high, and as its trajectory closed in on noon, clothing began dotting the fenceline as people removed their outermost layers to keep cool. This was not yet anemic winter sunlight, brightness without substance, but rather end of summer sun with a bit of fat warmth still to offer, best evidenced by the fact that he had sweated through his tunic when someone brought them out a bucket of water to wash up with, and some lunch.

One of the permanent farm hands eventually came to join the work, her daughter in tow. The little girl poked her way over to Cullen, who greeted her and sent her on to Nan. “Do the seed trick,” he called to the woman, who smiled and held a hand out to beckon the child to her. Wee Cecily, much like everyone else, adored Nan and her tricks, and tottered to her eagerly.

The day passed on. At one point he thought he saw Dorian in the distance atop his horse, out on another excursion, but beast and rider were too far off to say for sure. Half the planting got finished, and tomorrow the rest of the seed could go in. Apples, they’d have to start harvesting the apples tomorrow, too. By late afternoon, Cullen’s back had stiffened with the usual pain in the lower quadrant that became so intense at times it near hobbled him, so he told everyone they could stay or go as they pleased, and left to check on Laurel.

Asleep, as expected, in a sunny patch outside the barn, Amrita keeping her company. He took her aside and fed her a bit extra, gave her a cuddle, and went up to the house to bathe and balm his back. When he dressed, he caught himself rifling through clothing that was finer than usual. Fabric with a slight sheen instead of his threadbare daily cotton, worn thin with use. It was only dinner, but he couldn’t help but fixate on how Dorian had lit up to see him wearing a good tunic the day they’d gone to Marchand’s. He chose one he’d had a while, that had been loose when he’d gotten it. Fits like a glove now , he thought, shaking his head at himself in the mirror.

He knew Dorian had returned and settled in the study because he could see Birdie’s back end where she rested on one of the carpets. Since she’d taken up the role of shadow, no doubt she’d accompanied him on his ride and was busy sleeping it off. Before showing himself, he thought he’d best be sure he could put a decent supper together.

In the kitchens he went over the day’s offerings and found them wanting for a sit down meal. So, he selected two fresh cuts of meat and prepared them with minimal seasoning, cooking on a small outdoor grill so as not to be underfoot during the dinner rush. Two of his dogs pitched up next to him on the patio, the most hopeful audience he’d ever laid eyes on. “I’m afraid not,” he said to them, to no avail. They sat there drooling until he actively shooed them away.

Meat prepared, he arranged a salad from young greens and nicked some of the mashed potatoes the rest of the house was having with their supper. A few savory odds and ends along with some fresh bread rounded out the presentation, and he carried the tray upstairs with Fuller at his heel. “You’re still not going to get any,” he told the dog.

Birdie thumped her tail at him as he entered the room, and he glanced over to see Dorian looking out one of the study’s tall windows in an outfit of deep blue. His hair was down, swept to one side.

“I’ve brought dinner,” Cullen announced.

“Smells heavenly,” Dorian said without turning around.

“I hope I didn’t overcook the meat.” Cullen took his tray to the table nearest the window and began laying things out.

“You cooked?”

“Just the steaks.” He felt a hand on his lower back. Dorian by his side, appraising the spoils.

“Hmm, looks very fine to me,” he concluded. “Oh,” he picked up two glasses and a bottle of wine from a sideboard. “My contribution.”

Cullen glanced at the bottle and saw it was unlabeled. “Marchand’s?” After their last experience, he wasn’t sure wine was wise.

“I might’ve stopped by yesterday, to talk with him about his grapes. He’s very keen on those grapes, our friend Marchand.” He uncorked the bottle and began pouring.

“Maker, I’m surprised he let you leave. Once he gets going about the vineyard you practically have to fake an emergency.”

“I may have agreed to dinner, with him and his husband,” Dorian said. His palm landed on Cullen’s arm as if to cut off any complaint. “Don’t worry, not anytime soon. Apparently the two of them come back for a week or so in Wintermarch, for the novelty of snow and cold.”

At least he’d not been verbally inventing an elaborate history of their relationship that Cullen would now have to memorize. Unless... “Did you say anything further about our, um... Us?”

Dorian laughed and settled into a seat, wine in hand. “I don’t kiss and tell, darling .”

That much was a relief, and Cullen snorted at the term of endearment before taking his own seat. He opted for the head of the table, to keep Dorian at his elbow instead of across from him. “Don’t wait,” he urged. The meat had already rested, so it was liable to get cold any moment.

They were both hungry. Dorian was the first to break the silence of eager chewing, to talk about the ride he’d taken. He’d been feeling adventurous and had gone quite a ways off, into the hills in the south, where he’d seen a herd of woolly rams. The large boulders lining a mountain stream had struck him as a nice spot for a picnic, so he’d lunched there with Birdie begging at his side.

“I even saw a bear,” he said, “but luckily she was eating some berries and seemed altogether uninterested in us.”

“Where there’s one mabari, there’s usually more,” Cullen said, glancing at Birdie and Fuller where they begged from a distance. “It’s a good deterrent.” His Bear, old fat Bear, was in front of the fireplace, drooling and staring longingly at the table, no doubt wishing a place had been set for him.

They drifted into a quiet that could almost be called comfortable as they finished the meal, and eventually Dorian poured more wine.

“I don’t mean to spoil our evening by bringing this up, but... You’re not angry with me, are you?” He eyed Cullen over the rim of the glass. “About Marchand. For going along with it.”

Cullen paused with his glass halfway to his lips, caught in wondering if Dorian was speaking of their shared masquerade, or if he was including the botched interlude afterward. Both of them had been swept up in it, and there was no knowing for certain. Perhaps Dorian had come to his senses, and now sought a way to let things fade out gently. Choosing words became difficult, and Cullen let his glass resettle on the table.

“It’s only,” Dorian added, “that I felt it would’ve been cruel to contradict the old fellow. He seemed so pleased that he’d figured you out at long last.”

There was logic in that. Had he not been so speechless at the time, he might’ve been the one to first go along with it. “I’m not angry,” he said, plain and simple. He reached for his wine and sucked in a mouthful, savoring it before swallowing. “In truth, it flatters me.”

“As it should,” Dorian said. “I’m very handsome. An ideal fake secret lover.”

The matter of fact statement made Cullen snicker, but he paused to consider the inclusion of fake in the description. When they’d first met, he’d thought Dorian arrogant beyond measure, and it had taken him some time to realize self-aggrandizement was his method of coping with existence in a world where he was fundamentally unwanted in his own society, due largely in part to whom he chose to bed. Speaking of which...

“Did you know that he was also...” Cullen cleared his throat. “Could you tell?”

“Could I tell what?” Dorian said flatly.

“Ah, that he’s, ehm...” All wrong, that assumption was all wrong. He winced, angled his head down. “Forgive me, that’s ignorant isn’t it.” He gulped his wine, hoping it would dull the ruddy burn in his cheeks.

Dorian sighed. “It is and it isn’t. I had an inkling. You never can tell for certain, but there are hints. Marchand...seemed almost excited to have us there, and genuinely so, which was a tip off.” He rubbed his fingers over his mustache and down his beard. “Actually, I consider myself a reasonable judge of such things. Or I did, until recently.”

“Oh? What happened?”

“Mm,” Dorian hummed, swallowed his mouthful of wine. “You.”

Now they were talking about the interlude. Cullen’s mouth fell open, and he felt his brows pinching together, knew it was making all his lines stand out stark on his forehead. “Oh. I...apologize.”

Eyes wide, Dorian burst out laughing, throwing his head back, mirth taking him with abandon. “I’m sorry,” he managed to wheeze, “I’m not really laughing at you, it’s...” More laughter bubbled up from his stomach. “Oh, Cullen.” He leaned forward and gripped his forearm. “I’m glad it happened. It’s only that I never would’ve guessed, with you. That’s all I meant.”

“And why not, exactly?” Cullen asked. His tone came out combative instead of curious, and he shut his eyes. “I mean, for the sake of...of interest.”

“Interest, hm?”

“...Yes.”

Dorian rested an elbow on the tabletop and tapped a finger against his lips. “Well, namely, you never took a lover. Not a one. Oh, there were rumors,” he waved a hand, “but that was a perk of being among the inner circle—someone always knew the truth. Usually Madame de Fer, or Sera, sometimes Cole, though anything you got out of him was ponderously roundabout.” He shook his head and sniffed, clearly remembering. It gave way to a small smile. “There were murmurs about you and dear Cassandra, but your rapport was far too guileless for you to have been lovers. Though of course Bull always said—"

He stalled. The lively expression on his face faded. It was like watching a man realize he’d been run through with a blade. His jaw tensed and he turned to look at Birdie on her rug. “Nevermind that.” Even his voice lost its usual bright timbre. “I couldn’t have guessed, is all. You were far too private.”

They’d fallen into swampland, with this topic. Steering clear of bogs, both actual and emotional, had never been Cullen’s strong suit, and neither was slogging out of them once he was knee deep in slime. Not to say he couldn’t do it—he’d persevere, he always did—but it wouldn’t be graceful, and it might not be quick, and once he’d made high ground his boots would be wet for hours regardless.

He was thinking too literally.

“You and I were friends. You really found me so inscrutable?”

Dorian poured himself the last of the wine and took a gulp of it. “No, not inscrutable. Merely...taciturn, for understandable reasons.” He stared into his glass, though he wasn’t seeing it but rather looking past it, unfocused on the world, turned inward instead. “Not all of us could be quite so forthright as The Iron Bull.”

One step out of the bog, and an about-face straight into it. Cullen swallowed. The way Dorian’s lip had curled around the last few words of that sentence made him look like he was about to be sick. Part sneer, part nausea. Instead of throwing up, he finished the wine.

“I’m sorry,” Dorian said. The empty glass clunked down on the table. “I think back on it sometimes and it’s... What is there to say? The bastard pulled the wool over my eyes and I practically asked him to tie it there.”

So much for leaving the swamp. “None of us saw through it, Dorian.” Even Leliana, who had a thousand eyes watching from on high, had misjudged the situation with Iron Bull.

“Maybe not,” Dorian conceded. “But I was the one who was fucking him.”

Cullen closed his eyes and tensed his mouth. They were both sunk, now. Leaning forward in his chair, he set bent elbows on the table. “It doesn’t matter. The fact that you were intimate with him makes you no more culpable than the rest of us.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “He told us, from the start, exactly what he was and what he was doing, and we raised the gate for him. It was genius, on his part. Ruthless, and genius.”

Tension thickened Dorian’s jaw. The clammy, frantic bloodlessness of a severely anxious person fell over him.

Cullen set his hand not on him, but near him, on the arm of his chair. “We don’t have to talk about this,” he said. He kept his voice low, leveled with as much gentleness as he could muster. “But...what happened with Bull wasn’t your fault.”

Dorian laughed, but the sound was ragged as the scar that cut its way across his abdomen. “Not my fault.” He nodded, a repetitive, desperate motion borne of distress. It did not signify agreement. “Right. Not my fault that I let him...” He cut himself off.

“It wasn’t,” Cullen insisted. He tongued at the scar on his lip, tapped a nervous hand on the table. The wine was gone, unfortunately, or he would’ve poured more. “Can I ask you something?”

“Please do,” Dorian said, not looking at him.

Cullen stilled. He folded his hands together, still leaning heavily on his elbows. “Do you think...had things gone differently on the coast, he might’ve been saved?”

No acknowledgement. Dorian stared at the shelf adjacent from where they sat, and Cullen knew he saw nothing.

“I only ask because...I always had the sense that when he lost the Chargers, it broke him. He wasn’t the same man after they died, and who could be? I was furious about that whole incident. I know you felt similarly—that you and the Inquisitor fought.” His eyes went to the same bookshelf where Dorian’s gaze was fixed, either in solidarity or a quiet grasping to understand, he couldn’t say. “I know what Trevelyan was trying to do. A real alliance with the Qunari would supply enormous power, but...” He shook his head, rubbed at the side of his jaw. “After what I saw in Kirkwall... Our cultures barely tolerate one another. Any alliance was going to be tenuous at best unless both sides committed to radical diplomacy, which... Well.” They hadn’t, and everyone had suffered for it. The Chargers, butchered. Bull’s eventual betrayal forced a bloody execution. Dorian had lost his partner, and barely survived himself.

“You’d advised against it,” Dorian said, in a whisper. “I know.”

“I’m sure I sound like the ignorant Fereldan I am in saying all this, but it’s simply the truth. The Qun is a way of life. From what Bull explained of it I understand there are those who find it beneficial, but as for their intentions, I don’t think cooperation interests them. Whether to conquer or eradicate us, either is a significant threat and no one people has any right to dictate to others how they live.”

“Except for the Chantry,” Dorian cut in, “and your templars. Your lot of bastard, glorified jailers. Mages are dangerous, power-hungry aberrations and ought to be imprisoned or lobotomized, isn’t that right, Knight-Captain?”

Cullen held his tongue and rested his mouth against the side of his clasped hands, lips pressed into a knuckle. He could’ve snapped about Tevinter slavers, but Dorian was in no place to hear it. Besides, the man was right. The Chantry upheld bad doctrine, and for a long time he’d enforced it. “I deserve that.”

Dorian gave a slight, unfinished gesture. “No, I... I’m not being fair. I’m feeling sick in the head.” He swallowed, looked as though he were chewing the inside of his cheek. “You’ve changed. So have I.”

There was a pitcher of water on the small table between the two wingback chairs, and Cullen thought he ought to go get it, but feared that if he moved Dorian might bolt. “I hope I have,” he said. “I was on the wrong side of history. Too many people were harmed because I told myself I was just doing my job, but that was a lie. A reprehensible one. I’m fortunate I had the chance to come to my senses.”

“You were being drugged,” Dorian said. “Lyrium alters the mind. It’s an addiction.”

“No,” Cullen said firmly. “No, back then, I believed I was doing the Maker’s work. I won’t blame the lyrium for my own folly.” His hands were clenched tight in front of him, so he lowered them and balled his fists, trying to find calm. “We are, all of us, bound to our circumstances to some degree. I was raised with the Chantry, and trained to do a job, much as Bull was raised under the Qun to fulfill a role. He was an intelligent man—a brilliant one—but that doesn’t always allow us to break from our fates. You tried,” he said, gesturing broadly, “but the fact is you sit before me a high ranking member of the Magisterium. Granted, you leverage your position to work for change, which puts you at extreme risk—"

“Daily attempts on my life, last summit season.”

“Exactly. My point is, sometimes we walk the path in front of us without looking side to side. We don’t see the trail that might’ve given us an out. Or we see it, but someone, or something, has blocked it. Other times that trail would take us through hundreds of miles, a lifetime’s worth, of rough terrain, and...we don’t all have the strength to endure it.”

Dorian had begun nodding again. Compulsion rather than assent, movement to hold back emotion. “Bull’s exit must’ve been to his left, then. If such a path existed.” He’d begun blinking rapidly.

“You don’t believe it did?”

“What’s the point of wondering now when all it does is make me want to feed my lungs to your dogs?”

At the word dog, Birdie rose and came over. She knew she wasn’t meant to pester when people were seated at a table, but Dorian’s harsh tone had grabbed her attention.

“Perhaps we should drop the subject,” Cullen said. The kind thing would’ve been to avoid it entirely, but that would’ve required he keep his big mouth shut.

Dorian had gone blank. Staring perpetually ahead into a void. “I wish he’d killed me,” he murmured.

“Dorian...”

“No, listen. If I’d died, people would pity me. ‘Poor, stupid Dorian, so taken in by the two-faced ox only to be literally gutted by him. How tragic!’ Fuck, they’d be writing plays about it. But I lived.” He smiled. A vacant, aggrieved smile. “There’s no poignant tragedy in that. Surviving means it was my own fault, too dimwitted to see through the facade. Oh Kadan, don’t fuss, Kadan, I love you... Bull-fucking-shit!” His lip quivered after he spat the words. He slammed a palm over his mouth and shut his eyes against the spill of tears, but it was too late to dam them.

Cullen lifted a hand to reach for his arm but hesitated half way. He had his eyes closed and startling him would be awful. Birdie took the cue and whined before getting up on her haunches and plunking her upper body in Dorian’s lap. He gave a small cry of surprise, but after the initial shock he stroked her neck and leaned into her.

On a normal day, if she’d only been begging or seeking attention, Cullen would’ve chastised her for taking such liberties. Right now, she was doing her job. To comfort, and to distract. He dared not scold her for solid instincts. He got up and retrieved the water, poured some in a glass and placed it in front of Dorian. Slowly, he set an open palm on his back, and when he didn’t flinch away, he began to rub across his shoulder blades in a soothing motion.

“There was nothing I could’ve done,” Dorian whimpered softly. “I loved him, and it didn’t... I didn’t...” He turned his face into Birdie’s ruff.

There was no consolation Cullen could offer that would mend how it had ended. Altering time was out of the question, though he knew the man seated in front of him crying had once researched the means to do just that for another purpose. He was also a necromancer, specialized in magic relating to the dead. He must’ve known better than anyone that the dead were busy. For all his talents, he was helpless to restore what he’d lost.

“I think,” Dorian croaked, “I’d like to be alone, for a little while.”

At that, Cullen withdrew his hand.

Dorian shifted, then looked up at him with bleary eyes. “Would you see me back to my room?”

“Of course.”

They got Birdie onto her own four feet, and the three of them made their way slowly down the hall. Once through the door, Cullen paused. Instead of moving away from him, Dorian stayed by his side.

“Are you sure you want to be alone? I’ve a good chair in my room, in front of the fire. You could read there.” No one would bother them, and they could ignore one another in companionable peace.

Dorian shook his head. “Thank you, but...I’ll be fine.” He sank forward and tucked his chin against Cullen’s shoulder, so he opened his arms and pulled him in. “I’m sorry I keep doing this,” he said, voice still thick with weeping. “ Kaffas , it’s so melodramatic.”

“It’s not,” Cullen told him. “And... I’m glad you didn’t die,” he whispered. He ran his fingers through the soft wave of Dorian’s hair. “It’s hard, is all. Living past a moment that feels as though it might’ve been your time.” Dorian’s nose bumped his neck as he nuzzled closer, and Cullen tightened his grip.

“I miss him,” Dorian murmured, breath warming the skin at the base of Cullen’s throat. “Isn’t that insane?”

They stood in silence a few moments longer, Cullen struggling to pull proper words together. Finally, he simply said, “No.” Bull had been a complicated person, and Dorian had loved him. That had been real, if not to Bull—though Cullen strongly suspected it had been—then at least to Dorian. A last squeeze, and Cullen began to step away. “If you change your mind about company, I’ll be in my chambers.”

Birdie huffed as she settled down on the rug, prepared to remain as sentinel.

The space between them widened, Dorian’s cool fingers falling from where they’d been pressed into Cullen’s sides. “Thank you.”

Back in the study, Cullen gathered up their plates and took everything to the kitchen for washing. Dusk arrived while he was wrist deep in soapy water, and the healer came to find him to talk. Since the staff was gone for the night, they opted to stand by the sinks and speak quietly.

“Is it Jillian? Is she having trouble settling back in?”

Rho shook their head. “Gavin.”

The young lad who’d been having such a terrible time for months. “Is he all right?”

“He’s had another seizure. Jilly is with him now, and he seems to be coming ‘round, but...” Rho crossed both arms across their chest. “I don’t know. I’m keeping him as comfortable as I can, but I think we should write his family, tell them to come. It’s his sister that’s still alive, isn’t it?”

“Yes, in Redcliffe.” The dishes done, Cullen shook his hands off and dried them. “I’ll send her a letter.”

Rho nodded.

“What... What should I say to her?” He couldn’t bring himself to ask how long Rho thought the boy had left.

A slow inhale as the healer contemplated, their charcoal dark eyes searching the air. “Tell her, within the month, if she wants to see him with his faculties intact.” With that, Rho walked out of the room.

Hands on the edge of the counter, Cullen chewed the inside corner of his lip. Never the sort of letter anyone enjoyed writing, or sending, especially not receiving, but it had to be done. He retreated to his room and took out the inks, fumbled through a stack of assorted parchment for an appropriately heavy piece, free of blemishes. Seated at his desk, he rehearsed his words aloud, muttering them until he knew how he intended to phrase everything, then he dipped his pen nib in ink, and began.

Chapter Text

When the sun rose, Dorian wrapped himself in black garments and crept out of the house to make straight for the barn. He skipped the ever-present breakfast tray outside his door in favor of a quick exit, and in an hour or two his grumbling stomach would be an audible reminder of his poor decision. Nonetheless, he couldn’t chance running into Cullen and being waylaid by sympathy. He wasn’t in the mood to make lame excuses. He wanted to be alone. So, he saddled his horse, bid farewell to Antony, who blinked at him as though he were speaking Tevene instead of common, and rode off down the road.

Naturally, Birdie ruined his plan of sulking about the countryside by following him. Mabari were exceptional in terms of endurance, and she was powered by youth on top of inborn inclination. She could run circles around old Barley, who gave it a good effort at a canter but preferred to amble and snatch a mouthful of weeds here and there as they went.

“Go home,” Dorian said to the dog, pointing back toward the farm. Birdie only grinned up at him, tongue lolling bright pink from her jaws. Stubborn beast, not unlike her owner.

On they went.

He’d fallen into a gray, dreamless sleep after retreating to his room following the meltdown at dinner. In the night’s small hours he’d woken and paced the hall barefoot, the cold of the floor jarring him from heel to knee. The discomfort kept him grounded. He’d wanted to go to Cullen, to lie down beside him in his massive bed along with the dogs. It would be warm, and very safe, and it would smell like fur and tired bodies and old, faded soap. He wondered how Cullen liked to be held, if he preferred to sleep on his back or his belly. If he snored.

He’d gone back to his own bed, instead. Birdie had left him following his midnight wanderings, and he’d drifted in and out of that gray sleep until dawn glowed through the windows.

It was a warm day, as if summer were a guest taking their leisure while readying to leave. He enjoyed the sun, the way it heated the fabric of his robes and his skin beneath as if all existence were one formless wash of light, but he suspected the animals were less comfortable. They steered onto a trail through the woods as soon as he sighted one, to shade them.

There’d been a cluster of people out in the apple orchard as he left the property, and he’d thought Cullen stood among them but was too far off to say. His eyes were still quite good except that the right was failing him faster than the left, which made objects at a distance a touch blurry. Part of him felt guilty for abandoning the farm on a day when he might’ve been a useful extra body, but he’d overheard conversations in the main hall about how picking apples was an art form, and you didn’t bring in just any old dogsbody to do the job unless you wanted your crop spoiled the instant it left the trees. Pickers had to have careful hands. He liked to think he met the criteria, since it took deft fingers to manipulate the Fade, but convincing people that magic and apples were more alike than they seemed was a task for someone other than the suspicious northern magister.

There were similarities in all things, Dorian knew. Nature, spirits; not nearly as separate as sides of a coin. Perhaps more comparable to a loaf of bread, each ingredient integral, melding and reacting to form a new substance distinct from the elements that constituted it.

Birdie barked suddenly, so loud that Dorian startled in the saddle. Barley snorted and took a few quick steps, but otherwise he maintained his composure. “Good boy,” Dorian soothed him, patting his muscled neck.

The dog came crashing out of the underbrush on the tail of an unfortunate nug, but the silly pink animal outmaneuvered her and disappeared down a hole. Birdie whimpered and dug at it, shoveling a shocking amount of dirt with her massive paws, but Dorian whistled sharply and she left off.

“Nugs don’t taste very good, anyway,” he said to her. Even in stew, all he could ever think of was their creepy little feet.

Birdie licked her chops and trotted on ahead.

It was easy to fall into a rhythm on the back of a steady horse. Dorian had once been nervous of them, since everyone knew someone who knew someone who’d been injured or permanently maimed while riding. Mother had instilled the fear early, since she’d known such a person firsthand, and when he’d taken lessons as a small boy she’d meticulously arranged matters such that he’d always been given the mounts that were too long in the tooth to be bothered causing trouble. As he’d gotten older and come into a svelte athleticism he’d lacked in childhood, he moved on to more spirited animals, though he’d had to do so behind his parents’ backs.

During the Inquisition he’d often been the one to take the mare who had a reputation for biting, or the hot-blooded youngster who’d only recently been broken to the saddle. It took extra calm and a degree of forceful patience to make them cooperate, but he enjoyed the challenge. Plus, it looked awfully dashing when you could keep your seat on a rearing horse, which he’d learned to do at fifteen, much to his mother’s absolute horror—he’d accidentally revealed the talent on a family outing that same summer, showing off for a cousin’s handsome friend.

Easygoing Barley was more like the horses of his boyhood: agreeable, accustomed to being ridden by different people, and most importantly, content to ignore a rider’s mistakes. He was a forgiving old gentleman in that regard, a good sort of horse for someone inexperienced or frightened of them. A bit of a dull horse for Dorian, but lately he preferred a degree of predictability in the creatures he surrounded himself with, both human and animal. Birdie’s nug coursing escapades were excitement enough.

Some years had gone by since the days of learning to rough it out in the wilds, and over time he’d come to take a certain comfort in good weather and birdsong. Normally, it signalled safe traveling. Affixing oneself to the present was easy while moving beneath a canopy of autumn leaves and dappled sunlight, since the moment moved with you, never static. There was satisfaction in the meditative sense of gaining ground.

He needed to move forward, quite literally. The conversation the evening prior had left claws in him, and they festered, but there was no facing that just now. Knowing how Cullen felt about Bull... It both relieved and saddened him. Attempting to extricate a rational feeling from the unbearable tangle was beyond Dorian’s ken.

What he did know was that Bull, brainwashed or not, in love or not, was dead. He’d tried to kill all of them before dying. Dorian had been the one standing closest in the moment of Bull’s betrayal, at the precise instant he’d finally turned his coat, and for the sake of his sanity he tried to believe that’s why he’d been cut down.

He also knew now that Cullen had gentle hands, and a soft voice. That it felt nice to be near to him. He smelled good. That he was willing to touch, if reluctant to be touched.

That knowledge, too, was complex, even as it warmed his chest from within.

Around midday, they came across a temporary market at a crossroads. The northwest route, if followed for a day or so, led to the Imperial Highway and seemed to be a well-traveled connector if the nearby tavern and inn were any indication. Vendors sold goods out of collapsible wooden stalls or off the backs of their carts: honey, eggs, extra-large or odd-shaped vegetables, some seeds, homemade savory snacks and loaves of beautiful dark bread. One cart overflowed with basil and rosemary, so he stood there a few moments to revel in the fragrance. He bought two bunches, along with a bundle of purple carrots, which had Barley’s ears pricking in anticipation, and he also purchased two meat pasties—one for himself, the other to share with Birdie.

They were an odd trio, man in black robes leading a venerable liver horse with an adolescent mabari in tow. Children swarmed the dog, who basked in the attention like a lizard did the sun.

“What’s her name?” they’d ask, and he’d introduce her, garnering a delighted chorus of ‘awww’ each time.

In fact, people talked to him everywhere he went, friendly and familiar, and he finally realized it was because of the dog. Any person with a mabari was considered trustworthy in the eyes of the average Fereldan, regardless of their state of dress or unusual hairstyle. It helped that Birdie’s tail never ceased wagging—she always had a few kisses for any stranger who volunteered a scratch about the ears.

Odd, what marked a person as worthy of trust. Had he known the mabari trick before his original journey south he might’ve sought one out as companion, to soften everyone’s opinion of him.

The sun peaked, floating onward westerly into afternoon. They took an extended break to relax near a brook and eat the pasties. Barley, uninterested in the meat-packed pastry, foraged on the undergrowth, finding some succulent greens and clover that were to his liking. Somewhat restored by the meal, Dorian turned them around to begin the ride back.

For a time he worried he might’ve gotten lost, but the horse plodded sternly on, and Birdie seemed intent on acting as living signpost, correcting their course by running ahead and woofing if they strayed. He put his faith in the beasts, whose noses were magnitudes better than his own, trusting them to find their way back to their beds through field and woodland.

By late afternoon the terrain became familiar, and at twilight’s first slow bleed across the sky they were on the stretch of road that led home.

Quiet permeated the property when Dorian rode in. Barley veered straight into the barn without urging, practically dove into his stall the moment his tack was removed and he’d been rubbed down. Someone had refilled his hay supply, and apparently his lunchtime graze hadn’t sated him. Antony peeked out from his small room at the end of the barn to investigate the commotion, so Dorian smiled and bid him good evening.

The young fellow replied with the softest hello ever uttered by anyone in the history of mankind, and Dorian felt fond of him because of it.

Up at the house, dinner had been finished and tidied away, the leftovers kept warmed near the fire or stacked in the usual cupboards for those who felt inclined to nibble later in the evening. Dorian snacked on a pickle and a few cherry tomatoes while he helped himself to a bowl of soup. He nosed out a sweet bun when he’d finished, deciding to take his spoils up to the study.

Light poured through the doorway, and he expected a group of quiet readers. What he found was Cullen asleep in the usual wingback chair, head crooked awkwardly, an abandoned pint at his side. Bear snoozed on the rug near him, the old gray-muzzled beast hardly opening an eye when Dorian stepped into the room.

“Bit late for a nap, isn’t it?”

Sucking a sharp breath, Cullen startled upright. He put a hand on his stomach and exhaled, looking almost relieved. “There you are.” He rubbed at his face and sat forward in the chair, movements heavy with sleep. “When Antony told me you’d gone this morning I wondered if... Well, if you’d left .”

Dorian blinked. “Oh...” It hadn’t occurred to him, but of course he might think that, given how their last conversation had concluded. “Forgive me, I should’ve said something.” Bun in hand, he settled into the second chair. “I wanted a little time to myself, to clear my thoughts, that’s all.”

“It’s no trouble.” Cullen pushed his bangs off his forehead and patted his knees to beckon Birdie, who trotted to him wagging her tail with furious enthusiasm. “As soon as I realized this one was gone too I knew you were coming back. Or if you weren’t by morning, I was going to give chase.” Man and dog butted heads, nuzzling one another, until Cullen was forced to dodge a slobbery kiss.

“Admit it,” Dorian said, “she’s your favorite.”

“I shall neither confirm nor deny that,” Cullen replied. He planted a smooch on top of Birdie’s domed skull.

It looked a lot like a confirmation. By the fireplace, Bear lifted his head. He’d scented the sweet bun, and reoriented himself so he could slaver over it.

“Honestly, old man,” Cullen said to the dog. He leaned toward Dorian, “He’s had one of those already today. Nabbed it during lunch. You’d think I never fed him.”

Dorian looked back at the exceptionally plump dog, who seemed to shed several years from his demeanor whenever food appeared. “I actually...don’t think anyone would think that,” he said with a laugh.

Thankfully, Cullen laughed too. The real one, his funny little chuckle and snort that Dorian had first grown familiar with during their chess matches of days gone by. “No, I suppose not.” He picked up his pint of ale and swished it, took a swallow. “Did you have a pleasant day, at least?”

“I did. We ventured far and wide. I’d wager Birdie ingratiated herself with every person in a ten mile radius, though that’s a conservative estimate.” He took a bite of the bun, one palm cupped under it to catch crumbs. “Mm,” he paused to chew. “These are good.”

“They are. I always overdo it when Helene makes those.”

“So you don’t want a bite, then?” Dorian asked.

“Not if I know what’s good for me.” Cullen smiled. His cheeks were pink beyond the usual blush that rose to them so easily.

In fact, he looked a tad sunburnt. “Was it a long day in the orchard?” Dorian indicated his own nose and cheeks before taking another bite of his dessert.

Cullen lifted his brows in acknowledgement. “Yes, unfortunately. I put ointment on this morning, but I suppose I sweated it off. At least we got the picking done.” He looked down at the last of his ale and traded it for the half empty glass of water at his side. “In a day or two this will freckle,” he muttered, wrinkling his nose.

“Freckles! You don’t like them?”

“They make me feel a bit silly.” He downed the rest of his water and leaned back in the chair, eyes half lidded. His beard needed trimming. It was almost as untamed as his hair, at the edges. He looked robust, a man still firmly in his prime, but also very, very tired. Birdie had settled herself at his feet, looking equally exhausted.

Dorian finished his sweet bun and dusted his hands of the crumbs. He turned to the side in his seat and touched Cullen’s shoulder. “May I? I know a cooling spell. It might help, if it’s nagging you.”

Brown eyes took a second longer than usual to focus as Cullen glanced over at him. “Oh. I’d...be grateful.” He flexed his hands, an obvious muscle memory of the last spell Dorian had worked to aid him.

Nice to know the experience had gone well enough that his previous anxiety made no showing. Dorian got to his feet and positioned himself in front of Cullen, slowly reached out to cup his face. On contact, Cullen shut his eyes.

His beard had long since passed the sharp stage. It was soft and bristly against Dorian’s palms. He’d always loved that about men, how so often they were helplessly furry without the intervention of grooming, and although Cullen was always clean—even now his hair was damp from washing—he certainly made no great attempts to curb his natural fuzziness. “Hold still,” Dorian said quietly.

He stroked his thumbs lightly back and forth over the sun-touched peaks of his cheeks, used his little finger to trail down the slope of his nose, suffusing the skin with muted coolness that would encourage the burn to heal. He noticed Cullen’s head growing heavier in his hands as he worked the spell, saw that he was smiling. Too soon, he was done casting, and the pinkness remained but would subside overnight. He left his hands in place. Selfish, maybe, to pretend the intimacy had a greater purpose, but it felt too good to let go.

“That’s nice,” Cullen mumbled, well after Dorian had stopped the flow of energy from his fingertips.

“It is,” he agreed. He let one of his hands wander over the scruff on Cullen’s jaw, under an ear, then into his hair, and gave him a thorough scratching above the nape, which pulled forth a deep hum of pleasure as he leaned into Dorian’s hand. Burns soothed, pressing as a dog would into the affection, he began to wilt like a drying sprout. A show of how tired he really was. “You’re falling asleep, you know.”

“Mm.” No move to stand up, or sit back. No change at all. Then, he opened his eyes. Honey brown, same as Birdie’s. “I am, at that...” He eased to his feet, Dorian’s hands falling away as he did so, though before he could step aside Cullen grasped him at the hip. His limbs were clumsy with exhaustion but his intent was clear.

Dorian moved into the embrace. He quirked his head and nudged for a kiss, which Cullen gave freely. Not so put off by last night’s poor performance, then. They stood for a few long moments, entangled, until Cullen swayed slightly on his feet. Dorian sniffed a laugh.

“All right, I draw the line. Go to bed,” he ordered, patting him on the chest.

A few slow blinks, and Cullen nodded. He snuck in one final peck. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.”

He left the room, pursued by Birdie and Bear, and Dorian heard the swish and thunk of his bedroom door opening and swinging to its resting point a few moments later.

Kaffas . Dorian stood facing the windows, the dark of evening deepening from watery blue near the horizon to navy higher up. This was bordering on ridiculous. If he were feeling more spirited, the way he used to feel before he was split down the center, he’d follow Cullen to his room. He’d keep him awake just long enough to press against him from behind, spend himself against the back of his hip. Chaste, shy tenderness was all well and good, but they were big boys. Practically old men. They’d waffled enough.

But his age, and the dubious wisdom it afforded, was exactly what tempered him. Cullen was in good health, but he fatigued far more easily than he once did. Too many years running on lyrium and little sleep, and if he didn’t rest, he’d fall ill.

Besides, there were few things worse than having a lover drift off to sleep beneath or overtop of you. Ever a shock to the confidence, that.

It had happened with Bull, more than once. Dorian was guilty of it as well. Over time, they’d gotten better at recognizing when such a fate was likely to befall them and had stopped undertaking anything complicated those nights. Intimacy mingled with heavy exhaustion had given rise to lazy efforts at sex, more for comfort and steady, lapping pleasure than any great rush toward release. He’d felt secure in himself, then. Believed he was wanted without having to always be told, or touched.

Dorian felt his good mood deflating in the empty study. Whenever he thought of Bull, he was of two minds: the axe had divided him into a past and present self. Past Dorian clung desperately to the specter of a dead lover, gone now close to six years. Present Dorian despised the bastard, and the man who’d been stupid enough to love him, the version of himself who’d waited that fraction too long to put up a barrier in the instant the scales tipped.

There could be no agreement between selves.

Cullen was right about what had happened on the Storm Coast. For all his affected stoicism, The Iron Bull without his Chargers was a father who’d watched his children die. He’d stood on a hill in the distance as they were murdered by Venatori—Dorian’s countrymen—their lives thrown away to secure a deeply far-fetched alliance. A despicable waste. Bull had literally given an eye for Krem when they’d met, but the Inquisitor had measured the many against the few in the clean moral math of the utilitarian, ever offended by any accusation of sentimentality, and made their judgement.  

To Dorian, the Chargers’ deaths encapsulated why putting the world’s fate on the shoulders of a young mage raised in the confines of a southern Circle had been a questionable plan from the start. With seasoned advisors and warriors making up the Inquisition’s core, Trevelyan should never have been given the final say in dealing with the Qunari. No matter the depth and breadth of their leader’s education, no matter how successfully Cassandra propped them up as hero and savior, the inescapable fact was they’d lived their adult life behind walls and had no true mind for political machinations, or the harsh ambiguities of conflict.

None of that was Trevelyan’s fault, either. They hadn’t asked to catch a magical anchor that eventually cost them an arm, and neither had they asked for the Dread Wolf to pass himself off as a friend. What they had done was try to make choices for the greater good of Thedas, and idealism had eclipsed realism. To fight an effective war, not every decision could be made based on the slim hope of an eventual sound outcome.

At least they’d discovered something in common between old elvhen gods and the Qunari: both were disinclined to honor their agreements. Not that the discovery did them any good.

After the massacre on the coast, Bull, in spite of his avowed distance from life—the two steps removed necessary for any spy to do their job—had suffered the agony of a man who’d let harm come to his family. His grief, which he’d refused to acknowledge, drove him deep into the Qun in search of structure. Bull wasn’t one to seek solace, and may not even have believed in it, but structure was paramount. This was a man who’d once given himself over to the re-educators voluntarily. His inability to acknowledge his emotional state damaged him, and Dorian, Kadan or otherwise, had not been enough to salve the wound. Intellectually, he’d accepted that.

His heart, however, could not. Old, sick anger began to curdle there, so he retreated to his quarters.

It happened this way, at times. A peaceful day would draw to a close, his energy would flag, and his unresolved love would snare on some splintered edge, leaving him stumbling down the old embankment within. At times, he caught a foothold before he ended up in the mud at the bottom, but other times, he’d land on his knees, unable to rise again. Tonight, his mood faltered headlong into melancholy.

He thought briefly of crossing the hall, to rouse Cullen and beg for distraction, but it didn’t seem fair to encroach on his rest.

No matter how softly they’d kissed, twice now, (three times if he counted the very first one for show at Marchand’s), no matter that Cullen had taken him in his mouth like he’d been waiting years for the chance, it was all very tenuous. He’d leapt into it as a joke, something that might make Cullen squirm and trip over himself, and it had backfired spectacularly.

Cullen’s were the first arms Dorian had fallen into in the south, albeit under grim circumstances. An army of rebel mages nipping his heels, storm clouds gathering, his outer cloak lost somewhere in a skirmish, Haven wiped from the map within minutes of his arrival. Staying alive had taken every speck of will in his body, and he’d lurched to the gates only to find his arm caught by a stark, handsome blond with a pink nose. He’d noticed that very night that Cullen’s eyes were deep-set, and haunted. As upright as the commander stood, pain radiated in his stiffness and pallor throughout the frigid climb to Skyhold. That first chivalrous intervention had been a defining moment; a touchstone memory that softened Dorian to the otherwise gruff general who’d been willing to bury them all alive that night if it might bring an advantageous end to the battle.

Hard to believe the sleepy, sunburnt man he’d caught napping in a wingback chair with a dog at his feet was the same person. That after all they’d endured, he could look at Dorian with boyish sweetness and a shy smile on his scarred bow lips.

There’d been a similar scar on Bull’s lip, on the opposite side. It was only one of hundreds, but remembering it hurt badly enough that Dorian sat down on the window seat and covered his eyes, tears dotting moisture between the cracks of his fingers.

Sleep. He needed to go to sleep, without dwelling further on ghosts. Dwelling on them was an invitation, one he rarely intended to extend—outside of battle, anyway—because it brought ugliness and old fear slinking from the shadows. He sucked a harsh breath, determined to stop weeping. A bath would’ve been wise, but his mind churned too much when he soaked in still water. There was a leftover basin in his room from the day before, so he stripped, reheated it to steaming, and wetted a cloth to scrub the worst of the day’s dust from his skin.

A line up of oil vials glinted on the vanity, but he decided against using them. Fragrances were interwoven strongly with emotional states, and he had to be careful which ones he used when he felt poorly to avoid marring his favorites.

He slid into a nightshirt and double checked that his door was fully shut, so he could resign himself to solitude. Birdie had given her whole day to him. It was Cullen’s turn to be watched over.

Lamp extinguished, he settled on his side in bed, back to the windows. The hair on his nape began to stand on end, so he turned over and faced the panes, as if his gaze might deter whatever formless horror lurked beyond the veil on the other side of the glass. It might, at that. He was too old and too experienced to let petty trepidation rule him.

Time stretched into the dark, what felt like hours draining across the night. When sleep came, it was uneasy. He felt as though he were still atop a horse, riding. Out, beyond, into bleak plains of gray.

Chapter Text

Screams. A nightmare? Cullen fumbled with consciousness, fought to rush the sluggish reordering of his brain into cogency, and understood that no, he had not been dreaming.

Not his screams. Someone else’s.

He threw his legs over the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes, stood up and grabbed a tunic to tug over his head, then grabbed a lamp before stumbling out into the hallway to assess which part of the house the yelps were coming from. Waking to screams, shouts, sobbing, or various configurations thereof, was nothing new. The templars who came to unleash themselves from lyrium often suffered such things, and it was to be expected.

Another cry, and Cullen turned his head in confusion.

Dorian’s room. Birdie was already outside the door whining. He skipped knocking and let her and himself in.

Somehow, Dorian was still asleep. Or perhaps it could better be called a waking dream, body paralyzed but mind alert, believing every shadow an enemy. He was relatively still, but his cries were anguished.

Birdie put her paws up on the bed and began licking Dorian’s hand.

“Dorian,” Cullen said. He took hold of his arm and squeezed. “Wake up.”

He woke with a choked yell and began clawing at his chest and stomach as though—

As though he were trying to put something back in. Cullen set the lamp aside and touched his shoulder, but did not stifle or grip him. “You’re dreaming,” he said. “Steady, now. Just a dream.”

“So much blood,” Dorian croaked. He looked pale, green around the hollows of his cheeks. “So much... I can’t...” He squirmed, throat and abdomen working, and turned on his side.

Cullen understood in time to grab the pot from under the bed and held it out with a fraction of a second to spare.

Dorian threw up, profusely. Twice. Once finished, he curled in on himself and began to cry.

Cullen set the pot aside. He’d seen his share of panicked nightmares, battle sickness, people ill with withdrawals or grievous injuries. What each person wanted, and needed, when they hurt badly was difficult to predict. For the hundredth time since he’d undertaken his efforts to temper the suffering of others, he wished Cole was around haunting the halls. The spirit boy would’ve known how to ease the hurt.

All Cullen could see to was the practicalities. He put a hand to the sheets and found them damp through with sweat. “We can’t have you sleeping in this,” he said softly. He moved to take clean linens from the wardrobe, but Dorian shot into a sit. Vice-like fingers tightened around Cullen’s forearm.

“Don’t,” he gasped. “Don’t go.”

“I’m right here. I’m only getting a fresh set of sheets.”

No falter in the grip. Dorian whimpered again, folded further forward clutching at his stomach.

His fear and adrenaline, the crumple of his face, made Cullen ache. He remembered these nights. Sometimes he still had them, though the severity had waned since the Inquisition days. What might help, and what might make matters far worse? Dorian was not in any position to tell him. Birdie hovered nearby awaiting orders, eager to assist but deferring the immediate bulk of the situation to Cullen.

He chanced moving closer, into Dorian’s space, and Dorian leaned his head against Cullen’s belly. Careful contact, then.

“I promise you, you’re not hurt,” Cullen told him. “You’re not bleeding. It’s only sweat.”

Another soft mewl.

Cullen put a hand on Dorian’s shoulder. “Do you think you can stand?”

Dorian shook his head, knuckles smooth where he clutched at his nightshirt, equally smooth where he held Cullen’s arm.

“What if I were to help? Would that be all right?”

Minutes stretched between them. Dorian’s breathing was uneven, too quick, then absent too long, too quick again. Finally, he gave a little nod. Cullen put a hand on his side, helping him to his feet. Knees shaking, he leaned heavily on Cullen, but he managed. He was slick with sweat from forehead to palms, and at severe risk of a taking a chill.

“A warm bath sometimes helps me,” Cullen told him. “Would you like to do that?”

Only a shaken head in answer.

“Let’s get you into some fresh clothes, at the very least.” He guided him to the wardrobe. “Off with that damp stuff, if you would.”

Shivering, Dorian faltered. He turned unsteadily to face away. Quivering fingers tugged at his nightshirt, seeming unsure of how to best remove himself from it. A few moments later he’d gone back to clutching at his midsection and crying into his other hand.

“Can I help?” Cullen asked. He pressed his palm to the small of Dorian’s back, found the fabric moist and cool, judged by the cling of it that he wore nothing underneath. “I won’t look, if it bothers you.” Not that it was anything he hadn’t seen a thousand times over, belonging to a thousand bodies, injured or whole, men and women alike. Even if he’d never had Dorian’s dick in his mouth he would’ve thought nothing of this kind of nakedness. Living half his life in barracks and other shared accommodations had desensitized him to nonsexual nudity.

After a few moment’s pause, Dorian lowered his head and nodded.

Keeping behind him, Cullen took hold of the fabric and slowly eased it upward. In his youth, he’d perfected a technique of focus that allowed him to keep his gaze fixed on a single point in situations where it didn’t behoove him for it to wander. Now, he chose the delicate floral pattern on the curtains to pin his vision in place. “Arms,” he said.

Dorian lifted them, and after a few tugs, the nightgown came free. Cullen tossed it over the back of a nearby chair. He opened the wardrobe and began rifling, but could not for the life of him tell what was meant for daily wear and what might be considered pajamas. Too much was silky smooth, loosely cut. Dorian stood nude and shivering a foot from him, looking so fragile that he felt guilt suffuse him like incense filling an airless room. In desperation he pulled out a silk housecoat. “Here,” he said gently. He draped it about Dorian’s shoulders. “This’ll do.” Once he’d snaked his arms into the sleeves, Dorian swiveled to press into him again, and Cullen let him. He was no longer merely trembling but wracked with earnest shivers. “I’m taking you to my room,” Cullen said. “It’s warmer there.” His fire had only recently gone out; embers still glowed in the hearth that he could rekindle.

Dorian pressed closer, and Cullen took that as permission. He led him across the hall straight to his bed, where he installed him in a heap of pillows against the headboard and sat down next to him. Birdie had followed them. She stood now with her snout on the edge of the mattress, whined when Cullen looked at her.

“Birdie’s a bit worried about you. May she come up?”

“Yes,” Dorian hushed.

“Up you get.”

She leapt aboard and crept around to the triangle of space behind Dorian’s folded knees, then curled there like a fresh bun and settled her head on his hip. He reached to pet her and she licked his hand, which brought a ghost of a smile to his lips.

“I’m going to see to a couple of things. Birdie will stay here, and I’m coming right back.”

Dorian, still looking at the dog as he stroked her ears, nodded.

The fire came first: Cullen stuffed a few bits of kindling in and poked at the embers until everything began smoking. He stacked a log on top and hoped it would catch quickly. Back across the hall he stripped the sheets and carried them away to the laundry, off the kitchen. Next came the fouled chamber pot, which he emptied and rinsed clean. Lastly, he remade the bed. Everything put to rights, he retreated to his own room.

Little had changed save that the log had caught well, and new warmth radiated from the fireplace. Also, Bear had joined the huddle on the bed, his great skull resting near Dorian’s feet.

Cullen poured a glass of water from a pitcher on his table and held it out to Dorian, who accepted it and took a few deep sips before handing it back.

“I’ve changed your sheets.”

No reply. Dorian was still crying, though it was a slow trickle. One arm curled snug against the length of the scar on his abdomen. His pallor had been replaced with a feverish ruddiness and he looked too sad to speak. It was the same face Cullen had seen him wear in the infirmary, after his injury, when Bull’s death had been a heavy pall over the whole of Skyhold.

“I could...make some tea?” Cullen offered. He kept a stash of herbals for the nights he couldn’t sleep, or the mornings he felt his aches too sharply to dress and descend to the kitchen before dawn.

Dorian’s hand stretched across the bed to tangle in Cullen’s shirt hem. “No, I... Please...” He tugged at the fabric.

The request was unexpected, but clear enough. Cullen took a deep breath and settled next to him, into the heap of pillows. Dorian wriggled forward until their foreheads touched.

“I’m sorry you had to see this,” he whispered.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” In truth, Cullen had seen worse. Far worse. “Half of what I do here is tend to people who aren’t well.”

A tiny smile. “Do you often bring them into your bed?”

“That’s an honor I reserve strictly for those who’ve stolen kisses from me in meadows.”

“So. Only me, then.”

The fleeting show of humor had to mean he was feeling more himself. Cullen gave in and smiled. “Only you.”

Dorian closed his eyes. “I haven’t had that dream in a long time.” His voice was weak, and scratchy. Almost as though he spoke from the other side of a closed door. “It’s got a particular smell, somehow. Does that make sense? For a dream to have a smell?”

“It does,” Cullen said. His own sometimes did, though more often they left impressions of shapes, imprints of old emotions that lingered well beyond waking.

“It’s a dry smell,” Dorian continued. “Like a grass fire. I’m standing at the center of an empty plain, and he’s there—Bull, I mean—but, quite far away. I don’t think he’s looking at me, though it could be hard to tell from a distance. And...he never does anything. Never turns, never moves. Doesn’t come anywhere near me. All in an instant, I split open and everything just pours out onto the ground.” He lifted a hand, staring at it as if he expected blood. “Great, wet coils of my own viscera slipping through my fingers...”

Cullen’s eyebrow twitched, but he let the reaction go no further. “Is that...invention, or memory?”

Tension hummed in the arm across Dorian’s stomach, he held himself so tightly. “A little of both. My innards didn’t unravel all over the floor like unspooling yarn, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here, but I did get a look at some of them before the Inquisitor closed me up.”

Not the kind of image that was conducive to calmness, or rest, or much of anything save feeling ill about a past that could not be changed. Carefully, Cullen began massaging Dorian’s scalp, along the back of his head above the nape. The nexus between skull and neck was a place he held a lot of his own tension, and Dorian seemed to suffer there as well. “You survived, nonetheless,” Cullen said. “No small feat.”

“Mm.” Whether the sound was agreement or merely reaction to the knot Cullen was working behind Dorian’s ear remained uncertain.

As Dorian calmed, his tension lessened. Finally he went slack as a sack of potatoes against Cullen’s side, fast asleep and still handsome in spite of his slightly gaped mouth and sick sallowness under the eyes.

Somehow, Cullen managed to reposition them both and snuff out his lamp, leaving only the dim glow of the firelight to bring Dorian’s features into relief out of the shadow. Without that flickering proof of his presence, strong nose and cheekbones contoured by the orange haze, Cullen would never have believed he was there. They were of about the same height, but Dorian was slimmer, much slimmer than he had been at his peak, so that he felt insubstantial in a way that was tinged with loss. His bones were near the surface, the underlying geometry of his frame exposed. It made Cullen hurt for him somewhere under his own well-padded ribs.

They spent the last hours of darkness side by side, or in one another’s arms. For Cullen, it was the sort of night that felt like reaching toward sleep only to have your hand fall shy of landing on its shoulder, over and over again. He floated, but made little contact with the depth of rest necessary to be fully functional upon waking.

He gave up awhile after dawn, went downstairs to feed the dogs and find breakfast for himself and his guest. In the kitchen his staff took one look at his squint and rumpled hair and steered clear of him. Unbothered, he put together a tray of tea and oatmeal, a bit of warm fruit compote set on the side.

Dorian still slept soundly when he arrived back upstairs. As far as Cullen could tell he'd been dead to the world all night long; had even snored at one point. Now, he lay curled under a thick pelt, face half buried in a pillow. Not a single thing about the pose suggested his usual statuesque nature, yet Cullen still found himself transfixed by the simple loveliness of his hair framing his face, loose strands tangled in his beard. The quiet clinking of a spoon against ceramic was the sound that finally stirred him. He squirmed under the pelt and stretched, opening his eyes partway. A huge yawn distorted his features, making him look for all the world like one of the barn cats, and then he gathered himself and sat up, grasping at the front of his housecoat to hold it closed, seemingly more concerned with hiding his chest than anything below the waist.

“Good morning,” he rumbled.

“Morning,” Cullen said. He splashed milk into both cups of tea.

“You shouldn’t have let me stay,” Dorian murmured. Fuzzy-legged, he perched on the edge of the bed very nearly indecent. Quick fingers swept through his hair, pushing it up and back, over one shoulder. Expertly he divided it into three and wound a loose braid.

“I was worried you’d take a chill if I ousted you,” Cullen told him. “Besides, you needed the rest.” He waited until he’d let go of his hair and then passed off the tea.

Dorian accepted it with a sniff and a shake of the head. “And if your staff knew you’d gone to bed with me last night?”

Maybe, in a time before, Cullen might’ve flinched at the suggestion. Gone fuschia in bright triangles on his cheeks and stammered out some denial or other, attempted to justify his actions as a sort of self-sacrifice, but he’d left that man behind some years ago. He shrugged. “It’s none of their concern.”

Uncharacteristic silence in response. No snappy rejoinder or even a huff or click of the tongue. Dorian simply regarded him with a steady gaze, then blew on his tea.

“Have something to eat,” Cullen said, setting the bowl of oatmeal on the bedside table. “You’ll feel better.”

They took their breakfasts in relative silence. Cordial, but bordering on awkward when the moments stretched too long between words. Once they finished, Dorian was the first to stand. He gripped the edges of his housecoat, pulled it tight, and walked over to where Cullen had settled in his reading chair. Slowly, he leaned down and planted a kiss on his temple.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Cullen didn’t ask what for. He curled a palm around the back of Dorian’s leg and gave what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “It’s no trouble.”

Dorian snorted. “I think it might’ve been quite a lot of trouble,” he said, lifting a hand to run fingers through Cullen’s hair.

“Doesn’t matter.” It was the sort of trouble Cullen had the patience for. In Dorian’s case, true comfort was unlikely, given the horror he’d survived, but the least Cullen could offer was the reassurance of a warm bed and a hot meal. The basic relief of another person’s company. Also a willing pair of arms, though he felt guilty for thinking it, worried he might’ve taken advantage of vulnerability for his own agenda. “I hope... I hope that I was right, to bring you here?”

As he said it, he couldn’t be certain if he meant for the night or if he meant south, in general. This place, this time, directly into the midst of an old love Cullen had stamped out because he’d never dared consider it might someday be other than a hopeless daydream.

Dorian leaned down again, this time kissing him on the mouth. “Thank you,” he repeated.

“Right.” Cullen nodded, still holding the back of Dorian’s leg. “Go take a hot bath,” he said. “And you’re welcome to rest in here afterward, if you want. Or your sheets are clean, if you’d rather be in your room.”

Silence. Fingers reached up to stroke over his cheek. “No more apple picking today?”

The sour throb of his burn had subsided in the night, somewhere between the fourth time he’d stirred and the seventh. He smiled, wondering if freckles had yet sprung forth. “Not today. Only packing. The shipment begins the journey to Denerim by noon. I’d thought I might relax afterward, unless I’m needed.”

“Hm.” Dorian’s fingers resumed their ruffling in Cullen’s hair. “I think I’ll take that bath,” he finally said. “Care to join me?”

Cullen snickered. “Another time, maybe.”

“Alright.” He slipped from Cullen’s grasp, headed for the door. “I’ll be back later,” he said over his shoulder. Stepping lightly into the hall, he disappeared.

A few moments to compose himself, that’s what he needed. Elbows leaned on legs, he took several deep breaths. It was all very hard to believe. No matter how messily it had started, one thing was certain: it sure had bloody well started. He wasn’t entirely clear which one of them was at fault, either, or if it was even the sort of situation where fault could be assigned. Dorian had begun it in jest, yes, but he wasn’t the one who’d overstepped the bounds of playing pretend once the show concluded.

Little use combing through the past now. Even if he could pinpoint the pivotal moments, what would he glean from them?

He dressed, and made his way to the side yard, where the carts were already being packed—carefully and gently—with the best of yesterday’s apples. They were fine specimens but they’d only fetch a good price if they arrived with minimal bruising. One of the agronomist mages assured him they had the proper enchantments to accomplish such a feat, so he was sending him along with the caravan to oversee the handling. It was a journey of several days at the slow pace required to avoid jostling the cargo, and he teased Bridget that he hoped not to see her for at least two weeks. Thankfully she was used to his poor jokes, and laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

Shortly after the sun rose to its zenith the carts rolled away down the road. What hadn’t been sent to market would be stored or dried, and tomorrow’s task would be sorting through the worst of the fruit to determine what could be turned into cider.

Cullen’s energy flagged as soon as he stopped moving. He slipped into the kitchens to suck down a cup of bitterly dark tea from the staff pot—Henri, one of the cooks, wouldn’t drink it any other way—but the acrid brew did nothing except churn his empty stomach. There were sandwiches leftover from lunch, so he stuffed one in his mouth and managed to spill mustard down his tunic. He sighed, finished the sandwich, then went back to his room to change.

His chambers were empty of dogs. No sign of Dorian, either. He pulled his shirt off and sat down on the bed for a moment. Somehow, that led to kicking off his boots to stretch out his feet. From there, he ended up lying down.

When his door creaked open, ten minutes may have passed, or three hours. He lifted his head, expecting Bear or perhaps Laurel, and instead there stood Dorian, looking amused.

Cullen sat up, swiping at his face. It dawned on him that Birdie was sprawled along the foot of the bed. He had no idea how long she’d been there. “Forgive me,” he stifled a yawn. “Do you need something?”

“Not at all,” Dorian replied. “I’ve been looking for you. Nobody seemed to know where you’d gone.” He took a few steps forward. “I’m sorry to disrupt your nap.”

“It’s no disruption. How are you feeling?”

“Surviving. Though I confess I’m finding it difficult to keep warm today,” he said softly.

“Ah... Would you like me to light the fire in the study?” Cullen shuffled one of his blankets aside, readying to stand.

Dorian’s brows seemed to catch for a brief moment, at the center. He put a hand on Cullen’s reading chair, the one nearest the fireplace. “Would it bother you if I took up in here for a little while?”

Lonely, then. Not cold. Or perhaps both. “Not at all,” Cullen said. He swung his legs over the side of the mattress, glancing around for his discarded tunic, ready to join Dorian in front of the hearth if he settled there. Sleep clung to him, but the notion of light conversation, or even silent company, appealed.

Birdie whined from the edge of the bed and stretched herself toward Dorian, and he smiled and walked over to pet her. “Hello, sweet pup.”

On second thought, as his back clicked in the usual spot, Cullen decided it would be better if they could all lie down. He was tired, and although alertness returned to him little by little, he was far enough gone to slide easily back into the nap. He sighed and rubbed his neck, unsure how to best invite Dorian to join him. Last night he’d taken the liberty of settling him by his side due to his intense distress, but since he’d come under his own power Cullen debated how to best phrase such an invitation. The maddening pink rose to his cheeks on cue.

One hand still scratching Birdie’s ear, Dorian looked back to Cullen. Then, uninvited, he shed his outermost cloak and sat down on the edge of the bed. “If it’s a bother, you can send me away.”

Cullen exhaled, put a palm to Dorian’s back and held it there. “You’re never a bother.” His back was warm through the fabric of his shirt, and Cullen’s fingers twitched against it, pressed to feel it multiply. Dorian leaned into the touch.

“I’m a constant bother. At least to myself. The proverbial fly in the ointment.”

Nothing could’ve been further from the truth. “Can’t say I’d ever draw that comparison...”

Dorian glanced at him, managed a weak smile. “It’s only... When I have that dream, it lingers for some time.” His throat bobbed on a heavy swallow. “It leaves a taste in my mouth.”

Dreams did all kinds of odd, horrible things. Although the Fade played a role, most of the images came from within, mishmashes of lived experiences, some of them benign, others infused with old hurts and humiliations. His own nightmares might have subsided of late but he remembered the cold sweats, the nausea. The leaden sinking of dread with no particular source, uneasiness that persisted like a cough following a cold.

“I know what you mean,” Cullen near whispered. He moved his hand to Dorian’s waist and tugged him closer, Dorian moving with the pull until it became a push and he bowled Cullen onto the mattress, making him chuckle. He climbed the bed and settled against Cullen’s back, wrapping arms around him and holding him close.

Afternoon quiet settled over them, all the blanket they needed. Cullen began to doze, unable to help himself. Dorian gently scritched his fingertips in the hair on his sternum, all the way down through the wide stripe of it to the lower part of his belly. It was a sensitive spot, and after a moment of affected stoicism Cullen twitched under the touch.

“Are all Ferelden men so fuzzy ?” Dorian asked.

“You’ve some fuzz of your own,” Cullen said, though it occurred to him as soon as he’d spoken that Dorian’s chest and abdomen were interrupted by the scar, smooth and gnarled, a dead space where nothing grew, and his body hair suffered accordingly. “I hope...mentioning such things isn’t—"

In one slow breath, Dorian shifted closer. He buried his face between Cullen’s nape and the pillow. “Don’t feel badly,” he murmured. “It may not be what it was, but I still have it. Speaking of having and not having,” he ran a hand under the soft curve of Cullen’s stomach, “when did this happen?”

Cullen scoffed an incredulous laugh and glanced over his shoulder. All he could see was a bit of an ear. “Are you really asking me when I got fat?”

“Ha, not in so many words, but...yes,” Dorian replied, breaking into soft laughter. “I suppose I am.” His nose tickled the side of Cullen’s neck where he nuzzled in.

“That’s tactless, even for someone with your low regard for propriety.” Not that he was truly angry. His midriff was hardly a secret, and for anybody who’d known him when he was narrow as hewn stone it likely was a little shocking.

Dorian curled more tightly about him, their legs tangling. “I’m sorry. Curiosity is a failing, at times.”

“No, it’s... I’m a bit sore about it, is all.” Cullen admitted. “At first I needed some weight on. I lost long months to illness after leaving the Inquisition and I’d gotten quite frail. Over the last couple of years, though...” He shrugged one shoulder. “Just another fat old soldier.”

“Shh,” Dorian pressed the hush against his neck. “If I’m honest, I prefer my men hearty. You’re about right I’d say.” He cinched his arms tighter and made a contented noise, as if in agreement with himself.

The Bull had not been a thin man either, Cullen thought, but dared not mention. Maintaining bulk like that took intense physical training and equally intense nourishment. He couldn’t compare such intentionality to his current situation, not even loosely, no matter how strapping he might feel. “I suppose I still have a muscle or two under there somewhere.”

“Mm. More than two, I’d wager,” was the reply hummed into his nape.

Their conversation lulled, after that. He drew a breath and closed his eyes, fighting not to dwell on how good it felt to be held and instead focus on the man who held him. Dorian smelled of his bath oils; sweet herbs and citrus notes. He was slim, yes, but strong and warm, and Cullen began to drift toward sleep. “I’m...afraid I’m nodding,” he muttered, unsure if the words were audible.

A reaffirming gentle squeeze in answer. Steady, slow breathing behind him, the press and fall of Dorian’s chest against his back.

He slept, and dreams wisped alive around him. The golden glow of a dry meadow at sunset. Loose ease in his joints. Someone waiting for him in the distance, who knew his name but did not need to call for him.

He’d go to them, all in good time.

Chapter Text

Snow fell within the month, true to Cullen’s prediction. It had not yet reached low enough to cover the farm but a white blanket lay on the ridge visible south of the house; the same hills where Dorian had picnicked in the sunlight what felt like only a handful of days before.

He stood in the main yard, huddled in an extra robe, waiting for Cullen to emerge from the barn where he was checking on Laurel for the third time since breakfast. There’d been much ado as to where to install the poor dog, but in the end Antony, ever the sensible soul, had talked Cullen out of building a whelping box next to his bed. Instead, one had been set up in a room in the barn, lined with appropriate heating enchantments to ensure that mother and babies would be kept warm enough. Cullen had told Dorian a few nights ago that by his count, the pups should be born in the next forty-eight hours, if all went well. The dog, last Dorian had seen her earlier that morning, was doing fine. Uncomfortable, as most creatures seemed to get when their time drew near, but otherwise unperturbed.

Cullen, however, was an absolute anxious wreck.

He emerged from the barn with his collar up, huffing at the cold as he approached. “Not yet,” he said, stopping in front of Dorian. “Probably not today, in fact, so no need to fuss further.”

“Antony’s kicked you out, hasn’t he.”

He cleared his throat and shuffled one boot, brows pinching into a frown. “Yes. But I’m allowed back tonight, to check in.”

His petulance was that of a young boy forbidden from the grown-up’s party, and Dorian couldn’t help but laugh. “Your doting can be intense at times.”

“Is that so?” Cullen asked him, head tilted, a raw nerve somewhere in the teasing lilt of his voice.

Dorian mirrored the tilt, smiling. “Yes.”

The point of an elbow nudged him playfully in the side as Cullen passed by. “I’ll stop, then,” he said over his shoulder. His grin was audible.

“Ha! ‘I’ll stop,’ he says. Big talker.” Dorian took a few quick steps and caught up. His breath puffed white in front of him and he looked at the sky hanging abyssal gray above, weighted with thick layers of cloud. He could feel the ice particles forming, practically taste them on the air. “You know, I’d forgotten what it smelled like,” he said.

Gravel crunched as Cullen faltered in his stride. “What?” Then, a little self-consciously, “The South?”

Dorian chuckled, shook his head. He wrapped his robes tighter about his shoulders. “Snow.”

That night, snow did fall. Only a dusting, but it sucked the warmth from the house. As had become his habit, Dorian readied himself for bed, put out his lamps, then silently crossed the hall to join Cullen in his chambers.

“There you are,” Cullen murmured. “I was about to give up on you.”

“Perish the thought,” he replied, pausing to greet the dogs. That done, he lifted the blankets and slid under them, right up to Cullen’s side.

This was their ritual. Cullen, awake with a book, already beneath the covers, and Dorian creeping in to join him once the rest of the house had settled for the night. He’d climb into bed as if he belonged, sprawl next to Cullen to take up his own reading, or simply lie there leeching warmth. Sometime after that, Cullen would abandon his text and curl around Dorian, the meat of his arms settling heavy about him. He’d drift off soon after, exhaling slow, hot breaths against whatever part of Dorian his face wound up mashed into.

He cuddled even in his sleep. Nothing unbearable, but if Dorian migrated as he dozed, Cullen would seek him with a hand over his back, or the nudge of a knee. Grazes here and there, to reaffirm presence. He’d not shared a bed with anyone since The Bull, and he’d forgotten the mingling of comfort and irritation that inevitably came with mutual intimate space. That had also been minus the addition of two to three large dogs, who occupied an inordinate amount of real estate. But, the dogs had been there first, and there was no ousting them. He was forced to agree they did keep everything triply warm and could be blamed for any displeasing ambient smells, which occasionally proved convenient.

Day by day, their separate routines had come to cross, interweave, cross again, until they’d patterned themselves around an informal arrangement of shared time. Mornings were companionable if brief, lunches frequently taken amongst the troops, (Cullen’s fond name for his recovering templars and staff), but the evenings were mostly theirs, and so were the nights.

If anyone had told younger Dorian that he’d eventually share a bed with someone comparable to a lover without exchanging a carnal touch beyond one initial fraught encounter, he would’ve laughed until he was sick. Evidently the universe enjoyed irony, since here he was with Cullen, living that precise state of affairs. They shared intimacy, but not sex. There’d been no eager revisit of that first unexpected, intense experience. Dorian recalled Cullen admitting he wasn’t fond of being touched, but he had said he was willing to touch, hadn’t he? Had Dorian’s mind fabricated that conversation to assuage his own doubts?

They had kissed now and then, slow, and awfully tender. Cullen was a surprisingly good kisser. However, Dorian’s meagre efforts to inspire more had so far been met with... He wanted to say stout refusal, but that wasn’t quite right. Withdrawing tiredness might be more accurate. Cullen’s cheeks would burn their incandescent pink and he’d stutter an apology and Dorian would shush him, keep him settled before he could close like a poppy at dusk. The closeness was pleasant, with or without further exploration of one another, though it had begun to worry him, if only a little. In spite of Cullen’s presumed honesty about his attitude toward sex on the whole, Dorian couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t somehow contributing to the reluctance.

Perhaps there was simply too much going on. The last of the harvest, myriad winter preparations, the mile long daily lineup of chores and the overseeing of staff on top of that, and now the grand finale of responsibilities: puppies. How many puppies remained uncertain, though he’d seen Antony checking the dog over and predicting a small litter.

In the midst of all that, and the exhaustion that came with it, there wasn’t much room for discussing an uncertain sex life. Doubly uncertain given that Dorian had no idea if Cullen’s interest in him was something new for the other man. Sometimes people came face to face with such realizations in middle life, and he suspected it would shock the system, or at least leave one feeling befuddled, like understanding suddenly that you’d gone around for years wearing the wrong size boots.

Or maybe not. He’d known all too well from the time he was very young exactly what sort of boots he would need (and had more than an inkling of how deeply he’d be resented for wearing them) so he couldn’t say. With Cullen, who knew? Maybe there had been others—many pairs of boots, as it were—in the long ago and far away, but unless he asked...

He sighed and shifted, nuzzling into Cullen’s thick shoulder. He was loath to draw attention to what was between them, or wasn’t, since he feared it might startle Cullen thoroughly and make him flit away like a tiny wren in forest underbrush, but inquiring minds had to know.

“Cullen?”

“Mm.”

“A question, if I may.”

Slight delay while Cullen finished the paragraph he was reading, then the book folded shut and he set it aside, giving Dorian his whole attention.

Best not to mince words. “Have you always liked men?”

Extended silence rushed past, uninterrupted, until one of the dogs grumbled and rolled over onto its back at the foot of the bed, paws folded neat against his chest as his chops flapped away from his teeth. Talk about ruining the gravitas of a moment.

“Fuller, you old varghest. You look positively ghoulish like that, dog,” Cullen said, nudging him with a foot.

Dorian laughed quietly into Cullen’s shoulder while Cullen chuckled and shook his head, neither of them miffed by the interruption. They watched Fuller roll all the way over and reposition himself with a huff, the misunderstood comedian dismissing an unappreciative audience.

“We don’t have to talk about it, if you’d rather not,” Dorian added finally. He felt Cullen’s belly rise and fall under his arm.

Seconds slipped between them, quiet breaths counting time. “Truthfully, I don’t know,” Cullen replied. “I think I’ve always admired both, but when you’re young nobody much mentions that such things are possible. Little boys are teased about liking little girls, and vice versa. Nobody thinks to tell you that how you feel about the girl next door might be the same as how you feel about her brother.”

“Or they’d rather you not know at all,” Dorian replied. The world blurred as he let his eyes unfocus, trying to suppress what his mind conjured. The ugly glee of his parents’ friends at a party when it was revealed that Magister so-and-so’s male lover had disappeared , which meant he’d been murdered or worse. The snide remarks over such and such, who’d foolishly thought she could keep her predilections secret. Now there’d never be an advantageous marriage. Even then, he’d sensed a kernel of his own future, and it left him on fire with shame.

“Yes,” Cullen finally said, his voice soft. “Yes, perhaps that’s more likely.” With a sudden stretch, he reached to snuff the lamp, leaving them with only a dim candle and the firelight.

It was an obvious effort to end the conversation, but Dorian was not so easily extinguished. “It’s only, women I can see for you, but men...” Shrugging, he blinked a few times. “It’s as I said, I never would’ve thought you were...classically athletic, that way.”

Cullen snorted. “Oh? And again I ask, why not?”

“I told you before! You never gave any indication. Not only that, but usually when I’m hoping a man is so inclined, he will be firmly the opposite.”

Cullen’s arms slung about him and he let himself be hauled overtop, to lie belly to belly. “I’d say I’m firmly in-between,” he murmured against Dorian’s temple.

Flirtatious, but grounded. If Dorian squirmed, rolled his hips a few times, he’d begin to get hard, and Cullen would tense, stress pouring from him like sweat off his brow when he came out of the fields. So Dorian relaxed. He rubbed their beards together until it made Cullen snicker. “Have you been with men?” he asked.

More sighing. He expected another long delay, and prepared to let it go for the night when Cullen’s voice rumbled alive near his ear.

“A few. Never much more than sucking someone off in an alcove during night watch, mind, but I have been with men. Save one or two exceptions, they...handled me roughly, expected the same, and afterward we would both act as if it hadn’t happened.”

“Hm. I wish that didn’t sound so familiar.” Men. Always pretending it meant nothing, the intense physical intimacy an extension of a peculiar brand of athletic showmanship. Admiration for the male form taken to its extreme conclusion, all in sport. When it ended, everyone went home to their long-suffering wives.

“It was practicality, more than anything,” Cullen said, “to avoid attachments.”

Dorian heaved himself up onto his elbows. “Is this the part where you tell me I’m not like other men? That I’m different ?” He let his tone border on cruel in the teasing, a hint of acid to keep things from getting too saccharine.

One loud scoff from Cullen. “No,” he said. “No, you’re a fair shake handsomer than most, but you’re very much a man. Haughty, proud, reluctant to speak feelings other than anger, harsh without warning... You smell like a man, too, in spite of all those expensive oils of yours. Men have a particular stink, and at the end of a long day, no amount of perfume can save us from it.”

Dorian lifted himself higher on his elbows, eyes wide. He made an indignant noise. “Speak for your barbaric self!”

“It’s true, I’m afraid.”

“It is not, you filthy liar!”

Looking mischievous, Cullen wriggled down and buried his nose in Dorian’s armpit, which shocked forth a harsh squawk. Their embrace devolved into tussling until Dorian started to laugh too, then he gave an exasperated sigh and collapsed, thudding their chests together.

“I refuse to concede the point, but I will say this—it’s unfair of you to judge me based on one night when I’d sweated through my sheets and vomited in a chamber pot you scarcely held at arm’s length.”

Cullen shook his head. “I wasn’t counting that.” His fingers stroked the fall of Dorian’s hair before tucking a few strands behind his ear and scrubbing down through his beard. “You sweat, same as I do, but in truth...” The tip of his nose bumped Dorian’s cheek. “I’m glad. I’m not sure I’d feel right laying hands on you otherwise.”

Although Cullen often said slightly odd things, this felt different. He shifted his head to look him in the eye. “What do you mean?”

He was getting tired. Half-lidded gaze, his face beginning to slacken. “Hm? Oh. It’s only that...you’re very beautiful, and I’m...” The pink tip of his tongue briefly flicked to the indent of the scar that divided his lip. “I’m showing my age, nowadays. It’s reassuring to know you’re mortal, too.”

Perhaps that sentiment provided all the explanation Dorian needed regarding their lack of deeper intimacy. Sadness welled up in him, then. Some of it his own, some of it for Cullen. Sadness, and an unbearable tenderness that pulsed in time with the beat of his heart. “Idiot,” he murmured into Cullen’s throat. “What an unworthy thing to say.”

“That you’re beautiful?”

Dorian pinched him, right next to a nipple, eliciting a grunt. “Don’t be coy. That you don’t feel fit to touch me, if I’m hearing right.”

Another grunt, and Cullen rubbed at the sore spot with his big, square fingertips, as if he wanted to push the pain into the skin. “It’s not... I—I don’t...” He sighed a breath through his nose. “Can we leave this for the morning?” His voice had faded into its softest timbre.

Irritability would edge in if they didn’t. “Yes, that’s...that’s fine.”

They passed out intertwined. In the late hours, Dorian skimmed toward consciousness and rolled over in an effort to unkink his neck. When he brushed toward waking again in the morning, Cullen had pressed into him, the warmth of his chest and stomach more comforting than any pelt. He nestled nearer, and in answer Cullen tightened his grip about Dorian’s hips. The pink glow of sunrise arrived sometime after that.

Cullen stirred himself when the rooster began crowing. He dressed while Dorian watched, admiring thick, hairy thighs and the span of wide freckled shoulders before they were covered by trouser and tunic, respectively.

“Running to check on mother-to-be?” He knew full well what the answer was.

“I am.” Cullen approached the bed and kissed him. “This is day sixty-two. I’ve a feeling it might be tonight.”

“Mm. The pups must’ve heard Satinalia was coming,” Dorian teased. “I hope you’ve got presents lined up.”

“I’ve knit them all booties,” Cullen replied, sarcasm betrayed by the slightest hint of a smirk. With that, he left the room, three enormous dogs on his heels angling for their breakfasts.

As tempting as it was to stay and luxuriate with free rein over the whole bed, Dorian forced himself to get up and cross the hall, hissing at the cold of the floor under his bare feet.

So much for a continuation of their discussion, but he’d known it would be this way. He lit his brazier with a flick of the wrist. Immediate heat radiated comfortably from where he’d placed it next to the desk. Thus warmed, he performed his morning ablutions and dressed, then sat down to his correspondence. First, he wrote to Mother, with whom he’d made a hesitant truce in the past years back home and thus was expected to antagonize from afar else he’d face deeper wrath upon his return. She’d sent a letter a week prior: a polite inquiry regarding his well-being contained on perfumed parchment. As ever, her handwriting floated, delicate as falling petals, though it was made less poetic by the incongruously severe strikes through the Ts. They clattered, those Ts, he’d thought so since he was a boy. The second letter he penned would go to Mae, who might kill him if he waited any longer to let her know how incredibly dull Ferelden still was. He did not mention Cullen in either missive beyond noting that he was a gracious and attentive host.

Come to think of it, Mae might read into that. Instead of wasting energy magicking the ink from the page and writing something else, he let it go. She could believe whatever she liked. It might make her reply more interesting, a departure from the standard Hello darling, they still hate us, love to you, Mae.

Thinking of home flooded him with a depth of melancholy he struggled to put words to. There was a constant yearning to return, even with the knowledge that home, the physical house of his youth which had long embodied the idea, the hallowed center of the times before his fall from grace, was no longer the reality he longed for. It had not been that place for years preceding his abrupt flight into the ranks of the southern resistance. Skyhold, its towering vistas, straddling the harsh peaks of the Frostbacks and the vast celestial blue above, had become a second locus from which he radiated outward, though his memories of that volatile period were too like wounded birds; vulnerable, some unsalvageable. Now when he thought of home it amounted to a distillation of concepts and places; pure, and impossible.

Living was a gradual movement away from the center, no matter how close you stayed in the flesh. Time flowed, and a man at a standstill would be swept ever forward, headlong, to meet his fate.

Dorian snorted. It was too early to think about it. He decided to trim his beard. Refreshed by the grooming, he went to find breakfast.

No sign of Cullen. Or Antony, but that wasn’t unusual. The stable master preferred to creep in after everyone else had finished, or before, likely to avoid the crowds and noise. Dorian ducked into the kitchen and grabbed a cloth, filled it with buns and a wedge of cheese, a couple apples and a few figs. Marchand had come by two days prior to gift them his surplus before leaving for Val Royeaux, and they’d been lined up along the sills to ripen.

On his way through the yard, Dorian noticed Birdie performing an admirable down-stay outside the closed barn doors. She was intent, only turning to look at him when he practically trod upon her. She lifted her nose to sniff at the contents of his cloth, and wagged her tail loosely a few times, but no more.

Dorian let himself into the barn, very quietly, leaving Birdie outdoors. She seemed to sense there was no point in contesting his effort, and stayed in her spot. The whelping box was at the far end of the stables, secluded in its own room which shared a wall with Antony’s living quarters. He made his way delicately in that direction until Cullen leaned out from a doorway, gave a nod of greeting, and gestured him closer.

“She’s thinking about it,” he whispered, tipping his chin at the whelping box, and Dorian peered past him to see Laurel pawing at her straw bedding, panting. “Could be another couple hours, though.”

Antony appeared by his side and nodded. “Maybe longer,” he said softly.

“I’d best not intrude, then,” Dorian answered, equally softly. He extended his cloth of snacks to Cullen. “I didn’t know if either one of you had the time for breakfast, so...”

Cullen’s face lit up as he accepted the offering. “Thank you.” He leaned through the doorway and kissed Dorian on the edge of the lips, leaving both him and Antony standing there wide eyed. They had not yet been public in their affections, and neither had they discussed it. For his part, Cullen paid neither of them any heed. He stuck an apple in his mouth and handed a bun and a square of cheese to Antony, who accepted the items and stood there blinking only a moment before he tore the bun in half to stuff the cheese inside it, then took a large bite.

If one could chew incredulously, that’s what Antony was doing.

“Right,” Dorian said. “I’ll leave you to it.” He turned to depart and Antony stepped out of the room after him.

He expected some sort of upbraiding, some flicker of indignance along the lines of how dare he twist a good, Maker-fearing man with his unwholesome ways, but instead the young fellow’s jaw worked frantically as he tried to finish his bite. “Ser,” he said, stopping to swallow the last of it. “Forgive me, but...may we send for you, if the dam needs mild healing?”

“Oh.” A pleasant surprise, being asked for help rather than torn down for perversion. “Certainly. I won’t wander far from the house, in case I’m required?”

Visible relief on the boy’s face. “Thank you. I... I know a little from my family, but only potions, and Rho is away. Thank you,” he repeated.

“It’s no trouble,” Dorian reassured him.

With a shy nod, he withdrew into the whelping room.

Birdie remained outside the door when Dorian stepped through it. “No pups yet,” he said to her. She cocked her head at him. “Patience, dear Birdie.”

Morning bloomed into afternoon. The slow crawl of the diminishing sun cast angled shadows on the tables in the study. Dorian stayed by the windows, where he could see the stables in his peripheral vision as he read a book of old Fereldan tales. Not moral ones made up by the chantry, either, but good old fashioned folk tales rife with magic, clever women, tricksters, and talking beasts. It felt oddly appropriate, somehow.

So far, all had been quiet. Birdie had given up on her vigil by mid-morning to go snuffling in the fields and he’d not seen her since, but otherwise nothing had changed. Nobody came bursting in to fetch him, which he took to be either a good sign or an indicator that labour was progressing more slowly than anticipated.

Come late afternoon, he abruptly set down his book. He had a feeling, though he couldn’t place it. His stomach lurched with hunger when he stood, and he realized he’d forgotten to eat lunch. He credited worn nerves for the sudden disturbance to his composure; the anxiety of anticipation, worrying over what a bad outcome meant for Cullen and his dog. He decided, fetched or not, that it was time to check up on the proceedings.

He half expected to be told they were still waiting when he stepped into the barn. As he approached the room at the end of the long hall, he knew better. There was a distinct smell in the air, something new. Blood metallic, but not wholly unpleasant or overwhelming.

So as not to startle anyone, he let the heels of his boots thump softly as he walked to the door. Antony met him before he could peer around the frame. There was something wan in his face. “I was about to come fetch you, ser,” he said, motioning for him to come in.

Cullen stood, facing the whelping box, shoulders hunched. Past him, in the pen, two tiny wriggling bodies grumbled and chirruped against their mother’s belly. They were dry and sleek, both of them already looking plump and in good health, nursing heartily.

“Is that everyone?” Dorian whispered to Antony.

He nodded, then stopped himself. “Well...”

In response to their voices, Cullen turned towards them. There in his hands he held a third pup, miniscule, perfectly formed feet and snub face hanging limp. The quiet resignation in the knit of his brows hit Dorian like a quarterstaff to the gut. He stepped forward.

“Stillborn?”

“I... It’s possible.” A near imperceptible shake of the head, frustration rather than denial. “She came feet first, and got a bit stuck.” He rubbed the pup’s seal gray fur with one finger. “We’ve tried every old trick to bring her back, but...”

“How long?”

“A few minutes, though...she may have been gone longer.”

“Let me see.” He held out his hands, and Cullen gently—too gently—laid the poor sagging creature in them, umbilical still attached.

Sometimes, with a new death that left a viable vessel behind, you could call an essence back from where it wandered. If the pup had smothered but was otherwise unhurt, there was a chance. He closed his eyes and sent energy questing toward the veil, his own cascading light imbued with warmth. New things understood warmth.

“It’s alright,” he said softly, cradling the pup. “Come back, now.”

It was there. A faint glimmer. Something felt rather than seen, but he visualized because interpreting magic came more easily when he assigned symbols. Wavelengths became light, or sounds. Spellcasting could be compared to weaving, or playing complicated music. Each master learned fundamentals, but ultimately developed their own techniques, a progression of knots or chords they preferred to build on.

What mattered was the pup had not gone far. The glimmer had not crossed into the place it could not return from. “Not yet,” he said, reassuring, coaxing. “Not just yet. Come along now, sweetheart.” There was a vibration, not dissimilar to casting a resurrection, and the spirit came to him as he’d asked.

The pup in his hands gasped and gave a harsh, grumpy mewl. Laurel lifted her head at the sound, and Cullen and Antony both sprang forward. Dorian laughed in delight and ruffled the pup’s back, feeling life flooding its body as it began to wiggle and cry. He let Cullen lift it from his hands and rush it to Laurel in her pen, where she licked it eagerly all over. If he didn’t know better he’d swear she looked relieved to see it.

Cullen left her to her work, stepping out of the whelping box. His nostrils flared and his eyes reddened, and a stray tear dripped down his cheek before he could wipe it away. Dorian moved to stand beside him, rubbing his back, and found himself taken quickly into a hug, Cullen’s grip stifling. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“I’m all too happy to help,” Dorian croaked against his stubbled neck. “Two would’ve been an awfully small litter.” The arms around him tightened further, eliciting a grunt from Dorian, and then Cullen pulled back just enough to kiss him.

This time, Antony smiled an uncontrolled half smile and lowered his gaze politely.

“Cullen, should we, ah...” Dorian nodded at the hallway.

“Hm? Oh.” They stepped out of the room, walking a little ways into the stables.

“Is it alright to do that in front of your people?” Dorian asked him, lowering his voice.

Cullen blinked, as if he hadn’t even considered it. He leaned a shoulder against one of the stalls, crossing his arms over his thick chest. “Antony won’t tell anyone, if...if that worries you?”

“No, no, I only...” He blew out a breath. “We hadn’t discussed it, is all. If you think it’s fine for him to know, then I trust you.”

Those were words he hadn’t said in half a decade. It felt alien to speak them aloud.

“I’m glad,” Cullen said, meeting his gaze. His eyes were still wet and shining from his cry over the pup. Then, in unison, their stomachs growled. Both of them laughed, until they’d almost doubled over into one another.

“I’ll bring something down from the house,” Dorian offered.

“Bring enough for yourself, too.” Cullen patted him on the arm. “That is, if you don’t mind taking your lunch in the barn...”

He said that he did not, and a half hour and a kitchen raid later they’d settled themselves around a small table with sandwiches and other nibbles. In the room adjacent, the puppies grumbled and suckled, and every few minutes Cullen or Antony would rise to check and assure themselves nothing was awry. Once they’d finished eating, Antony fixed Laurel to a lead and took her to the yard for a brief stroll so she could stretch and relieve herself, leaving Cullen and Dorian standing guard over the three babies. The trio wriggled about and grumped little noises as they searched for the absent comfort of their mother.

“You’ll have to name the gray one,” Cullen said, tipping his chin at the squirmy pup who’d come into the world only to near depart it again.

Quite the responsibility, a name. He watched her paddling in the clean blankets they’d laid down, her snub nose and perfect white tipped feet a-twitch with life, stronger by the minute now that she had a full belly. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure.”

He slung an arm about Cullen’s waist and held on. “I’d be honored.”

The good news about the pups, and Dorian’s minor miracle, made the rounds of the property after Antony stepped outside, proving that he did in fact occasionally speak more than a single sentence at a time. When Dorian made his way back up to the house he was grinned at by everyone who passed him, even clapped on the back by one big burly fellow with a head of magnificent brown curls. At dinner he was plied with wine and several people sat down with him that he’d not had the chance to speak to before. He found himself enjoying it, and for the first time since his arrival he felt as though he were a member of the household instead of a visiting statesman. Commanding respect at the cost of being treated like a regular person grew tiresome, and he was grateful for the abandonment of formalities.

Late in the evening, when he was quite happily drunk and being dragged off to the common room for songs, Cullen appeared to take him aside privately and tell him he’d set up a cot in the barn and intended to sleep there, so as to keep eyes and ears on the little ones just in case.

“You’re welcome to my room, however,” he said, looking intensely sincere.

“I may do that,” Dorian told him. A fireplace. Warm dogs for his feet. No Cullen, but he’d survive a few nights without him. “I’ll visit again in the morning?”

“Please do. And enjoy yourself tonight,” Cullen said. He gave him another kiss, a slow one this time, and then he walked away down the hall and back outside.

Dorian stayed up until the wee hours, teaching Tevinter tavern songs to a room full of tipsy farmhands. Jillian, the recently arrived ex-templar, was a decent pianist, and she grew more jubilant the raunchier the lyrics became, her bright cackles sparking the humor of all the others around her. As energy began to wane, he also taught her two bittersweet ballads, both of them about farewells and grand love lost. They sang them together in duet, harmonizing sweetly but without much skill. When they did finally break for the night, Dorian climbed the stairs and hesitated for only a moment. Cullen’s room was cool but a fire was easily lit, and the bed had been pre-warmed by Birdie, who welcomed him with a yawn and a few thumps of her wagging tail.

Home, he thought. Only for a moment, before the screen of wine lifted and reality took its place, his mind clamping down on the possible comfort of such a notion. He shook his head, trying to ignore the pessimism. “If not home, then something like it,” he said to himself, putting up staunch resistance against the pull of melancholy.

He gently shooed Birdie to Cullen’s side of the bed, and settled in. Home, for the time being.

Chapter Text

Newborn puppies, Cullen soon learned, did little other than sleep, nurse, make a wealth of noises, both contented and otherwise, and grow—they were bigger each time he glanced at them. Four days in the world and already they looked less like odd squishy beans and more like actual dogs. Very plump, tiny dogs. Laurel, blessedly, tended them with fastidious gentleness, as if she were an old hand at it. She might’ve been, he supposed, since she’d had a life before the one she lived now on the farm. He’d have to check her papers. All he knew of her past off the top of his head was that she’d been a poor prospect for a war dog since she’d failed the training for being too sweet-natured. That very fault made her an ideal fit for Cullen’s purposes.

He took her for regular short jaunts in the yard, and when she returned to the whelping box she would carefully skirt her babies before settling and letting them squeak and crawl their way to her. Antony had told him a story about one overzealous dam of his family’s, who tended to be so eager to feed her pups she’d practically trample them in the effort to lie down. Apparently, it had fallen to him to sweep the litter out of their mother’s well-intentioned but disastrous way until they were large enough to withstand the onslaught.

No such trouble with Laurel, so far. She was a natural, very patient and trusting of Cullen handling her pups. She was being a bit fussy about her own intake, but no doubt she still felt stressed by the whole endeavor. He certainly did, and he’d done none of the work she had. He’d finally convinced her to start taking a mixture of chicken and a little chopped ram, but she refused the bowl if he simply left it and only ate when he settled himself next to her and held the damned thing in his hands.

After she’d finished slowly nibbling her meal, she’d put her great jowly head on his lap and snooze.

Which was precisely how Dorian found them when he came to look in on them that evening. Cullen’s leg had long since fallen asleep, but he hadn’t the heart to move. The little family dozed next to him, baby soft and smelling of milk.

“Asked for a pillow, did she?” Dorian murmured, the curl of his mustache exaggerated by the smile he wore beneath it.

“She might as well’ve, for how persnickety she’s being about her food.” Cullen stroked her thick fur, trailed a finger down the midline of her forehead and snout.

“I’d say she’s earned the right to a bit of persnicketing.” Dorian said. Quietly, he seated himself on the edge of Cullen’s cot. The babies were asleep, but now and then one of them grumbled or peeped, stretched their wee limbs out from their round bodies. “Are small litters normal for mabari?”

“Not always, but it’s reasonably common. We did think she’d have at least another, but...” He shrugged. It was hard to know what might’ve gone wrong, if anything. They’d had Rho check her over the morning after the delivery, and she certainly hadn’t retained any pups and seemed to be recovering well. No complications so far, save the minimal appetite.

One of the pups cried in its sleep, and she lifted her head to nose and lick it. Cullen took the opportunity to heave himself to his feet and stretch out. His back crunched in two places, and he grimaced. That cot was disagreeing with him, and there was plenty of work still to do: all the bedding in the whelping box would have to be changed again. Laurel would need another meal, and some water. He’d spent three nights in the barn now, not sleepless but near enough to it that he was feeling worn thin. With a big sigh, he sat down next to Dorian, who leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

“Eugch,” he said, patting his flank. “You smell of dog. More than usual.”

Cullen snorted at him and pushed his bangs off his face. They stayed where he rearranged them, which meant he desperately needed a soak. Part of him worried Laurel would stop trusting him with her pups if he altered his smell too much, even though that afternoon Antony had all but begged him to go up to the house and bathe. He gave one of his own armpits a quick assessing sniff, and wrinkled his nose. “I am a bit ripe...” A suspended bunch of lavender caught his eye, one of Antony’s touches that he claimed was for luck but almost certainly had more to do with sweetening the room.

Dorian ignored him. He’d leaned forward to watch the pups, who’d stir soon for another feed. “They are perfect, aren’t they,” he said, rapt. “I can’t believe how big they are already...”

Fragile, pink-toed, sightless, and helpless, they were among the best things Cullen had ever seen. Aside from the gray girl Dorian had revived, there was a dark brindle male and a pale sable female. He knew Laurel’s dam had been quite wolfy looking, and he’d read that Mabari coat color was tricky to breed true, but the gray female was a mystery. Regardless of what they grew up to look like, they certainly were, in a word, perfect.

“Which male is the sire?” Dorian asked. “I’d guess, but there’s an assortment of coats.”

Cullen took a long breath. “You’re going to laugh, but...it’s actually Bear.”

“Bear?” No laughter, though he’d certainly gone wide-eyed. “On purpose?”

“Yes! I know the most about his line, and he comes from proven stock. Fuller is...of mystery origins, and even if I wanted to take that risk, he isn’t intact.”

“Ah, poor sod. Not a candidate, then. But old Bear has an illustrious history worth preserving in future generations, does he?”

“Both he and Laurel,” Cullen nodded at the peaceful dam in her box, “were meant to be warriors, but neither one of them took to it. Very little drive, too friendly. Bear spent most of his life in a Grey Warden barracks keeping soldiers company, but after what happened during the Inquisition...” Cullen rubbed the back of his neck, which still prickled when he thought of Adamant. “He was a very sad dog. A survivor heard what I was doing here and brought him, thinking it might remind him of home. It took him a bit to warm up, but since then he’s been enjoying his retirement.”

It was difficult to believe Dorian gave a damn about any of these convoluted goings on, and Cullen felt the guilt of that ping somewhere in his head, so he fell silent.

“And? What of maman ?” Dorian asked, affecting the Orlesian accent for the word as he gripped Cullen’s knee and gave it a squeeze. “She’s younger, I can tell that much. Scandalous.”

Cullen snuffled a laugh against the back of his hand, then thumbed at an itch in his beard. “She’s about seven, which is still young for mabari. I scouted her and brought her here, along with Birdie. They have the same dam. That kennel has accidentally started a line of very good companion beasts. My intention is to continue it.”

Dorian nodded, considering. He twirled the corner of his mustache. “Will you keep all of them?”

“Oh Maker , no!” He shook his head and stifled more laughter. “No, six is enough. My hope is to provide the occasional templar who chooses to leave us with a trained, permanent dog, should they want one.”

“Hm.” Further consideration and mustache twirling. One of the pups made a mewling noise and began to nuzzle for milk.

“Have you thought of a name yet?” Cullen asked, settling his palm on Dorian’s lower back.

“I’ve been trying, but I’d like for her to open her eyes first.” He glanced over his shoulder to catch Cullen’s gaze. “I need to meet her, so to speak, if that’s acceptable to you?”

He nodded. “For the time being they’re too young to learn their names, anyhow.” He felt similarly about the others. They were still too formless to make much of an impression, other than inspiring an almost fatherly instinct in him he hadn’t thought he possessed. In a sense, they were as near to having children as he was likely to get, at this late stage in life. A thought made him snicker to himself.

“What?” Dorian pressed, leaning their shoulders together.

“I’m only thinking,” he said, fighting not to laugh, “that it’s lucky I don’t have to name a child. It would be ‘pup’ until it was grown.” The chuckle broke through on the last word.

Dorian hummed a soft laugh. “Poor blighter would end up naming themselves. There’s a story for the grandchildren.”

A few moments later a door opened and closed, and Antony appeared. He gave Dorian a somewhat inscrutable look, which Dorian returned with a nod.

Cullen cocked his head and squinted. “What are you two up to?”

In a second, Dorian was on his feet. “Conspiring to drag your stinking self up to the house for a wash and a full night’s rest, to be blunt,” he told him. He tugged insistently at Cullen’s arm, pulling him off the cot.

“For a magister, that’s rather an impolitic approach,” Cullen grumbled, letting himself be hauled from the room. “I shall have to come back after, in order to—

“No, you shall not,” Dorian insisted. “Antony will guard the babies tonight. You’re taking a bath, and then you’re coming to bed.”

He readied a slew of reasons why he could not feasibly do so, but Dorian held up a finger and cut him off.

“If you’ve so much as a crumb of good sense in your entire body, you’ll stow all that blustering and do as I say. Now.” He shoved him slightly ahead, and they began a brisk walk through the fall night. “I’ve left some oils next to the tub for you, if you care to use them. Five drops is all you need. I recommend the lemongrass—it’ll perk you up so you don’t drift off and drown.”

Cullen leveled him with a half-hearted glare. “If I’m not up in twenty minutes, I’ve died.”

“Sounds like you might need supervision,” Dorian replied. “Do I have to watch? It would be a burden, but for you, Cullen, I’ll fall on that sword.”

There was no winning with Dorian. The clever bastard would find a way to bend any statement, as if the words were charmed as soon as his mouth formed them. It was like having a sparring partner who knew every defense, inside and out, and chose to fight with their non-dominant hand for the fun of it. Just when you thought you had them, they’d switch back and make you cry mercy.

“I’ll take my chances,” Cullen finally said.

“Good man.” Dorian patted him on the rump, once sharply, and then moved off ahead. “I’ll be waiting.”

Cullen descended to his bathing chamber and ran himself enough hot water for a scrub and a partial soak, opting for a few drops from one of the aforementioned vials of oil lined up like dutiful soldiers along the rim of the tub. The gentle fragrance dissipated, vaporizing on thick steam to waft about the room, and with it rose a specter of Dorian’s presence; calming, comfortable. Once he’d eased the worst of the stiffness out of his bones, he soaped up and scrubbed his hair, rinsed himself down under the tap, and toweled dry. There’d been a pair of soft cotton trousers left in the room as well, which he put on, but no shirt. He slung the towel over his shoulders and braved the nipping cold in the halls.

In his bedroom a large fire burned behind the grate, the air thick with radiating heat. On the bed sat Dorian, his bare legs over the edge. He was massaging something into his chest, and as Cullen entered, he tucked the flaps of his robe closed and began applying the cream to his forearms instead.

The warmth of the room was welcome after the chill stone hallways. He hung his towel over the back of his desk chair and approached the bed. Dorian’s thighs slackened apart, inviting him closer, and as he moved in, smooth palms pressed to his bare sides and pulled him near.

“I’m clean,” he said, to break the silence that had him reddening from his cheeks all down his chest to where an elegant, arched nose nudged against his abdomen.

At the words, Dorian angled his head to smile up at him, the crinkle at the corner of his eye accentuating the beauty mark. “I see that.” He leaned away and patted the mattress, so Cullen crawled past him and stretched out on his back.

“What have you done with all my dogs?” he asked, realizing the room was devoid of canine life.

Smirking, Dorian climbed onto the bed and straddled Cullen’s thighs. “I asked them nicely to stay in the study. Perhaps mabari are as magical as Fereldans say, because they listened.” He picked up his jar of ointment and dabbed more on his hands, then dragged them down Cullen’s sternum, outward over his ribs and belly.

Cullen tensed under the strokes, the slick warmth and fragrance of the cream reminiscent of the same oil he’d just bathed in. “And what’s, ah... What’s this?”

“For softness,” Dorian answered, trailing all the way down the insides of Cullen’s arms.

“I’m not soft enough to begin with?” he joked.

Dorian laughed and bowed forward to kiss him. “Your skin, you oaf, but you knew that. Don’t you like it?”

He had to bite his tongue to keep from inquiring if it wouldn’t all simply rub off on the sheets while they slept. “I do,” he said finally, letting his hands settle on Dorian’s folded thighs.

“Then I have a suggestion for you.” Open palms smoothed over the meat of his stomach, stopping just below his chest. “Relax.”

Not an easy suggestion to take. After a soft huff, Cullen tried to do as he’d been told. He shut his eyes and willed his muscles to loosen, focused on Dorian’s firm touch. Unexpectedly, he spent quite a long time working into Cullen’s shoulders and arms, rubbing them vigorously then gentler, spreading warmth all through his fingertips. Eventually, there was an assured hm of approval, and the massage came to an end.

Dorian nuzzled into his neck, and one of his knuckles caught Cullen’s nipple, hovered there, brushing back and forth over it. His breathing shallowed, though it had as much to do with nerves as arousal. He cleared his throat, and the movement stopped.

“Cullen,” Dorian said quietly. “That day, after Marchand’s, you said you didn’t like being touched, but that you didn’t mind...touching others. Did I...misunderstand? Do you not want things to be more physical between us?”

Whatever had felt stuck in his throat intensified, and he cleared it again, which made him cough. “I...um, what sort of...” Had he not been laid out on his back, he would’ve been rubbing at his nape. “More physical how, exactly?”

The pained expression on Dorian’s face became an audible, clipped groan in the back of his throat. “Physical as in sex, us having it or something like it, to make the point vehemently crystalline.”

At least one of them was able to come out and say it. Not that it helped Cullen with his answer, which he grasped on a gut level, somewhere deep behind the ribs, but hadn’t yet succeeded in translating to intellectual articulation. Or physical expression, beyond what he’d already been doing. After Marchand’s he’d been emboldened by the heady combination of shared illusion and too much wine, which worked a sort of magic all their own, but his daily courage fell woefully short of both his and Dorian’s expectations. He gnawed at the inner corner of his lip, then tongued the adjacent narrow scar before he could stop himself.

“We...don’t have to,” Dorian said, far too softly. “If you aren’t comfortable, then I don’t want to push. It’s only that you gave the impression that we might... I’d thought we might try .”

“No,” Cullen said. “I mean no, I do. Want to try. It’s only...” He turned his face to the side. How to phrase it so as not to give the impression he was entirely without desire, when that was how he so often felt? Or if not without desire, then without ardor to reciprocate. He’d blamed the lyrium, when he’d been in his prime, but it had only been partly responsible. Now he was clear of it, and there’d been no great surge of energies, no crashing build up of appetite. Perhaps a slight rekindling of his lifelong wish for intimacy, but nothing too far beyond the pleasure of holding someone, of being held. It was embarrassing, if he was honest. “I suppose I don’t have...much experience, with this sort of thing.”

Dorian stilled on top of him. For a long time, he didn’t speak. “You told me you’d been with men, before?”

With his memory what it was, he wondered sometimes now if he hadn’t dreamed such things. Seen them happening in dark corridors and imagined himself on his knees, giving way to someone else’s need. That couldn’t be right, though. It had been long ago yet he could still recall certain faces, some he’d served more than once, and he remembered, clear as a glacial pool, how it left him hollow. Not spent, only blank. “I have been, but... Nothing terribly sustained, and I confess, that sort of encounter...” He blew a harsh sigh through his nose. “I found it a bit disaffecting.”

“Disaffecting?”

Teeth caught at his lip while he sought an explanation. “I found very little joy in it. As I said, more in...in touching others than having them do so to me, but...” The burn of his cheeks overtook his whole face. All these years, and shame still dogged him; the eternal wolf at his heels. “Men, women, it...hardly mattered. I always felt afterward like I’d lost something, or—or had something taken from me, in spite of giving it willingly.”

A few feet away, the fire hissed and popped, sizzling moisture boiled from the wood. Some of the cords were still fresh. Dorian held still above him. He did not speak.

“It’s a bit daft, isn’t it,” Cullen muttered.

“No,” Dorian said. His tone was sure, with an edge in it. “It isn’t.” He pressed his nose into the side of Cullen’s face. “It’s terrible to feel that way,” he added softly, fingers curling against Cullen’s chest. “I wouldn’t want for it to be like that between us.”

The flag in energy was palpable. Quiet like a battlefield two days out from the clash.

“It—it isn’t,” Cullen hurried to reassure. Talk about daft, saying things like that without qualifying the statement. “It wasn’t. And I... I would like to try, with you. I have trouble now and then, with, um...” He glanced down, but since Dorian was on top of him there was nothing to see, no way to indicate himself without words. He hoped the glance was enough to convey the point. “I think because of the long years on lyrium, but...” His face felt too hot. The room was too hot. A few minutes more, and it would begin to make his stomach churn. He cleared his throat yet again. “Maker... Dorian, you’re very dear to me, and I want... I do want this.” Wanting and knowing how to have were nations so separate he could scarcely compare them. Traveling from one to another presented an impossible task.

Dorian shifted. He craned his neck and kissed him, and it went on, deepened until they were moving with it, together. When he drew away, he was half-lidded. “We can go very, very slowly,” he murmured. “Slow as you need.”

Licking his lips, Cullen nodded. “If you want, you can, um... I’ll... I’ll be here, for you?” He tensed and lifted his hips, hoping Dorian would mirror the movement. He did.

“Are you sure?” Dorian breathed over his throat.

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

A slow tilt of the head, and Dorian sat up. He took hold of Cullen’s arms and indicated for him to sit, too. “Alright, but,” he locked their gazes, “I do want you to participate, a little. Should you begin to feel poorly, even if it’s only an inkling, we’ll stop.”

The fall of his dark hair over his shoulder and the depth of sincerity in his eyes made Cullen swallow. “Alright.”

His plush lips softened into a smile. “So...touch me, then. Go on.”

There was eagerness in it, but no impatience. Uncertain, Cullen slotted fingers into the front of Dorian’s robe, began to gently push it aside, and one of Dorian’s hands promptly clasped the fabric and held it in place. Right. Didn’t like that, he remembered. Shit, one step into the dance and he was making a mess of it.

Sensing his distress, Dorian took hold of his hand. “Here,” he murmured, encouraging him to slide the bottom hem of the robe higher along the breadth of his furry thighs. Beneath it he was quite nude, and half hard. Cullen drew his knees up on an inhale, and it tipped Dorian forward, so his dick caught against Cullen’s belly. Dorian’s hips rolled and he sighed, shuffling the robe upward just enough to bare a narrow strip of his stomach, then he wrapped arms about Cullen’s shoulders and leaned heavily into him.

So Cullen buried his face against Dorian’s covered chest. He smelled like spring; the kindness of warm rain. The skin of their abdomens was still ointment slick, the movement of Dorian’s hard cock between them eased by it. Another soft hum as he settled himself closer, pushed more insistently against Cullen.

He felt good. Heat, and weight, the clench and press of his erection as he writhed, the rise and fall of his chest with his shallowing breaths. His hair tickled when it brushed against Cullen’s neck. He slid his hands over Dorian’s thighs, to where the fur abruptly thinned at the socket, around to his ass and then under the robe, midway up his back. Muscles worked below his fingers as Dorian thrust between them, all rolling hips and sighs. He began to make soft, breathy noises next to Cullen’s ear, and it stirred him, took hold in the pit of his belly. Only a stir, though. No rush of blood, no swell. Nothing like the hardness of Dorian’s pinned cock, the rub and slide of skin leaving his tip shiny with pre-come.

Cullen let his eyes float shut and held on, held steady so Dorian could find the friction he needed without faltering. He wished he’d let him uncover his chest, that there was skin to put his lips to, but each time the fabric of the robe began to part below his collarbones, Dorian tucked it shut again.

His scar... Cullen wanted to tell him it mattered not at all, that the mark neither fascinated nor repelled him, but he knew enough to understand that he wasn’t the one it had to matter to. If Dorian had patience for him, he owed at least the same courtesy.

Mostly, Cullen kept his eyes closed. He listened to Dorian, his hums and low moans. He dragged rough touches up and down his back, urging him on. His movements became less fluid, more desperate.

“Touch me,” he pleaded, curling fingers in the hair at Cullen’s nape.

Cullen obeyed. He slipped a hand between them and took hold of him, thumbed his tip, let him find his rhythm and thrust through his fingers a final few times before he gasped, tensed, and came. His hips rocked until he’d wrung himself dry, panting and nuzzling into the side of Cullen’s head. When he was certain he’d finished moving, Cullen reclaimed his hand and tipped them backward, slow and easy, settling into the heap of pillows stacked in front of his headboard.

Boneless and spent, Dorian moved just off to the side, robe still tucked around his chest, one leg hooked over Cullen’s, and curled there with a long exhale. Softness suffused his face, all his edges gentled and his pupils blown.

Cullen folded one knee, reached between his legs to adjust his semi-hard dick. He considered coaxing, but after a squeeze he could tell the mood was fleeting, already leaving him.

“Garnered a bit of a reaction, did I?” Dorian hushed. He trailed his fingers down Cullen’s stomach, still sticky with come, until they reached his waistband. Carefully, he brushed over Cullen’s knuckles where he’d covered himself. “Can I see?”

With a swallow, Cullen closed his eyes. He nodded, and moved his hand away. Dorian’s fingers dragged along the underside of his cock, overtop the fabric. Then, he slowly pushed the waistband down, until he’d exposed his tip.

“So pink ,” Dorian teased, covering him with a warm palm.

He grunted in response and felt his hips twitch, but it was more out of discomfort than pleasure. “I’m...I’m sorry...” He squirmed, and Dorian withdrew his hand further up his belly.

“Enough?”

Cullen’s chin brushed against Dorian’s forehead as he nodded. In a movement, he tugged his waistband back into place and covered himself again, to wait it out.

He felt a shift, resistance of muscles as Dorian broke their contact to lean on an elbow, and his heart sank deep into his guts. Surely, he was giving up. This second awkward bout of rutting would be the end of their explorations. Fingers scuffled into his beard and Dorian met his gaze. “That’s alright,” he said. He touched the bridges of their noses together. “It’s fine.”

“Sorry,” Cullen repeated. “I want...to be more, but—"

Dorian kissed him. “You were perfect,” he murmured. He produced a kerchief from a pocket in his robe and brushed it over Cullen’s stomach. “Here you were fresh from the tub and I’ve ruined you...” The statement was followed with a tut-tut, and Cullen held still while he fussed, kept himself tensed to ease the process.

His performance had been a far cry from perfection, but so long as Dorian found it acceptable he’d be able to rest without apologizing a further twenty times. When he finished tidying him, and himself, Dorian tossed the kerchief toward the laundry basket and lodged snugly against Cullen’s side.

The in and out of his breathing served as lullaby. In the hearth, there was another pop, and Dorian lifted his head and then his hand. Further hissing of moisture; a slight, brief chill in the air, and the firelight dimmed to a glow. Cullen raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re too hot,” Dorian said. He nestled back down and pressed his face to Cullen’s neck.

He was, at that. “You can tell?”

“Your cheeks go red in a different spot than when you’re embarrassed,” he mumbled, snuggling closer. He was still quite naked below the belly button, uncaring that his lower half was exposed. It seemed that nudity hardly daunted him save showing the parts that were scarred.

“Will you...” Too late, Cullen reconsidered his question. Perhaps it was terrible to want to ask it.

“Hm?” Dorian’s nose bumped against his jaw. “Will I...?”

To the void with it, then. “Would you consider taking your robe off, next time?” Quickly, he added, “I would never insist, I only...wondered.”

At his side, Dorian momentarily tensed, and Cullen readied another apology but felt him slacken. One of his hands rubbed at the fuzz on Cullen’s sternum.

“I’ll consider it.”

If it proved too difficult, or felt like a trespass, Cullen would rescind the request. “Thank you,” he whispered, turning to press a kiss to Dorian’s head. There was no room for forcing in this endeavor. They were both much too fragile, no matter what either one of them pretended as they strode about during the day shrouded in their respective choice of armor—intelligence and well-cut robes for Dorian, scruff and taciturn affability for Cullen. He rolled onto his side and threw a heavy arm about Dorian’s waist, tangling their legs together. Words rattled through his head; unspoken affections, promises, confessions, sweet nothings. None felt right. In the end, he settled for a sleepy peck to the side of Dorian’s lips.

“Oh,” said Dorian, sometime later, as Cullen drifted comfortably beside him. “The dogs.”

He felt cold, his arms emptied as Dorian slipped away, then warmth when he returned and covered them both with a blanket. After that, clicking toes on the floor and two whumps as heavy bodies claimed their places at the foot of the mattress with grumbled yawns.

A hand on his belly, someone murmuring something kind to him in the twilight place before sleep. He moved toward the voice, and arms folded around him. He might’ve spoken, but it was the unprocessed utterance of a mind scrambled by exhaustion, words out of order or pure nonsense plucked from a stream of thoughts.

No matter. What mattered was that Dorian held him, and he’d been given permission to rest. So he did.

Chapter Text

The puppies were eight days old when the first earnest snowfall of the season swallowed the property. Nothing terrible, even by Dorian’s stringent standards, but enough that the lower part of one’s boots sunk out of sight when strolling outdoors. The Fereldans all seemed to come alive in it. Like furry-cloaked winter blooms their cheeks and noses pinkened as they walked the grounds, each and every one of them in high spirits. Less so the Orlesians, many of whom were of more Northern extraction. Most of them stayed indoors, huddled over mugs of hot cocoa or milky tea near the big fireplace in the common room, and Dorian got to know two of them measurably well that first afternoon since that was exactly where he was, too.

Now that the weather had fully turned he expected he’d be passing more time in a similar fashion. At least, he’d probably find himself keeping the same company when he wasn’t curled by the hearth in the study, or asleep in Cullen’s bed. His routine, now firmly established, had become thus: Cullen rose early. In the wake of his inevitable disappearance, Dorian would drift over onto his side of the mattress, greedily absorbing his warmth and scent, and lie about for anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours, depending. When he felt awake, he’d stretch, retreat to his chambers to dress and bathe, then descend the main stairs to see who else was up and about.  

Today, he took his time rising. The snow had deepened, overnight. When he dressed, it was in simple, thick robes, as he intended to spend the day reading. He waffled over whether or not to apply kohl to his eyelids, and opted against it to let his skin rest. His hair also required attention, since the sides were beginning to look unreasonably long. He could do it himself, frequently did, but he’d faced an aesthetic mishap or two by his own hand in the past which left him inclined to leave it until he could ask after a barber.

Downstairs, Cullen had already come in from his morning rounds and prepared plates for them. He was all smiles, so the pups must’ve been doing just fine. They settled at their table by the window as the rest of the house began to stir to life, albeit far more slowly than when Dorian had first arrived. Since the snows had covered the hills there was less work to be done in the fields and the early hours in the house were less frantic. He assumed some of the hands would soon depart for the season, back to wherever they hailed from to pass the worst winter months.  

When they finished eating, they proceeded into the kitchen to leave their dishes for washing, and Cullen turned suddenly. “Oh,” he said. “I meant to tell you last night. I’m riding out to meet a supplier this afternoon. I’m...liable to be gone until late. You could come,” he offered, hopeful, “if you felt like the trip?”

Dorian looked outside at the thin light that held the threat of more snow. “Er, no, thank you. I think I’ll stay.”

“Suit yourself,” Cullen told him, putting a hand on his back and leaning in to nose his temple.

“Cullen—” Dorian startled, shrinking from the touch. Three of the kitchen staff were in the room, one of them absorbed in her task but the other two watching, enraptured, laughter threatening to burst forth any moment.

Cullen’s eyes took on the woeful look of a scolded Mabari. “What?”

With a sidestep, Dorian swiveled them both, so that he was hidden and Cullen’s back was to the staff. He lowered his head and spoke very softly: “Don’t you have to keep up appearances?” He jutted his chin toward the other people in the room.

Cullen stared at him. It was as if Dorian had told him that ten minutes from now, they were to perform an original operetta for the Divine and her entourage of five hundred. Finally, he laughed. An outright belly laugh, loud and with force. “Listen. Although it may not always seem so, this is my house,” he replied, voice quiet but assured. He put a hand on Dorian’s side. “I live here as I choose. If somebody doesn’t like it, then,” his shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, “Maker take them.”

A glance told him the staff had not overheard, but were still paying altogether too much attention to them. Suddenly, Cullen’s hand faltered.

“That is, of course,” he started, “unless a particular someone would prefer I be more circumspect.” Instead of flushing red, his cheeks drained of color. “In which case he should say as much, right away, so I can apologize and...and do so.”

Sincere. So deeply, intensely sincere, in this as in all things. Dorian relaxed into a small, gracious smile. “No apology necessary.” He leaned forward and put an arm about Cullen’s flank. On the other side of the room, the staff resumed their quiet tittering, and his stomach churned. He lifted his gaze, leveled a narrow look in their direction, which silenced them and sent both rushing to attend to meal preparations.

“I’d best ready myself and be off,” Cullen murmured. “Go see the pups, if you’re of a mind. Birdie is allowed to visit from outside the pen, as of this morning.” He began grabbing odds and ends of food for a day pack. “She’s smitten by them, so take her with you if you go.”

Breakfast sat unevenly in his belly, and he no longer felt languid or calm. A bracing trip through snowy countryside might settle his temper.

“On second thought, I will accompany you. If you don’t mind waiting while I change?”

Cullen lifted his brows and shook his head. “Not at all. I’ll ready a few things and meet you in the stables.”

Dorian stood for a moment on his way out of the kitchen, an eye trained on the staff. For the most part they ignored him and went about their jobs, though they looked a touch sheepish. In his youth, he might’ve ambled over and lifted his leg a little, metaphorically speaking, to assert himself, but he dared not with Cullen in the room. Besides, the past few years had taught that calculated silence did the trick far better than snide invective and threats.

Nonetheless, it bothered him as he climbed back to his chambers. Perhaps there was no escaping derision, for someone like him. He could denounce his country, leave his home, conquer an ancient evil and save the world, travel miles into the middle of Ferelden nowhere, and still the way he loved would be wrong, subject to ridicule or worse.

He put on good, solid riding clothes, a pair of warm boots, and a thick woollen tunic, as well as a heavy cloak and scarf. No use dwelling on it, he kept telling himself. No use at all.

In the barn, he found Cullen with the puppies and Birdie, who was content to lie with her face mushed up against the pen watching the little ones. Laurel tolerated her without reproach or even much notice. If he recalled correctly what Cullen had told him of the two dogs, Birdie was their auntie, which might explain why her eagerness seemed to cause no stress.

Southerners, Dorian was beginning to think, maybe weren’t so wrongheaded in their belief that the breed was extraordinary. Rumor held that the beasts had originated in Tevinter, which could explain why they demonstrated magical attributes—though no Fereldan would hear such slander. Whatever the historical case, breeding Mabari up north had long since gone out of style. Molosser types were a rare sight, save the occasional guard dogs on country estates. People currently favored a variety of lithe sighthound with large, pointed ears, built to run swifter than the fastest of horses. Although they were beautiful, and spirited, they lacked the Mabari’s...sense of humor, for want of a better phrase.

“Shall we weigh them before you’re off, ser?” Antony asked Cullen.

“You two do that, I’ll run mum out for a minute so she doesn’t fret.”

And so, guided by Antony, Dorian lifted each baby onto a scale and jotted the results in the provided notebook. Reading down the columns by day, it was clear they were thriving. Not that you couldn’t tell simply by looking at them. They practically gleamed with health and vitality, even the little gray pup he’d had to pull back from beyond the veil.

The one he was meant to name, he’d remembered when he picked her up. She’d cried very loudly while he weighed her, outraged by the indignity of such a thing, one might imagine, and only settled down when he tucked her back in the whelping box next to her siblings. All three of them were chirping when Laurel returned. She eagerly laid down and nosed them, began to bathe them with her tongue.

“Thank you,” Antony said, gesturing at the notebook and numbers. “I’ll see to them again tonight, since you may be late returning?”

“We may be, at that,” Cullen told him. “Are you certain that’s all right?”

“Yes, it’s—I’m happy to do it,” Antony replied, smiling.

There was a twinkle in his eye as he met gazes with Dorian, as though his intention was to be co-conspirator in a plot to keep Cullen well-rested. That was the kind of plotting Dorian was all too content to endorse.

Back in the main barn they set about retrieving their horses. With a steady hand Cullen brought a proud bay mare from a stall and led her toward the tack room. Dorian had noticed her in the fields on several of his walks and, recalling what he’d learned from Dennett, judged her to be of Antivan stock. “Now she’s a stunner,” he said.

“Isn’t she just?” Cullen gave her a quick pat. “A gift from flourishing House Montilyet,” he added. “I tried to tell Josephine no, but she has a thousand ways of making you feel rude for refusing.”

That’s how it went, with those who had been among the Inquisitor’s closest advisors and friends. They looked after one another in whatever small ways they could. Josephine knew how to leverage her generosity to her own benefit, but that certainly didn’t mean it wasn’t genuine. He missed her, and made a mental note to write to her. “And what is this gift horse’s name?”

“Summerstone,” Cullen said. “We just...call her Summer.” He set about saddling her while Dorian mirrored the motions with Barley, who looked coarse indeed next to such a beauty.

In a few minutes, they were geared up and riding out, the breath of horse and man alike clouding in the chilly morning air.

“So,” Dorian said, bringing Barley up alongside the mare. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Yarrow,” Cullen told him. “It’s...not quite a village, but there’s an inn and a smithy, and they do a week long market each year for Satinalia. One of our suppliers meets me there instead of coming all the way to the property.”

They’d brought no pack animal, so whatever was being supplied had to be light, and small. “Is this for convenience or secrecy?”

“Bit of both, I suppose.”

“You’re going to make me come right out and ask, aren’t you.”

Cullen laughed, his cheeks already gone pink with cold. “Who says I’ll tell you if you do?”

“Me. I say so,” Dorian insisted, hand at his breastbone.

With a grin and a click of his tongue, Cullen cajoled Summer to a slightly faster pace, and she was all too happy to oblige. Indignant, Dorian urged Barley after them. Their hooves crunched in the fresh snow as they trotted along the road, winding their way steadily east. It became clear that no answer was forthcoming, so he steered the conversation back to easier terrain. As the morning progressed he realized they were heading to the same crossroads he’d visited weeks back, under the last sun of autumn. He’d not gone all the way to the inn that day, but now, as a light snow began to fall, they rode past several merry shop stalls adorned with greenery—Satinalia invited such flourishes—and walked the horses around to a barn where they handed them off to a capable looking woman.

Inside the inn’s barroom, warmth emanated from the fire crackling behind an iron grate in a central stone chimney. Mulling spices permeated the air. The tavern was busy but not overcrowded, and since Cullen’s supplier was nowhere to be seen, they settled into a corner table with mugs of hot cider to sip while they waited.

They waited, and the day crept on. Cullen eventually commandeered a deck of cards and they played a few rounds of a two man game called upshot, though since they were three cups into their decidedly boozy cider by that point and could not agree on whose rules ought to apply—northern sevens, or southern one off—no winner could be pronounced. Noon arrived, as did lunch to their table, but the supplier did not. Neither did any bird or messenger. There were only so many safe traveling hours in a winter’s day, and the snow continued unabated. In fact, further ill weather loomed above them like a herd of determined gray rams.

Cullen had gone from looking jovial, to concerned, to downright haggard when he settled their tab with the barkeep.

“We’d best head back. We’re going to lose the light.”

“ Going to?” Judging by the thick rolling clouds crowding out the sky, they’d already lost it. “I think we’d better not risk the horses,” Dorian said. “Besides, you don’t need to be Fereldan to see it’s about to snow like mad.”

“If we hurry, we can—

“Outrun the blizzard? Perhaps Summer handily could, but old Barley and I would be left quite adrift.” He shook his head. “Let’s just stay put. It’s not like we need to find an inn,” he gestured to the room around them, where several patrons were enjoying the afternoon, quite oblivious to their argument.

Cullen set his jaw, his dark eyes darker under a furrowed brow, but he relented with a nod and returned to the counter to make arrangements.

“Might as well do a spot of shopping if we’re stuck here,” he said after pocketing their room key. “Satinalia always creeps up on me...”

They strolled by the vendor’s stalls, though one or two were preparing to tie down their tarps and shut for the day. Some of them sold pretty glass baubles and carved animals, others jewelry or raw gem trinkets. One old fellow had a counter piled high with fine scarves and bins of wool in an array of colours at his back, and he industriously knit up another while he sat, counting his stitches. A young woman had gloves of every shape, size, and hue, all of them made of soft leather. There was a beekeeper, also, her stall lined with small earthenware pots full of honey, each variety identified by a sprig of dried flowers. Dorian bought a few of those to send home, and two pairs of delicate gloves—one pair for Mae, and one for Mother. As he often did at Satinalia, he thought of poor Felix, gone all these long years. He bought him a tiny wooden totem of a Mabari, intending to leave it at the Alexius family tomb upon his return.

Finally, he chose a good scarf for himself from the old gentleman, of fine black wool. Undyed, the fellow told him, and he insisted that the wool had come from his very favorite sheep in the flock. Dorian had a chuckle as he wrapped the item around his neck. A skilled craftsman and salesman, he’d replied, and indicated that he’d take a second scarf in gray.

Once he’d paid, he rejoined Cullen in front of the jewelry stall, where he was exchanging coin for two small boxes—or rather, presumably their contents.

“Some little things for the staff,” he said, tucking them into his leather satchel. “I’d best get Antony something nice as well... Do the gloves look sturdy?”

“I wouldn’t have bought any had they not.”

Drifting snowflakes began to expand, falling faster and thicker. Bare surfaces were quickly coated with a layer of chill, sleepy white.

“I’m going to check in on the horses. Make sure they get some good feed.” Cullen took the room key from his pocket and handed it to Dorian. “Second door on the left at the top of the stairs.”

Fighting a shiver, Dorian was all too happy to retreat indoors. He brushed excess snowflakes from his cloak on the porch of the inn before entering, then went upstairs to assess the cleanliness of their sleeping arrangements. He opened the door on a small, tidy room, with a sort of enclosed brazier by the window. There was a trunk, a single chair, and one generously sized bed. He blinked. It hadn’t occurred to him that the configuration would be other than the average inn’s tiny, two-cot mainstay. A few moments later, Cullen entered behind in a puff of cool air, snow on his shoulders.

“Only one bed?” Dorian asked as soon as the door was shut.

Pausing mid-way out of his greatcoat, Cullen took a breath. “Yes.” He shrugged the heavy fabric the rest of the way off and hung it on the back of the door. “The rooms were mostly let, and I’d thought... Should I have asked for two?”

Dorian couldn’t help but frown. “Is it safe for us to be this brazen?”

Cullen’s brows twisted. “Safe...” Then, his face softened. “Dorian, Fereldans have our weak points but we don’t give a damn what goes on between two people behind closed doors. Aside from the average person’s proclivity for gossip.” He stepped forward and gestured for Dorian to hand him his cloak.

Dorian complied. “You say that, but you can’t know what’s in people’s hearts. Tolerance is a far cry from acceptance. Or respect.”

“Surely you’ve heard of Arl Guerrin,” Cullen said, arranging Dorian’s cloak next to his own.

“The name is vaguely familiar.”

“There’s an old keep in the Hinterlands where he put up his lover. Everyone knew of it, and although it might’ve been a bit unorthodox, nobody much cared. Of course, there was a tavern song or two, but almost every Arl gets at least one of those.”

“Ah, but you see? No respect. He had to hide the fellow out of sight in the middle of the damned woods.”

“That may be, but I assume that had more to do with propriety toward his wife than anything else.” Cullen stripped out of another layer of clothing, leaving him in a soft woollen tunic. “Truly, nobody’s taken note of us.”

Dorian sighed. Perhaps they hadn’t, but he knew that was because they’d climbed the stairs separately. Now that he thought on it, the barkeep had given him a particularly long glance when he’d come back in. He brought his thumb to his lips, unconvinced.

“Would you like me to make different arrangements?” Cullen asked. He looked serious, if a bit crestfallen.

“No, no, it’s fine, I...” The experience in the kitchen early that morning nagged at him. He tapped a finger to his lips. “Have you considered that whatever’s between us—this dalliance of ours—is going to change how people think of you?”

For a moment, Cullen simply blinked at him. Then, a wrinkle creased his brow. In the barroom below them, a pan clattered and someone barked a loud cry of surprise. Muffled curses floated up through the floor.

With a shake of the head, Cullen wet his lip. The crease between his brows remained. “Sorry, I... What were you saying?”

Dorian blew out a quick sigh. “I only wonder if we’re being prudent.” He capped the statement with a shrug of one shoulder.

“About our... dalliance . As you call it.” Cullen’s mouth looked reluctant around the chosen word, the old scar-accentuated sneer beginning to form as he said it.

No taking it back now. “Yes.” Downstairs, someone called someone else a Maker-forsaken blunderer, and a dog gave a mournful howl. Dorian frowned. “I hope everyone is alive down there...”

Cullen looked at the floor, though his consideration was obviously not fixed on the antics beneath their feet but rather a distant point somewhere in his own mind. The pinch between his eyebrows turned to vexation. “Why the sudden concern for what people think of me?”

In response, a snappish feeling crept into the muscles of Dorian’s neck, beginning at the shoulder. The last thing either of them needed in this cramped, shared room was his sparked temper, which ignited more easily and burned hotter and crueler than it once had—probably on account of having to ignore a thousand barbs each time he showed his face in a public forum. He took a moment to breathe deeply. “Two of your kitchen staff were having a giggle about us this morning.”

It was enough to give Cullen pause. In a lowered voice, he asked: “You saw them laugh at us?”

“I did, though I think they’re afraid of me. The renowned Dorian Pavus, wicked northern magister, come to blood magic their hopes and dreams away.” He paused to brush fingers over his beard and pull it to a point at the chin. “But, that’s not the issue. The issue is that your people are making a mockery of you because you’ve gotten involved with me. I don’t thrill at the notion.”

He expected anger to cut a harder edge in Cullen’s face. Waited for him to grimace and argue. Instead, his brows eased. His whole stance relaxed, and he put a hand on Dorian’s arm. “They were laughing at us, but not for the reason you think.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“My...solitary nature has been something of a running joke amongst the locals since my arrival. Marchand isn’t the only one who suspected something. Over the years, several families have made no small show of introducing me to their marriageable daughters, and now that you and I are... Well.” He tilted his head. “I’m sure you can see how that might be considered a humorous conclusion to such endeavors.”

Dorian arched a brow. “Ah.” He crossed his arms. How true that assessment was, he couldn’t be sure, but if the explanation satisfied Cullen there was little else to say. “I see.”

“It’s not like the Inquisition,” Cullen insisted, shaking his head. “Rumors can’t be wielded against us, or leveraged for any sort of gain. I have nothing to hide.”

How novel, the concept that one could do as they wished without fear of reprisal. Dorian had trouble believing it that simple. Antony knowing was one thing—the stable master was a gentle, silent sort—but the whole of the house, or any number of strangers at an inn...

“It simply doesn’t strike me as wise,” Dorian told him, which was as plain as he dared phrase it.

Cullen lifted his head and squared his shoulders. “I’ll not perform a farce for the sake of closed-minded fools. I’ve spent enough of my life worrying what others thought of me, and far too much of it being a fool myself. Wise or not, I won’t abide it any longer. Unless,” his face softened to wistfulness, “as I told you this morning...you would prefer it.”

He didn’t, and he did. The reasons were complicated. Nothing he could articulate without reopening old wounds, and he’d surely manage to salt them in the process. “As long as you’ve considered the ramifications.”

Cullen licked at his teeth and stepped up to Dorian, taking loose hold of his hips. “I’m no Arl. And if—if being with you somehow tarnishes my reputation, then it isn’t a reputation I care to have.” He leaned up and pressed the cold tip of his nose to Dorian’s forehead.

If only he could believe that the rest of Ferelden carried Cullen’s convictions, and held honor in the same esteem. A conversation for another day, maybe. With a quick smirk, Dorian retreated to a point he’d allowed Cullen to gloss over. “Now, hang on... You were saying you’ve been inundated with marriageable young women these past few years?”

The remark inspired an immediate eye-roll. “I’d hardly use the word inundated, but it’s happened enough times, yes. All of them lovely, but much too young for an old bastard like me.”

A quick bark of a laugh escaped Dorian before he could stop it. “You’re not serious.”

“I’m perfectly serious.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “They ought to have someone their own age. Nobody ever brings you their maiden sister or aunt, who would almost certainly be more suitable. Besides, I’ve always preferred people who show their experience on their faces. A few lines here or there. I can relate to that.”

“Oh, Cullen. I warn you, you’re treading an unsteady dune at the moment. If you ever want to kiss me again you’d better consider what you’re saying.”

Cullen blinked, then laughed. “Maker’s breath, I’m sorry, I only...” He smiled, very gently, and reached out and wove his fingers into Dorian’s. “I’ll say this. You do have a few lines, but you’re still every bit as beautiful as you always were. We’re getting older, and we’ve been through our share of wars. It’s unfair to let those superficial things cloud our perceptions of a person.”

Dorian frowned. “I feel like I should be angrier, but I suppose that’s the kindest way I’ve ever been told I look old.”

“Not old,” Cullen insisted gruffly. He cupped Dorian’s cheek and ran his thumb over the bone there. Or perhaps it was the mole. “Experienced. At times it hardly has to do with age. We all weather our circumstances, and some weather a bit better than others. With what you’ve endured, you wear your years very well. Unlike me.” Too quick for Dorian to protest, he stole a kiss. “The first time I ever laid eyes on you, I thought you were the handsomest man I’d ever seen,” he said. “That hasn’t changed.”

His eyes were soft and dark, surrounded by crow’s feet. Their hours of riding had tousled his hair and left his cheeks wind-nipped. He had not yet trimmed his beard, and he was looking quite chubby in his woollens, which had been made to fit the smaller-framed man he’d been in years gone by. Dorian leaned up and kissed him, backing them against the stones of the inn wall. He kissed him until they were both gasping, and kept on kissing him afterward.

Chapter Text

He went to his knees for Dorian, in their room at the inn. Some combination of the removal from familiar surroundings and the fresh air of their ride bolstered his nerve, allowing him at last to fall into the current again and give without fear. He took him in his mouth and brought him to his full, as he’d done before, then rested his face against his thighs while he recovered. He only stood when Dorian reached down to pull him up.

“Can we try for you?” Dorian murmured, fingers grazing Cullen’s underbelly.

Part of him wanted to. He wanted to because Dorian so obviously wanted to, eagerness fogging his half-lidded eyes, hazy with afterglow. But he knew it would only be awkward, that he’d get half-hard at best and either go limp or come too quickly. Eventually, he shook his head, and leaned to bury his face in Dorian’s neck.

“Another time,” Dorian hushed, holding him tight.

Later, after they’d calmed down and rested some, they descended back into the barroom. The fire burned hot and high, and the tables were crowded with travelers who’d come in to escape the weather. Cullen had hoped to send two birds before nightfall but the blizzard swirled in the late afternoon, blinding bright and dark at once, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask any creature to brave it. Instead of letting his worry rule him, he allowed Dorian to order them more hot cider and they joined several other patrons at a game of wicked grace.

The card players were a talkative bunch. There was some news from Redcliffe, and a regal, battle-scarred woman told tales of unrest to the south. One of the men spoke ill of the dispersal of the Inquisition’s forces, and complained that they ought to have been given into the hands of Divine Victoria to guard the people of Ferelden and Orlais. Another man laughed and chastised him, commented that the bloody chantry was as bad as any invading force, and he was just as grateful that the Inquisition had disbanded. He directed a meaningful look at Dorian then, and a roguish grin, which Dorian mirrored flawlessly.

Perhaps mages could recognize one another, much in the way Dorian had once told him that southern templars smelled of lyrium. The fellow was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a mage. He had the stark, lean quality of a hungry wolf, and he kept absently touching his mug of cider, which never seemed to stop steaming. The spell was subtle, but Cullen had seen plenty of mages reheat their food and drink over the years. Staring into the bottom of his own cooling cup, he had to admit it would be a convenience.

Part of him hoped his supplier would stagger in from the storm sometime over the course of the evening. If he didn’t, tomorrow would have to be spent searching the countryside for signs of foul play. He didn’t relish the task, nor did he relish the very real potential of finding precisely that. He imagined red blood frozen in the snow, another life forfeit to serve his causes. Although his suspicions could not be confirmed one way or another, he found it difficult to pluck free the burs of guilt and doubt that clung to him, embedded at the edges of his thoughts.

Distracted by those thoughts, he played his cards poorly. In the end, the most important lesson of the night was that he was still terrible at wicked grace. It was Dorian who won the round he lost most abysmally, so he knew he’d get at least a few of his coins back, but it humbled him no less. The other mage at the table had traded chairs earlier when another of the group left, positioning himself at Dorian’s right elbow, and the two of them had been quite merrily slinging flirtatious insults ever since.

Cullen felt dull as a pebble in a wagon rut. “I’d best bow out.” It was well past dark, though not as late as it seemed.

“Oh come, don’t be a sore loser,” Dorian complained, reaching over to grip Cullen’s forearm. He was flush from the cider and the company, eyes bright and intent.

Cullen stood and gave him a clap on the back. “Can’t help what I am. Good evening, everyone.”

He spoke first with the barkeep about a few staples, since he’d not brought much to freshen up with, and secured supplies for both himself and Dorian. Upstairs, he fumbled with the brazier and managed to light it. There was a vent in the top corner of the room that drew the smoke, which he noticed moments after he’d cracked open the uncooperative window. Sighing, he shut it again. There didn’t seem much sense in keeping a lamp burning, as he had no reading material, so he simply took off his boots and lay in bed, watching the red glow of the brazier coals reflect patterns in the window.

As the small hours approached, the door opened and Dorian came in, smelling of rich smoke and whiskey. He stumbled a little in the dark, cussed, and flicked his fingers at the lamp, which suffused the room with dim light. “So,” he started, pulling at one of his boots, staggering slightly, steadying himself on the wall. “Let me paint a clear picture. You left a perfectly companionable card table—where I won us the pot, by the way, you’re welcome—to sulk in a dark room by yourself?”

“I’m not sulking.”

“He’s not sulking.” Dorian scoffed, then clicked his tongue. Tsk-tsk . He began to strip out of his robes, fumbling a bit, then he paused. “We’ve no bloody nightclothes, have we.”

“I’m afraid not.” Cullen had simply stripped down to his smalls and undershirt, and left his socks on.

A snort from Dorian, who continued to undress. “Snowed in, one bed between us, nary a proper nightgown in sight. If I didn’t know you better I’d think this all a very elaborate ruse.”

Cullen laughed and sat up, readying to add some fuel to the brazier. “Is it too late to pass it off as romance?”

“Oh, far too late. Especially since you left me alone at the card table with Étienne of the wandering hands.”

“The mage?”

“So you could tell.” He yanked out of his trousers and folded them in a neat pile. “I wondered if you’d noticed.”

“I did spend two decades with the Order. I’ve seen my share of mages.”

“I’d heard that Kirkwall’s Champion strutted about under your nose for several years.”

“Now that’s hardly fair. I was doing very poorly at the time,” Cullen argued. “Besides, not a man among us could’ve walked Hawke into the Gallows and lived to tell about it.” He adjusted the brazier’s lid. He turned to look at Dorian when no reply came, and saw him standing nude from the waist down. His fingers brushed the front of his undershirt, tracing the line of the scar beneath it.

“Ah...” Cullen reached for his own stacked clothing, and patted one of his tunics. “If you’d like, you could sleep in this,” he offered. “It’s soft, and would be loose on you.”

For a moment, Dorian seemed to consider it. “Thank you, but it’s all right.”

“I won’t look, then,” Cullen said, facing away as he retreated to his spot on the bed. He sat down, and Dorian appeared in front of him.

“I... I think I want you to see me,” he said. “Please.”

He was drunk. Étienne of the wandering hands might’ve also shared his smoking material, if the pungent hint in the room was any indication. “Now may not be the best time,” Cullen said softly.

“No.” Dorian took hold of his head, forcing him to look at him. “Now is the perfect time.” Without further hesitation, he lifted the hem of his shirt, pulled the fabric up and off, and let it fall to the floor. His exposed torso was narrow on either side of the scar, the pounding of his heartbeat near visible below his prominent ribs.

Slowly, Cullen rose to his feet. He moved in and pressed close, holding him. “You’ve healed well,” he whispered.

Dorian’s fingers curled about his flanks, curved down to grasp the backs of his thighs. “I’d call you a liar, but I know you believe every word.” He took a deep breath and nosed Cullen’s throat. “I...wanted to ask you... There’s a spell that could help with your little problem,” he said, glancing down between them.

“Little?” Cullen croaked, heartbroken.

Dorian let out a laugh, a real laugh, not a cruel one. “Alright, fair point. Not so little. Quite big, actually. I had always wondered about you.”

“You saw me naked. The wicked grace game. Or had you forgotten?”

“Oh, never, that was wholly unforgettable. It’s only that I make a point not to judge a man when I’ve only seen him nude and sprinting. Even a staunch admirer like myself must allow that physics are not kind to the male form under such circumstances.”

Cullen snorted and started laughing, grunted when Dorian squeezed his ass. “How—mm—gracious of you...”

“My generosity is legendary. But... The spell. If you’re willing, I’d like to try it.”

“T...tonight?”

“Only if you want to. And we can stop, if it’s too much.”

His mind insisted immediately that it would be. Too much, too uncomfortable. He had his doubts that anything further could be done. A year and a half or so back, he’d summoned the courage to ask Rho about the issue, in general terms rather than anything specific to his own situation, and Rho had explained that it was common enough and Cullen had thought that was the end of it. Later that afternoon he’d found a small vial on his desk, with a folded note beneath it: written instructions to take two drops nightly in water or milk until the potion was gone. At first he’d been embarrassed, and he’d shuffled the vial into a drawer to be forgotten, but as the weeks went by, curiosity overcame humiliation. In the end, he’d taken it. The difference overall had been minor, but at least he could occasionally coax himself to half-mast these days. Whatever Dorian offered likely wouldn’t provide more than a similarly minimal boost, but...

“I’m sorry,” Dorian murmured against his skin. “I’m pushing. We can—

“Do it,” Cullen said.

Dorian moved to look into his face. “Are you sure?”

He licked his lips, nodded. Awkward or not, he did want this. Digging deep in his chest, he never hit on the sore point that told him something was wrong. Instead, he found another kind of ache, one that calmed the wheeling anxiousness in his skull.

Slowly, they climbed between clean sheets. Dorian sniffed, a bit grumpily, and tugged at Cullen’s underthings. “Off with these,” he said, and between the two of them they wrestled him out of his clothes. Then, he settled in at Cullen’s side. “Let me ask you—is there somewhere that you like to be touched? Nothing sensual, necessarily, just...a spot that feels pleasant.”

That was easy, at least. He guided Dorian’s hand to his stomach, which he felt was intimate, but not invasive.

Dorian huffed a quiet laugh next to his ear. “I should’ve known. You’re such a puppy. But, I want you to...fix this feeling in your mind,” he urged, rubbing his palm back and forth. “Hold on to it.” Cullen felt his hand slide lower, stopping just above the rough thatch of hair at his root. “I do have to touch you, to cast. It may feel a little strange.”

With a shaky breath, he nodded, and Dorian slid his hand down and gently took hold of Cullen’s soft cock. He drew his leg up a bit, reflexively, and sucked in a quick breath, his hand digging into Dorian’s side.

“If you say stop,” Dorian murmured. “I’ll stop.”

“It’s fine.” He tried to focus on the warmth in his belly, like he’d been told. Dorian shifted his hold, gripping him overhanded as he pressed a thumb into the seam between hip socket and thigh, seeking the vein. Cullen had found his pulse there more than once when he was younger, handling himself quietly and efficiently under the covers in the dorms.

Dorian’s fingers shifted, down to the stretch of skin behind his balls. “I’m going to press here,” he said. And he did, slow but firm, and Cullen took a sharp inhale.

It felt...odd. Not painful, maybe pleasurable in a sense. He couldn’t quite decide.

“Easy,” Dorian said. “Relax.”

Back to focusing elsewhere. Calm, deep breaths. The oddness gave way to a sort of pleasure, and he sighed, tensing his legs. Dorian’s grip moved again, this time back to his base, where he squeezed and began to work him toward hardness. After a few moments, he’d thickened to where it usually failed him. Most of the time he gave up after a few minutes with no measurable results, and he grit his teeth, certain he’d have to apologize and ask that they stop.

Except that he was still getting harder. Slowly, and nothing like it might’ve been at healthy twenty, but in a minute he was stiff in Dorian’s fist.

It was a familiar pressure, but it had been a long time since he’d felt it. A brush of Dorian’s thumb across his tip made him suck air through his teeth.

“Too sensitive?” Dorian murmured.

“A bit...”

“Here,” he said, letting go. “Show me how you like it.”

The room felt hotter than it was. Cullen curled his own hand around his dick. His throat was dry and he swallowed, gripping his heft close to his front the same way he used to on nights when mouthing the chant, over and over in silence, wasn’t enough to settle him. The needs of the flesh could only be subjugated by prayer for so long before they roared through the body in a rush of all-encompassing desperation.

How did he like it... He could barely remember. He lifted his hips to readjust, gripped himself tightly. Moisture would help, but he had no slick, save what beaded at his tip. Carefully, he rubbed it onto his fingers, smoothed it down the shaft. This was...awkward. His cheek flinched, and he faltered.

Dorian’s hand went back to his stomach. “Don’t think too much,” he murmured in Cullen’s ear. “Keep going.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to lower his awareness into his body, to better ignore the clamoring in his head. Don’t think. Focus into the physicality with arrow-sharp determination.

The weight of Dorian beside him, the heat of his bare flesh, the rough rise of his scar when Cullen brushed it with his knuckles. Dorian was hard too, slight twitches of a hip nudging his stiff length against Cullen’s thigh. His breathing had gone shallow, and his hair fell loose across his collar bones. Cullen wanted him, desperately, but couldn’t begin to say what that meant. In the moment, he craned his neck and first caught the bristles of his beard, then his lips, kissed him and hummed a soft noise into his mouth. His free hand grazed all the way along Dorian’s abdomen, down to brush over the head of his dick.

“Mm,” Dorian twitched into the touch, and Cullen huffed. He turned his wrist for a better grip and Dorian moaned, but it sounded half pained. “Stop that,” he said, smiling, and with obvious reluctance he pried Cullen’s hand loose. “Worry about you .”

With a grunt, Cullen frowned, but he obeyed. Dorian’s erection settled against his leg and he tensed, felt another surge of need flood his nerves. Working faster, a groan caught in his throat.

“Yes,” Dorian breathed. “Yes, like that...” He writhed and pressed his weight down, pinning his dick against Cullen’s thigh.

As Cullen sped up, Dorian hummed another sound, deep in his chest, and it left Cullen gasping, thrusting into his own grip. He arched his back into the mounting tension, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and sent himself cascading over the edge. He came in his own palm, his face pressed into the side of Dorian’s neck as he panted. Above him, Dorian murmured softly, though he could not parse the words. He fumbled his free hand back to the throb of Dorian’s still hard cock, and Dorian eased closer and let him touch. He rocked his hips, slow first, and then steadily faster. Eventually, he covered Cullen’s hand with his own to tighten the hold and quickly worked himself to finish. His hips continued a lazy roll afterward as he softened.

For a few minutes, Cullen couldn’t bring himself to speak.

Tension evaporated from him, leaving the muscles of his abdomen lax as warmth concentrated in the triangle of his pelvis, rooting him to the mattress. The promise of sleep moved through him in time with his beating heart, like wrapping up in a thick blanket after a cold day’s labour. On top of him, Dorian nosed the side of his skull and stroked the outer curve of his stomach, his whole body radiating comfort. They were both heated by their efforts, and doubly warmed everywhere their bare skin touched.

Eventually, they stirred enough to give themselves a cursory clean up, then resettled, tangled together under the down comforter. The warmth they’d created stayed, especially in the space below Cullen’s belly, and he resisted the pull of sleep for a long time simply to lie basking in the presence of Dorian, curled and quiet against him. He’d seen the scar now, and touched it, and Dorian had seen and touched him in turn. Obviously he was no healer—none existed that could right such a grievous wrong—but he hoped that his touch might provide some small grace to a man he cared for, deeply, even if his affection had gone unspoken all their long years apart.

Sometimes, in a fit of melancholy, he wondered if it would have mattered if he’d said something sooner. If, somehow, he’d found the courage to pry his yearning from his chest and form it into words, spoken them before The Bull had worked his considerable charms. He’d had time, and opportunity, many an afternoon spent over the chessboard in light flirtation, but he’d been a coward, and he’d been too late.

Before he could pursue the thought further, his eyelids drooped shut. They didn’t open again until the faint gray glow of morning shone through the window.

The smell of bacon fat and oatmeal wafted up between the floorboards. Beside him, Dorian slept soundly. Their shared body heat had kept the bed comfortable through the night.

Not so the air in the room, Cullen realized with a hiss as he readied to sit up. He paused for only a moment before he burrowed back under the covers and around Dorian, waking him in the process.

“Nn... What is it?”

“Cold, that’s what,” Cullen muttered. The brazier must’ve gone out in the small hours. “Also morning.”

A harumph, stifled by the pillow. “Too early.”

On any other day, he would’ve teased him over such declaration, but he’d grown used to the benefit of a fireplace to thwart the chill, embers still aglow come sunrise. A far cry from his days with the Inquisition, when he’d slept with half the elements blowing in through the roof and had, perversely, preferred it that way. Or had at least been convinced he deserved it, at the time.

They weren’t in any real hurry, Cullen decided. He stroked a hand down Dorian’s front and pulled him in close, nestling into his back. For a time, they drifted, listening to the clanking of pans below, smelling the good stewing smells of meat and vegetables, the sweet bready waft of pancakes. Their stomachs gurgled almost in unison.

With a snort, Dorian glanced over his shoulder. “Breakfast?” he asked.

“Breakfast,” Cullen agreed.

They dressed, shivering until they got the first couple layers on, and descended to the common room to eat. They were served heaping plates of homey food, accompanied by a whole loaf of fresh bread. When they’d finished, Cullen asked the barkeep if anyone had arrived in the night.

The fellow gave him a look. “What sort of anyone?”

“Man by the name of Tierney. About my height, half my years, brown hair, green eyes.”

With a squint, the barkeep seemed to consider a moment. “Don’t think it’s him, but...one fellow did come in well after dark.” He stepped out from behind the bar and gestured for them to follow. He led the way through a narrow hall to a room adjacent the kitchen, where next to a well-stoked wood stove a half-sleeping figure huddled in a wool blanket. The man’s face was purple with bruises, one thick split angrily dividing his lip. He was nobody that Cullen recognized.

“Roads have been troubled, of late,” the barkeep said. “We’re still waiting on the healer. She’s snowed in, five miles out.”

“Ah.”

“I’ve just the thing,” Dorian offered. He moved into the room with self-possession. The beaten man startled awake, blinking a few times, his right eye sticky in the center of the bruise.

“Forgive the intrusion,” Dorian said to him, hands extended in a placating gesture. “I know a healing spell or two, if you’ll allow it?”

The man grimaced, but nodded, and Dorian dragged a wooden stool across the floor to settle in front of him. Cullen watched as he cast with practiced composure, and the fellow’s initial distaste mellowed into something akin to relief. After a few minutes, his lip was knit, and his bruises paler. Dorian leaned back, magic fading from his hands.

“There,” he said. “Now,” he pulled a tightly rolled cigarette from a pocket and held it out. “Not to callously benefit from your suffering,” he continued, “but as a fellow traveler, I’m wondering if there’s a stretch of road I might be wise to avoid?”

A tremor in the man’s hand nearly sent the cigarette to the floor when he reached to accept it. Recovering himself, he clutched it lightly in a closed fist. “Two miles south, or thereabouts. Near the creek. Saw firelight and thought I might beg a few minutes warmth out of the blizzard...”

“Hm. I take it your face reflects the brand of hospitality you encountered?”

He sniffed, and nodded. “Convinced I’d come to rob them, sons of bastards. Must have something worth having.”

“Bandits, as a rule, not the most generous hosts.” Dorian pointed to the cigarette. “Smoke that at your earliest convenience. It’ll numb the pain.” He rose, set the stool back where he’d found it, and walked out of the room with Cullen at his heels. Once they were beyond earshot of the barkeep and the scattering of early patrons, Dorian leaned close; “I assume we’re off to investigate?”

“Correct. You needn’t accompany me, if you’d rather remain here.”

Dorian laughed. “No, I’m coming. Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m sure you’re still deadly in a brawl, but you’ve left your equipment at home and I’m doubtful that armor of yours would fit how it once did, commander.”

The observation was accurate, but the remark grated. Firmed to his full height, he replied, “While that may be true, I’ll have you know I’m stronger than I ever was during the Inquisition.” He turned his back to hide the ruddy bloom of frustration on his cheeks and marched straight up the stairs to retrieve his greatcoat. He might’ve gained weight, but it did not hamper him. Drills honed muscle, but only if you were properly fed and rested to benefit. He’d been neither of those things for the better part of his thirties, due to either illness or circumstance, and although he’d always toughed it out through sheer determination, now he had reserves. You didn’t forget the forms the moment you laid down your weapon, and the labour he did on the farm was heavy work. He wasn’t as soft as he looked.

Most of the buttons on Cullen’s coat were done up when Dorian entered the room. He stood in front of the door, one arm folded over his abdomen and his other bent at the elbow, fingers pressed to his lips. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “I should’ve said I’d never pass up the opportunity for a good fight, which is what I meant.”

Cullen said nothing.

Sighing, Dorian walked up to him and yanked the collar of his coat straight, dusting off the epaulettes. “I apologize, all right?” He stepped aside and fetched his own sweater and cloak, shouldering into both. “Now, let’s go see what these sons of bastards thought that poor fellow wanted to steal from them.” He disappeared out the door without waiting for a reply.

In the stable, they saddled the horses. They stopped at the smithy, where the fires were already lit and burning hot, and Cullen laid down a bundle of gold for a long blade, praying he’d have no need of it. If they did end up in a real fight, the short sword he kept tied to his saddle would be of little use. The snow was thick on the roads and the going was slow, though at least it wasn’t icy. Cullen rode ahead, his mount cutting a path for the much older Barley. By that method, they managed a steady pace, and spoke little.

“Are you ready to tell me what this is all about?” Dorian finally called as they followed the road where it wound under a sparse patch of woods.

Probably would be best if he knew, since the situation looked to have taken an inauspicious turn. “It’s—

Loud shouting, splashes off in the distance. He glanced over his shoulder at Dorian, who, wide-eyed, gave a nod. They tapped their heels into the horses, urging them on as fast as they could safely go.

The wood opened out on a creek. Five men in ragged leathers milled about the bank, and a sixth one lay on his side in the half-frozen water. “Maker’s breath,” Cullen growled. He would’ve ridden straight into the group and encouraged Summer to rear high, kicking and screaming—she was no war horse, though she was imposing enough that such a display might cause significant alarm—but unfortunately the deep drifts of fresh snow made any such endeavors impossible. Instead, he dismounted and leapt down to the riverbank, sword heavy at his hip.

One of the bandits drew a blade. Another smirked. “Come to rescue your friend?” He jerked his head toward the man in the creek. Blood streamed downriver.

“I’ve come for what’s mine,” Cullen answered, in the resonant tones of a man who, not long ago, had commanded an army. The words filled the ears of all the men on the shore, and their expressions drained of amusement.

“And so have I,” Dorian said, suddenly beside him, a certain spark of levity in his voice to match the lightning that crackled around his forearms.

Then, as it always went, everything happened at once.

Chapter Text

Two men fled, sprinting into the scrub trees. Three others charged to engage them. Dorian whirled and wove the surrounding veil, flinging his barrier outward to encompass Cullen, then called forth a storm. Lightning branched in a blinding flash, striking one man dead and stunning a second. The third carried forward unscathed and in a fierce whirl he swung his blade only for it to clip the edge of Cullen’s longsword with a sloppy clang. Seizing the moment, Cullen threw his weight, slamming his right shoulder and arm across his opponent’s chest. The grapple sent the man sprawling hard to his back. Winded, he lay prone on the icy shore a fraction of a second too long. Cullen could’ve tidily removed the fellow’s sword hand at the wrist in a single stroke, but instead he knocked the blade aside with a sweep and brought the full force of his heel down on his ribs. Bones crunched. The anguished cry that followed was muted by the snow heaping the banks.

The lightning-stunned bandit came back to himself, fury twisting his face. He lunged at Cullen, daggers drawn, and Dorian buffed their barriers in the same moment Cullen heaved his sword wide, clashing against the knife in the bandit’s right hand. Instantly, Cullen rebalanced his form, brought the sword up and cut down, nicking the man’s other wrist, and as the bandit moved to lunge again, Cullen drew back and thrust his weapon straight out, stopping the attack cold. The clash had begun and ended in less than three seconds. Dorian watched death emerge as if from within; a living man had wielded the dagger, but a corpse slumped off Cullen’s blade to the ground.

The bandit with the shattered ribs rose and staggered several feet, opting to attempt escape. As Dorian mustered to cast another spell, an arrow broke against the frozen earth next to his boot. One of the two who’d bolted now fired on them from across the creek, bowstring mid-draw, ready to launch a second volley. Dorian willed his strength into his hands, fixed an ancient sigil in his mind’s eye. A spirit rose up on the opposite shore, smashing the archer against a sturdy birch. Task complete, it turned its menacing focus to the man clutching his ribs as he ran, gathering its tendrils of mingled shadow and light for pursuit, but Cullen held a hand out and shook his head. Dorian muttered a word and the spirit lost purpose, drifted slow over icy waters to hover near the facedown shape that lay there, partially submerged.

Silence descended. The spirit evaporated. Blood stains marred the cold white stretch of riverbank. Cullen used a handful of snow to clean his sword, sheathed it, then made his way to the body in the creek. He waded into the current’s rush, wincing, his footing uneven, and hauled the man out of the water, setting him on the frozen stones of the shore. Two fingers pressed under a blue-tinged jaw, seeking a pulse. He leaned forward, bringing an ear close to his mouth.

He knelt back on his haunches and let his head hang. “Damn!”

Too late, then. Dorian walked over and reached down to see if there was anything he could do, but the poor soul had been dead and gone several minutes. By the look of his extremities, he’d been left to suffer the cold most of the night. The wound on his head cut deep underneath his sodden hair, blood seeping where his skull had cracked. If the impact hadn’t killed him, he’d died shortly after.

“Your supplier?”

Grim, Cullen rose to his full height. He nodded. Turning on his heel he marched into the encampment. Dorian glanced around, aware that the surviving bandits, while cowed, might still be nearby, and climbed the bank to fetch the horses lest they be stolen or get it in their heads to leave for home on their own.

Rustling sounds and a loud clank echoed to him from the encampment, along with a choice selection of cussing. Horses secured close at hand, he descended toward the largest tent. “Are you wrestling for your very survival in here?” he asked as he entered.

Cullen crouched with his back to the door, a wooden case in front of him. He closed it the instant Dorian spoke, but open or shut, there was no disguising that smell. With a great heave of his shoulders, Cullen stood, box in hands. He faced Dorian and held it out to him. “This is why we’re here,” he said. “What they killed him for.”

He knew without opening it what it contained. Still, Cullen gestured for him to take it and look, so he did.

Lyrium. Five long rows of small, processed draughts glinted in delicate glass vials. They sang in the faint way lyrium always did. His stomach fell. “You’re not still...?”

“Of course I’m not!” Glowering, Cullen ran his fingers through his hair. By the twitch in his cheek, Dorian could tell he’d begun chewing at the inside corner of his lip. He paced five steps away, and five back. “I’m clear of it,” he insisted, in a tone that suggested he had to convince himself as much as Dorian. “I don’t crave it any longer.”

Dorian put a hand on Cullen’s arm. He believed him, as much as he seemed to believe himself. “This is for the others, then. While they taper off?”

“Yes.” Cullen licked at his teeth and turned his gaze to the ground. “We keep a small amount on hand, for those going off, or—or in case someone needs to go back on,” he explained in a low tone. “Rho keeps it under lock and key.”

“Wise, but I’m curious as to why you’re the one running this particular errand. Why not a mage, or someone who feels no temptation?”

Cullen looked as though he’d been struck a blow, but it was momentary. His face hardened into a sharp scowl, and he grabbed the case back, snapping it shut and locking it. “It’s my burden to bear,” he snarled as he stalked out of the tent.

A heavy one it was, too, judging by the furrows in Cullen’s brow. Dorian watched him fit the box into one of his saddle bags and secure it with an extra fastener.

Recovering from addiction only to maintain a store of your old poison for others to use could hardly be called ideal circumstances, but then again, when did life ever provide such luxury? Cullen had come far in spite of setbacks, either his own decisions or those imposed on him. Certainly, there were those who protested forgiving him his errors—namely himself—but he aspired to be a better man and he didn’t deserve to be consistently reminded of his own past failings.

Dorian approached Barley, ready to depart. He mounted and looked down at Cullen, who stood with one hand on Summer’s saddle, tension stiffening his whole posture. “Your burden it may be,” Dorian said, “but there’s no reason for you to bear it alone.”

“No,” was all that came in reply. Whether that indicated agreement or blunt refusal to concede the point, Dorian couldn’t say. Cullen mounted Summer and directed her toward the road. “We passed by a chantry about a mile back. They’ll have means to collect the body.”

So they left, riding the way they’d come until they forged down a snowy path to knock on the chantry doors. “There’s a young man lying dead at the creek bend, next to the water. Murdered by bandits,” Cullen told them. “His name’s Jonathan Tierney. He’ll be needing a pyre.”

“So will three unfortunate ruffians, if we’re counting,” Dorian added.

The chantry sisters looked undaunted by the information, as if strange men regularly came calling with news of fresh death. Cullen gave generously from his bag of coin, a sufficient amount, Dorian recognized, to quietly imply that the bandits be given their rites also, and the Revered Mother nodded. The group of women promised to set out and see to the situation as soon as they dressed to do so. They bid them safe journey, and with a final may the Maker’s blessing be upon you , closed the doors again.

“Did you know him well?” Dorian asked as they rode away.

“Well enough.”

Cullen shivered in the saddle, and Dorian felt his stomach sink: the fool had walked straight into the creek, past his knees. “Shit, Cullen, you’re soaked to the skin!”

“I’ll survive. Nothing for it.”

“Indeed, nothing for frost-rot save the bonesaw!” he cheerily agreed. “Seven hells, get off that horse and let me bloody well help you.”

Summer took a few more steps, and then came to a halt. Cullen, stiffly, lowered himself to the ground, so Dorian dismounted and knelt in front of him. Gloves off, he warmed the fabric of the trousers, then the leather of the boots. The moisture evaporated, steaming on the cold air. Then, he warmed the flesh, faster than would be entirely comfortable, and Cullen bit in a breath and grimaced.

Dorian stood and brushed his hands together. “Stings, doesn’t it,” he said. “Marginally tidier than gangrene, though. Save some poor healer the trouble of taking all your toes.” He hoisted himself into the saddle, and waited.

Stamping his newly reawakened and no doubt sore feet, Cullen snorted out a puff of air. He mounted, and they rode back to the inn with the silence of new snow on all sides. It was a puzzle, how one person could be so staunch and so Maker-damned foolhardy in practically the same breath. Knowing Cullen—and Dorian did know him—he definitely believed any suffering begotten by letting his legs turn to ice was penance, a logical, divine-willed outcome for his part, however indirect, in the young supplier’s death. Dorian understood, but senseless death was an old friend to him, to both of them. To take it personally? Well, that was a slow death of another kind. Cullen’s shoulders sagged above Summer’s proud head in the gray afternoon, and he spoke not at all the whole ride. They left the horses at the inn’s stables and made their way indoors.

“I’m famished,” Dorian said. Casting always left him with an appetite. “Shall I order us something?”

“You eat,” Cullen told him. Without another word he disappeared upstairs, precious cargo tucked under one arm.

Rude, even if his reasons for being short tempered were understandable. But if he was determined to punish himself then Dorian would not intervene beyond sparing him potential lost limbs. He let Cullen go and approached the bar, inquiring after a hot drink as well as the man he’d healed that morning. The barkeep served him freshly mulled wine while he told him that the injured fellow had left in the safety of a larger group early in the afternoon. Pleased to hear it, Dorian asked next about a meal, and was informed nothing substantial would be ready for another hour but that he was welcome to a plate of various and sundry. He accepted the offer and withdrew to the fireside, where a serving lad brought him a wooden board containing a hunk of rye bread, dried apple, a few nuts, and a generous wodge of a hard sort of Ferelden cheese which, he remembered very well, tasted of both nothing and barnyard at once. He grimaced, and bit into an apple slice.

He took to harder drink, shortly after that, and made himself affable and bright when he noticed Étienne and the older mercenary woman—Minerva? Yes, that was it—come through the door at dusk. Handsy Étienne may have been, but he was also good-looking and an intelligent conversationalist, and his friend had a great many scars thus a great many stories. They and several others set up a card game, pausing only for dinner, playing until the barkeep began to wipe down and straighten the empty tables around them with all the subtlety of a bear rampaging through the Hinterlands.

They finished their hand, he collected his share of the winnings, and Étienne gestured for him to follow out onto the inn’s porch for a last smoke of the evening. Dorian inhaled deeply from the lit pipe, letting the smoke billow gradually out of his lungs into the crisp night air. Moonlight scattered across the snow, a thousand crystals shimmering with every movement of his head. It was bitterly cold, but he was full of good food and drink, and it didn’t occur to him to complain.

“Come up to my room with me?” Étienne suggested when Dorian passed him back his pipe.

Dorian chuckled, not unflattered. “I don’t think my...” What was Cullen to him, exactly? “ Friend upstairs would appreciate that very much.”

Étienne grinned his wolf’s grin. “So, we both go to your friend’s room, then.” He pulled in another breath of smoke, held it while he held Dorian’s gaze.

A nowhere inn along a lesser offshoot of the King’s Road near the Fereldan Bannorn was about the last place he expected to be propositioned for a threesome, and he found himself speechless. The rarity of that was not lost on him, and he laughed again, making sure to sound wistful. “I’m sorry to say he wouldn’t appreciate that, either.”

“Huh. Maybe you need a new friend,” Étienne murmured, exhaling, still smiling.

Dorian couldn’t offer good humor in turn. The corner of his lip twitched, and he looked away.

“You love him, then?” came the quiet question in his ear.

His lungs contracted, forcing all the air out of him in one sharp exhale. He lowered his head, tried to smile, knew he only looked sad. “I don’t want to hurt him,” he replied. With one hand, he reached for the pipe, which Étienne gave freely. After a long inward draw, he stared out across the road, wondering what had become of the bodies on the riverbank. Hopefully the sisters had seen to the poor souls before the birds got after them too badly. As he held his breath, he knew it was time to go check on the living body upstairs. With a sigh, smoke and condensation billowing in the dark, he handed the pipe back and grinned, as apologetic and flirtatious as he could muster. “Can’t say the offer doesn’t tempt,” he admitted, fingers pressing to the small of Étienne’s slender back.

Étienne gave an exaggerated half-bow. “It stands.”

Twenty years ago, there would’ve been no question. A narrow bed with this narrow stranger, greedy bruises climbing the tendon below an angular, blue-stubbled jaw, bodies stripped buck naked but sweat-warm with exertion. Rough, hard fucking. Easing one ache with another, left raw by sunrise.

“Goodnight,” Dorian said, kindly but firmly.

Although the fire still burned low in the barroom hearth, none of the inn’s staff were anywhere to be seen. He crept toward the kitchen where he found two of the cooks sipping ale from ceramic mugs. “Ser?” one of them inquired.

“Sorry to intrude. I’d hoped for some bread and a little meat, if you’ve got it. Perhaps a pickle? I’d be much obliged.”

They fixed him a plate consisting of leftover buns, that same hard cheese, some cured pork, and a heap of fermented cabbage on the side. He thanked them and apologized for the disturbance, left a coin on the countertop, and withdrew to climb the stairs.

The door was unlatched, and the room dark. As his eyes adjusted, moonlight traced a contour around Cullen’s thick shoulders where he sat on the trunk at the end of the bed, facing the cold brazier. On the floor at his feet lay the box of lyrium, open.

“Here,” Dorian held out the plate of food. “You’ll feel better.”

No reaction. Silence thick as fallen snow, so quiet the settling of dust would’ve resonated. Cullen pulled in a long suck of air, as if he’d been forgetting to breathe. He accepted the plate, murmuring a thank you.

Dorian lit the small table lamp and picked up the sack of fuel for the brazier. He refilled it and set it alight, unsure if it had gone out or if Cullen simply hadn’t bothered with it all afternoon. Lightly, he closed the lid of the lyrium box before pushing it underneath the sideboard. None of the vials were missing or drained, though he frowned at his own subconscious need to register that detail. Behind him, Cullen gnawed on the makeshift sandwich, so Dorian left him to his meal and made his way down the hall to the shared washroom to perform his evening ablutions—abbreviated, since he’d none of his small comforts with him, no fine cleansing soaps or moisturizers. When he returned to the room, Cullen was downing the last bites of what was on his plate.

“Did you sleep awhile?” Dorian asked him.

First, he shook his head, then he stilled. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“We did what we could. There’s more illicit demand for lyrium than there are villains looking to turn a profit, these days. I’m sure your man knew the risks.”

“He knew.” He rubbed at the back of his neck and moved away from the heat the brazier had begun to radiate. “But he didn’t deserve to die.”

Dorian could think of no answer. The lives he’d taken troubled him some nights, when he fell to considering all the times he’d watched the light drain from someone’s eyes. Conversely, he was equally troubled by the idea that if he’d failed to act during any of those countless skirmishes, he, or someone he loved, could’ve been the body consigned to the funeral pyre. Once, he nearly had been.

Wordless, he began to strip out of his layers. His clothes were two days dirty now and he didn’t relish that he’d have to put them on again come morning, or any of the sensations that would bring. The room was too cold for nudity save directly in front of the brazier, so he stripped out of all but his undershirt and that’s where he stood, warming his backside. That same thick silence washed over them, swirling like an encroaching tide wetting pebbles on a beach. Unlike a tide, it brought no promise of renewal. A flood then, rather than the ocean’s rhythm, water flowing where it was not meant to run. He remembered clouds of red streaming down the creek.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t save him,” he said.

Cullen nodded, chewing his lip. “Me, too.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

Snorting, Cullen turned his head away. “Every person who dies carrying out my orders,” he stabbed square fingertips into his own sternum, “every single person who dies serving my means, I take responsibility,” he insisted. “It’s my fault.”

“It’s not,” Dorian insisted right back.

In a huff, Cullen stood up, then hunkered down on the opposite end of the trunk, his back to Dorian. He lowered his face into his hands. “Just go to sleep,” he whispered.

There was no way he’d be able to sleep knowing that Cullen sat at the foot of the bed grieving. Time to try a different tack, perhaps.

“Étienne of the wandering hands wants to bed both of us.”

“Maker’s balls,” Cullen growled. “I don’t want to hear that right now.”

“Are you going to sit on that trunk all night?”

“Maybe I am. Please, Dorian, leave me be.”

“No.”

“I swear to you—

“What? You swear what? You can self-flagellate and suffer all you damn well like as soon as we’re no longer sharing quarters, but I refuse to allow it in my presence.” Leaving the safe glow of the fire, he moved to Cullen’s side, and saw that his lip was curled into a grimace. Tears shone in the corner of his eye. He stilled, the quarrel knocked clean out of him. “...Oh, my darling,” Dorian said, leaning to put an arm over his back.

Cullen writhed away from the touch. “Don’t.” He looked too small, collapsing in on himself.

“Hush,” Dorian murmured, “hush.” He waited a few moments, then brushed fingers along Cullen’s back, slowly, and when he didn’t flinch, he lowered his arm into place. “You do everything you can to prepare your soldiers, but you of all people know that you cannot keep them alive. Neither on nor off the battlefield. No one man deserves that burden.”

“Fuck’s sake, I know that!” Cullen snapped, though his voice broke on the last word. “I know, but I...” His face sunk back into his hands, and he wept.

Dorian tucked his shirttails under his rear and sat down behind Cullen, arms slung about his thick middle. “By all means, mourn him,” he whispered. “Maker knows I’m not one who easily moves forward.”

For a while, Cullen cried, silently, his body tense beneath Dorian’s hands. Then, he breathed several deep, slow breaths, and sat up straighter. “We’d best leave first thing tomorrow,” he said, his voice still clogged. “I forgot to send a bird. They’ll be wondering what became of us.”

Dorian rubbed his beard against the meat of Cullen’s shoulder. “Then we ought to get some sleep.”

They both finished stripping, and crawled between the sheets at the same time to mitigate the chill. Dorian twined himself close to Cullen as much to thieve body heat as to comfort him, though he did also comfort him, as best he was able. He stroked his hair and ruffled his beard, and in his half sleep he began to sing an old, old lullaby in Tevene, humming wherever the words were blanks in his head.

At first light, Cullen woke him. They dressed, ate a quick breakfast of eggs and smashed potatoes, squared their tab, and set out.

Snow fell, sticking in Dorian’s eyelashes while they journeyed through the gray light of a deep winter’s day. Progress was slow, and he found himself wishing for the boisterous company of Birdie or Fuller. Around midday the horses caught on that they were headed home and seemed to brighten, old Barley’s ears perked high as they crunched their way over the landscape.

They rode down the driveway in the late afternoon, straight to the barn, where Antony looked up with mingled relief, concern, and curiosity. Too polite to inquire about what might’ve befallen them, he simply welcomed them back and offered to see to the beasts.

“Thank you,” Cullen said, and turned to retrieve the lyrium from his saddle bag. Seconds later he was forced to set it on the barn floor because four of his six dogs stampeded the length of the building and swarmed him, jumping, wagging their whole hind ends, nosing his hands and knees and shins and every other available extremity. Dorian remained atop Barley, waiting for the rush to die down. When it did, he dismounted. Birdie and Bear came to him, greeting him with softer but still present enthusiasm. Fuller came third, trying very hard to lick his entire face, which he was forced to prevent out of propriety even if he appreciated the sentiment. Lastly, Amrita acknowledged him, too, though her hello was more reserved. She didn’t sleep in Cullen’s chambers so he hadn’t seen as much of her as the others.

Laurel was still sequestered with the pups, and Cullen went in to greet her.

“Did the weather delay you?” Antony asked Dorian in a low voice as he approached.

“Among other things,” he replied. “How are the babies?”

With a smile, Antony said, “I think they’ll be opening their eyes soon. They’re all—

Cullen stepped out of the whelping room, wobbled, and caught himself with a hand on the doorframe, interrupting their conversation.

“Ser?” Antony inquired.

“I’m all right, just...finding my footing after a long ride.” He walked another ten feet and stumbled against a stall door. For a few moments he looked as though he might right himself and carry on, but instead he lowered slowly to the hay-strewn ground and sat, snowflakes melting rapidly in his hair.

Dorian hurried over, crouching next to him to plant a palm on his forehead. Fever heat seared through flush skin. “Oh, shit,” he hissed.

“Perhaps I... Perhaps I’m not well,” Cullen muttered, taking hold of Dorian’s knee.

“How observant of you.” Gesturing to Antony, Dorian got a shoulder under Cullen’s arm and, with great effort, hauled him to his feet. Antony darted under the other side, and together they began to make their way up to the house.

“This is ridiculous,” Cullen complained halfway there, trying to slither away from them. They held fast.

“Walk,” Dorian commanded, lowering the timbre of his voice. As intended, the depth and force struck deep in Cullen, a bell rung following a long silence, and like any good soldier he obeyed. Only a few more steps, a flight of stairs, and they’d have him to his chambers.

Several people emerged from the house’s front doors to greet them, the group’s questions coalescing into a concerned cloud of noise. Fortunately, Rho’s face was among them. Dorian locked eyes with the healer.

“Your delivery is in the barn,” he said, realizing they’d left the wooden box sitting in the middle of the floor. It was nondescript enough that most would pass it by without a thought, but tempting fate rarely resulted in bland happy endings. “This isn’t urgent yet, I don’t think. He’s got a fever.”

With a nod, Rho ducked past them. “I’ll be right in.”

With Antony’s help, they led Cullen to his chambers. “Tell him not to worry about the pups, ser,” Antony said. “I can manage.”

“Maker, I can still hear, you know,” Cullen groused. Of course a moment of lucidity would be tied to the wellbeing of the pups.

“Thank you, dear Antony,” Dorian said to him. “I’ll let you know how he’s doing in the morning.”

The young stable master left, and Dorian sat Cullen down on a wooden bench near the cold hearth. He stacked three logs in the fireplace and lit them with a spell that would burn hot, and within the circle of that radiating warmth he set about extricating Cullen from his damp clothes. He’d sweated through two of his layers and frankly it was a miracle he hadn’t toppled face-first into the road hours prior. Indisposed as he was, it nonetheless felt wrong to lay him out filthy in his clean bed. An old basin of water sat on the hearth stones, so Dorian heated it with a snap of the fingers and submerged the cloth still draped over its rim.

“I can do it,” Cullen insisted, one hand held out for the washcloth.

“You concentrate on not falling out of your seat,” Dorian countered. Gently, in haste, he wiped him down, arms, chest, legs. He started to remove his underwear for him but Cullen huffed in frustration and took the cloth, pivoting to face away from Dorian while he saw to his more personal parts. Cursory bath complete, Dorian helped him dry off, threw a heavy blanket about his shoulders, and moved him three feet from the bench to the comfort of a wingback chair.

For his part, Cullen was biddable enough, and blessedly too far gone to look much shamed.

“When did this set in?” Dorian asked, palm on his forehead to gauge the fever, not expecting any useful reply.

In a weak voice, Cullen answered, “I felt chilled in the night, but... I don’t know.”

His eyes looked unfocused. Whether or not he’d own to it, he was in a bad way. “You should’ve said some—

Rho entered in a hurry, leather medicine satchel tucked under their arm, and Dorian moved aside. He observed the poking and prodding assessment, measurements of temperature and swollen nodes, then watched the healer hand over a white tablet. “Under your tongue,” Rho said to Cullen, who did his best to comply.

“Shall I put him to bed?” Dorian asked. “Before whatever that is hits him?”

“Yes, I think so.” They both assisted Cullen across the room, into his slowly warming covers, and he went without complaint or resistance. “Try to get a little water into him, if you can. He’s a stubborn old cuss when he’s sick.”

“What is he the rest of the time?” Dorian remarked.

Rho’s lip bent upward at the corner. “Here.” In their hand they held a vial of tablets and a packet of astringent smelling tea leaves. “Another tablet if he won’t sleep, and the tea when he next wakes. If you can’t convince him to take them, come and fetch me. I’m used to being the villain.”

“That, my friend,” Dorian said, “makes two of us.”

The healer moved toward the door. “If anything changes, I’ll be in my office.” Softening, they added, “He’ll likely be fine in a day or two.” Then, they left.

Dorian set the supplies on the bedside table, fetched up fresh water and a snack for himself, and brought a chair over so he could sit and lean on the edge of the mattress. Shortly after, Birdie and Bear wandered in, Fuller following close behind. The gray dog jumped up next to his master, and settled with his great head against Cullen’s hip. Poor old Bear stood lifting one front paw and then the other, as if he couldn’t be sure he was welcome, and after a minute of visible indecision he finally climbed gingerly onto the foot of the bed, cautious not to step anywhere on Cullen. An entirely sweet display, though a bit heart-wrenching. For her part, Birdie rested her chops on Dorian’s leg, whining quietly until he patted her.

“He’ll be all right,” he said to her. Under the covers, Cullen twitched, murmuring nonsense. Dorian reached out and set a hand on his arm. “He’ll be all right,” he repeated.

Chapter Text

Brief moments of brightness, excess warmth, stinging chills, sharp little edges of pain that nagged like a thousand teeth. Someone held his hand. Someone hummed to him, but when he opened his eyes, silence and darkness coated everything, shadows licking like firelight. He could not be certain either perception was real. Somewhere, in the distortion of memory, snow fell between the exposed beams of an old roof.

His flickers of awareness were too dreamlike to distinguish any concept of his own state, either mental or physical. He knew the walls of his bedroom, recognized the weight of a dog at his feet. An outline of someone moved in front of his fireplace. The external world existed and marched ever forward, but he himself only manifested in supposition, a vague rolling fog crowding a canyon. He drifted in the half-light of his own non-existence for a time, then evaporated again.

A fire crackled. He blinked. His eyes were gummy. Clouds and clouds of pain muffled him in his cocoon of blankets. Moving hurt, but his limbs were twitchy with fever. Tentative, he shifted his legs, tried to roll over, and moaned at the way every place he touched the sheets felt bruised.

“Awake at last?”

That voice... He knew it, but it was from years ago. Shaky, he flopped a hand to his eyes to rub some of the crust away. At his bedside stood a slender, heavily bearded man dressed in bright blue silks that shone in the firelight. “Dorian? Where...” For a fleeting, panicked moment, he believed himself returned to his sparse room at Skyhold, the withdrawals stealing days from him, stretches of time marked only by absences that others counted and later relayed. Loud noise, suddenly: a dog flapped its ears beside him and yawned. “Birdie...” He reached to stroke her. She licked his hand.

Dorian took a seat in a large chair—the chair normally kept by the fire, he recalled. “Welcome back,” he said, touching Cullen’s shoulder.

“I...” They’d gone together to pick up the lyrium, but the courier had been robbed and murdered. They’d had to fight. A creek running red. Dutiful chantry sisters peering at them with wan faces. He barely remembered the ride home. “How long...?”

“A day.” Dorian rattled something on the bedside table. “Can you sit?”

“Er...” He writhed, wincing. With great effort, he heaved himself partially onto his pillows.

“Close enough.” Dorian held a glass of water to his lips. “Not too much. There’s something mixed in, to fortify you.”

Brackish. He fought the urge to retch as he swallowed. Grimacing, he gave his chest a couple hard thumps. “Ugh, Maker’s balls, did Rho leave that?”

Dorian nodded.

“Is there any honey?” Cullen asked. His mouth tasted sour, of bitter herbs and dry fever.

“There is. Would you like tea?”

Relieved by the mere prospect, he inhaled. “Please.”

Dorian took the kettle from the hearth and poured it into the pot, slicing a lemon to throw in the mix. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” With no further explanation, he left the tea to steep and disappeared.

Probably off to report to Rho— the patient is awake . Awake, yes, but not improved, he thought to himself as he grimaced at the sick ache in his bones. At least the affliction hadn’t made its way into his lungs. That was real cause for worry, since each time the lungs were involved in an illness they became more vulnerable. The last thing he wanted was another brush with early—well, early middle-aged—death. There were still things he needed to do.

When Dorian returned, he had a tray in his hands. He set it down on the bedside table and went to retrieve their tea. “Can you sit a bit higher?”

“I...can certainly try.” His fever-sore muscles fought him every inch, but he hefted himself onto his elbows then up, almost all the way. Dorian fussed, adjusting the pillows so his spine didn’t rest against the headboard, and once he was satisfied he sat down in the chair.

“This first.” Dorian held out a bowl and spoon. Cullen tried to say no, but Dorian gave him a stern look. “Cullen, you’ve not eaten since yesterday morning.”

The very notion of anything thicker or more substantial than milky tea made his stomach cinch and roil with bile. He shook his head and mumbled another negative.

“It’s fresh applesauce,” Dorian said. “I don’t even like applesauce, and I ate a whole bowl of it earlier.”

Applesauce... That could work. Cullen shifted against his stack of pillows and took it. His first bites were tentative, but went down easy. He finished the bowl. Dorian handed him his tea. He blew on it, concluded it would still be too hot, and readied to ask a question.

“The pups are fine,” Dorian stated before Cullen finished inhaling. “Though if you’re well enough, Antony offered to bring mother and babies up for a visit tomorrow morning.”

“No. No, don’t...risk them getting chilled.” The pups were coming up on the two week mark, but they needed to be cautious a while longer. “If he thinks I need to see them, I’ll make my way there, somehow.”

“You will not. Don’t forget, a chill would be very bad for you, also.” Dorian picked up his tea and sipped it, prompting Cullen to do the same. “Rho’s given me permission to sedate you, by the way, if I think you’re about to tear off on some misguided stunt.”

“Sedate me? I should be so lucky...” Sleeping for another day might help him sweat out the last of his fever, which might in turn free him from the steady nag of pain. He finally managed a sip of honeyed tea: sweet smoothness against his rough throat.

Sustenance consumed, he begged Dorian’s aid to limp down the hall to the washroom, where he insisted on attending to his own needs. Pressing business seen to, he gave himself a cursory scrub with warm water from the sink. Emboldened by the refreshing rinse he readied his shaving supplies, exasperated by the itch of beard on his fever-hot face, but he wavered as he noticed how gravely his hand shook holding the razor. In the interest of avoiding any further facial scarring or potential arterial wounds he abandoned the effort before he began. By the time he made it back to the bedroom, murky pain had begun whirling in, dimming his head and leaving him leaden tired.

He changed into clean nightclothes, bumbling back under his covers once dressed. When he woke on and off throughout the afternoon, Dorian was often nearby—reading, stoking the fire, patting one of the dogs, picking out bits and pieces of songs by blowing, ever so lightly, across the lip of a wooden flute.

“I’m through the worst of it,” Cullen murmured, reaching for the arm of the chair next to his bed. “You don’t have to stand guard.” He’d thought Dorian was there, but perhaps he wasn’t. Time got confused in a sickbed, but a palm covered the back of his hand.

“I know,” Dorian replied. “But I’m going to.”

Try as he might, Cullen could find no way to argue before sleep hoisted him off again.

By the following morning, he was agitated. He’d eaten a normal breakfast for the first time since he’d fallen ill, and he felt burdened by it since his stomach had shrunk some over the past week. Resting in bed was all well and good, but he needed to do something, to move around, even if all he did was descend to the kitchens to distribute small Satinalia gifts to the staff. He had pants and one sock on when Dorian caught him in the act.

“You’re not to leave that bed,” he said, wagging a finger. “Rho’s orders.”

“Maker’s sake! I’m tired of lying about being...being waited on, like a spoiled child.”

Dorian spread his arms. “Oh good, I’ll take a turn.” He flopped into the wingback chair, still at the bedside. “Fetch me a cup of chocolate, with whipping cream. Oh, and some roasted chestnuts, peeled, thank you.”

Rolling his eyes, Cullen finished pulling on his second sock. Slowly, he donned boots, then a thick sweater. Unsteady but determined, he made his way to the cabinet next to his desk, where he’d stockpiled the gifts. Nothing fancy—some Orlesian sweets and spiced nuts, as well as little bottles of fine liqueur. “Can’t promise chestnuts but I’ll see about that cup of chocolate for you,” he spoke over his shoulder as he walked out of the room.

The stairs proved a challenge though he refused to show it, since Dorian had risen to follow, trailing closer than his own shadow behind him. “I’m not dizzy anymore,” Cullen told him. “I can manage.”

“Of course,” came the reply, but he remained a mere step behind.

In the kitchen, he was greeted by familiar faces as he handed out the gifts, and several of the staff told him it was good to see him up and about. He thanked them, took the opportunity to inquire again if anyone needed time away to return to their families over the next span of days, but they all reassured him the schedule suited their tastes. He hoped they were being honest.

Errand complete, he moved into the front hallway where he began to struggle into one of his heavy coats.

Instead of chiding him, Dorian mirrored the act, borrowing a cloak and gloves. Slowly, they crunched through the frozen snow down to the barn.

The whelping room was warm as ever. Leaned over the pen, he quickly huffed a shocked breath. Two of the pups had opened their eyes, and all three were beginning to walk, even if their attempts at it were more wobbles and stumbles than he’d been three days ago, raging with fever. They’d grown, too. “Would you look at that,” he muttered.

“Time for some names, I’d say.” Antony’s voice from behind them. His boots were encrusted with snow; he’d been out with Laurel, who traipsed in behind him.

“It is, I agree.”

“You’re feeling well, Ser?” he asked.

Cullen nodded, smiling. He preferred being a matter of lesser concern than the naming of puppies. “Much better, today.” Laurel approached, wagging her tail at him. After a quick pat, Cullen opened the gate of the whelping box where she settled in a corner with a grumble, and two of the pups toddled in her direction. The third, the gray one, pushed her nose against the gate, whining.

“Curious already?” Dorian asked, peering down at the indignant would-be explorer.

“Runts often are,” Antony said. He eased past Cullen and plucked the gray pup from where she cried, scooping her upward. Instead of moving her toward her mother, he handed her to Dorian.

Laughing, Dorian accepted the fuzzy bundle. “Goodness, for a runt you’ve gotten rather big,” he remarked, cradling her in his arms. “But not too big just yet.” He stroked her snub nose, settling her for a while with the motion. It didn’t last, however, and once she began wriggling he gently placed her back in the pen and straightened himself out. “Juniper,” he said, with a solid nod. “Juniper Berry, altogether. A bit of wordplay in honor of her sire. And she’s about the right colour.”

Cullen couldn’t suppress his chuckle. Reunited, the three pups took to nursing, chirping contented noises as they did. “As for the other two...” Cullen pointed to the brindle, then looked to Antony. “This one’s for you to decide.”

The stable master’s face lit up. “Griffon, if I may,” he said, in the practiced voice of someone who’d given the matter ample consideration but never thought the opportunity would arise.

“Perfect.” Just one left then, and that was up to him. Over the past weeks he’d been thinking on it, but nothing had yet stuck. “And what of our little sable girl...” He leaned down to look her over but faltered somewhat, catching himself on the wooden rim of the pen. Dorian was quick to sling an arm about his waist and steady him, but the illusion of self-sufficiency cracked. Embarrassed, he straightened out.

Antony put a hand on Cullen’s shoulder. “She can be pup a day or two longer,” he said, gentle as ever. “No harm done.”

Unhappy but defeated, Cullen gave a nod. “Back to bed with me, then. I’ll think on it further.” Arm in arm with Dorian, he moved with slow purpose up to the house.

Out of his shoes, coat, and boots, tucked under his covers, he tried to read in hopes of happening upon a name but found his eyes drooping. Eventually, he gave in to a nap. When he woke again it was dark, save for a well-stoked fire. Aside from Bear the room was quite empty, but steam rising off the kettle by the hearth told him someone had recently taken it from the flame. Sweat marred his brow, and he reached into his bedside drawer for a handkerchief to mop it. Clamminess sometimes lingered beyond the duration of a fever, for him. An unpleasant side effect, but preferable to the cough he’d developed more than once.

With some difficulty, he got up, made the familiar trip down the hall, relieved himself and bathed again as best he could with only the sink to wash in, saw to his teeth, and changed into fresh clothes. He didn’t stink, for whatever that was worth, though his hair wanted a good, rough scrubbing. They were well into the midst of Satinalia by now, the currents of the house wafting music from the common room downstairs. It made him smile, though some ugly old loneliness rotting in his depths tried hard to sour the warmth he felt, pitting it with melancholy.

He didn’t know how long he’d been lying in bed half-sleeping when Dorian came in. It took some time for him to register that the chair was occupied, longer still to summon the energy to stir Dorian out of his nose-in-book reverie. The loose fall of his hair caught the glow of the firelight, lending him an intensity while all at once softening his strong features. Statuesque, that was a suitable word.

Cullen extended a hand toward him, and Dorian’s brows lifted. He turned his head slightly without taking his eyes from the page. “Yes?”

“I know I’m not the most appealing bedmate at the moment, but...would you consider joining me tonight?”

Dorian closed the book, then reached out and stroked back his bangs, greasy as they were. “Gladly. On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Tomorrow, you let me help you take a proper bath.”

“Agreed.” Truth be told, he was looking forward to one. Tonight he felt too shaken and sore to tolerate the trip down the cold stone stairs, even if it would mean a blissful soak in steaming hot water. Mornings often brought a bit more energy, so waiting was best.

Appeased, Dorian let his robe fall from his shoulders, draped it over the back of the chair. Underneath he already wore a nightgown, and he carefully climbed across Cullen to slide under the covers at his side. The nestled weight and heat brought reassurance, like lying under a stack of pelts next to the fire.

“Rho knows about us,” Dorian said, moments later. “I’ve told them, though I suspect they’d already guessed.”

Cullen agreed with a slight nod. “Not much gets past Rho.” Still, he found himself surprised. “...You told them plainly?”

“The truth would’ve made itself plain if I hadn’t. I’ve hardly left this room for days.”

That brought a glow to Cullen’s chest, and he nosed into Dorian’s hair. “Thank you,” he murmured.

For a few minutes, they lay listening to the fire crackle behind the grate. Dorian smelled like lavender and elfroot from preparing herbal tea, and a bit like cloves and orange peel, too, perhaps fragranced by whatever they’d been drinking downstairs at the festivities.

“Was this what it was like when you first quit?” he asked, rubbing fingers over Cullen’s chest.

Taken aback, Cullen pulled in a deep, considering breath. “No. That was... That was magnitudes worse.” Weeks of lying in bed, scarcely able to rise and clean himself, unable to eat more than dry toast, crawling towards normalcy, putting on a little weight only to lose it, and more, the next time an attack came on. Shivering, hands ice cold even when held to the fire, feet in a similar state.

“Do you ever wish you’d gone on taking it?” Dorian near whispered.

The lyrium, safely in Rho’s care, would be stored in a heavy iron trunk, locked twice over, in the healer’s rooms. In his weaker moments, Cullen contemplated where the necessary keys might be kept. He regretted such thoughts but had become accustomed to them, the same way a cook might regret taking the life of an ornery rooster long destined for the soup pot. More importantly, he recognized those impulses were remnants of an old self that he need not pay much mind.

“No,” he answered simply. “I’d be mad with it, by now.”

“Why did you start again, at Skyhold? I know the Inquisitor instructed you to, but... Cassandra was such a proud mother bear whenever she spoke of how you were faring, and then...” He stilled, locked in thought. “Could you not have refused?”

A complicated question for so late in the evening, especially since he felt too ill to wax on. “I could’ve, but...after our failure at Haven...” He shook his head. “Trevelyan urged me to, yes, but the truth is I was too weak to—to allow myself to be weak. With everything at stake, it seemed selfish to cause inconvenience. Simpler to just...take it.”

Beside him, Dorian shifted. “I remember when you went back on.”

“You...” Cullen wet his lips. “You do?”

“It dulled the shine in your eyes. I felt...sad for you. I was relieved when you quit the second time, even if it did make you miserably ill.”

“We’d beaten back our foe—or believed we had. I could afford some months of weakness.” He sniffed a laugh. “Little did I know I’d suffer years of it, and in that time, no small few of our friends would become our enemies.” Bull’s betrayal had been a devastating blow. Worse still was Solas, that haughty bald bastard, who aimed to fracture the very nature of existence, sooner or later. Nobody yet knew where exactly he’d gone, or when he would put his plans in motion. Until then, fields needed planting and horses needed shoeing. Life carried on, day by day.

Except Cullen had accidentally alluded to Bull; he wasn’t too stupefied to notice how Dorian had gone still. There were a thousand ways such a slip could pan out. Dorian’s mingled pain and venom seemed to spin on a wheel, and you never knew which spoke the words might catch on. Seconds crawled by, silence building to a buzz.

“You used to visit me when I was too sick to meet you in the gardens,” Cullen said quietly, hoping to redirect. “I always looked forward to our games. It was...kind, that you took time for me.”

Another breath, and Dorian’s fingers moved, curving about his belly. “Yes, well. I liked the attention. Nothing quite like a captive audience.” Thankfully there was sweetness in the words rather than salt.

Cullen smiled, remembering Dorian’s near constant patter when he stopped by. “Any break in the monotony was a mercy, trust me,” he admitted. He hated being cooped up. Anything to stop him staring at the floor planks, the dust motes, at each flaw in the exposed beams until he’d committed them to memory. “I was very lonely, in those days. Everybody was preoccupied.”

“Loneliness is no help to healing,” Dorian said. “Though it does have unusual consequences now and then, doesn’t it.”

“What... What do you mean?”

“Us, for starters,” Dorian gestured at their bodies in bed. “If we weren’t lonely, I doubt this—whatever it is—would’ve come to pass. I’ve no illusions about that.”

The almost mocking musical quality of his voice hit harder than usual. Cullen turned his head away. Tension permeated his body, locking his fever-exhausted muscles. He could only swallow at the thickness closing his throat.

Dorian lifted himself onto his elbows. “That is what’s happened, isn’t it?” He put a hand at the center of Cullen’s chest.

The longer the question went unanswered, the worse they would both feel. He cleared his throat. “If you say so.”

Against him, Dorian tensed. “Cullen...”

He turned his face further away. “Mm.”

“You don’t sound especially sure,” Dorian murmured.

“What am I meant to say, then?”

Lingering fever left him too exhausted to handle the harsh blow with stoicism, though he should’ve seen it coming. What had he expected? That they’d declare their love, exchange vows under an old oak at midsummer? Had he gone soft in the head? Dorian was right, his loneliness had undoubtedly gotten the better of him if it had left him so blind to the inevitable separation at the end of this so-called ‘whatever it was’.

One of the dogs sighed, grumbling in their sleep. Cullen knew Dorian was staring at him, felt the curl of his fingers over his sternum. He gave no reply, and couldn’t bring himself to meet Dorian’s gaze, which stayed fixed on him, unbroken. His throat worked, though every swallow felt incomplete, since the lump in his windpipe was part inflammation, part choked tears, nothing he could clear away. Only the steady breathing of the dogs and the flicker of the firelight confirmed that time still passed, that beyond the pounding walls of his own heart, all was well.

Dorian fidgeted, then his fingers climbed to the divot at the base of Cullen’s throat. “Have you...” His voice was soft, the gentlest of his lilts. “Have you carried a torch for me, all these years?”

Swallowing again, he kept his eyes on the ceiling, on the bedside table, on the shadowed floor, on the twitch of dreaming Fuller’s pointed ear. Damn it all, anyway.

“...Yes.”

“Ah.” Dorian lay still. “When did you...?” The question needed no finishing.

Cullen cleared his throat as he stared into the darkest corners of the room. “About the time you took up with Bull, actually,” he said.

“And you never...thought to say anything?”

“We were friends. It would’ve been unworthy of me to interfere when you were with another.” It dawned on him he hadn’t been breathing. He sucked in a deep pull of air. “Besides, you were happy. I didn’t begrudge either one of you that.” Tension worked into his brow, accompanied by the beginnings of a headache and splintering regret for not simply rolling over and falling asleep the way he had the past few nights.

Dorian made a soft sound beside him. “I...never realized. That you felt that way, for me.”

Every blush, their verbal sparring, the occasional pun and inappropriate joke, he’d thought there’d been no room for mistaking it, even if the feelings were doomed. “I’d always feared I was embarrassing myself I was so obvious.”

“Ha,” Dorian said, sounding far off. “Clearly not.”

Cullen bit hard on the inside corner of his lip, breaking the pulp of his skin with a flinch. How stupid he’d been, to let this happen. Any and all of it. The very beginning of a tear burned at the corner of his eye and he simply let it fall to the pillow. Dorian’s fingers rubbed over his bearded cheek, urging him to turn his face so their foreheads touched. Cullen waited for him to speak, to offer reassurance or otherwise, but he’d lapsed into silence.

One final gamble, then, spoken with a handful of salt ready to grind into his own wounds.

“Dorian, I... I need to ask, and you need not answer, but... Do you think you might, someday, come to love me in turn?”

In the expanding silence that followed, Dorian leaned away. It was answer enough.

“Nevermind,” Cullen said gently.

A soft, pained noise from Dorian. “I’m... I’m sorry. I don’t know, I...”

“It’s all right.”

“Oh stop, it’s not all right!” He wrung his hand. “I’ve hurt you.”

“I knew the answer and still I asked. It’s not your doing.” Old wounds, fresh salt, nobody to blame but himself. It hurt, though the pain had grown so familiar he felt more certain of the world when he bore it than when it abated. “This... Whatever this is,” he draped an arm over Dorian’s side and held him, “It’s enough for me. I won’t ask for more.”

“That isn’t fair to you.” The whisper was choked, and sincere.

Cullen closed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It fucking should!” Dorian snapped. He’d gone tense as a bowstring.

Sighing, Cullen loosened his hold, readying to let him go if he wanted to leave. “I need to sleep,” he murmured. He wasn’t yet well, this entire ill-advised exchange proved that. At the foot of the bed, Bear had lifted his head up, watching them intently. Much like Birdie, he hated seeing people in distress.

Cullen expected Dorian to slip from his grasp, waited to let him go the same way he’d let everything else in his life go, thread by thread, until his hands were empty. He counted each breath, anticipating the second weight on the mattress lifting. There was a shift; the leaving began. Abruptly, arms closed tight around him.

“You great, hulking idiot,” Dorian whimpered. He wept on, soundlessly, for several minutes. So did Cullen.

He’d resigned himself years ago to the increasing probability that love was not in his stars. In spite of that, he’d chosen to wear his heart wide open for a spare few, even if it never afforded him much beyond dashed hopes and the oldest, deepest of hurts. He’d done it again, these past weeks—dared to hope—and now it lay shattered at his feet, the eternal smithereens of unspent love. But it didn’t matter. He meant that. To lie there being held, to have his heart known by another, he spoke true when he said it was enough.

Once Dorian had quieted, he felt his own tears dry, leaving his eyes swollen and his head woolly. He burrowed against Dorian’s chest, surrendering to the steady thump of his blood. Dorian would go, the same way everyone eventually did, but that was a dim point in a close future Cullen preferred to forget for the time being. Easier to know his stars marched the same cold line as ever and to choose defiance; to stand quietly, steadfastly in love. That much, at least, could not be taken.

Sleep swept the loneliness into an absence of dreams.

Chapter Text

In the bleak blue hour before sunrise, Dorian woke to Cullen shivering profusely. Dazed, he checked that they were both covered—yes, their legs and feet well-warmed by blankets and the heat of three slumbering Mabari besides. He shook Cullen by the shoulder, which garnered a grunt, followed by murmured nonsense but no lucid response. Concern jolted him wide awake. He rose, dressed in his robe, slid on soft boots, then made his way to Rho’s chambers.

“Something’s wrong,” he told the sleepy-looking healer when they answered his knock. Off they went.

Minutes passed. Rho stood over Cullen, measuring his pulse after dosing him with a small vial of clear liquid. Whatever medicine they’d administered began to settle the wracking shivers.

Eventually, the healer shook their head. “Too much too soon, as usual,” they declared. “Once we get the fever down he’ll rally. Let him sleep, and give him this when he wakes up.” They handed off a packet of powder. “Dissolve it in water or tea, depending on how he’s doing. I’ll check in a bit later.”

Rally, Cullen did not. He slept the better part of the day, restless and in obvious pain. Embracing his role as physician’s assistant, Dorian kept watch, tended the fire, and searched the few tomes he’d brought south with him for possible magical interventions. He found nothing he trusted enough to cast on a friend, not without first working through the theorems, and that could take weeks as well as resources he had no access to. Come late afternoon, Rho roused Cullen for another dose, but he fought their efforts with strength that was frankly alarming given his state. In the end, between both of them, they got most of it down him.

“Is this normal?” Dorian asked afterward, panting with the exertion.

Rho gave one of their dry smiles. “Stubborn old cuss,” they reiterated. Then, whispered, “Sometimes I’m convinced he’s made up his mind to die.”

Folding his arms over his chest, Dorian watched Cullen where he lay in bed, breathing slow. “If he had, he’d have done it already.”

Surprisingly, Rho laughed aloud. “You’re probably right.” They set a hand on Dorian’s shoulder. “You go get yourself something to eat. He’ll be out for at least a couple of hours.”

So, Dorian went downstairs to the kitchen. He took tea and a bowl of soup into the dining room, but once seated, couldn’t bring himself to raise it to his mouth; instead he found himself stirring an aimless spoon through the thick liquid, circle upon circle. Stillness invited flittering thoughts which flocked in his belly, a frenzy of wingtips whipping up guilt. To think, his most pressing concern the night prior had been how they would cope with the repercussions of their ill-fated chat. Too startled to tell any pretty lies, he’d been honest, and it had sounded a lot like cruelty. Neither lies nor cruelty had been his intention—the whole conversation had squarely exited any notion of his intentions right around Cullen’s declaration of love. He felt like a fisherman who’d thrown a line in jest, expecting nothing but nibbling minnows, only to have an enormous pike take the bait and yank him clear off the dock.

Undoubtedly, he was to blame for Cullen’s downturn.

Or maybe, if he availed himself to reason and stopped panicking, it was as the physician said: too much, too soon. Relapses weren’t unusual for someone as mulish as Cullen. The man had scarcely managed more than a couple of meals in the days he’d been sick, then he’d gone out traipsing in the cold. Foolhardy. Emphasis on the fool, minus the ever important hardy.

Dorian contemplated the steam rising from his meal. Guilt whirled again. Perhaps from one angle, honesty was its own sort of kindness, or—

No. He closed his eyes, planted a palm over his mouth, dragged it down his beard. No, he didn’t believe that in the slightest. What he’d said had been true, yes, but never kind, not even in the loosest interpretation of the word. There were some things a man was better off not knowing, or if he must know, then the blow ought to be softened. Kindest to thwart hope as gently as possible so new hope might take root and fill in the cracks. Too deep a cleft would scar over, cold as stone, same as the gnarled granite line down the center of his abdomen.

Eventually, he got some soup into himself, as well as some tea. Desperate to stretch his legs he set off on what was meant to be a brisk walk about the grounds, but overnight the snow had frozen, patches of it hardened to treacherous ice, and thus he was forced to pick his path with extreme care. One bad slip sufficed; he didn’t fall, but he did wrench his right hip socket. Hissing in pain, he retreated to the warmth of the house.

Upstairs, Cullen slept on, restless. Sweaty and pale and hot to the touch. They’d done all they could for him, save wait. Dorian paced, and waited.

Although the space differed markedly from the sickroom in which Dorian had coalesced at Skyhold, the familiar aspects brought a chill metal tang to his saliva. Bedside table strewn with curatives intermingled with water glasses, rumpled pelts and sheets tossed about, sweat-smell hanging in the air, the occasional cut of herbal acridity after a dosage or wound redressing. The small rustling interruptions, hours counted in the comings and goings of a dour-faced healer, one chair angled by the bedside for visitors.

That had been a difficult recovery. For a long while, he’d spent more time asleep than awake. When he had been awake, it was a dim, fitful awareness; the pain of his wound required regular dulling with elfroot. Confusion clung to him. In the days after it happened he had to be told several times that Bull was dead, and each time he wept inconsolably. First came wretched, blank grief, made no simpler by the overwhelming horror that his worst nightmare had been very real. As he’d healed, and come to accept the truth of Bull’s betrayal, grief sublimated into a raw, seeping rage.

Somehow, in spite of his unpredictable moods punctuated with intermittent sobbing, the chair by his bedside had often been occupied. He’d stir from a nap to see Sera’s snub nose poised close, a little satchel of cookies clutched in her lap for sharing. Or Vivienne, who brought him light banter, sometimes freshly bound volumes she believed he might enjoy. Cole visited as well, desperate to help but unable to land on a method. Eventually, he settled for distraction. They’d talk about flowers, bees, when to plant turnips, types of nugs one might find in the Hinterlands. Josephine found a few spare minutes for him each week, and they’d discuss family, the expectations that fell to a first or only heir. Varric, too, kept him in silver-tongued company, the rumble of his deep chest a well of comfort when he spoke.

And then, there was Cullen. The Commander had wafted in and out of Dorian’s sickroom like an autumn draught, knocking around the periphery in silent upset at every given opportunity, more of a ghost than Cole. Nary a handful of words were spoken between them, initially, and he would not sit unless he thought Dorian was asleep. If Dorian lay still a while faking it, sometimes a cautious, cold hand would reach out to take his. Cullen’s chill fingers marked his ongoing battle to break the leash, ever a soldier, staid and unrelenting as the calluses that roughened his palms. Holding a sleeping man’s hand, however, always proved too much; he’d invariably falter, withdraw the contact. Dorian would stir and yawn, pretend at waking afresh, inspiring Cullen to stammer a greeting. Sometimes, he’d produce a deck of cards. Companionable silence and a little spot of gambling would ensue.

In retrospect, he saw it clear as winter stars: Cullen had been alight for him. Dorian had flirted, of course, from the moment they arrived at Skyhold he’d made consistent appeals to Cullen’s baser nature for the gratification of seeing him blush. He’d looked, too, when there was something to see, such as drills or shirtless sparring, the infamous game of wicked grace—any fool with eyes in their head could tell Cullen was handsome—but he’d never entertained thoughts beyond that. In fact, he’d laughed hysterically the time Bull had suggested the commander had the bearing of a man nursing an unrequited love.

Saliva too thick to swallow coated his throat. Mentally, emotionally, and physically, he’d been a ruin of a person, in that sickroom. He’d scarcely been able to bring himself to open his eyes at times, let alone observe the subtle state of every friend who stopped by.

He took a sip from one of Cullen’s untouched glasses of water at the bedside. The Bull must’ve known the truth of things. Iron Bull could see people, their foundations, what held them up, right through to their most private, secret souls. Cullen’s spirit burned with a slow fire, one that guttered but never extinguished.

Dorian glanced at the figure under the covers curled on his side, one arm splayed, legs tucked like a newborn, looking frail. The only thing that burned in him now was fever. It was difficult to share Rho’s unshakeable faith that Cullen would recover, but rationality dictated he defer to experience. Rho had been Cullen’s physician for four years. Given what Dorian knew of the physician’s nature, it seemed highly doubtful they’d mince words if the outlook were grim.

Still, worry parched him, turning his tongue to cotton fluff in his mouth. He’d wondered at first if he might fall ill as well, but fever had yet to prickle his temples. No aches or pains, no dizziness. His constitution, depleted as it was, held strong.

He slept in his own chambers that night, for a brief stretch after twelve. The rest of the dark hours he drifted in the wingback chair at Cullen’s bedside, dozing upright like he’d learned to do as a small boy. Throughout his youth he’d regularly had to pass slow evenings when his parents called on Magister so-and-so and, done showing off their prodigy, they’d shuffle him along so the adults could while away the hours unhindered, waist-deep in drink and gossip. Precocious wee Dorian would find himself banished to the estate library where, on occasion, he’d discover he’d already read everything worth reading (to the mind of a small boy, at least), plus a lot of the trash besides.

Cullen had a hard night. Thrashing, bad dreams, quickening breath, twitching limbs. His skin burned hot in spite of Rho’s intervention. As dawn grazed the horizon he seemed to quiet, calming into a cooler, placid state.

Sunrise. Dorian left briefly to steal several hotcakes from the griddle in the kitchen, eating them plain. They tasted sweet, with a hint of salt. He snapped up one extra and devoured it on the way upstairs, resuming his seat at Cullen’s bedside.

Soon after, Cullen rolled over, burrowing deeper into one of the pelts. The gesture held shades of intent

“Are you awake?”

“Nn,” Cullen replied. “Am I...?”

Dorian indicated the tincture on the table. “You’re to take this, if you are.”

“Then ‘m not,” Cullen grouched. But a second later he was levering himself onto his pillows and holding a hand out for the glass. He swallowed it all, finishing with a grimace. “Shit,” he said suddenly, “My bladder’s the size of a bloody squash.”

“Chamberpot?”

“No. Help me,” he began shucking out of his pelts, inching toward standing up.

Rho would disapprove, but a man did sometimes want his dignity. Dorian lent his shoulder for support, and they got Cullen safely down the hall. He exited the room a few minutes later, looking relieved but wan.

“I should like a bath,” he said. This was not a request, as it might’ve sounded to the casual observer, but rather a decision he’d made.

“First you’ll eat something,” Dorian replied, equally firm, taking him by the elbow and leading him back toward his bedroom. “If you got in that tub now I’m not certain you could get out again.” Either logic dictated Cullen not argue or he was too weak to put up a fuss, since he remained silent. Some mingling of the two, maybe.

Rho checked in, provided another tincture, and left. Minutes later, someone brought up a bowl of oatmeal. After Cullen had eaten, he disappeared into fitful sleep.

And for the next several days, that was about the state of things. Satinalia had well and truly passed, ushering in the darkest, shortest winter days in its wake. Fresh snowfall breathed life into the grounds by covering over the ice, and Dorian filled his vacant hours with walks, books, letter writing, and visits to Antony and the pups, who always welcomed him warmly.

Cullen was out of danger, though still not well by anyone’s estimation. The middle territory of convalescence often left him either asleep or moody, restless on account of his forced inactivity. Or perhaps he merely served as grounding rod for the distress of the house on the whole, since larger circumstances in the manor had taken a sad turn.  

The young templar was dying. The same boy he’d first seen sitting in the last of summer’s bloom outside Cullen’s office windows. There were whispers of his rapid decline throughout the halls and across the grounds. All talk aside, Dorian could feel it happening. A peculiar ability he’d noticed himself developing as he grew older and spent more time in the company of death and the dead. Death had presence, which could perhaps be more aptly described as absence, but neither conveyed the whole truth. Truthfully, death’s approach defied finer categorical observation, and never made him feel the same way twice.

Heavy snow fell, obscuring the view of the courtyard beyond the manor’s doors. Inside the house, a similar atmospheric effect made every footstep echo. The sound of his own beard catching his collar near deafened him. Everyone waited.

Pale, afflicted with tremors that came and went, Cullen insisted on descending to sit with the boy in his last hours, counter to Rho’s suggestion that he keep himself abed. Dorian watched Cullen glare, rise, and dress, unassisted, in a staunch show of refusal. It didn’t end there—he navigated to the shared wing of the house under his own power, thanking Dorian for his offered elbow but saying he had no need of it.

The infirmary’s large windows overlooked a winter garden, the stark white backdrop silhouetting two of the young man’s friends who sat vigil by his side: Jillian, whom he knew well, and a fellow he recognized but whose name he did not recall. Bear was in attendance also, his great jowled face resting on the border of the mattress, where every now and then he gave a small whimper.

Dorian hung back at the edge of the room, uncertain of how welcome his presence might be. The dying boy lay still. He was scarcely grown, had barely come into his full beard, but he had the watery, faded parchment look of someone four times his years. Lyrium, and not even a lot of it, had done this to him. Poor soul. He’d come here hoping to shake the spectre of it from his shoulders and instead that ghost would very soon have company.

He watched Cullen stop cold at the young man’s bedside. The only crack in the stalwart facade was slight trembling in his fingertips where they rested. “Hello, Gavin.”

It seemed as though there would be no response, but after a brief stretch of stillness the boy’s hand twitched against the sheet. He lifted it, questing blindly, and Cullen took hold of it between his own palms.

“...Da?” the boy murmured. “That you?”

Visibly stricken, Cullen sank into the closest chair. He looked to Jillian, who was bleary with crying. She nodded.

Too far gone to know different, then. Dorian swallowed, but didn’t feel he ought to leave. Strange courage compelled him to stay.

With a sigh, Cullen leaned close and stroked the boy’s hair. “I’m here, lad.”

Cole might’ve considered this sort of lie a kindness. If a delirious, dying soldier longed for a distant father, why not offer closure, if you could? Dorian moved to the end of the bed, standing with a hand lightly clutching the amulet that sat against his sternum. Things between fathers and sons...could be complicated.

Gavin began to cry, though his eyes were unfocused with pain and the drugs meant to dull it. “I knew you’d get here,” he murmured. “I knew...”

“Hush now,” Cullen rumbled. “It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry,” Gavin said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t... I tried,” he pleaded. “I tried...”

“I know you did, son.” Leaning further forward, Cullen put a hand on the boy’s chest and left the other on his head. Gavin turned to reach for him, and Cullen gently held on. “You’ve done well, Gav.” He pressed his bearded cheek to the boy’s forehead, the way a parent might cradle a sick or sleeping child. “It’s all right now. It’s all right...”

In the halls, people came and went, conversing in hushed tones. In the kitchens, low laughter. The sound of hooves on snow along the drive accompanied by the incessant fussing of winter birds filtered through the window. One of them sang a mournful two-note cry in the trees by the barn. Sometime later, Fuller, sleek as a granite statue, took up a sentinel position near the foot of the bed. Birdie, too, found her way into the room. Steadily, evening swallowed the snow-laden garden.

A slow turn of minutes, and Gavin’s irregular harsh pulls of air diminished. They devolved to rasps. Each breath sounded final, until the last one. Beyond that point, Dorian kept waiting for the sound, expecting it long after everyone in the room, himself included, understood it would never come. Cullen stayed by Gavin’s side until Rho arrived to check for a pulse. There was none.

“Back to bed,” the physician said to Cullen. “We’ll see to him.”

Jillian nodded over a tear-stained kerchief, as did the other templar.

With slow, deliberate care, Cullen smoothed the young man’s hair one last time, and rose to his feet. He was unbalanced, loose in the knees. Dorian approached to offer his elbow, seeing finally just how red and swollen Cullen’s eyes were from crying. His own face crumpled partway on instinct before he could contain the reaction. There was an alcove in the hallway, next to a closet, and there he pulled Cullen into his arms. They stood in silence awhile, breathing.

“Why don’t we take that bath you’ve been wanting?” Dorian said softly.

With a sniffle, Cullen nodded.

Grief could not be soothed away, but a bath couldn’t hurt. Warm water and quiet, some steam to cleanse the lungs. They slowly found their way to the private bathing room, and Dorian flipped the tap on full. Much like Cullen, he’d been washing out of basins the past week. The prospect of submerging in hot water comforted him.

They stripped. He helped Cullen over the rim, settling him, then dropped his own robe, climbing in after without much need for caution; the tub was plenty large enough for two.

He’d always taken comfort in the intimacy of lying in a bath with someone. No suds, no pretext. Just warm water and skin, damp hair tickling along a collarbone. He cradled Cullen against his chest, drawing a hand back and forth over his stomach under the water.

For his part, Cullen dozed. He’d been exceptionally quiet for days now, even when he wasn’t asleep. Not that Dorian didn’t understand. What was there to say? The young fellow had sickened and died, in spite of interventions. Presumably they’d have a Revered Mother out to oversee his cremation.

“Did the boy have family?” If his kin hadn’t come while he still drew air, Dorian doubted they’d bother paying respects after he’d been put to rest.

On top of him, Cullen turned his head slightly to the side, staring at the wall. “Dead.”

“All of them?”

“All but a sister. I understand they weren’t close.”

How awful, to be so alone in this last undertaking. No wonder poor Gavin had mistaken Cullen for a parent he longed to see. “What you did for him, when he mistook you, that was...a kind thing,” Dorian murmured. Allowing a son the opportunity to say a few important words to a lost father, even if only in a half-living dream, was a kindness. Thinking too closely on it formed a bitter lump in his throat.

Cullen inhaled and held the breath a few seconds before exhaling. “I’m not so sure.”

“Why not? He won’t know the difference.”

“ I know the difference.”

A droplet dripped into the tub from the faucet, sending out ripples. “What would you have wanted, in his place? A sad truth, or a comforting lie?”

Cullen’s heavy skull rolled against his pectoral. “I don’t know. Were I dying, then...the lie, I suppose.”

Gently, Dorian nosed his temple. “I believe it was the kind thing to do.”

Another drip, near their feet. If he’d been alone in the tub, he might’ve tried to freeze each one as it fell, to hone his precision—a game he’d played time and again throughout his childhood, whiling away summer rains.

“That poor child deserved more than this,” Cullen murmured. He swiped at his nose, which was running profusely. Tears were building in his voice. “He came here for help, and what good did we do him, in the end.”

“You kept him company,” Dorian said. “You eased the pain of his loss, and his leaving. All of you did.” Templars and old Mabaris, alike. “He crossed quietly.”

Cullen lay silent. Solid, slow heartbeats counted the time. “Did you feel it?”

“I did.” It wasn’t like a war death where spirits roiled and teemed in confused masses, pushing towards the living, veil thick with incomprehensible grief. This had been a soft departure, a soul slipping from one dream into the next. “He was ready.”

Neither of them spoke again until the water began to cool. Dorian asked permission to reheat it, Cullen assented, then they soaped themselves, rinsed, and climbed out to dry off. Nude, his curls still damp, belly somewhat shrunken from two weeks of missed or modest meals, Cullen looked lost. Dorian wrapped him in a towel. He pulled his own robe on, and then Cullen reached for him, holding his forearm.

“I know you’ve been sleeping in your own quarters, but... I think I’m well enough, if you...” Cullen paused. “Unless you’d prefer to...be separate?”

“My preference was not disturbing your tenuous rest, but since you’ve missed me...”

Cullen dropped his chin slightly, blinking, wearing every day of his forty-odd years. Red rimmed his eyes. “Yes,” he said, voice tight.

Why had he phrased it as if it were only Cullen who wanted the closeness? Why not admit he’d missed the company, too? Familiar wings of guilt wheeled in Dorian’s stomach, regret propelling him forward to wrap Cullen in his arms. “I’ll come back in with you.”

They retreated upstairs. Cold permeated the room, so Dorian ushered Cullen straight to the wingback chair and under a blanket to prevent him taking a chill. He relit the hearth, stacking kindling by hand to help keep his magefire burning hot. That done, he stripped the sickbed linens, which he heaped up to be laundered, and tucked crisp fresh sheets around the mattress. “There,” he said. “Definite improvement.” He indicated for Cullen to climb into bed, then slipped under the covers to join him, and immediately found him curling close. The need in him was earnest, without assumption. Still, there was something fragile in the weight of his arm over Dorian’s side that hadn’t been there before. He worried over that, lying awake well after Cullen had drifted.

How to explain to someone you cared for that there were parts of you that had gone missing, or been cut so close to the quick that they’d never recover? How to feel love, the twitch and clutching swell of it, knowing it would not save you or anyone else because death stood at the end of all things?

Some hour in the night, Cullen woke. He must’ve thought Dorian slept on, because he crept from the bed with obvious caution, crossed the room on wobbling tiptoe, soreness of muscle visible in each step, and sat down next to the fire. He wept, for a long while. Dorian let him be.

Chapter Text

Summer would’ve been a simpler time for grief. Plenty of consistent work to be done in the hot months, both in the fields and with the beasts, not to mention repairs and improvements to the property’s many buildings. Much harder to keep busy in winter, especially since Rho had told him he was not to spend more than one or two hours at a time out of doors. In the days following Gavin’s death, the remnants of Cullen’s fever burned away, leaving him swollen in the joints and weak. The young man’s passing put the whole house in dire spirits, though his wake, which he’d requested be a brief affair of song and drink, had helped everyone resume forward momentum.

After all, others had died before him. More would die as the years marched on. Gavin had not wanted them to dwell, but rather preferred they belt a few tavern songs in his honor and get on with it.

Easier said than done. Cullen hadn’t been so poor off in a long while. To his mind, the dark of winter existed as much within him as around him, bone cold and persistent. He’d spoken to Rho after a weekly group meeting, inquiring if there might be some herbal or other that could alleviate the stifling gloom, but they said there was little to be done physically other than a Hypericum tincture, which boasted mixed success.

Dorian had offered an alternative suggestion. “Elfroot.” He’d held out one of his perfectly rolled cigarettes, slender between elegant fingers, and Cullen relented. They’d smoked it together behind the house, amicably passing it back and forth until it was gone, any remnants of the vague herbal smoke, its mild acrid billow, cut away by sharp wind that gusted loose snow in hisses along the stones of the foundation. The effects, while pleasant for a brief, fluid window, left Cullen benumbed, dry-mouthed and hazy, as though he were walking one step behind himself the rest of the afternoon.

The only thing that truly cheered him was the presence of the puppies, who were up and about, showing the beginnings of their personalities. He had, finally, chosen the name Rabbit for the sable pup because she was timid. Brindle Griffon was sweet-natured, and little Juniper quite clever, and the three of them, under the supervision of himself, Antony, Dorian, plus their assortment of canine chaperones, were beginning to explore the barn on shaky legs. Soon, it would be time to start training them in earnest. That prospect, which had once been a source of excitement for him since well before their conception, now seemed an immense undertaking. Too daunting to fathom.

Dorian daunted him, as well. They’d continued to share a bed, but Cullen couldn’t help but feel that somehow, as he sought to postpone the inevitable, he’d closed a useless fist around running water in an attempt to grasp that which could not be held.

Stupid, to ask about love. Hope had made a fool of him, not for the first time. Fool that he was, prior to their frank discussion he had—in his typical, wrongheaded way—begun to believe that if they both wanted this, then some solution to the distance, to their respective responsibilities and duties, might be found. Perhaps Dorian could stay on a while longer, or perhaps Cullen could go north for a time, even if it meant facing derision and danger. Not impossible nonsense, in hindsight, but near enough to it that Cullen felt acutely that he’d been suffering a sort of willful blindness toward the subject.

Circumstances were clear now. Dorian would leave, perhaps when the first thaw hit, perhaps sooner. That was the way of things. Cullen tried to lie with him each evening and not think on it, to simply be in his presence, but his focus ricocheted, leaving pinholes where the sorrow seeped through. Such a terrible, idiotic affliction, to always feel an end looming before its arrival.

Dorian, to his credit, was being gentle. They did not discuss the future. During the days, they’d been spending more time in the common room, as had nearly everyone of late, taking part in winter pastimes: cards, stories, a little poetry, music. Someone had been gifted a battered old mandolin for Satinalia which they’d kindly added to the small collection of instruments for communal use, and Dorian often plucked at it with honest grace, teasing forth melodies that vibrated in chorus with his own voice as he made up rude songs about Ferelden. The lyrics sent everyone flying into a mock-uproar after a few lines, comic outrage balanced by laughter. He always won them back by performing a couple about Orlais, and there had been one or two scathing ones about Tevinter he claimed he couldn’t take credit for as he’d learned them from an elven bard somewhere in a tavern off the Imperial highway many years ago.

In the nights, he curved around Cullen’s back and held him. Sometimes they’d writhe together, Dorian pleasured by the slow rut until he came in pulses, hushed hot breath condensing over Cullen’s neck as he gasped, gasped, fell away to the place inside himself where Cullen could watch him and truly see him, the sublime unguarded seconds of calm he inhabited after his body had wrung itself dry. Beautiful, his silver flecked beard and half-lidded eyes, the gray irises dark and glassy as obsidian in the dim firelight. Cullen could not seem to rouse his own desire to full since his fever, only to a low thudding need that never resolved and left behind a quiet throb, but it mattered little; he enjoyed their trysts no less and participated eagerly for Dorian’s sake.

It proved a relatively peaceful time, minus a few extra lit candles in the window for the souls that had moved on, but still Cullen ached, body and heart. An end, looming.

Life, insensible to his pain or anyone else’s, carried on.

Mid-winter often brought harsh winds, and one morning the whipping rush of air across the stones of the house stirred Cullen well before daybreak. He descended, stood in the kitchen with a mug of sweet tea, and listened to the storm blow through. Dawn brought a lull. Light built and the gusts died away to calm. He was fixated on the barren landscape visible through the kitchen window when one of his men hurried into the room.

“Pardon me, Ser, but the west creek’s been blocked. Martin says we’d best clear it, if we can, else it may flood the coppice wood.”

Martin, a staunch mage with a loud manner who served as the farm’s lead groundskeeper, usually had an eye for problems that wouldn’t solve themselves. Sighing, Cullen rinsed his mug and placed it in the sink. Not an emergency perhaps, but inaction certainly held no desirable outcome. “Dress warmly. Wake at least three others and tell them to do the same.”

Within twenty minutes a small group, bundled tight in layers of winter garb, marched out toward the far west corner of the property, huffed breaths white on the air. The creek ran too deep and moved far too swiftly to fully freeze, so the blockage—a thick collection of debris and several large trees—had forced water to break the banks.

“Morning, fellows,” Martin called. “To work, unless you want a new swamp?”

“I think I prefer the coppice wood,” Cullen muttered. They were having a difficult enough time establishing it; he hardly needed it under six inches of ice.

They set about breaking up the nasty snarl of debris. It was dangerous, frigid work, and Cullen found himself gruff and snappy with his crew. They were young, for the most part, their brushes with mortality apparently minor and forgettable. He had to shout at one fellow several times to keep him from strolling casually along the larger jammed logs to reach smaller snags below. “I’m not penning any more letters to grieving mothers!” Cullen barked. “Keep your Maker-forsaken boots on the ground!”

Martin was far less generous in his word choice when he launched into chastisement, and Cullen, privately grateful not to be the only killjoy for once, let him take over the task.

Nobody went in, miracle of miracles, but by noon they were all wet through courtesy the angry mists of the creek, the upshot being they’d successfully dismantled part of the jam. Martin deemed the ensuing partial resumption of flow acceptable, and they were dismissed.

On his walk back to the house, Cullen could think of nothing he wanted more than a piping hot bath. Very little gave him relief these days, but a bath always improved his bleak moods. He passed through the kitchen on his way to his chamber, choosing to ladle hot apple cider into a tankard along with a nip of whiskey. It was the only company he wanted for the next hour until he’d warmed up and settled himself. On his way out he noted a batch of fresh cheese scones hot from the oven and amended his decision to include one of those, as well.

He collected a change of clothes from his room, pausing to greet snoozing Bear, then made his way down the small back stairwell to his private bath only to nearly whack the end of his nose on the closed chamber door.

He blinked, considered for a moment, and then knocked. “Dorian?”

Mild splashing noises. “Cullen?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, do come in.”

Redness began a creep into his cheeks, partly the sting of warming after being out in the cold, partly flush at the idea of strolling into an already occupied bath. Utter nonsense to blush over it, considering he and Dorian had not only been intimate with one another, repeatedly, frequently, over the past collection of months, they’d bathed together already, too. It took him two deep inhalations to make up his mind, but he opened the door.

Blissful warmth surrounded him, moist heat permeating the room. Dorian luxuriated in a basin full of fragrant suds, water and bubbles concealing all but the very top of his chest and shoulders. “I am sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be back, so I took the liberty.”

“It’s quite alright.”

“I can hurry?”

“No, don’t rush on my account. I can busy myself for a few minutes.” He held up the biscuit and his tankard. “I’ll leave you in peace.”

“Stay!” He gestured to the chair in the corner of the room. “I’ve always liked a spot of company in the tub. When I was young I had a nursemaid who’d tell me nautical stories while I had my bath. I used to pretend I was a pirate king, and she’d conjure up little windstorms for the toy boats. Until I learned to do it myself, that is.”

Now there was a picture. Wee baby Dorian in the tub, impersonating a captain at sea in bad weather. Cullen smiled and sat down.

“Before I forget, we’ve had a messenger while you were out.”

“Oh?”

“Marchand invited us for supper tonight.”

That was unusual. Last minute for one, so much so it could hardly be considered civilized, though primarily he was shocked to hear the Marchands had left Val Royeaux during Haring. “He’s back already?”

“His nephew is to be married at Wintersend, in Val Firmin, which I gather interferes with their usual winter holiday at the vineyard.”

“I see.” He’d need to bathe, dress, tame his hair, and ready himself for socializing, which meant surrendering an afternoon he’d hoped to spend with the puppies.

Dorian rubbed at his chest, sitting himself up to fully submerge his knees. “Do you not want to go?”

There was no immediate reply to be made. It could hardly be lost on Dorian that Marchand’s was where their charade-turned-affair had started, and sustaining the farce now...

“I could go myself,” Dorian said, something regretful in the tone. “If I tell them how ill you’ve been I’m sure they won’t hold it against you.”

Sighing, Cullen stared into his tankard. “No, that’s... I’ll come.” Difficult as it might be to spend an evening in the shine of pretended love, he’d feel worse sitting in front of the fire with his dogs, alone, since their hosts would construe his absence as pitiable weakness or rude reluctance. At Marchand’s, Dorian would at least look at him as though they were what Cullen wished they could be. He took a long pull from his tankard, then bit into the biscuit.

When Dorian finished with his bath, Cullen took it over, revitalizing it with some hot water and a few drops of oils. Although his intention had been to luxuriate a long while, now there was simply too much to do, so he soaped his hair immediately. Whether or not the curls would dry and look presentable was a gamble. As he sudsed the rest of his body, scrubbing clean, he remembered that in addition to readying himself, they’d need to take some small offering with them for a gift, even if it were only a box of shortbreads and some fine winter ale.

He rushed through the rest of his cleanse and rinse, biting back irritation as he climbed out of the tub.

Later, dressed and in the midst of rummaging through his correspondence shelves in search of a plain sheet of parchment so he could write a note to accompany the comestibles, his door clunked open, startling him.

“Damn it all.” Dorian strode into the chamber holding out a brilliant green tunic. “This blighted shirt has a hole at the seam. Is there someone competent with mending?”

Cullen nodded. “Me.” He reached for the garment. Dorian blinked at him a few times but handed it over. The bottom drawer of the writing desk held a sewing kit, and he set about matching the colour from his minimal stash. “This isn’t perfect, but I think it should do?” He held out a small spool of dyed silk thread, spring onion green. Peering over the offering, Dorian shrugged approval.

“Where did you learn to mend seams, anyway? Is that part of your templar training?”

Searching for the thread end, Cullen made a face. “You’re making fun, but...it is. They wanted us to be at least that self-sufficient. Unruly teenagers doing combat drills can tear a shirt six ways in three minutes. Simplest, and cheapest, that we be taught to mend them ourselves.” It went without mentioning that many of the recruits only had the shirts on their backs to start with, so being able to keep them in one piece was imperative. The Order wasn’t all noble second sons that families couldn’t tame, by any stretch.

“Huh.” Dorian tilted his head to the side, digesting this information. “So, the southern chantry does have a single grain of common sense. Whoever would’ve thought.”

“A Fereldan rarely neglects the practicalities...” Cullen muttered, wetting his pointer and thumb on his tongue to more easily work at the thread.

Loud laughter behind him. “Brilliant. Please tell me your bossy grandmother used to impart that tidbit before promptly dispatching you to milk the goats.”

Cullen snorted. “Thankfully my grandmother was never that wearisome. That line was a favorite of one of the knight commanders who drilled us. He was heavily invested in the proper care and maintenance of armor. Could hold forth on the protective qualities of various ores for days.”

“And I’ll bet he was the undisputed life of every party.” Slim fingers rested on Cullen’s shoulder. “Will this take long?”

“No, but I’m ready and you’ve not put your makeup on.”

Dorian crossed his arms and sniffed. “You’re not going dressed like that.”

“What’s wrong with how I’m dressed?”

“That red? Absolutely not, we couldn’t stand near one another. You wouldn’t see a worse clash at the Grand Tourney.” Whirling on a heel, he threw himself into Cullen’s wardrobe. Various tunics, trousers, vests and boots began thudding to the floor as though he were acting out the ubiquitous ‘readying for the ball’ scene from an Orlesian comedy.

Ignoring him, Cullen turned to his task. It was a simple fix—the seam was pulled but not torn. He struggled to thread the needle, but that was always the hardest part. From there, he poked careful stitches along the line of it, then began reinforcing the work. Once finished, he tugged the garment right side out and held it up. “There,” he said. “Like new. You couldn’t have worn something else?” He turned to look over his shoulder at Dorian, who was in the process of laying an outfit of black, maroon, and gray on the bed.

“I could have, but I’d rather not.” One elegant finger pointed to the laid out clothes. “That’s for you.”

“Yes, I gathered.”

Dorian approached and took his tunic back, feeling the stitching between thumb-pad and forefinger. “A man of many talents,” he murmured, then leaned in, pecking him on the temple before hurrying away to his own chambers.

A fractional skim of sweetness; honey broken from the comb. So simple a thing to be so unbearable. They were together as if they’d always been together, and in a matter of weeks they’d be apart, divided by borders, the thin impasse of the sea, cities and roads, strange inns, miles upon miles. The thought bore into his breastbone and left him tired, so he rose to investigate Dorian’s decisions regarding his wardrobe.

The outfit on the bed was about as lavish as could be accomplished with Cullen’s meagre selection of finery. He noticed that the tunic, although a bit older, fit relatively well. He’d lost some of his excess over the past weeks, but the feat left him worried rather than gratified. Doubtless Rho would argue that how rapidly he’d burned through his stores proved the need for them in the first place. Not that it had all gone—he was hardly slender—but if he’d tried to wear this article before taking ill he would’ve been mending rather a few more seams.

He finished dressing for the second time and crossed the hall to collect Dorian, who was in the process of outfitting himself in a heavy, embroidered outer cloak. His hair was up, done in a bun, the kohl around his eyes perfectly pointed at the corners. Earrings of gold laurel leaves glinted in his lobes, flickering bright in the gloomy winter afternoon.

Stunning. An image out of a painting. Chin high, smile on his face as he turned to look at Cullen. “Ah!” He pulled gloves over his hands and crossed the room to fiddle with Cullen’s collar. “Much better. Claret is more your color than crimson.”

Cullen simply smiled. He wore red out of habit, an old preference that had long gone unexamined. “I trust to your superior judgment,” he said quietly.

“Oh ho! Words I never expected to hear.” He thumped both hands heartily onto Cullen’s chest. “Wise man. Shall we?”

They walked the relatively short distance to the adjacent property in the fading light, crunching through yesterday’s snow. On the doorstep, they were greeted by an exuberant and pink-cheeked Marchand.

“Rutherford!” Marchand, who had definitely already been into the wine, pulled him into a tight hug, patting him on the back. “You look skinny. Tell me you haven’t been sick again?”

“I’m afraid I have.”

“Oh, shame! Well, come in, come in, a little wine and some good company will put you to rights, no?”

“I’m sure.”

Reaching for Dorian, Marchand hugged him tight, too. “You’ve been well, I trust?”

“I have, though I’m worried about this one,” he nodded at Cullen.

“Ahh, don’t fret. We’ll get him fattened back up,” Marchand said with a wink.

“Good. He needs it.”

Before Cullen could protest they were escorted to the hearth in the living room, where a man stood by the fire. This was Alexandre, whom he’d met several times without realizing the two men were partners. Lacking imagination, he’d assumed they were old friends, or perhaps business associates, but not husbands. How clueless of him, in retrospect.

“Welcome,” Alexandre said. “Good to see you again.” This to Cullen as they shook hands. To Dorian, “I’m Alexandre, lovely to meet you.”

“Dorian. And the pleasure is mine.”

Alexandre was a tall, genial man with a flawless smile and a head of steel gray curls. There was something of the Free Marches in his accent, though it was weathered near to nothing by his time spent on the southern side of the sea. He wore a bracer on his right leg and walked with a cane, but Cullen had spoken to him before of his injuries—they’d been trading war stories, soon after he’d moved in—and knew he didn’t suffer overmuch. They got on well, as he was less abrasive than his husband, and also loved dogs.

Greetings and necessary small talk accomplished— that storm last night was wild, eh? Yes it certainly was! —Marchand brought out wine and a board stacked with cheeses and cured meats, and the conversation turned to news from the Orlesian capital. That occupied the group a while, though the imminent threat of further war, consequent upheaval, and general instability of the world saw them steering to lighter topics in the hopes of buoying the mood. Unsurprisingly, Alexandre had a great deal to say about wine, and he said quite a lot of it while they drank another round of the stuff.

At table, the meal was simple but delicious: a pot au feu, with plentiful vegetables and meat stewed tender. The broth on its own was hearty. A perfect supper to begin the slow restoration of his lost appetite. Over more wine, conversation flowed from light political humor to romantic court intrigues, onward toward the personal.

“But!” their host said, at the conclusion of his last amusing tale. “You two know something of love in unusual places. You met when you were with your Inquisition, no?” Marchand had leaned back in his seat and he held on to Alexandre’s arm, thumb brushing his wrist at slow intervals. In his other hand he gripped the habitual wine glass, where it punctuated his frequent, emphatic gestures.

“We did,” Dorian replied. “Though the day we met he nearly dropped a mountainside on my head. On purpose.”

Cullen bristled at the flippant mention of Haven, but tried to keep his expression steady. “There were...extenuating circumstances...”

Marchand and Alexandre both laughed, as did Dorian. His statement being taken as jest spared him having to explain further.

“All very dull, really,” Dorian said. “How about you two?”

“Ahh, so many years ago... I’ve forgotten.” Marchand grinned at his husband.

With a laugh, Alexandre shook his head. “Me too.” Their little joke was clearly as old and comfortable as the relationship itself.

Dorian tilted his head. “How long, if I may?”

“Twenty-six years?” This from Alexandre, who looked pensive.

“Twenty-seven,” corrected his husband.

“A long, long time,” Alexandre finished.

“Speaking of a long time,” Marchand interjected, raising eyebrows at Dorian. “You...will be leaving in the spring?”

Taken aback, Dorian paused a moment more than seemed natural. “I will, yes.” He smiled, not wholeheartedly. His eyes flicked to Cullen. “My work is volatile. I can’t be away forever.”

“This one will miss you, eh?” Marchand remarked. “He already dreads it, I can see.”

“Claude,” Alexandre cut in, with a hint of warning in his quiet voice.

Cullen waved it off. “It’s all right.” He turned to look at Dorian, but couldn’t bring himself to hold his gaze. “It’s the truth.” He realized there was a fork at his place setting he hadn’t used, and for a brief, horrible moment wondered how gauche that made him seem before he noticed they all still had the same one. For dessert then, he hoped.

Fingers curled into the hair at his nape and Dorian leaned in, urging him to face him. “I’ll miss him, too,” he said. He nudged their noses, seeking a kiss which Cullen gave gladly. It was brief. Dorian ruffled the back of his head a final time but left his palm there, a steady heat.

Swallowing, Cullen fought the rising tide of tears. He refused to weep at his neighbour’s supper table.

“Poor things,” Alexandre said softly, his smile all too knowing.

“You are a bit young for this idea maybe,” Marchand started, looking at Dorian, “but perhaps you should retire from your volatile work. Come make wine with me, instead. Stay close to your man.” Mischief glinted in his dark eyes, suggesting the idea was only half joke.

Dorian let go of Cullen with a laugh, and as dessert arrived to the table, the conversation moved on.

The evening came to a somewhat abrupt close when Cullen admitted that if they didn’t walk back to the manor soon he’d have to beg a bed for the night. After some overly fond goodbyes—it was the Orlesian way, he knew, but such familiarity could hardly be fully innocent—they were shown out the door with a gift of wine and a fancy sort of raisin loaf imported from Antiva. They walked in near silence, side by side.

At the house, Cullen readied for bed, his eyelids boulder heavy, too tired to feel much other than an encompassing numbness.

Spring. He had confirmation now. Both a time and Dorian’s intentions were clear. He saw to his teeth and washed his face, then retreated to the bedroom.

Dorian sat on the edge of the bed, tears dripping over his lower eyelids too quickly for him to smear them away.

A knot wound tight in Cullen’s stomach. He made his way to Dorian, reaching for his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he grated, barely audible. “You’ll think me ridiculous.”

Cullen shook his head. “I promise I won’t.”

With a huge breath, Dorian set his hand over top Cullen’s where it rested on his shoulder. “Seeing those two...it just...” Looking up caused tears to fall faster. “They’ve made a life for themselves, all these years. It’s remarkable, and I...” Sniffling, he used the meat of his palm to wipe his eye, then he simply shook his head and rested his elbows on his knees.

Cullen froze. The weight of his own bones seemed suddenly too much. Desperate sadness welled, the tears he’d held back at dinner prickled the corners of his eyes. Wet lines fell into his beard. What Dorian had longed for, what he’d gone his whole young life without seeing, existed. Intellectually, he must’ve known it did—the world was wide as the sky was blue—but Tevinter tethered its crumbling present to an illustrious past by bloodline. Every single marriage contract among the upper classes was made with a mind to strengthen dynasties, both political and magical, via the selective production of heirs. Ferelden, uncivilized muddy backwater that it was, did suffer the strain of similar tethers, but if two noblemen wanted to forgo sham marriages, will their worldly belongings to a niece or nephew, and take up together in the Bannorn, that was their business.

In truth, none of it was either here nor there. Now he understood that Dorian wanted such a life, or had, at some point, except... He’d wanted it with someone else. Someone who’d gone, and may never have been who they said they were. Nothing he could do would change that. Just like nothing he could tell himself would change that he loved Dorian, dearly, had been in love with him for years. Stepping in, he eased forward to hold him, ran fingers through the length of his hair, loose and wavy after being let down from the bun.

The stupid, irresistible thrash of hope crept into him, beginning in his fingertips and climbing, climbing until it encircled his throat. He chewed the raw bump of flesh at the inside corner of his mouth, the one that never quite healed because he was always at it, worrying it between pointed canines. “I would wait for you, you know,” he said quietly.

Against his chest, Dorian shifted, then drew back. “What?”

“I would wait for you. Years, if need be. If you wanted me to.” When Dorian made no reply, he swallowed. If it sounded desperate, that’s exactly what it was. No sense trying to amend it, or pretend otherwise. He might not be the love of anyone’s life, but perhaps he could be...something. A distant comfort. “I wouldn’t ask you not to have others while you were away, and if you were to find someone else, then... Then so be it, but until then...should you ever wish to come back, I’d be yours. If you’d have me.”

Breathless, he counted each beat of his heart, hope blooming like wildfire, the dry dead plains of his long years of solitude consumed in a flood of flame and smoke.

“Absolutely not.”

Outright refusal jarred him mute for several long seconds. An arrhythmic thud clattered on his ribs.  “...I... I understand.”

“I’m not certain you do,” Dorian rushed. “You don’t deserve to be treated that way.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Cullen, we’ve had this discussion and I’ve told you, it does.” He pulled free of Cullen’s grasp, leapt to his feet and strode across the room, fingers jammed against his own sternum. “To me, it matters!”

“Dorian, anything you’re willing to give, it’s—

“Don’t.” His brows crumpled, and he shook his head. “Don’t say it.” He began pacing in front of the hearth.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s fucking... It’s...” The sadness that surfaced on Dorian’s face was a heavy thing. His lines deepened. The last shred of his regal bearing drained away and he stood with slumped shoulders, looking lost. Defeated. “I...spent the better part of my twenties falling in love with any man willing to touch me. There were no small few, and one or two of them might even have loved me back, had circumstances allowed, but...for the most part, it was physical. Then, with Bull...” He sucked in a harsh breath. “When it started it was the same, but it...changed. He loved—I’d thought that he loved...” He crossed his arms over his chest, collapsing in on himself, sternum pumping as air moved too fast in and out.

Cullen went to him. He carefully opened his arms, encircling Dorian, who leaned in as though the press of their bodies might keep him from coming apart. “I believe he did,” Cullen whispered. The Bull had been an actor, and a good one, but too many times Cullen had witnessed his face soften in the most infinitesimal way when Dorian entered a room. “Undeniably, he did.”

“I’ll never know that,” Dorian choked out. His voice stayed high and tight as he continued: “I can’t know, and I... I don’t have anything left in me to give to you, and that’s not fair.” His body had gone tense, and the pound of his heart vibrated under the skin, rattling his ribs from behind so hard that Cullen felt the beat. “It’s not fair...”

Gently, he pressed his face to the side of Dorian’s head. “I’ve been alone all my life,” he rasped. “Unfair to your mind is...world-altering, for me. Love isn’t obsession and ardency, not always. There are times when it comes up quiet, and this... Whatever we’ve been doing these past months...” There was no helping the slight quaver in his voice. “Dorian, I care for you, deeply. And if you feel able to return even a modicum of that affection, then, as I’ve said...it’s enough.”

Dorian held very still.

Cullen’s hope burned on. “If... If this is nothing more than us passing the time while you’re here, then I will accept that, but...” He closed his eyes. “Even if it’s not love, you must feel... something for me, to lie by my side in bed each night.”

When Dorian neither moved, nor spoke, the hope went dark. The golden plains burned to ash. Even asking that much of him had been foolish, and perhaps Cullen had misunderstood the entire nature of their intimacy. Dorian turned his head and inhaled. Slowly, he pulled away, and as he did he wove their fingers and led Cullen along with him, towards the bed. One at a time, as if they were delicate glass wrapped for safekeeping, they settled under the covers.

“I don’t know,” Dorian whispered, once the hush had become absolute. His voice sounded far away. “I don’t know what I feel anymore. I can’t give you the answer you want, not tonight. Maybe never.”

Swallowing, Cullen nodded. The weight of his heart sickened him, made his breathing too shallow to properly fill his lungs. Where the flash fire had charred hope to gray earth, abject misery sprang forth, devouring the seconds. Finally, he found enough air to murmur, “That’s all right.” A lie, in counterweight to Dorian’s honesty.

Neither one of them spoke again. The truth was blunt, as obvious as a boot print on a clean floor. Dorian settled in closer, holding him, and Cullen, ill with shame, held him in turn. His heart pounded an altogether too palpable rhythm in his chest, each thud so heavy he felt as if it had lain siege against his ribs, determined to break loose and destroy him. Hard to blame it for the attempt. At his side, Dorian eventually slept, but fitfully. Nothing dramatic, no wails or calls for his dead lover, no frantic night terrors, but his limbs twitched with some force. He jerked his leg so hard at one point it startled poor Birdie right to her feet.

As the dog resettled, and Dorian mumbled a half word and went still, Cullen’s vision blurred with tears. He’d wanted an answer, and he’d gotten one. Allowing misery to consume him served neither one of them, and would not make their goodbyes any easier or him any healthier. Thus, he felt his heart surrender, the thump retreating to its rightful pace and weight: a sorry, sick corner behind battered ribs. Reality seeped through like groundwater, cooling the last of his razed hopes.

It was time to let things be what they were. He could suffer later. In this night and more yet to follow, he had the fleeting comfort of a companion. Soon, inevitable as the spring melt, that too would come to an end.

Chapter Text

Dorian slept little. Each time he woke in the night, his mood grew slightly more foul. In the snatches of sleep he did manage, the beginning of the dream came again and again; a massive gritty silhouette in a gray field, existing at a fixed point too far away to resolve. But for all it loomed, it never manifested, leaving him dry-mouthed in anticipation of a trauma six years past.

Come morning, they were partway intertwined. At some stage Cullen must’ve rolled onto his back, and Dorian had gone along with him, splayed over one side of his chest. As soon as he yawned, whining into it, the dogs lifted their heads and began wagging their tails. Birdie crawled upward and wedged her snout under his arm, nosing it until he relented and patted her. That bolstered his mood, if only marginally.

Beside him, Cullen stirred and kissed his temple, nuzzled him afterward, the familiar scraggly brush of beard catching in the hairs of Dorian’s eyebrow.

“Mm,” he complained. “You could use a trim.”

“Could I?” Cullen’s voice had an extra depth to it, quite growly, when he first woke. “I’ll see to it later.” With that, he nuzzled in further, tickling Dorian’s neck and leaving him squirming. Then, Cullen sat up, making to ready himself for the day. “I’d best go feed these monsters... Join me for breakfast in a while?”

“I’ll be down, by and by.”

Cullen left. Dorian stayed, cozy in the oversized bed for several long minutes. On the heels of their conversation the night prior, however, it quickly began to feel disingenuous, so he got up.

Across the hall in his own room he put on a touch of makeup and rifled through the wardrobe, choosing clothes. Two warm shirts hung side by side, and he was trying to pick between them when his guts churned in an unsettled sort of way, giving him pause. Hunger, yes, but something else deeper down, a nagging discomfort in his viscera. Not the cramps of having eaten suspect food, either, but rather...

Guilt. Self-condemnation. Fingers moved to trace a slow line along the scar bisecting his chest, hard tissue cragged as a mountain range; integral to the landscape, enduring, insurmountable. It centered him around a self he wished dearly he could let rest. Who else was there to blame but that younger Dorian, won over by devotion from an unlikely man? Bull had never hesitated in any aspect of his life, thus it was no surprise he hadn’t hesitated at the end, either. Maybe his love had been every bit as real as Dorian once believed it to be, but the axe had still fallen, describing a wide arc. Would the same have happened if Bull had betrayed the Qun? If his Chargers—strange, crude, wonderful little family they were—hadn’t been abandoned to the slaughter? Long before Cullen had asked the question, Dorian had wondered.

He’d been there that day on the horrible fetid coast, air stinking of salt and smoke, the seaweed stench of green rot intermingling with blood. When the call was made, he’d torn such a verbal strip off the Inquisitor that they’d nearly come to blows. He would’ve held nothing back if they had, but The Bull himself had constrained him before he could cast.

In retrospect, he should’ve fought harder. Sent up the signal to withdraw on his own, Trevelyan’s appalling command be damned. Maybe some other, better version of himself had, and there existed a pocket in time where things were...softer. Maybe, since he was indulging his imagination, there might even exist another Thedas, one in less of a shambles, where no blights had wracked the landscape and the old gods lay sleeping, uncorrupted. Perhaps in another future they’d rend the sky of their own volition and come out on the other side to walk amidst the stars.

Somewhere in the infinite possibilities, surely there existed a Dorian who might fall in love in the Fereldan Bannorn. A Dorian who would abandon his birthright, permanently, deciding instead to grow grapes and make very fine wine under the tutelage of a cantankerous old Orlesian. He laughed, shaking his head. Perhaps. What was the saying? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. But that adage had always rankled—if each wish produced a horse, the world would rapidly be overrun by a plague of horses. A poetic end, in imagination. In practice, an excess of shrieking and trampling. Senseless as such literal thoughts often were, it all amounted to further ugliness stampeding through his head, dragging his mood firmly into the territory of nasty.

He sighed and pulled on one of the tunics. A knock on his door frame made him turn.

Cullen, holding a tray. The smell of warm brown sugar. Faithful Birdie at his heels. “When you didn’t come down, I thought maybe...”

With a weak smile, Dorian gestured to the window seat. “Very considerate of you.” Truthfully, he was irritated. He’d wanted the time alone to sort his thoughts. They sat near one another with Birdie sprawled on the floor at their feet, and all Dorian could think was that last night, he’d told this man he didn’t love him and might never love him. As much as he understood why Cullen simply carried on as if they’d not talked at all, that very same lack of acknowledgement made mince of his last nerve.

“I’d thought we might bring the pups up to the house for awhile, this morning.” Cullen said. “Start to get them used to it.”

Perfectly civil, perfectly normal. Another day on the farm. Bowl in hand, staring down into the hearty mixture of oats and cream, Dorian felt his final nerve fray to nothing. Voice tight, he asked, “Aren’t you angry with me?”

Cullen paused, rubbing one of his arthritic knuckles. “About...last night?”

“About everything.”

“I... Why would I be angry?”

“I used you. I let you believe this could be more than it is.” As he spoke, the cruelty of the words sunk in. Part of him reeled. Hearing the statement aloud, he couldn’t know for certain if he meant it. Worse, he began immediately to think he might not.

Cullen’s throat worked under his stubble. Slowly, he leaned and rested his elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands as though his joints pained him—they likely did. “I’m...” He stopped, then blew through his nose. “I’m not a fool. I know I can’t...make you love me, it’s not—

“That doesn’t mean you ought to cheerfully devour any scrap I throw to you, either, like some great dutiful Mabari begging at my feet.” Stop. Enough. Too late.

Men had no hackles the way dogs did, but something in Cullen’s posture suggested the same bodily reaction. He stood with force, rattling the contents of the breakfast tray, cutlery knocking ceramic. Birdie jerked her head around to look at them, ears alert.

Slow, burning regret churned beneath Dorian’s skin. “Wait, Cullen—

“What are you so afraid of, Dorian!”

The shout sent the dog to her feet, and she moved to Cullen’s side. He ignored her, so she trotted to Dorian instead, and he set a hand on her ruff.

“It isn’t... It’s...”

“Answer the question! What are you so afraid of? And I don’t want to hear a word about what’s fair to me, because I’ve been very clear about my expectations.” Cullen’s nostrils flared. Red heat crept into the lower halves of his cheeks, following the line of his beard all the way to his ears. The knuckles on his visible hand clenched so tight they were white all the way up the tendons, almost to his wrist. This was as angry as Dorian had seen him in a decade.

“I’ve told you, I don’t know.”

A furious huff and Cullen angled his eyes to the floor. “Right. You don’t know. Is it the distance?”

“Partly, but—

“But?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Why? Because you’re using me? Leading me on?” He stilled, staring hard, waiting for a reply. When Dorian failed to give one, he shook his head, molars clamping a visible bite on the inside of his cheek. Then, he laughed, but it was a desperate, sad laugh. “Or are you really afraid that you’re not?”

“I... I don’t...”

“Fucksake, you started all this. Say something!”

Birdie leaned against him and Dorian stroked her ear, noticing how velvety it was as if for the first time. He saw the grain of her fur, how it started off pale blond at the skin and darkened to golden near the tips. It was true, he had started this, but one of his grand talents was starting things he had no idea how to finish. He patted the dog a final time and got to his feet. “What do you want me to say? That I don’t love you? That I can’t stomach the idea of spending my remaining years in this freezing stone hovel?”

Cullen stood there looking as though someone had struck him across the face. He swallowed and held very still as seconds drifted by. “If that’s the truth...” His voice was jagged. Too quiet. “Then, yes. That’s what I want you to say.”

It would not be the truth. Dorian said nothing. He hadn’t believed a syllable seconds ago when he’d posed the questions. There were only so many times he could repeat himself; another chorus of I don’t know would make him seem a true imbecile. Words whirled through his mind, a great sandstorm of static pelting him from all sides as he groped for some reasonable way to explain why he was being so Maker-damned horrible, and still he came away empty-handed.

Tired of waiting, Cullen turned and began to stride out of the room.

Dorian followed, grabbing hold of his arm. “Don’t walk away from me.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Cullen snarled, whirled, yanking to get free of the hold, and the force of his movement propelled Dorian against the wardrobe with a harsh thud. Unhurt but startled, he leaned there with a reflexive uncast spell sparking up one forearm, making the fine dark hairs stand on end.

Cullen looked sick, sagging shoulders heavy as the lines that bent his brow. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that.”

Breath quickening, spell fading to a skin-tingling buzz, Dorian regained his footing. Cullen took a step back, refusing to meet his gaze.

“Tell me we’re done, then,” Dorian said.  

No response.

“Say it!” He curled his hand into a tight fist at the back of Cullen’s neck, holding him by the scruff so they were forced face to face. “Are we done?”

Cullen’s eyes locked with his, dark as autumn and filled with thick tears. Silence.

In Dorian’s deepest, raw red heart, something twisted. Every beat pulled at tendons. Quiet pain radiated outward in a thudding spiral; a thumb driven into the meat of a bruise. Confused agony. Wrongness so complete it scorched his veins.

He tilted his head, catching Cullen in a fierce kiss. For a few seconds he kissed back, but then he jerked his chin sharply to the side, struggling to pull away.

“Stop, stop this—

Dorian held on, kept forcing the kiss, wrenched the hair in his fist until Cullen cried out. Sudden grave oppositional force against his chest—two flattened palms, he understood, shoving him backward—in combination with Cullen’s leg planted immovable behind his heel. He staggered, toppled to the carpeted floor, jarring both wrists. The rug’s pattern leapt forth, starkly different at close range, precise medallions rippling out as if in response to the impact. Sprawled and breathless, hip smarting from the fall, Dorian brought his gaze back to Cullen’s face.

“This is on you,” Cullen grated, water beading over the rims of his eyes. The bob of his throat and the flicker of his nostrils were the only break in his stillness. “Say every cruel thing that parades through your head, I still won’t tell you I don’t want you. This is on you, Dorian. Maker’s sake,” he pleaded, voice cracking. “Make up your fucking mind!”

He turned on his heel and marched out, Birdie slouching after him. A few seconds later, the door across the hall slammed shut with such force that somewhere in the rafters, tiny bits of loose grit rained down, scuffling atop the wooden ceiling joists.

Rug fibres itched his skin. The pattern had gone stiff, formal geometric, the illusion of his influence broken. Dorian got up, closed his door, and wept into his hands. He tried to box the feeling—the ragged screaming in his chest. Neat stacks of heartache piled on older stacks of grief, which he physically motioned through setting aside. No amount of visualization could rid him of it. As if magnetized, flecks of sadness flew back to him the moment he shook them off, a fine film of iron dust.

Vexed by a restless, irrational notion, still weeping, he pulled on a heavy cloak and good boots, then departed house by way of one of his windows, lowering from the sill to an outcrop beneath, and from there dropping onto a tall mound of snow heaped against the wall. He fled the grounds, ran towards the vineyard, uncertain of his own intentions. Madness, that’s what this was. He slowed as he neared the villa, managing to stifle his tears and calm his breath, but when Marchand answered the door, looking surprised, Dorian’s composure started to slip.

“Dorian! Andraste’s golden ass, my boy, are you alright? Come in, come in out of the ice...”

Cold air whipped at his robes as he crossed the threshold, but with the door firmly shut, warmth suffused the space. From the kitchen, Alexandre called a hello. Somehow, that undid him.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he said, tears creeping out. He thumbed the moisture away with a trembling hand.

“Hey, now, what’s wrong?” Marchand asked, taking gentle hold of his arm.

Shaking his head, Dorian swallowed. “Cullen and I...” His voice broke apart and he paused, clamping his lips to seek steadiness. “We’ve had a bad fight.” He shook his head again.

A look of understanding crossed Marchand’s face, and Alexandre emerged from the kitchen holding out a clean, folded kerchief. Dorian winced, fighting the reactionary sting he always felt at the gesture, and accepted the fabric. Strong pairs of hands guided him to the sitting room and lowered him into a seat by the fire, where someone passed him a filigreed cup full of strong, hot tea. A little dish of biscuits appeared on the end table next to him.

“Milk and sugar?” Alexandre offered.

Dorian gave a slight nod. “Please.”

For several minutes the three of them sat in relative quiet while Dorian collected himself, one smeared tear at a time. Kohl black stained the handkerchief, and he kept apologizing over and over, but Marchand simply patted him on the back. Finally, he took a shaky first sip of tea. It wasn’t until he’d nibbled a biscuit that anyone spoke.

“What happened?” Alexandre asked, voice overflowing with kind concern.

Somehow, Dorian wasn’t entirely certain he could answer. “Cullen is...” But he stopped short. His hosts would see clear through any deflection. “ I’m having...a difficult time,” he said, feeling silly for how enigmatic it sounded when all it meant was he couldn’t explain precisely why he felt so awful.

But Marchand and Alexandre looked to one another, nodding. Alexandre spoke up: “Is it going to be a long separation, when you go?”

Gulping, he tried to make himself breathe. “Yes.” Maybe a permanent one. “In fact, after this fight I’m... I don’t know...”

More nodding, and Marchand’s palm worked back and forth over his shoulder blades.

“At any rate, I wanted to ask you both,” Dorian wrestled his voice to keep it whole. “How do you stand it? Being so far apart from one another... I know it’s personal, but—” Liquid slid down his cheeks, and he dabbed at it. “Sorry...”

At his side, Marchand offered him a second kerchief, which he accepted without flinching.

“When we were young, it was easier,” Alexandre began. “But...it’s never been easy. We row about it, now and then.”

Marchand snorted. “Twice a year screaming match,” he said. “Clockwork.” Click, snapped fingers for punctuation. “Fights, they will happen.”

Sighing, Alexandre brought his tea to his lips and blew on it. “It’s never easy,” he repeated.

“Each time you say goodbye you wonder, will I see him again, or will the wars come? Will he take ill?” Marchand looked at Dorian. “You don’t know. Can’t know.”

“C’est la vie,” said Alexandre, mimicking his husband.

“Yes, c’est la vie. That is what you must remember. Things are always going to be uncertain, and it does not feel very nice, the fear, but...for us, the times we are together...” His hand landed on Alexandre’s knee with a soft thump. “I would not trade for anything.”

The way they looked at one another... The old pair’s kindness lodged into him, a splinter he couldn’t reach to pull free. Guilt twisted in the pit of his stomach. What right did he have to be here, asking these things? Pretending he faced the same challenges when he couldn’t even tell if what he felt was love? Maker’s sake, what was wrong with him? He set his tea aside and buried his face back in the kerchief.

“Dear boy, let me tell you this,” Marchand said, holding him about the shoulders. “Rutherford, he is a steady sort of man. A little boring and officious, maybe, but—

“Claude!” Alexandre cut in.

“Let me finish! But ...that is simply the bearing of an old soldier. Beneath it, I see he is warm and undoubtedly devoted. He’s loyal. You...worry for his health while you’re gone, is that it?”

“Yes.” Not the truth, but perhaps a piece of it. “I... I don’t know how fair it is to him, when I may not be back for...” Years. Years would flow past, and politics were unrelenting. Maker only knew the kind of damage this absence was doing; a second one any sooner than twelve months from his return was unthinkable if he wanted to maintain the fractional shred of influence he’d fought bitterly to possess. He sniffled and wiped at his eyes.

Marchand took a bite of a tea biscuit.

Alexandre cleared his throat and leaned forward where he sat. “Now, I could be wrong—

At this, Marchand stifled a chortle, and his husband nudged him with an elbow.

“I could be wrong, but it seems to me the fair thing to do...would be to give him a say. Whether he wants to wait or not. Of course, if there’s more to it, and there always is,” he smiled his genial smile, “then it’s a complicated matter. But if he says he’s willing, then either you trust him, or you don’t.”

Succinct. So simple it hardly seemed feasible. “...Ah...” A single brass skeleton key thunking efficiently in a lock.

“I’m not suggesting the final call isn’t yours to make,” Alexandre clarified.

“No, no, of course,” Dorian answered, dabbing at his nose. “I understand.” Fairness was a flawed concept, even an inapplicable one, given the situation. No more than a mental crutch that excused him from... From what exactly, he couldn’t say, yet. Responsibility, one way or another. Other things, less easily quantified or expressed. The shift in thinking dried the flow of tears, and he gathered his tea from the table and took a long drink.

Hard fingers squeezed his shoulder as Marchand spoke: “Fights will happen, in any marriage, but it’s better to have things out. Keep it in here too long,” he roughly thumped his palm to his own chest, “and it gets all thorny and twisted around. Much harder to get rid of. Like blackberries.”

No arguing with that. Those thickets grew tall and dense, and while they did bear fruit, getting to it meant being torn to shreds, jewel-bright beads of blood welling from every cut. “Blackberries... Yes.” Vivid green stalks winding tight, sharp as needles, imagined under his sternum. Nobody’s fault, not even his own, merely the result of an opportunist come to fill the gaps where the proper, softer things had died.

“So,” Marchand said. “Now, you talk to him, hm? Tell him the old bastards next door want you both to be happy.”  

Dorian laughed in surprise, sniffling a few last times. “Thank you. Both of you.”

The two men shrugged, looking to one another. “We are neighbours,” Marchand went on, “and we know that sometimes, for those like us, it’s...”

“People don’t always understand,” Alexandre said. His sweet expression carried an unspoken affirmation: but we do .

For a while, they sat together in front of the fire. More tea was made, a light meal served, and they kept Dorian until he’d well and truly recovered himself before sending him off with an extra shawl against the snow that had begun falling in the late afternoon dusk, as well as yet another bottle of wine. Their home’s foundations must’ve been packed to bursting with the stuff.

The manor grounds were submerged in the infinite quiet of snow, his footsteps on the pathway muffled before they could go past his own ears. Unsure where he’d find Cullen, he decided to pass through the barn first, to say hello to the puppies.

As he entered the whelping room, he startled; a figure sat on the bench near the pen, back slumped against the wall. Cullen, with the gray pup fast asleep in his lap, Laurel curled nearby alongside the other two. His eyes barely flicked to register that someone had entered the room, and as recognition set in, he turned his head slightly away.

Slowly, Dorian took a seat next to him. When Cullen neither got up, nor acknowledged him, he steeled himself and swallowed. “Earlier,” he said, almost whispering, “I shouldn’t have said those things. I am terribly sorry. It was unworthy. I was being cruel because...you’re right.”

All Cullen did was continue to breathe, inaudibly, slowly. His eyes were bloodshot red, inflamed from crying. Dorian had no doubt he looked similar. Quite the pair, the two of them.

“I am afraid,” he admitted. “Of...a lot of things. Though I’m not lying when I say I don’t know, either...” Cautious not to move too fast, he extended a hand to stroke the gray puppy’s soft snout where it rested on Cullen’s knee. “I do care for you,” he hushed. “I just don’t know yet what that means. Or if it can mean anything, given our circumstances.”

Cullen shifted his back away from the wall, gently lifting the pup from her spot on his legs, easing her into the cozy heap with her siblings and mother. Heart thudding down into his stomach, Dorian’s mouth twitched as he braced himself for Cullen’s imminent exit, but instead, he leaned back in his seat and stared at the opposite side of the room.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. His voice was hoarse.

Carefully, Dorian sidled a bit closer, taking hold of one of his hands and wrapping an arm about his shoulders. He planted a kiss on the side of his head.

Then, Cullen turned, burying his face in the front of Dorian’s shawl. Hot, wet tears soaked through to the skin in instants. “I love you,” he croaked into the fabric. “Forgive me, I know, it’s...” the words devolved into silent sobs. His fingers cinched in Dorian’s cloak. Whimpering, he hushed, “I don’t want this to end.”

Closing his eyes, Dorian put a palm to Cullen’s beard, ruffling it before thumbing the lobe of his pink ear. He let the hand creep up to stroke his hair, holding him as tight as he could for how awkwardly they were situated. “Darling...” he murmured.

“I know you can’t stay,” Cullen added, lifting his head. He wiped the tears out of his eyes with rough knuckles. “I know. But...” Trailing off, he let his face press back to Dorian’s chest and simply kept crying.

It hurt, the way his ribs were heaving. Dorian couldn’t seem to pull him in close enough to hold him as tightly as he wanted to. “Shh, shh,” he fretted. On the floor, Laurel watched them with a concerned look in her golden eyes. “You’re worrying mum,” Dorian whispered to Cullen, who glanced down at the dog and managed a little laugh in the midst of his tears.

Eventually, he tapered into slower breathing. They pulled apart. Cullen retrieved a kerchief from his pocket, already damp by the look of it, and mopped at his face. Snuffling a few times, he rubbed fingers down over his beard, then rose to his feet. “Where were you all afternoon?”

“Next door.” Dorian rose as well, fixing his cloak and shawl. He’d have to be sure to send something over to the two men, in thanks for how they handled his hysterics. “They took it all in stride, due credit for that.”

Cullen nodded but did not pry further. He put a hand on his stomach and grimaced. “I’ve not eaten at all today...”

“Shall we see what’s for dinner?” Tea snacks and his light lunch had worn off on the walk home.

Another nod, but Cullen paused, fidgeting with his swollen knuckles. “Are we... What do we do, now?” His voice was low, eyes glassy with uncertainty.

A hard question, which would only snag on both their hearts since Dorian had no satisfactory answer. Or maybe it didn’t have to be difficult, tonight. “We set it aside. For now, I think we...try to enjoy one another’s company.”

Cullen’s shoulders heaved on a deep breath, and as he exhaled, his chin bobbed once in assent. “All right.”

“Oh,” Dorian remembered, “I’m to tell you that the old bastards next door want us to be happy,” he said, drawing Cullen in to give him an earnest, intense hug.

Scoffing. Cullen rested his forehead against the side of Dorian’s neck, wrapping one of his heavy arms about him. “Tall order, that.”

“A kind sentiment, though,” he murmured, rubbing a hand up and down his back.  

They walked up to the house, hands loosely knit together.

Haring crept onward in a blur of snow. Winds at night sent frozen particles skittering across the roof above them as they slept.

Near the end of the month, Marchand and Alexandre stopped in to say their farewells before they set off on their trip back to Orlais, where they’d remain well into spring. Dorian squeezed them both with wild affection as they went out the door, wishing them a safe journey as he relished the flurry of cheek kisses and meaningful looks they exchanged.

After they’d closed the door behind them, Cullen turned to him. “What did you say to them, that day?”

“Nothing untoward, if you’re worried.”

The subject was let drop.

In spite of everything that had passed between them, their routine changed little. Cullen’s grief hung about his shoulders like a heavy, ill-fitting cloak, but he rose each morning, enduring, shaking it aside. He even managed to put back on a little of his lost weight, at Rho’s behest.

Dorian was grateful for the seeming forgiveness, but in spite of what had felt like a revelation in Marchand’s living room, heel-nipping guilt pursued him through his days. Cullen maintained that for the time being, they could wait and see. While that was his decision to make, it sat about as comfortably with Dorian as a five course meal of tavern food, which was to say, not at all.

And worse, he could find no way to articulate himself further. He tried, kept overturning memory after memory, delving through his mind and heart in the hopes of stumbling across a feeling that words would give shape to. Difficult work, uncovering scars, and for all his excavating, nothing came out clear—good and bad jumbled together into meaninglessness. There was a glow in there, somewhere, hidden in the stratum, but scratch away as he did at the burnt bits, he could not find the spark to kindle a clean orange flame. In spite of his failures, he’d come to the slow realization that he wanted to keep looking, to keep scraping off the char, so he might someday tend the frail ember with the care it deserved.

In the meantime, he tried to be soft. Tried not to take too much without giving in turn. Cullen made it immensely difficult, especially in matters of the bedroom, but he seemed to enjoy their one-sided forays every bit as much as Dorian did, blush starting in his cheeks and traveling all down his throat to his thick chest. He liked being held, when Dorian finished. While he didn’t often come, he seemed to find satisfaction in it nonetheless.

So, they carried on.

Chapter Text

Paths meandered the property, wreathing its borders. They wound across fields, along fences, through every stretch of woodland, many of them circuitous rather than direct, though it mattered little at the moment since a majority of the usual trails were rendered unfamiliar—or invisible—under cover of deep snow. What came to light in snowfall were the secret paths, some created by the tread of boots, others by shod or cloven hooves, yet others by the purposeful tight stride of padded feet. Wild rams, wolves, foxes, his own dogs, a hierarchy of animal inhabitants shaping the landscape alongside the men that used it at will. Fresh snow revealed these otherwise ephemeral jaunts to the naked eye: scattered criss-crossing prints, a tuft of fallen fur. Often blood drops, gem red, pink-edged. Each sign conveyed the unseen dramas that unfolded under the blanket of dusk, dark, and dawn.

Early in the morning, surrounded by three dogs, he walked one of these secret paths. All night he’d struggled to sleep, and as the horizon took on a blush he’d risen, dressing for the cold. Exhaustion was occasionally best spent in solitude.

The dogs did not need to see the landscape to have the lay of it, but rather snuffed the air through their wet leather noses, siphoning skeins of information that existed far beyond Cullen’s ken. In a twitch of Birdie’s snout, she could see for miles. Snuff—a vixen has killed a nug, and takes it to her three kits in their burrow. Snuff—one of the druffalo cows has ambled out of the pasture. Snuff—the rams have moved higher up the mountain to avoid the wolves.

And Birdie was not the only one. Fuller, senseless oaf that he was, seemed keenest to share what he discovered, often fetching Cullen from the sitting room to show him that a rooster had been taken by a hawk, or to tattle on some burrowing creature that found its way into the root cellar. Cullen had not yet puzzled through how to teach him to do it on purpose. If he said “show me” then Fuller would occasionally lead him to a perceived problem, but most of the time he brought him to the kitchen instead. Mabari were wickedly smart, but they were still dogs, and dogs had priorities.

Sometimes, he missed the Inquisition’s birds. They kept messenger ravens on the property, naturally, but they were the purview of one of his permanent residents—an older, somewhat dotty templar who seemed to prefer feathered company to that of people. So, Cullen could visit the birds when he wished but they weren’t his birds, and as such weren’t always terribly interested in engaging with him. Birds were so unlike any other creature; keen, intelligent, utterly strange, good mimics. He’d argue they had a sense of humor as well, but since it was often at the expense of their handlers, others might disagree. Perhaps once the melts came, he’d see about a raven of his own.

By the feel of the ground beneath his feet, it was still dead winter. New snow would fall into Cloudreach, possibly quite a lot of it, but starting at the end of Guardian the greening earth would begin its stretch skyward, grasses and early blooms readying to surge headlong into a new season.

Spring. Part of him wanted to dread the spring, but it wasn’t in his bones to do it. Dorian’s looming departure weighed heavy, dense as bloodstone balanced at the sternum, undroppable as if by enchantment, but his leaving could not outweigh the longing for meltwater, birdsong, buds, tender green growth poking through crumbling patches of snow. There were weeks yet before that shift, weeks yet before the snowdrops sprouted from the still hardened earth, their pale throats an early glimpse into the season ahead. Plenty of mornings still to come for him to return to the man asleep in his bed that didn’t love him but held him in the night, all the same.

Another winter added to the count of his years, deepening the lines etched into his face. Were not all men their own mountain, ground to shale by the invisible glaciers of time?

He was in a bad way when his thoughts veered to poetic nonsense. Perhaps he was out of sorts on account of finding new gray in his beard yesterday morning, at the chin. The aforementioned glaciers weathered him even as the season came to green anew. Men were afforded no such visible renewal. He sighed another chill breath on the early dawn air, then climbed to the house, where he found Dorian still sleeping.

After the coals of their argument had cooled, everything settled into comfortable fellowship, tinged melancholy gray in moments of stillness. He’d been attempting to force a decision one way or another, but realized now such forcing was futile, as ridiculous as prying open a closed blossom because you were too impatient to leave it be in the sunlight—not only would you ruin what it was in the meantime, you’d never see what it might’ve become. Dorian’s wounded heart would bloom, or it would not, and either instance promised challenges that would need overcoming. Sad as it sometimes made him, he’d decided to set matters aside and enjoy the man’s company as best he could.

They lay together at night, warming one another. In the days, they pursued separate paths, crossing here and there at meals or when Dorian decided he could withstand the outdoors for a stretch. They both found joy in seeing to the animals, or walking the creekside by the coppice wood.

Near the close of the month, Cullen was feeling stronger, and with Rho’s blessing he resumed his duties supporting the health and wellbeing of the manor’s templar charges.

Haring came to an end, bringing a new year in its wake.

First Day. The turning of winter toward its eventual parting, and the celebration of light soon to come.

Each year on First Day the whole of the manor put its mind to making merry. Three long tables were set in the main hall, laden with food and drink. Guests from surrounding farms drifted in and out beginning in the late morning, each person welcomed like a cherished friend, and come dusk everyone gathered in the common room to bask in the noise of shared tales, children playing, laughter, and music that spread to fill the whole of the house.

Following a prime bit of flattery on Cullen’s part, Dorian acquiesced to Jillian’s cajoling plea for him to pick up the mandolin. He joined her at the piano, where they led the crowd through a rousing series of drinking songs. He knew a reel or two as well, and played them with heart and no small amount of skill, though Cullen knew he’d argue to the contrary if told as much. The crowd was drunk enough that any mistakes were part of the fun. Clearly emboldened by a forgiving audience, Dorian let Jilly choose several pieces he hardly knew at all, and improvised. As the evening wore on, inhibitions lowered, and those who were able rose and danced, some familiar faces and some less so.

Not Cullen, who steadfastly sat and nursed a mug (or five) of ale and nibbled plenty of food while he watched the rest of the house celebrate. Birdie lay at his feet, and Fuller moved through the crowd, wagging his tail and licking everyone’s hands. Old Bear was sprawled in the hallway just outside the door like a rug, wanting to be included but obviously sleepy. The pups had been part of the festivities up until mid-afternoon, when they had wearied themselves so thoroughly that they’d fallen asleep under a potted plant in the dining hall and had to be carried back to the barn.

The merriment continued late into the night, finally winding down as the hours closed in on dawn. The long evening of drinking had left him a tad queasy, but the idea of bread appealed, so Cullen left the party and retreated to the kitchen, where he made himself a sandwich with odds and ends of a roast leftover from the day’s feasting.

He’d eaten half of it when he noticed the music had stopped. By the time he was down to the last bites, Dorian appeared in the room, alight with the gleam of performance, though it shared space with exhaustion on his brow. Smiling, he swept up to Cullen and slung an arm about his waist.

“Worked up an appetite with all that sitting and drinking, did you?”

“Mm. Just something to soak the poison,” he confessed. “Besides, Rho’s made it clear I’m to have a buffer,” he put a hand to his stomach, “so...I need to fill the larder, so to speak.” Which he understood, and knew was reasonable considering how quickly he’d dropped weight when he fell ill, but part of him still resented it. His tunics were already on their way to fitting snug again, much to his chagrin.

“Rho’s right.” Dorian leaned in, kissing him first on the edge of his jaw, then taking hold of the hand that held the sandwich and angling it so he could steal a bite.

Laughing, Cullen let him. “Shall I make you your own?”

Waving him off, Dorian, still chewing, went for the breadboard, where he began slicing the necessaries. Doubtless he needed the sustenance after the hours of musical exertion.

“Thank you for your playing, tonight,” Cullen said. “You and Jilly put on a grand show.”

Smile on his face, Dorian shrugged. “It’s kind of her to have such patience with my hapless noodling.” He brought the sandwich he’d made to his mouth and took a huge bite, closing his eyes to savor it. After he’d chewed, he leaned a hip against the counter. “She misses him. The boy who died.”

Most of the house did. “They were good friends.” There’d been many lit candles for Gavin, this year. Bear missed him, too. Several people had told Cullen that the old dog often wandered to the spot in the infirmary the boy had long occupied.

Speaking of Bear, he currently sat right underfoot, a bead of drool stringing from his great jowls as he begged for the tail end of the sandwich. “Not for dogs,” Cullen said. He managed only one more bite, then guiltily fed him the last stub.

“I thought poor Bear was forbidden scraps, at the moment,” Dorian observed, wry smile on his lips.

“It’s First Day,” Cullen replied, patting the fat old dog on the flank. A treat wouldn’t kill him. Sandwich gone, feeling tired and rather heavy-bellied himself, he sighed. “I’m for bed, I think.” He moved to Dorian, kissing him next to the mouth, and that done, he ambled out of the room. Bear remained behind, drooling as he stared up at the sandwich in Dorian’s hands.

Upstairs, he readied for sleep, cleaning his teeth and beginning to change into nightclothes. Midway through the effort a wave of fatigue came over him, and he sat down on the edge of the mattress, reaching for a soft woven throw to wrap about his shoulders.

When next he blinked, he realized he’d lain down. Dorian was now in the room, leaned over the hearth tending the fire. Drawing a deep breath, Cullen stirred himself and sat up, shuffling further into the bed to rest against the headboard. When Dorian climbed overtop of him, settling by his side, Cullen turned and nuzzled for a uncoordinated kiss.

“Waiting up for me, were you?” Dorian murmured against his lips.

“Oh, I wasn’t,” Cullen said with a chuckle. “But I’m up, all the same.” He nosed for another kiss, one of his hands flattening against Dorian’s hip.

“Mm.” Dorian turned to press closer. “Feeling alert all of a sudden?”

Cullen tugged at him, urging him to straddle his lap. “I slept a few minutes just now,” he spoke into the skin of Dorian’s neck.  “I’m awake...”

It might’ve been the ale talking, but it was still the truth.

“Come,” Dorian said, maneuvering until Cullen slid down the bed, onto his back. He settled overtop of him, leaving enough space between them to reach down and rub him over the top of his pyjamas, which made him breathe a shaky sigh. They’d fooled around while Cullen was on the mend from his illness, and a bit more since calming down after their terrible fight, but Cullen had been there almost solely for Dorian’s sake save on rare nights. For his purposes, that suited, but he could tell Dorian longed for him to be a more active participant.

“You could ah...” Cullen squirmed under the touch. “You could cast that spell, again?”

Loosening his evening robe, Dorian then trailed a hand over Cullen’s stomach. “Would you like me to?”

In answer, Cullen sat up, took hold of slim hips, pressed his mouth under Dorian’s chin, on the bob of his throat, the spot where his tendon curved into his collarbone, lower, until his lips grazed down to the triangle of sternum exposed by the robe.

Hands grasped at his biceps and he startled as Dorian pulled away. Only an inch, but still away.

“Please don’t,” he said. Flat, emotionless. “Don’t do that.”

Heat burned across Cullen’s face. The chastisement left him alight with guilt, as scolded as one of the pups when he caught them gnawing a stolen boot. Had he never put his mouth on him there before? He could’ve sworn he had, but maybe he’d misremembered. “F-forgive me. I’d only—

“Don’t try to make it some...fucking noble thing,” Dorian muttered. “It’s just ugly.”

The scar. Of course, the scar. Sighing, Cullen gripped Dorian about the middle and eased him in against his chest. He let one hand climb his back, upward until fingers gently tangled in his silky hair. “I didn’t even think of it...”

“Now you’re being disingenuous.”

Very little he said or did would help when Dorian decided to interpret something as he saw fit rather than trusting someone’s stated intention. Best to accept his feelings on the matter, allow him his moody outbursts, but to disengage from the harsh self-judgement. “I understand that it bothers you. I won’t tell you that it shouldn’t,” he murmured against his throat, rubbing along the fuzz of one of Dorian’s ropey thighs.

“But?” Dorian demanded.

Cullen only shook his head, nothing further to add, sliding his hand over a hip and down, to grip Dorian’s ass. He nosed at the point of his chin and tilted him right up against his belly. It wasn’t his place to dictate how anyone else related to whatever marks their traumas left behind. Sometimes scars were only scars, other times they sent a person reeling to the moment their lives were irrevocably altered, in some cases beyond repair. But he refused to allow Dorian to think himself ugly, or unwanted. “I’m sorry for my thoughtlessness,” Cullen said, “but, please...cast the spell. If you’d like.”

Three deep breaths filled and emptied from Dorian’s chest, and his fingers, which had been curled tight into his biceps, slackened. Cullen tensed, waiting. A grip closed around his half-hard cock, and he grunted. The familiar, odd sting of magic warmed him, and his breathing turned shallow as blood steadily rushed, filling him to near painful hardness. He groaned a little against Dorian’s skin, wriggling to thrust his hips up and push through clasped fingers. Except Dorian let go, leaving him aching in the cool air of the room. He made a noise of protest, and Dorian ran rough fingers through the scruff of his hair.

“Hold a moment,” he shushed. Dorian’s other hand, Cullen noticed, had taken hold of his own dick, working himself to attention with a glimmer of that same magic. Stiffened, tip wet, Dorian shifted further down, settling their cocks together between them. “How’s that?” he murmured in his ear.

“Nn... Good,” Cullen croaked, feeling every heartbeat throb through him, as if he could trace the path of his pulse in each vein as it moved. He hadn’t been this hard in years, not even at the inn that night, the last time he’d agreed to a spell. “S...slick,” he said, gesturing feebly at the bedside table.

Dorian pushed him onto his back, half crawled, half leaned to reach the salve out of the drawer. He dabbed some on his fingers and rubbed himself with it, then Cullen, stroking him slowly a few times before settling atop him.

They played at fucking, Dorian’s muscles working as he propped himself high enough to leave them just the space they needed for their dicks to bump and slide between them. Cullen wondered if he ought to help, but Dorian’s svelte writhing seemed effortless, so instead he let his hands roam to his ass, to the sensitive space between the cheeks.

“Use your fingers,” Dorian rumbled, pushing into the grip. He went still, leaned away, and suddenly the jar of slick sat on Cullen’s chest.

“I...” He could intuit what Dorian was asking for, but wasn’t sure he could comply. In spite of his aching cock, he began to freeze up. “I don’t...”

Biting back a sigh, Dorian sat up, still straddling him, erection bobbing against his leg as he moved. “Fuck me, then,” he said.

“Are we not...um, that is to say—

“Don’t be intentionally obtuse, darling,” Dorian chastised him. Then, after a pause, softer: “Have you never done it before?”

Redness burned across Cullen’s nose, down his cheeks. He’d never wanted to. Still wasn’t certain he wanted to. He shook his head.

Slowly, Dorian lowered back down to nuzzle him. “That’s okay. Not everyone likes it. A lot of the time I don’t even like it,” he said with a laugh. “But...sometimes I’m of a mood. We don’t have to, but I’ll do most of the work, if you’ll let me?”

He was certainly hard enough for the job, he thought with a grimace. “If you wish,” he relented.

A grin flitted across Dorian’s face. “Another quick spell, then.”

Eyes widening, Cullen leaned up on his elbows in protest. “I’m already aching stiff!”

Dorian just laughed. “Not the same one, dear man,” he said, rubbing Cullen’s chest. “More of a very fine barrier, to ease things for us both.”

Cullen settled down and puffed a breath out, watching the ceiling while he waited for Dorian to do his casting. He knew of this one, or guessed he did, from the other templars at The Gallows. Second skin, they called it, and some of them would have a mage cast it on them prior to spending an off duty night at The Blooming Rose. Another among many trespasses Cullen had allowed when he should have intervened on behalf of his charges, who should never have been taken advantage of, not even in small ways let alone grotesque ones. At the time he’d believed otherwise. That ignorance, whenever his thoughts touched on it, left him sick with himself. Back then he’d thought only of his own men, and, as they’d constantly, bitterly complained to him whenever he chastised them for indulging their base instincts, men had needs.

“We’re ready,” Dorian said, breaking him from his thoughts. “Almost.”

Slow, still trying to hold his robe closed with one hand, Dorian began to lower himself down. Except right away he winced, repositioned himself, and tried again, with only slightly more success. Inexperienced as Cullen might be, he could tell the tension was too high. That although Dorian made small noises, it was out of pain, not need.

“If it hurts...”

“No, just...” More movement, and finally he let go of his robe, for better balance. The scar showed, revealing how it had rent him, how the wound beneath damaged far below what the eye perceived. He cursed, paused, let both of his hands press into the mattress on either side of Cullen’s abdomen. Dark clouds had begun to crowd his gray eyes, in spite of his initial swagger.

“Please, Dorian, what if... What if we...” Cullen took hold of his ribcage, shifting him up and off, over to the side, where he peeled him gently out of his robe and urged him to roll over. Tossing the fabric away, he nestled in against his back, cock firm where it pressed under his ass. “Is this alright?”

“Mm. Yes...”

Cullen wet his lips. Deep breath, hand on himself to direct the motion, he started to press in, just barely. There were no cries of pain, no sharp shifts of the hips to pull away. Only a long, purposeful inhale; a quick nod. After that, Dorian insistently pushed against him, and Cullen obliged, feeling himself steadily taken to the hilt. They held that way for several long moments, Dorian’s fingers curling and uncurling in the sheets.

“Okay,” he finally hushed. “Okay. Slowly... It’s been a long time.”

So, Cullen tensed, bringing his pelvis tight against Dorian’s ass before pulling away, ever so slightly. Again, and Dorian sighed. Again, and he let out a breathy moan. Within a minute, shaking fingers reached for Cullen’s flank, urging him on. He did as he was bidden, thrusting slow, then faster, slower again, with more force, as directed by Dorian’s grip, and when he groaned low in his throat and rasped harder , Cullen brought his weight to bear and obeyed like a buck at rut.

The body against and halfway beneath him writhed, moans catching on Dorian’s exhales as his hair fell in a messy fan over the pillows, obscuring part of his face. He was undone, the way he so often got when he lost himself in pleasure. Beyond any bodily sensation, for Cullen it was the knowledge that he was responsible for another’s bliss that intensified his own, unified his muscle and blood in a singular, perpetual drive toward Dorian’s breaking point. Harder, harder . He was still a good soldier. Obedient. Eager to get the job done. He slid a hand around and palmed the tight heft of Dorian’s cock, familiar enough now that he could tell he was only a few thrusts from finishing.

When Dorian came, he yelped, whimpered, went rigid as ice, then seemed to melt, gradually, humming low and quiet as he squirmed against Cullen’s front.  

They lay there a good while, until Dorian shifted forward and turned, hair falling over Cullen’s chest. “Mm, that was...exactly what I needed,” he rumbled, climbing to nuzzle for a kiss. Pulling him close, Cullen gave it freely, his dick throbbing next to a hip bone. Abruptly, Dorian gave a little cry of dismay. “Didn’t you come?”

Cullen shook his head. “It’s all right.”

“Like hell,” Dorian growled. “You’re hard as a rock. I won’t be the sort of man who gets well fucked and leaves his partner behind.” Some fumbling as the second skin spell was lifted away like an odd bit of silky cloth and thrown in the trash. Dorian’s adept fingers closed around him, then his warm mouth, and the skill of his movements paired with already overstimulated nerves meant Cullen scarcely drew ten breaths before he was tapping at Dorian’s shoulder in warning. Dorian lifted his head, kept his cock gripped tight, and he spilled, forcefully, painting his own belly.

They used the basin and pitcher by the fire to wash themselves, to spare the sheets. Thus abluted they retreated to bed, where Cullen rested on his back and Dorian slung himself partway overtop him. The room still smelled of exertion, but the pleasant sort; a sweaty, soft salt-tinged musk. His own smell, and Dorian’s. Similar yet divergent.

Though of course, beneath that, the whole room always boasted a faint undercurrent of dog. Nothing unhygienic, and personally he found the dry smell of living fur comforting, but he wondered sometimes if he didn’t smell vaguely canine himself considering the state of his living quarters. Speaking of the dogs, they’d forgotten to open the door for them. He was about to mention as much when Dorian shifted, hummed a small noise, and asked, “Did you ever have a lover?”

A strange question, but not beyond the bounds of their post-intercourse chats. Though he was certain they’d already tread this particular ground. “Some. People I...met with, more than once.”

“No, I don’t mean...” Dorian clicked his tongue. “Not fumbling in some dark corridor out of desperation. Did you ever have one person you felt...intimate with. Someone whose body you learned the tricks of, how they liked to be touched.”

He’d been strict about his after hours gratification—no beds, fifteen minutes maximum, no kissing, hands or mouth only, with protection where it was warranted. People usually grew bored of his stringent adherence to these tenets after a couple of tries, minus one fellow who seemed to be relieved he’d found someone equally invested in cleanliness and efficiency. Stanhope, the fellow’s name had been Stanhope. Their tenuous arrangement had ended after a dozen or so encounters when the man was ejected from the Order for sympathizing with mages, though under Meredith’s command such allegations could be leveled for something as benign as standing around with a blithe look on one’s face. Fortunately, Stanhope had been a noble-born Marcher, and as such had doubtless landed on his feet.

Realization hit him, an icy raindrop snaking under a high collar, and Cullen saw his own naivety: the poor fellow had probably died during the war, like so many others he’d once called colleagues. Sad, to think he’d been the closest thing to a lover in Cullen’s life and he didn’t even know what had become of him.

“Then, no,” Cullen murmured. “I suppose I never have.”

The bridge of Dorian’s prominent nose pressed into the side of his neck. “That’s a shame.” He rubbed Cullen’s stomach, back and forth just below the navel. “You’re quite good at it. I’m sorry no one else has benefitted.”

Cullen laughed, turning to press a sloppy kiss to Dorian’s brow. “Now you’re being disingenuous,” he teased.

Dorian’s hand thumped on his middle in reproach. “I am not. I would’ve liked to’ve seen you in your prime, though. Around twenty-five, with that newly finished look young men have.”

At twenty-five, Cullen had already been worn thin by the events at Kinloch. He was deep under the Knight Commander’s thrall, eyes blind to countless abuses. “You wouldn’t have liked me at that age.” Worse, he would’ve reviled Dorian, dismissed him as a decadent northern monster, a menace to free society who ought to be brought low because mages weren’t people. Thinking that thought all these years later, how he’d embraced such a vulgar lie as basic, immutable truth, made his skin crawl. A thin sort of nausea clenched momentarily in his gut.

Beside him, Dorian levered up onto his elbows. “Are you alright?”

Cullen pulled in a deep, lung-swelling breath of air, counting to five on the exhale. The feeling passed. “Yes,” he said. He squeezed Dorian’s shoulder. “I’m just thinking you’d be disappointed by how skinny I was in those days.”

Laughing, Dorian settled back in against him. “True. I do like meat with my potatoes...”

“Now I’m a potato?”

“Oh, you’re a whole Sunday dinner,” Dorian retorted. They both broke down laughing. As they quieted, the fire crackled behind its grate. “I was an arrogant prat at that age, anyway, but I do long for it. The promise of what lies ahead, more than anything... I must be getting old.”

“Mm. Me too, and I’m getting fat besides,” Cullen added. “Despite it all, we’re both still alive. Without our preceding years we’d hardly be who we are today.”

“In my case, that might be for the best,” muttered Dorian.

With a shrug, Cullen rolled to face him. “Or, it might not. I’d like to believe the Maker has his reasons.”

Nestling his cheek deeper into the pillow, Dorian went silent. His fingers continued a back and forth path over Cullen’s thick flank and a gust of wind threw ice against the glass of the window. “I wish I could still believe that,” he whispered at long last.

From there, Dorian spoke a word to allow the door to reopen, and imminently a snout barged through, belonging to Bear, who looked offended at having been kept out so long. Behind him followed Birdie, and Fuller. The dogs settled, and sleep slipped in after them.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Dorian mumbled, pulling Cullen back from the precipice of half-waking dreams.

“Hm.”

“At the inn that night, those weeks back... I didn’t cast the spell.”

“You... What?” Cullen opened his eyes, wide awake. “You didn’t? But...” He’d felt different. It had worked, and he’d been able to...

Dorian huffed a soft chuckle and nestled in against him. “More than once I’ve woken in the night to feel a stiff jab from you, which means,” he raised his hand from Cullen’s chest, “that your problem is mostly up here.” His middle finger tapped Cullen’s forehead. “Not to say that makes it any less real, but there’s nothing physically wrong with you. In case you were convinced otherwise.”

“I...” He had stirred now and then to find himself messy with spend, but had never imagined he’d been any harder than he usually got, doing it. “...huh.”

“Don’t worry on it just now. Tonight I did cast it, on both of us, because we’re old and tired,” he joked. “But...I thought you might like to know.”

Cullen let his head fall back onto the pillow. That changed things—the knowledge that his body hadn’t entirely shut down on him just yet. He wasn’t sure why it changed things, but it did.

He could still feel—and more importantly, give—pleasure. That struck him as a gift, at this middling-late hour of his life. One among many unexpected revelations the man snoozing against him had inadvertently brought south.

Their fight still nagged in the ramparts of Cullen’s head. Best to forget it, they’d agreed, but he felt the scab pull afresh in quieter moments when his heart cracked with a love he was determined to act on, so long as it was wanted, or at least not refused. He felt stupid, sometimes, a soloist trying to sing a duet, but if it was stupid to love someone, if there was shame in that, he’d willingly bear it. He’d share his love freely, even if not so much as a whisper of it was answered back.

Dorian was at least whispering. Too quiet to make out the words, but nonetheless.

Cullen rearranged a hunk of dark, silken hair from where it tickled him, tucking it behind Dorian’s ear. His roots were beginning to silver in earnest, he’d noticed of late, varying from deep granite gray to bright steel. Within the next year or two most of the ash black would likely be gone. As much as he fought to accept the temporary nature of their entanglement, it stung that he’d not get to see the transformation unfold.

It would be beautiful. Imbued as he was with an indelible grace, no ravage of time could truly take that from the man in his arms. If he left tomorrow and Cullen never saw him again, he’d go to his grave knowing Dorian had stayed beautiful.

Chapter Text

“Maker, I thought spring was meant to be arriving...” This spoken aloud to no one save himself, standing alone in Cullen’s bedroom wrapped in a rough wool blanket, eyes fixed beyond the window glass.

A foot of fresh snow had fallen in the night. Thick fat flakes continued to drift from the sky, layering the world in softness. Bootprints vanished as rapidly as they could be made, and several of the younger denizens of the farm were out throwing snowballs at one another, their joy audible in whoops and hollers. A perfectly beastly pastime, if you asked Dorian, who had wielded ice as a weapon in many sincere, life-threatening battles.

“So much for Wintersend,” he muttered.

Cullen had left him early in the morning after his usual fashion, taking the warmth of his thick chest, arms, and belly with him. Lamentable, that. The weeks since First Day had been bitterly cold with little sun, winter clamped into the stones of the house as if it might cling there for eternity, refusing eviction. Constant hovering gray clouds had started to weary his senses. When he’d woken to the sight of falling snow through the high windows he’d decided he would tarry in bed as long as he could physically stand to, but that point had been reached. Time to dress and see about tea, perhaps a bit of bread and jam.

Properly outfitted in woollens, (one of the under-layers pilfered from Cullen’s wardrobe, which contained an excess of warm if unbecoming sweaters,) he descended to the kitchens to share a few moments of sourness over the weather with the Orlesians, all of whom looked equally disconcerted by the wretched duplicity of winter’s supposed end. Once they were done grousing, one of the cooks mentioned they expected a theatre troupe through in the following days, to perform a duo of dramas: an Andrastian tragedy, accompanied by some sort of musical morality fable.

“Won’t that be uplifting in this dark season,” he remarked, a sarcastic arch in his brow.

“Don’t worry,” said Henri, dusted to his elbows in bread flour, “a little elfroot beforehand, you will find the whole performance hilarious.”

Dorian barked a laugh. He’d been made to sit through his share of grim theatre, not only limited to the subject matter, but including the quality of the actors themselves. “We’ll gauge the caliber of the players and depending on our findings, we’ll either smoke yours or mine.”

“What’s so great about yours?” Henri’s indignance stilled his dough-kneading.

“Oh no, dear fellow, if they’re awful it’s yours we’ll be needing.” They both laughed again, and Henri resumed his breadmaking. Perhaps these incoming players could be convinced to do a comedy, instead. Comedies, even ill-played ones, were much easier fare.

“Magister Pavus?” From the direction of the doorway. Not a title he’d heard since his arrival, and not one he relished to hear now.

“Unfortunately, that would be me,” Dorian replied, turning to see a young, snow-flecked messenger girl.

Mouse-like, she approached and held out a bit of parchment, unsealed, and bowed as he took it before she withdrew to a polite distance.

Unfolding the sheet revealed a brief note:

Called to Redcliffe. Gone eight days minimum. Forgive the hasty departure—matter of mild urgency. You were sound asleep, and anyway I fear old Barley could not keep up as the situation demands. Enjoy the players. I’ll send word when I’m able. -Cullen

Blinking, Dorian looked from missive to messenger. She straightened as if struck by a crossbow bolt.

“Would you like to send a reply by bird, ser?”

What was there to say? “Thank you, but that’s all right.” She bowed again, and began to dash off. “Wait. When did he leave?”

She replied he’d gone at first light, alone. He thanked her again, and she left. Come to think of it, Birdie was nowhere to be seen, either. Likely she’d followed the master away, keen as she could be for adventure. Still, knowing that Cullen had left, even having it in his own words written in his own hand, didn’t tell him precisely why he’d gone. Considering their last foray beyond the borders of the manor grounds had involved bad weather, swordplay, death, propositions by strange handsome mages, and a chill that evolved into serious fever and lingering weeks of ill-health for poor Cullen, Dorian couldn’t help but feel his nerves flare.

Old Barley didn’t move quickly, no denying the fact, but if he left straight away he’d arrive only a day or so behind. The fresh snow meant travel would be less slippery, at least for the afternoon. Except he’d whiled away his morning hours, and darkness came early these last weeks of winter.

Undecided, he made for Cullen’s office, where he hoped to find either evidence or explanation. What he found was Rho, poring over a bookcase.

“I’m not to tell you why he’s gone,” they said without looking away from their task.

“Certainly not,” replied Dorian. “What would be the fun in that?” Undeterred, he moved into the room and began picking up and examining papers. At this, Rho did turn, a look of amusement around their eyes.

“He’s taken the pertinent documents with him, I believe,” they explained patiently.

“Oh come, now you’re ruining it on purpose!” Dorian tossed down his stack of what appeared to be seed inventories. Nothing enlightening there, even if he was mildly interested in the farm’s planned wheat cultivars. “He’s left me to my own devices in this enormously boring house and I can’t even play detective?”

Rho smiled. “Plenty of work needs doing.”

“Can’t say I’m that bored as of yet.” He moved around to stare out the window. Snow fell, drifting endlessly in the gray afternoon. “You aren’t worried about him traveling alone?”

“I am,” they admitted. “He went against my recommendation. But he’s impossible once his mind is set, and we both know it.”

That much was true. Dorian sighed heavily. A week encased in the cold stone manor without Cullen’s body to warm him seemed too long to endure. Not only that, but depending on the length of Cullen’s absence, it might leave an awfully short reunion before his own departure. The weather was liable to break within the next two months, and if this errand in Redcliffe took longer than expected...

“I could make Yarrow by nightfall,” he said. “If, in your professional opinion, he’d benefit from an escort on the road home?”

Impassive, Rho answered him with a slow nod of assent.

Come nightfall, Dorian was in Yarrow. Antony had given his go ahead for Barley, saying he was in fine fettle for an older gentleman, well shod for winter, and as long as they didn’t rush they shouldn’t come to grief. For his part, Barley actually seemed to enjoy the trek, perhaps feeling a bit cooped up of late. They stayed the night in the same inn as the last trip, Dorian finding out that Cullen had been through for a spot of lunch but had moved on, making for the next crossroads.

Rising with the dim gray glow at the eastern horizon the following morning, he descended into the common area to enquire about the safest route to Redcliffe. The inn’s proprietor sent him on to the stable master, who supposedly had a better sense of such things. He’d assumed it would be easiest to pass through Lothering into the Hinterlands, following the road, but the stable master, shushing a whining dog who no doubt wanted her breakfast, advised him of a barge which made daily crossings over the river that snaked from Lake Calenhad’s east reach. The shortcut would save him many long miles. He thanked her, tipped her, then tacked his horse and set out into the crisp air of dawn.  

Mid-morning on his fourth day he rode into Redcliffe village. The layout had hardly changed in the years since he’d last visited, though a few new buildings had sprung up, hither and yon. On the outskirts of this very town he’d once made meager camp, awaiting the arrival of the Inquisitor. He’d had such hopes in the beginning, held the seeds of a gutsy plan to thwart the Venatori in their efforts to indenture the recently free southern mages, thereby acquiring a terrifying martial force. The idea had been to bring them into the Fereldan fold instead, equal allies of the Inquisition. A grand unification—historic, even—to protect the future of all the world.

Nobody had come. His missive had fallen on deaf ears. The narrow window in which to take preventative action summarily closed. In possession of little more than a staff and the robes on his back he’d fled to Haven, bereft of everything save determination, and had arrived at the gates mere minutes before the enemy.

He should’ve known then, what the future held. The instant the Inquisitor had chosen to put their faith in The Order following the breach, he should’ve realized they’d never see eye to eye. Initially, he’d felt he owed them (and practically the entirety of the south) the benefit of the doubt, since some son of a Tevinter magister approaching the Inquisition out of the blue absolutely stank of subterfuge—he’d readily said so himself—but their foundations were shaky from the start. As time and events wore on, what meager trust they’d built cracked, the brittle bones of it decaying back into nothingness.

The stables, he recalled, were around the corner from the inn, though if that detail had slipped his recollection then Barley’s nose guiding them adamantly toward the enticing smells of clean hay and water would’ve jogged his memory. Dorian paid for the horse’s boarding and was about to find his way into the inn proper to ask after Cullen when loud, familiar barking made him turn.

Bounding like a mad thing Birdie loped up the road, wide grin on her sweet face. When she reached him she leapt straight into the air in excitement, then circled him several times, bumping into his legs and wagging her tail furiously.

“Hello to you, too,” he greeted her, intensely aware of several pairs of eyes that now observed them.

Farther down the road marched a square blond figure, trussed in a fitted, formal military coat emblazoned with the now defunct colours of the Inquisition. None other than Cullen himself, except...

Dorian inhaled sharply. Cullen had cut his hair, and shaved his beard. The change was a harsh shock after knowing him as unapologetically fuzzy these past few months. Drawing nearer, Cullen’s squint resolved into a surprised frown, and his march sped up, becoming a trot.

“Dorian? What are you—

“What are you doing here, all polished and dressed in finery?” he demanded, still feeling slighted for being left behind. “Couldn’t be seen with me at some distinguished political function, is that it?”

Sufficiently cowed, Cullen lowered his head. “Maker, no, I was...” Pink suffused his cheeks as he realized the beginnings of their quarrel had already drawn observers. Gently, he took Dorian’s shoulder and guided him around the side of the inn, where the only other presence was a goose foraging amidst yesterday’s kitchen scraps. “I was summoned,” he said, voice low, “by the arl. For an extraordinarily useless but nonetheless pressing reason.”

“The arl?” That was a grand summons, even for an ex-general. Little wonder he’d mounted up and ridden out without a farewell. “What reason might that be?”

Cullen heaved a breath, irritation written plain in every line of his face. “Our unfortunate misadventure back at Satinalia. It seems one of the surviving bandits is the wayward son of a minor Highever nobleman. After we dispatched his friends, whose activities were keeping him in coin, he had to slink home penniless. Naturally, he told old dad he’d been assaulted and robbed in the Bannorn by a disheveled blond man with a longsword.”

“Well, that’s something.” Hell of a mental leap, though nobles weren’t collectively famed for their feats of logic. “Isn’t the Bannorn full of disheveled blond men with longswords who might attack at the slightest provocation?” Dorian asked, incredulous and only half-kidding. “How in Thedas did anyone recognize it was you?”

“Apparently, he turned up at that chantry we engaged to oversee the rites of the dead. His sob story won him the sympathy of the sisters. One or more of them must’ve known me.”

“Ah. Then, you’re here to defend your honour against these charges.”

He nodded.

“Have you done it already?”

“I have.”

“And how deep is the shit you’re in? Shins? Knees? Tits? Stop me if I’m close.”

“No, my boots are clean.” Huffed laughter drove the point home. “Fortunately, because I’d be in irons in the castle basement were that not the case.” Pausing, he shook his head. “This whole ordeal was a necessary formality and a colossal waste of time.” He angled his head momentarily to glance at the foraging goose, which had waddled over to investigate their intrusion. “At least I had the satisfaction of seeing that noble snot cuffed about the ear,” Cullen continued, in quiet tones. “His father was furious when he realized his son had been off playing highwayman.”

Dorian chuckled. “Must’ve felt a right ass, bringing that disgrace all the way to the arl. Honestly though, what did he expect? As if you’d have any need of his son’s brothel allowance.”

That got a snort out of Cullen, whose surly expression began to soften. “Can you imagine that conversation? ‘Yes son, I’m certain a man whose living is ensured by the Divine, as well as many powerful benefactors, is out robbing lordlings to make ends meet. To the arl! Justice must be served!’” He gave Dorian a conspiratorial look. “Whatever happened to running away from your wealthy parents to fight on behalf of the downtrodden?”

With a sniff, Dorian shrugged. “A man needs strong moral fiber to eschew earthly possessions and join a real cause—I should know,” he insisted, fingertips against his chest. “Far too valiant a choice for an individual of such blatant poor character. It takes a special lack of imagination to get off on holding peasants at swordpoint for their cabbages.”

Cullen laughed again, reaching to tuck non-existent hair behind his ear, blushing harder when he remembered the gesture was fruitless. “Why did you follow me? I was going to turn around and ride out again today.”

“Doctor’s orders,” Dorian said flatly. “Evidently, Rho was concerned you’d fall in a ditch and die in your rush to be home. So, here I am. Supervision.”

Shifting his weight and putting hands on hips, Cullen bit at the inside corner of his mouth. Although he did seem to believe it, there was a private twist in his lip that Dorian knew meant he saw through the ruse. “Did you just arrive?”

“Minutes ago.”

“Shall we...stay the night? The arl urged me to partake of the evening festivities. There’s to be music, and some sort of comedy.”

The usual Wintersend fare. “I think both Barley’s old bones and mine would benefit from a meal and a good sleep,” Dorian admitted. Cullen’s too, he didn’t doubt, but dared not say as much.

They remained. The play turned out to be a very physical, funny production of Elan and Adria , the story of two young lovers who believed their union blessed by the Maker, when in fact their every move would’ve caused calamity if it weren’t for the stealthy interventions of their closest friends and family. Silly, but when well-staged, a joy to watch for young and old alike. It probably helped that by the time the troupers took to their set, Dorian was down in the dregs of a bottle of wine.

The play concluded—a famous scene in which the titular characters were married, none the wiser that their wedding had nearly been overrun by bears—music resumed, and they left the bonfire to those interested in dancing. Arm in arm, buzzing with drink, they retreated to their room at the inn where they washed and curled into bed, Birdie insistent on wedging herself at the foot of it in spite of severe space limitations. Outside, they could still hear the ongoing merriment but it was distant, something of a dream-like comfort instead of an annoyance. The nearby bonfire caused cavorting shadows on the inn ceiling, and Dorian, lying on his back, observed their almost life-like, amorphous flickering for some time, as if entranced.

“You should’ve told me why you’d gone,” he muttered eventually. “Didn’t you realize I’d be deathly curious?”

A little laugh gusted across his chest where Cullen rested, his new stubble prickling the skin. “I was only trying to spare you the discomfort of a futile winter journey,” he mumbled. “But you’re right, I should’ve known better.”

“Idiot,” Dorian said, ruffling fingers through his shorn hair. “If you’d let me come with you for company, it wouldn’t have been quite so futile, would it?”

There was a long silence. Cullen’s breathing seemed to stop. Finally, a resigned snort. “Maker, you’re right. I am an idiot.”

“A prickly idiot,” Dorian groused, shifting away from the incessant friction. “Your wretched fresh stubble is scratching me to ribbons.”

“Oh...” With an apologetic bend of the brow, Cullen turned his head so his cheek no longer rubbed next to Dorian’s armpit. “I’m sorry. It never occurred to me it might be irritating.”

“Since you’ve hardly gone to bed with anyone in your life, I’m not surprised.” Dorian touched the rough, harsh prickles, and gave a little close-lipped whine. “I liked that beard. It was soft. Whatever possessed you to shave it? The hair I understand, but beards are worn formally all the time.”

“Yes, but...” Cullen shrugged. “I don’t know. I wanted to see what I looked like under there. It’s been over a season.”

As fair a reason as any, he supposed. “And is everything in order?”

“I’m not sure.” He ran his own fingers along the edge of it, feeling the spikes. “Jaw could stand to be leaner, but then again so could the rest of me.”

Dorian made a show of scoffing. “You look better than you ever have, aside from the clean shave. I can’t condone that.”

Humming laughter, deep in Cullen’s chest. “I’ll leave it be, then. It’ll soften up after a couple of days. Match the belly.”

“Mm.” The show of humour made him grin, closed-lipped. “Good. Thank you.”

“How long’ve you had yours?” Cullen asked, reaching to scratch at the thick hair on Dorian’s cheek.

“Oh, years now. After I went home I let it get quite bushy, for awhile. Not unkempt, mind you, but large. It intimidated everyone. Terribly out of fashion. Poor Maevaris chalked it up to bad southern influences.” His beleaguered ally had been ready to wrestle him to the ground and shear it off herself, after a point, and had threatened him with as much. She wasn’t the only one, either. “My mother absolutely hates it.”

Cullen smiled, but the smile faded, replaced by a hollow sort of look. Hard to be sure which of the things he’d just said might garner that reaction, but he suspected the idea of a mother chiding a son for being unshaven and long-haired had been the culprit.

Gently, Dorian nudged him with the bridge of his nose. “Your mother died before she ever saw you with a full beard, didn’t she.” Only a guess, but he did know that Cullen had been a young boy when he’d left home, gone off to fulfill his dream of taking up a templar sword in the name of defense and honor. He’d been a child when he’d been indoctrinated by chantry dogma, barely a man when given his first draught of lyrium, and a very young man still when the blight had come and everything fell into horrors.

“Yes,” he replied.

Dorian rubbed his chest, a slow, steady motion. “I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I can promise you she would’ve hated it.”

Thankfully, that made Cullen smile. He wrapped both arms around Dorian, nuzzling in, which scratched like mad and caused Dorian to suck a sharp breath, reminding them both what had begun their conversation.

“Right, right. Stubble.” Cullen grouched. “This is annoying.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t such a puppy, always mashing your great hard head into me.”

“I’ll...try to be less exuberant.”

Dorian paused, feeling oddly guilty that his teasing might be taken to heart. “No, I... I find it sweet, but I don’t need your help exfoliating. I have a cream for that.”

Cullen’s quiet snicker was fond, and he reached to rearrange Dorian’s hair on his forehead. “Of course you do.”

Their return journey to the Bannorn passed by in a pleasant blur. Good weather graced them; clear skies and steady temperatures kept the snow from melting and refreezing as sheet ice in the nights. Less slippery roads allowed for easy progress. Overall the trip was uneventful, and Dorian noticed that Cullen seemed, for lack of a better word, happier. He laughed easily, and often. When they spent their evenings around the hearth of each small tavern they lodged at, Dorian caught him stealing glancing affection: a light rub to the base of his neck during a game of cards, the bump of a knee or ankle under the table. As he had before, he wondered if people would notice, but aside from an initial knowing look or two, everybody held their tongues.

All was well upon their return to the manor. They unpacked, caught up on the events of the past week and a half, and once the initial flurry of being greeted by excited Mabari concluded, it was as if they’d never been away.

The morning after their arrival home, he woke late. Cullen had left him, as he so often did. He rose and dressed in warm clothes. A thorough stroll through the house revealed that Cullen was nowhere to be found, but no slight messenger girls appeared to pass him missives of a hasty departure, so he put on two more cloaks and exited into the frigid day to visit the barn. There he found Antony currying one of the horses, and the young fellow smiled and said that Cullen had taken all three pups and their mother, plus some tagalongs, out for a walk on the grounds.

Finding them after that was simply a matter of following the sound of intermittent barking. The walk took him to the easterly fields where he spotted several quadrupeds barreling out of one of the narrow strips of forest that abutted the property. The pack of dogs was a flurry of action. They capered and barked and wrestled, jaws wide in gentle playbites, their paws stirring up fits of snow in every direction. A merry, good-natured sort of romp. Several of the grown beasts played with the puppies, now almost four months old and blossoming into a leggy, large-eared awkwardness.

A shout sounded from the edge of the woods and a stocky, blond-headed figure bundled in winter garb made a mad dash into the fray of dogs. They welcomed him with excited whines, knocked him to the ground to warm him with their intent slobbering. Cullen’s laughter carried clear across the field in the gray light of day.

Dorian’s heart jounced behind his ribs, sending his stomach freefalling. Gasping, he set a hand on the fence to keep himself upright. Oh... Shit. He knew this feeling. All too well, he knew it, and no amount of artful, well reasoned denial would chase it from his foolish damned head. It was too late for that. The hammer fell, driving the nail true: since the very first autumn afternoon at Marchand’s when he’d taken up the mantle of lover in jest, it had been too fucking late. Standing in the falling snow, feet cold in his boots while his chest housed a raging fire, he began to understand, bodily, what he’d known somewhere in a sealed chamber at his core, for months.

What did he intend, with his leaving? What did he honestly intend once he’d gone? To write? To send a resonant crystal and wear its match about his neck so they might pretend at daily closeness with voice alone, hundreds of miles apart? He’d walked away from lovers before, but never because they cared too much for him. To walk away from not only a deeply felt love, but a patient one, the kind of love he’d believed came once in a lifetime and never again, or not at all... Choosing to leave that behind had to qualify as a diagnosable type of madness, surely.

He lifted his gaze, watching Cullen play in the field with his dogs, every bit as barrel chested and sturdy as the Mabari. Their traveling had agreed with him. He was looking heartier again, recovered from his sickly weeks, thick shouldered and comfortably round of belly—perhaps even more so than he had been when Dorian first arrived. His laughter carried over the snow, along with puppy barks and the various growls and grumbles of dogs enjoying a frolic.

Those raw red fibres in the ashen ruin of his heart thrummed anew. A jolt of long overdue clarity scalded him, akin to staring at an blurry image for months, puzzling, turning it around, around, wondering how anyone could see sense in it when finally: snap . Recognition.

He loved the man out there in the snow with the dogs. Desperately, sincerely, he loved him; the old friend he’d been and the lover he’d become. Having finally grasped a clear image, at last able to view the whole, he saw too that he could not stay. Certainly a romantic notion, forsaking duty, turning one’s back on a difficult future to bask in the humble grandeur of shared affection, but that was all it was—a notion, doomed to remain thus.

When the snows receded, he too would withdraw. He could no longer lie to himself, he was in love. But given the circumstances, lying to Cullen might be the kindest thing to do. Better that he think Dorian indecisive and out of reach, rather than cling fruitlessly to the insane hope they might remain entangled over the span of miles and years.

Dorian picked his way to the edge of the orchard that bordered on the field, hands numb with cold inside his gloves. Dogs and man roughhoused, gave chase, twirled, knocked one another over again and again, cushioned by fresh snowfall. Eventually, Cullen rose more slowly and lifted an arm, and the dogs stepped off to let him leave their company. He walked, panting, towards Dorian.

“Having fun?” Dorian called.

Cullen laughed, nodded. His cheeks were flushed pink, same as his pointed nose, and he was awash with snow from tip to tail. “You didn’t feel like joining us?”

“I’m cold enough without actively shoving ice under my collar, thank you.”

“Might do you some good,” Cullen said. “Loosen you up a bit. You’ve been wound tighter than a loaded trebuchet the past couple days.”

“That’s your opinion as den mother, is it?”

Cullen raised both brows at him, grinning. “That’s what you think of me? Den mother?”

“If the apron fits. I suspect the strings are a bit tight nowadays, all things considered.”

Silence stretched between them, and Dorian’s courage wavered. Too tender a subject?

Cullen’s tongue pressed into the side of his cheek, and he nodded. “All right.”

It happened so quickly Dorian scarcely had a chance to yelp in dismay. Cullen collided with him and he was hoisted over a shoulder and spun as he howled protest, then hefted like a sack of grain into the tallest nearby heap of snow. The depth of the bank left him breathless as he scrambled toward daylight and the sound of Cullen’s laughter. When he surfaced, he realized he was laughing uncontrollably, too.

“ Kaffas !” he shouted. “You—You beastly Fereldan doglord!” He lurched to his feet and staggered forward. “You abject southern bastard!” Cullen doubled over with mirth and Dorian, flush with righteous indignation, plowed into him in turn, rolling him straight into another deep bank of snow. Unable to stay his momentum, he toppled after him.

They struggled, grappling and laughing, until they both ran out of breath. Birdie joined in, then Fuller and two of the pups, and after being licked more than he’d ever wished to be, Dorian finally ceded a truce and collapsed at Cullen’s side, still chuckling. The dogs bounded off, losing interest once the motion ceased.

“See?” Cullen said. “Fun.”

It was, at that. Not that Dorian would admit as much out loud. “I think our definitions differ.”

“Do they?” Cullen grinned and turned his attention to the sky. Snow crusted his clothes and flecked his new beard and hair, crunched under him as he resettled his head. The tip of his nose was intensely pink, matched by the peaks of his cheeks, all three points near parallel because of the breadth of his smile. He was lovely, proud, boyish, and soft-eyed.

Dorian was sick with love for him. “You...” he began, leaning close, “are awful.” He planted a kiss on Cullen’s chin.

“I am,” Cullen agreed, beaming.

Dorian shushed him with another kiss. “Awful,” he repeated, hoping his tone hid the thickness of his throat, “and I can hardly stand you.” He kissed Cullen on the mouth, finally breaking away to nuzzle him again.

All too soon, this unlikely refuge they’d built would melt to nothing. Spring loomed, the tentative first shoots poised to follow on the tail of Drakonis, at the bounds of Cloudreach. When the earth greened, their own small, quiet season would turn to winter. Dorian ignored the uncomfortable pound of his heart, holding Cullen’s hand while they herded the puppies back to the barn.

Chapter Text

The pups had spent their formative months well occupied, introduced to as many strange noises, situations, people, and animals as could be managed. Given the breadth of the manor grounds, there’d been plenty to show. They’d been brought inside the house nearly every day from the time it was safe to move them out of the warmth of the whelping box so they could mingle with the residents. Most of the ex-templars seemed to enjoy even the somewhat bad puppy behaviour, and the pups grew accustomed to interacting with crowds, making the arrangement mutually beneficial.

Their formal training had begun in earnest back in Wintermarch, when they were still small. Now, well into Drakonis, they were five months old, already close to half their adult size and proving quite clever. Clever, but still puppies. Their energy and attention ebbed and flowed like the Waking Sea, sometimes navigable and sometimes an endless rollicking squall. Consistency was key; between the joint efforts of members of the household, all three could perform an adequate sit, stay, down, knew how to fetch (perhaps not with terrific faithfulness), and came when they were called. Mostly they tore around as a whirlwind trio, torturing the older dogs with their tireless antics.

Laurel spent a good deal of time avoiding her brood these days, preferring to reclaim some of her original independence. They were often entrusted to aunt Birdie, who was still young enough herself to run them to exhaustion. Bear had no patience for shenanigans whatsoever. Although they were his, and he seemed to begrudgingly tolerate some puppy nonsense (before halting excess bothering by planting a heavy paw on whoever was nipping his hocks), he was less invested in them than Fuller. The mottled, white-flecked creature often acted like a larger version of the pups as they zipped about the grounds together.

In a turn of events that came as no surprise to Cullen, the beast who showed the most therapeutic promise was Dorian’s gray ghost, Juniper. She was the most interested in humans, and approached new people without leaping up in excitement, instead bumbling her way over, tail swinging in quick, happy little arcs. She was mouthy at times, like all young dogs, but did not nip, and seemed a good judge of her own strength. A rare asset in a large, strong animal.

She was also quite enamored with Dorian. She liked Antony and Cullen well enough, and plenty of other people besides, but whenever Dorian appeared she ran to him, plunking herself at his feet with an expression of pure joy softening her ears and face. Over the months her efforts to impress him had resulted in a fine collection of odds and ends, including items such as pilfered socks, someone’s silk handkerchief, several old root vegetables, one nugfoot charm, and in a feat of both great daring and naughtiness, an entire feather bedspread.

She’d been chastised, with all due mildness, for that stunt.

Today, the pups had been given a chance to run free following their training session, and Cullen watched Juniper set a rather bedraggled undershirt next to Dorian’s boot.

“A good effort to woo me,” Dorian said to her, kneeling so he could give her a pat and remove the gift, no doubt to send it along to the laundry where it could be claimed by its rightful owner. “You might try bringing me something clean, sometime.” The only answer he got was a lick to the end of his nose, which left Cullen amused with the two of them.

He clapped his hands to gather up the puppies, who understood that meant they were wanted. The process of herding them back down to the barn always took longer than expected on account of all the distractions provided by the grounds, but he wanted them to make the journey on their own power whenever possible. They were still small enough to pick up and carry—just—but in another two months they wouldn’t be. Best they learn there were rewards for listening. Upon arrival to the barn, they got a treat each, and another for returning to the whelping room, where they were kept occasionally to prevent them running amok.

Not for much longer. He’d recently discussed with both Antony and Rho the benefits of assigning the pups to specific templars, on rotation, so they might begin integrating into the patterns of the household. By the time they were two years old, Cullen hoped to have taught them all the pertinent skills to make them helpful aids to permanent human charges. He believed Jillian would transition to full time staff in the fall, and in another year or so she’d likely leave. If all went according to plan, Rabbit would go with her. Griffon was undecided, but there was a fellow whose face turned to sunlight whenever he saw the beast, so perhaps that would be a match. As for Juniper... Cullen turned to look out past the barn doors.

Dorian stood in the courtyard, watching the hens scratch at the newly exposed dirt. One of them had gone broody early, as soon as temperatures rose high enough for the snows to begin receding, and now a cluster of awkward chicks tailed her noisily about. Dorian had taken a small fistful of feed from the bags and lured them close, to better admire the small family.

Juniper belonged to Dorian. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Cullen knew she did. Dorian’s had been the first voice to call her and the first voice she’d answered, in a visceral, fundamental way that no one would repeat in her lifetime.

Unfortunately, what he didn’t know was if Dorian felt she belonged to him in turn. His departure hung imminent—a month or so off, with the snows melting—but the pup’s training would only be a fraction complete at best. Mabari were special, and she did heed well, so he believed that given their bond she would come into her own under Dorian’s care, but there would still be puppy moments.

All that aside, he could think of no better parting gift. There were some trinkets he’d bought in the far off days of Satinalia, but they’d been forgotten in the midst of his illness, and how could baubles begin to measure against a living thing? No, he would offer the puppy, he’d decided. When the time came, he would send young Juniper north in the care and company of the man who’d saved her life.

The hourglass of Dorian’s stay emptied, slow but sure, as Drakonis crept toward Cloudreach.

Something intangible had shifted between them following their journey to Redcliffe. Reminded of his years high in the Frostbacks, Cullen thought of the sudden roar when shelves of snow broke loose in the distance, rolling clouds of white tumbling, billowing, moving boulders and flattening stands of brush pine as the sheer travelling weight remade the mountain. Then, silence. A similar phenomenon seemed to have occurred within Dorian, some interior faultline giving way to blanketing relief, the hush of a landscape after avalanche. Such events were destructive—inevitable damage was done—but they also stabilized, and created new space. In the summer the stripped chutes became meadows, full of berries and wildflowers, unimpeded by evergreen shade.

Not dissimilarly, change had come over them, too. Like a pair of adolescent sweethearts they spent every available waking instant together, lying abed most chilly mornings far longer than was acceptable or appropriate. Even the dogs were puzzled by the fact that Cullen frequently ignored the rooster’s crow, turning over instead to bury himself in the man lying next to him, fighting to ingrain his scent in his mind, to learn permanently the shape of his hard, sharp hips under his hands.

The rooster always seemed to crow too soon, of late. A harsh pre-drawn scraping bugle that, this early in the season, announced an expectation of light rather than its arrival.

Cullen lay awake, mind brackish with half-remembered dreams, body heavy with the comfortable pleasure of a lover held close and time to spare before rising. Another crow from the rooster, but not a boot to be heard crunching over the frosty grounds. Nobody rose until there was enough light to see by, damn that rooster anyway.

He drifted awhile, Dorian mumbling in his sleep, his breath coming in soft whistles through his nose until he wriggled and repositioned his head without waking. The heft of him anchored Cullen somewhere within a stone’s throw of sleep, eyes half shut, mind fully empty of the concerns of the waking world. Dorian was so much softer in rest than awake; lean as new willow but possessing its suppleness also, a quality he downplayed during daylight hours, forsaking fluidity to convey instead a stillness as immovable as stone. Although grief and injury had wasted him to sinew, his presence, the weight of it in a room, remained substantial, and Cullen wondered if that was his inner power, the boundless reach of his talent as a mage. Or perhaps, it was simply inborn grace. Little sense in trying to separate out the reasons. A pointless pursuit, mining for which specific ores made up a person. Everyone contained too many kinds to count.

Gently, he swept fingers down Dorian’s long back, eliciting a faster breath, grumpy noises.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Soft groaning, beard scuffling along the pillow where Dorian buried half his face. “Too early...”

“For once, I agree.” His own voice was a disused rumble. He kissed the back of Dorian’s head, shifting slightly to pull him tighter against his front. Yielding, Dorian stretched against him, hips flicking with lazy intention. As if in answer, Cullen’s ache for intimacy grew literal, and Dorian hummed in response, arcing to press his ass into him. After a few slow rolls of the pelvis, he paused.

“Hm?” Cullen enquired, fingers curled against his shallow bowl of a belly.

Dorian gave a little nod toward the foot of the bed. “Perhaps...thin out the audience.”

Three pairs of dimly lit eyes stared expectantly at them, each creature poised as a statue.

“Maker’s sake... Off you go,” Cullen said to the dogs. “Go on, go get your breakfasts.” If they went down to the barn, Antony would see to them, no questions asked. Cullen knew it, and he knew the dogs knew it.

Muscled, smooth movement under his hand as Dorian rolled over. “I’m keeping you from your duties,” he whispered, palm flat on Cullen’s side.

Voice low, Cullen murmured, “It’s no great tragedy.” Everyone was always after him to rest more, to keep himself occupied with his own pursuits now and then. If his own pursuit happened to be lying late abed with someone he loved for the first time in his life, then so be it. “Antony won’t mind. Away with you three,” he shooed the dogs with his foot under the blankets. “Go on now.”

Sighing as if in exasperation, the statues thunked to the floor in series of thuds, heavy claws chickering away over the hardwood as they exited the room.

A gust of laughter blew next to Cullen’s cheek, and Dorian waved one hand to shut the door. They fell into one another, eagerly, hungrily, moving as though they might slow the turning tides of a distant sea with their need.

Time, for all it seemed to pause, merciful, holding them in the blue dark before dawn, sailed forward headlong once the sun rose. Birds unseen since the end of autumn began to appear as the snow’s edges crumbled. Slight but steady melts revealed thin strips of anemic green grass—spring’s first sickly forays.

The annual invitation to a rich neighbouring estate for their Spring’s Herald Ball arrived like clockwork along with the first tight buds on the trees. Cullen immediately discarded the ornate card into his desk’s rubbish heap. He’d attended once, the first year he’d lived on the property, and it was every inch the uncomfortable, frivolous evening of snobbery he’d expected it to be. He did not intend to go again.

Unfortunately, the mail passed through many hands before reaching his own. Several of the staff had recognized the seal on the envelope, and whispered speculation filled the house for the next week as to why the Inquisition’s ex-commander would neglect his social obligations with such alacrity. The gossiping wore on his nerves to the point that Rho prescribed him a powder because they noticed him grinding his teeth. He’d retreated to his office to drink it down mixed with water when Dorian wafted into the room, looking altogether too casual.

“What’s this I hear about you brushing off a ball?”

Cullen blew an irritated sigh through his nose. “Tomorrow night, at one of the neighbouring estates. A vacuous affair.”

“Which you were expressly invited to.”

“I declined, as I have done three springs in a row.”

“Why?”

“Dorian, I know it’s been many long years since our evening at Halamshiral, but I’ll be damned if I believe you’ve forgotten how little I care for b—” Oh, Maker. Couldn’t very well say that, could he? He tongued his lip and clamped his mouth shut. It was apparent Dorian had been waiting for him to stumble into it, too, by the curl of his mustache. Clearing his throat, Cullen tried not to redden. “...For such events.”

Looking disappointed, Dorian turned away. “I have a vague recollection.” Light as a breeze he grazed along the office shelves, tipping out the occasional book to glance at its cover. “You in an ill-fitting, stiff collared jacket, hiding in a corner sweating profusely while finely-dressed men and women threw themselves at you. Remind me, how many marriage proposals were you sent after that night?”

Had Cassandra been present, she could not have provided a more fitting disgusted noise. “Some.”

Dorian’s tongue clicked twice. “ Some . Such modesty. At any rate, I think you’re remiss not to at least put in an appearance.”

“Will you go on my arm, then?” he asked, exasperated. “Spare me the deluge of unwelcome introductions to eligible young ladies?” He paused; that sounded insincere, but he meant every word. Youth’s charms held no draw for him since all too often their freshness and beauty did not beguile but rather laid stark the contrast between someone who had lived, and someone who had only so far dreamed of life. Not that there weren’t young people who had suffered much, experienced more than they should’ve for their age; he’d seen it firsthand time and again in the Circles, in the cities, among his fellows, every day during the Inquisition. Because of this, he knew damn well he wasn’t liable to encounter anyone of substance at some frilly soiree.  

Dorian took down another book, flipped through a few pages. “I’d go gladly, but I imagine they’d turn us out on our asses if I did.”

Cullen paused, blinking. Unorthodox, perhaps, but as he’d explained before, nobody would think it strange past a first surprised glance. “Of course they wouldn’t.”

The book clapped shut and Dorian tucked it back on the shelf. “Then you’d best send a bird forthwith, to amend your reply. I’ll go plan my attire.” With that, he strode for the door. “Oh, don’t you dare dress tomorrow without first showing me what you intend to wear. You haven’t the slightest idea how to flatter yourself.” And he was gone.

So much for a quiet couple of days. The late reply to the invitation took only minutes, and he walked to the birds himself to send it on. Chances were the formality was hardly necessary, but better to follow the rules of etiquette as best one was able when it came to fancy parties. Courtly interaction sat firmly outside the purview of a career soldier, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t hold his coarseness against him. Not that he cared out of any personal pride, but a portion of the manor’s income did filter down from the upper crust—an effort to alleviate their own guilt or fulfill some pretense of duty to less fortunate creatures—thus it behooved him to make a good showing of himself now and then.

The following day he found distraction in the gardens. The ground had started to soften, and therefore it was time to begin enriching and turning over the soil. Certain seeds were due for sowing, since a variety of vegetables were hardy and didn’t mind a scattering of snow or cold nights. Bell beans, for example, would happily sprout as soon as winter’s spine began to break. He spent his morning working with the earth, enjoying the tendrils of sun that intermittently broke through to warm his back as he tucked a small part of the coming summer’s harvest into the dirt. Planting concluded, he retreated to the bath to soak his creaky joints and stew about having to venture several miles away to stand around, bored and sleepy, in a room full of ornately dressed strangers until the wee hours of the night.

Upon return to his rooms he found Dorian stripped to a bodysuit that left less than nothing to the imagination, but judging by the plethora of fabrics strewn across the bed, the skin-tight cotton was merely the first layer of several. “There,” Dorian pointed to the wingback chair, where a stack of Cullen’s things hung precariously over the top. “Those are your best bets, I believe.”

Subduing the urge to protest, Cullen set aside his bathrobe, put on clean under-layers and began rifling through his small selection of appropriate choices. After trying on three of Dorian’s chosen items it became starkly clear he’d put back on his lost weight and then some, eliminating two of the selections out of hand. Time to keep an eye on that. No more custard tarts for breakfast.

Eventually, he got himself into a complete outfit that buttoned without looking taxed. “How’s this?”

Dorian turned, one arm folded over his chest, propping the other elbow while he tapped the side of a thumbpad to full lips. “You’re set on those glaring military colors, are you? I can’t abide them on myself. They make my face look fat.”

Difficult, if not impossible, to believe that, given the sharp selvage of Dorian’s cheek bones, but Cullen did not argue. “They can be somewhat unforgiving in that regard,” he agreed instead, turning to look himself over in the mirror. Quite frankly, his face was about the least of his worries as far as looking fat was concerned, since his beard hid much of it. The rest of him, however... “Maker, when did I get so damned round?” he growled.

Behind him, visible in the reflection, Dorian smiled, eyes softening as he stepped forward and set a hand on the back of Cullen’s hip. “Most noticeably in the last couple of weeks. I’m...rather fond of you this way, if I’m honest.”

Chagrined, and disbelieving, he made a bitter face. With one palm flat to his middle, Cullen tried to tighten up, to little avail. He’d thickened out beyond using that trick. “It’s a bit much.” Somehow, he hadn’t realized. His day to day clothes were far too forgiving, apparently. “Not good to look overindulged. They’ll think I never do any work...”

Dorian only laughed, looping an arm around him. “Oh shush, don’t be silly. No harm in it. Not like anyone goes wanting around here. I’ve never seen you turn a soul from your doors, either.”

“That’s hardly the point,” Cullen argued, but Dorian circled to his front, palms ghosting up his abdomen to his throat, where he undid the top two buttons of his collar.

“Kiss me.”

Cullen obeyed the request, closing his eyes as he leaned to catch Dorian’s lips.

“Mm. Good. Now,” he pulled away and rifled through the stack of options yet again. “Try this one. It looks roomier.”

The older jacket, over-large for him when he’d acquired it and never tailored due to time constraints or his own lack of patience for trifling details, proved plenty loose enough to accommodate the added bulk. Still, he was left red-cheeked at having reached such a state.

Indignities aside, Dorian approved, and selected a pair of fine boots to complete the effect. “Very handsome,” he insisted. “Though I wish you hadn’t cut off your hair.” His fingers ruffled through the scruff barely beginning to grow out on the back of Cullen’s head. “I miss the unruly curls.”

Cullen took hold of his hips, feeling every curve and concavity of bone through the fabric of the bodysuit. “Duly noted.” He angled his head, seeking another kiss, which Dorian gave but only briefly before thumping a hand on his chest.

“All right, enough distractions. Away with you, I’m not done yet,” he indicated his face and hair. “Are we going on horseback?”

Perhaps not the most civilized mode of transportation, but the slightly rundown carriage was for emergencies, not social calls. “We are.”

Dorian nodded to himself, seemed to decide something, then he slipped from Cullen’s grasp.

An hour later, he swept into the stables surrounded by the whirl of a thick woollen cloak. His hair was left down, the rich dark waves grown long over the course of the months, well below the shoulders, more noticeably shot through with silver when loose.

“Ready?” he said, immaculately outlined eyes alight with anticipation.

“No, but it hardly matters.” Cullen held out old Barley’s reins. “Will he be alright in the dark?”

“Magefire, my good man. Won’t be dark at all,” Dorian told him. He swung into the saddle and clucked to the horse, who eagerly walked into the yard.

Much like the dogs, the horses could probably smell the green just below the surface of all things. The promise of tender new shoots had put a frisk in their step, even Barley, who hadn’t been a foal for some twenty-odd years by Cullen’s estimate.

The estate hosting the evening’s festivities sat about an hour’s ride east. Their way was easy, the roads improving as the days warmed degree by degree. Music drifted to their ears long before they turned the bend that led up a treed drive to a tall-windowed villa brimming with lanterns, the branches of the yard’s evergreens adorned with rippling silks. There was little of the grandeur of the Winter Palace here, only a few vaulted ceilings and spiral stairs, not to mention a lack of fountains, but Cullen had the impression that’s what the nobles found charming about the whole affair: mingling with starry-eyed provincials at this proud but ultimately garish house to partake of wine, dancing, pretty young things, and rustic hospitality.

“Quaint,” Dorian remarked, only half in jest, after they’d dismounted and left the horses with a stable girl.

Inside the house proper, the interior was absurdly lavish by Cullen’s admittedly austere standards, but the greater problem lay in the fact that the opulence was a display of wealth without any unification of purpose. A house that aspired to greatness by imitating bits and pieces of other great houses. Badly.  

“Orlesian marble floors,” he muttered to Dorian. “Who needs marble floors in the middle of the bloody Bannorn? The cost of import alone...” Cullen shook his head.

“I think you should update your house to match.” The wry quirk of Dorian’s mustache punctuated the remark.

Cullen answered him with a put-upon grimace. Jokes aside, wood and rough stone suited him fine.

Most people, however, liked flourishes. Such as imported Orlesian marble floors. He was not surprised by the sheer push of humanity on the other side of the ballroom entryway, knowing how most folk wouldn’t dare pass up a chance at a party to break the monotony of winter’s last hold.

Approaching the cloak-room, Dorian shed his outermost layer, revealing beneath it a sea of fabric as ink black as the sky on a moonless night. The sleeves and train of the robes glimmered with a thousand tiny stars—or so it seemed; whether it was stones or an enchantment or both, the effect deepened the illusion. Some were so fine as to be near invisible unless they caught the light just so. A delicate high collar seamed with gold framed Dorian’s slim throat, anchoring the galaxy.

Every onlooker, Cullen included, paused on a single intake of breath, struck silent by his serene elegance. Shimmering, he moved to take Cullen’s arm, and the quiet gave way to murmurs. Once those faded into normal chatter, everybody carried on.

They walked together, partnered, outwardly unabashed, into the crowded hall.

“See?” Cullen said to him, keeping his voice down. “A look, and that’s that.”

“Mm.” By his tone, Dorian was unconvinced. Chin high, posture somewhat severe, he took in their surroundings. “Opinions may become less gracious as the night wears on.”

Cullen grinned, lowering his head.

“Be serious,” Dorian scolded. “We’re being stared at...”

And they were, it was true. However, aside from a few conservatively arched brows or the odd abrasive expression, a majority of the ball’s attendees seemed to be smiling as they passed by. “Everyone is just jealous that I have the most stunning person in the room on my arm,” Cullen whispered, close to an ear.

At that, it was Dorian’s turn to lower his head and smile.

Cullen considered the lack of verbal rebuttal a small triumph.

For some time they stood together on the periphery of the proceedings, quite unmolested save for a waiter distributing wine, but it did not last. Soon enough, a group of young women approached, all of them enquiring about the atelier responsible for Dorian’s robes. They were a polite bunch, barely grown, two of them softly beautiful and the third of a tall, hard-boned Fereldan strain that reminded him of Aveline. Within seconds Dorian had them charmed, so Cullen merely stood by, looking what he hoped was stoic rather than bored. Life rarely offered much in the way of guarantees but he could say without doubt that knowing how to mend a seam did not qualify him to discuss the minutiae of present fashion trends.

When the young ladies moved on, several older women descended, emboldened by the successful conversations of their neighbours’ daughters. The attention seemed to make Dorian’s silks glow all the brighter, his gestures broad, eyes glinting, as he worked a magic separate from the one that flowed in his blood. Or perhaps, Cullen found himself thinking again, this simpler magic was in the blood also, inherited much like his other gifts, same as how a wee babe might have its mother’s nose and father’s eyes. Had Dorian’s disposition, too, been selected for? Did he know in his very bones that he was regal beyond ken, beautiful, luminous, magnetic as lodestone?

Cullen let Dorian handle the idle chatter while he took the opportunity to observe him with the dumbstruck awe of doomed, deeply felt love.

His reverie ended when an infamous local blowhard recognized him. No matter how Cullen bent his face—sour, serious, already invested in conversation—it became clear the man was heading over, wife in tow, to trade war stories and inquire after his dogs. That led to a conversation about the suitability of Mabari to various tasks, Cullen arguing they were immensely adaptable and the other fellow insisting they were purely creatures of war, anything else being gross misapplication of the breed. With plenty of evidence to the contrary, Cullen liked to believe he’d changed the man’s mind after their third glass of wine or so, when he finally shut up about speed and jaw strength and listened to stories of Bear’s devotion to poor Gavin, and about Birdie’s attunement to emotional states.

Not for the first time, Cullen realized he’d embarked on an uncharted journey with the breed, bringing them from the front lines to the sickroom. If the world didn’t end, if the wars were staved off a long while and no blights sprang from the pits of the earth, he might yet do some real good. That was what he owed, even if it wouldn’t cut so much as a slim inch from all the suffering brought about by his own two hands. Replacing the stink of ghosts with the stink of dogs was an improvement, to his mind. Somehow, he suspected a vague smell of death would pursue him always, as it did every man who’d done grave harm, until it went with him onto his own pyre at last.

Late in the evening, their hosts came to greet them: an upright, silver-haired gentleman and his young wife who wore altogether too much jewelry. One glance at her revealed whose idea the marble floors had been, but they were a friendly pair, sociable and uncharacteristically generous, (they promised a significant contribution to the manor, in fact, as the lady of the house had lost a dear aunt to lyrium madness and saw Cullen’s work as vital,) so it was difficult to begrudge them much.

For all that, Cullen still wished he was at home in his own rooms, enjoying the quiet of a fire. His back had begun aching from his gardening that morning, the pain fouling his mood. Everyone else, it seemed, was growing more and more lively as night came on and drinking continued, Dorian included; he’d had a glass in hand since shortly after their arrival. The alcohol and relaxed air of the gathering had softened the sharpest edges of his initial wariness, though a glint remained.

“Do you dance?” Dorian asked out of the blue in the midst of a brief respite from interlopers.

Blinking as though he believed he couldn’t possibly be the target of such a question, Cullen hesitated. “Me?”

“No. The other big, bearded blond who brought me here. Where did he get to?” Dorian made a show of casting around, searching. “He was good-looking.”

Cullen sighed.

Replying with a roll of the eyes, Dorian gave his shoulder a quick swat. “Yes, you.”

At a glance, the floor overflowed with competent dancers, whirling as the small orchestra played on. Sweat trickled down Cullen’s temple, inspired by the mere thought of it. “I...can, but I don’t.”

“Two left feet?”

“Ahh...” Not exactly. He could execute the steps in the correct order, sure enough, but lacked the finesse to lend continuity to the movement. “Let’s say I’ve always partnered more successfully with a sword and shield.”

Dorian broke out in a genuine laugh. “Better suited to a battlefield than a ballroom, hm?”

“The solemn truth, I fear.” They turned their gazes back to the floor, watching the smiles of those sweeping across it in pairs. If they were to go out there arm in arm, some would look at them askance but most wouldn’t mind. If Dorian had asked, perhaps he’d hoped they might make a showing, and Cullen cursed himself for being so pointlessly nervous. In actuality, he would gladly accept any subsequent derision if the gesture conveyed his willingness to love outside the bounds of the world’s expectations. He wiped the sweat from his temple and cleared his throat. “Did you mean... That is, if, um... Would you like to dance?”

Suddenly transfixed by the hue of his wine, Dorian licked his teeth and made no answer.

“Dorian?” Surely he’d heard him ask. Confused, Cullen reached for him, but he went stiff and arched his shoulder against the touch, so he withdrew his hand.

“I don’t know this one,” Dorian lied, unconvincingly.

“But even I know this one, it’s—

“Cullen, please drop it,” he snapped.

They stood in tense silence, at an impasse. Cullen watched Dorian, and Dorian stared out at the rest of the room, refusing to return eye contact.

Finally, he sent the rest of his wine down his throat, swiping fingers over his beard to clear any remains. “Our hosts and their friends are scandalized enough without us providing further spectacle, trust me.”

The words, perhaps true in Dorian’s estimation, rang false. People had been quite polite all evening, as far as Cullen could tell. It was a dismissal, and it smarted.

“Forgive me, I’d thought...” Cullen adjusted his collar. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Still bristling, Dorian shrugged. “I don’t know what you thought, either.” When the next waiter passed by he reached for a fresh glass, studiously ignoring the apology.

Baffled, a bit dejected, Cullen said, “I...beg your pardon. I need to take some air.” He left the ballroom, meandering through the house until he came to a study filled with serious-faced older nobles and no small few soldiers bearing the scars and equally painful absences—an eye patch here, a pinned sleeve there—of time served. He took a seat on the end of a vacant divan near an open window where a cold draught blew, hoping the breeze might cool the sting of Dorian’s recoil, and peered out onto the adjacent balcony.

Two women stood in the shadow of a column, fingers entwined as they gazed up into early spring stars. From most angles they were hidden by a row of impeccably trimmed cedars, no doubt believing themselves free from prying eyes. Reddening at having intruded on their stolen intimacy, Cullen reoriented himself to face out into the rest of the room, where conversation mingled with the vaguely sickening fragrance of multiple perfumes, sweet smoke, wine, and whiskey. Queasy, he rested his palms on his thighs and tried not to dwell on the way his jacket collar chafed him about the throat, a hair too tight.

Perhaps he’d overestimated his countrymen. It could be Dorian was right, and they’d been excessively overt, waltzing in arm in arm. In his own house it hardly mattered but outside those safe bounds people expected a degree of propriety; their very presence here as a pair put tolerance to the test. After all, politeness in public didn’t spell acceptance in private. It struck him as curious, and unfair, that a whole room full of men and women engaged in brash flirtation caused nary a batted eye, but two coupled men standing demurely off to the side drew an inordinate amount of shocked—and potentially negative—attention. Why was the difference so visible? Because it was rarely seen?

That was one aspect of Orlais where he had to admit they had a foot up over his homeland: in Orlais, nobody much cared who you danced with.

The real puzzle was why Dorian had brought it up only to shoot it down with such vehemence. Hell, he was the reason they’d come at all, badgering until Cullen accepted an invitation he would’ve otherwise ignored. And for what? To find new ways to remind him yet again that this whole arrangement was folly? That what Cullen thought or felt mattered less than the judgement of those around them?

He couldn’t reason through it. Waste of energy to try.

Soon enough someone recognized him, some distant relative of a nearby Bann, and he was forced to swallow his heartache and be sociable because they were a great believer in his cause, as well as an annual donor.

Past midnight, after the dancing began to die down and more people trickled out into the surrounding chambers, Dorian appeared in the study’s doorway, looking unsteady on his feet.

“There you are,” he slurred, thumping down into the narrow space at Cullen’s side. “I swear I searched every confounded room of this...stylistically confused country home,” he hissed in a stage whisper. The woman who’d been seated beside Cullen on the divan for the past half hour, most of that time spent discussing her artistic pursuits, giggled behind a gloved hand. Thank the Maker their hosts were nowhere to be seen.

“How much have you had to drink?” Cullen asked him quietly.

“Suffice to say I’ve gotten to know at least a vine’s worth of grapes very well this evening, but I’m thinking it’s time to get reacquainted with the road home before I meet the same grapes on their way out. Always an awkward encounter, that,” he said, gesturing loosely. He leaned toward the nearby young woman and said, “You know how it is.”

“Charming,” Cullen remarked, one hand against Dorian’s chest to push him back onto his side of the divan. Home sounded like the best course of action. Whether or not Dorian would be able to stay upright in the saddle to get there remained to be seen. “Forgive our rudeness,” Cullen said to the woman. Throughout the evening he’d noticed she’d been keeping him, as well as some of the other less socially fortunate soldiers, company, and in spite of initial misgivings that pity motivated her attentions, their lengthy chat left him reassured she was a friendly, well-meaning soul. “I fear my companion forgets himself when the right vintage is involved,” he added as Dorian leaned against him and he propped him up a second time.

Dorian chuckled against his ear. “When I’m in a room, the right vint age is always involved.”

Closing his eyes, Cullen’s lips thinned to a line and he sighed through his nose. “That’s our cue,” he said, rising and tugging Dorian after him. He bid the giggling young woman goodnight and good luck with her studies, then escorted Dorian from the room.

“You’re angry with me,” Dorian murmured, not without amusement, as they moved through the crowded halls. For many, the party appeared to have just gotten interesting, laughter and spirited talk bouncing from the high ceilings.

“You’re drunk,” Cullen said, matter of factly.

“I’ll have you know this is your fault. Leaving me all by myself in that monumentally gaudy ballroom. Was I meant to sit there on my hands looking sullen until you deemed I’d been sufficiently punished?”

“Punished? Dorian, what on—

Dorian’s fingers clenched in his arm as they approached the coat check. They fell silent, argument bitten down while they collected their overcoats, and stayed silent as they walked out into the chill night, heading toward the stables.

“Don’t you pin this on me,” Dorian started up once they were alone on the drive. “I don’t know a soul here and you go moping off like some jilted adolescent. Honestly, Cullen! Because I wouldn’t dance with you? Sweet Maker...”

Stung all over again, Cullen faltered. Frowning, he lengthened his stride to catch Dorian by the shoulder. “Well, why wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, hells.”

“You were the one who wanted to come here in the first place and you—You shrugged me off! Looked at me like I was some kind of...mouldering old onion. What was I meant to think?”

“You walked away from me , if you’ll recall.”

“Because you shrugged me off!”

“I didn’t want to make a scene!”

A heated reply burned Cullen’s tongue—then why did we come at all?—but before he could speak it, realization dawned like the first drops of a rainfall: widely spaced, each one unique. In the same way falling rain merged, gradually soaked the earth, changed its colors, his thoughts took on new form. He stopped walking.

This was pointless. One of them was drunk, the other hurt, and neither in a fit state to apply logic to their poor behaviour. They could argue like old marrieds all night, but that wouldn’t make it real.

Ahead a few paces, Dorian stopped, swiveled, and looked at him.  

Whatever weapons they wielded against one another here were mere disguises. Every sword had its balance when swung, and Cullen had reached a tipping point inside his own mind. Sudden tears welled up as the internal blow fell.

“It... It would never be enough, would it.” His tongue traced the indent of the scar, and he forced himself to desist and close his mouth. Quickly, he turned away. A small round rock on the edge of the path drew his eye. Driven by boyish impulse, he kicked at it; not hard, enough to send it skittering into a nearby flower bed.

“What wouldn’t?” Dorian stood in his peripheral vision, outlined by the larger moon, shimmering robe camouflaging his exact silhouette. “Cullen... What wouldn’t?”

“The house. The grounds, the vineyard. Ridiculous provincial parties...” Staring down at the toe of his polished boot through a blur of emotion, Cullen sniffed a sad laugh. Finally, he looked back to Dorian. “Me. It would never...be enough, for you.”

Slow fire smouldered in Dorian’s eyes as they narrowed to a harsh glare. He took several rapid steps into Cullen’s space. “If you mean to tell me I’m some snotty spoiled prince, that I think I’m—

“No! That’s not...” He waved a hand, reaching for Dorian’s arm then thinking better of it. “I don’t mean that.” Poor show, phrasing it so close to an accusation. Biting his cheek, Cullen searched for words. “You’re too...canny, for this, is all. You’d be wasted spending your life on some backwater highland farm. You’re not meant to stay here.” What was it, exactly, that marked Dorian for a grander destiny? Could he find a way to describe it? The man was brilliant, charismatic, luminous beyond stars. The great son of a great house. “You belong somewhere bigger,” he muttered finally, unable to martial his words. His voice was hoarse. “I beg your forgiveness. My behaviour tonight...was unbecoming. I know that soon you’ll leave, and it pains me, so I take trifles too hard to heart.”

Silence. Or relative silence, as sounds of revelry and thin strains of music continued to shiver through the nighttime air. The lanterns lighting the drive rustled in a breeze blowing up off the southern fields, carrying smells of wet ice and greenery. Somewhere behind the house, in the gardens, a group of people laughed.

“I’m sorry, too,” Dorian said. His cool fingers found Cullen’s beard, and he stroked it before patting his chest. “I’ve been a right ass. Kind of my specialty. I wanted to come tonight, and I did want to dance with you,” he whispered. “The idea has a certain...romance, but when you actually confront it... These people, most of them are decent under the crass attempts at urbanity, it’s just...I dare not tarnish their idea of you any further than I already have, since,” his throat worked under dark stubble, “it’s as you say, I am leaving. And I want them to still be neighbourly to you when I’ve gone.” Anticipating Cullen’s protest, he lifted a finger to his lips, “Don’t you say you don’t care, either, because that isn’t the point. I care. You act as though it hardly matters, and perhaps behind closed doors it doesn’t, but this isn’t Orlais. The two of us flagrantly spinning across that ballroom in each other’s arms...” He shook his head. “In another age, maybe. Another world. One yet to come.”

He quivered a little after he finished speaking, and Cullen reached for him, thinking to comfort, but Dorian held up a hand, jaw working oddly at the corners. He spun sharply on his heel, robes collected close to himself, and emptied his guts into a meticulously tended hedgerow. Twice. He emerged a minute later, panting, wiping his mouth with a kerchief.

Cullen patted his back. “The aforementioned second encounter with the grapes?”

Laughing, Dorian folded the kerchief into a ball, then folded it inside another kerchief, which he tucked in a pocket. “Not the worst of my life. On multiple occasions I’ve had wine so bad that it was about as pleasant coming up as it was going down in the first place.” Behind his lip, his tongue worked visibly over his teeth, and he spat into the grass. “At least I didn’t have to use a potted plant. You cannot, I’ve discovered, blame that on the cat more than once, in case you were curious.”

“I was not,” Cullen replied, lips twitching into a helpless, tiny smile.

At the stables a young groom retrieved their horses for them, and Dorian wobbled only a little as they mounted. No doubt the worst of the poison sat amidst the trunks of the unfortunate hedgerow. Their journey home proved ordinary, lit by magefire, a few carriages and riders passing them on the road, some of them latecomers to the ball or alternately, those who’d grown weary of its charms. Others were messengers or travelers, no small few likely hired security for the night—an effort to discourage banditry. A mile out from the manor, a great golden shape loped up to them along the road, giving them both a real fright before they realized the creature was none other than Birdie.

“Fool dog,” Cullen muttered. “Good thing the horses know your smell, else that could’ve been a right disaster.”

Otherwise, they made it home without incident. Cullen insisted he see to the mounts, unwilling to wake Antony this late when the poor fellow rose with the sun each morning. He refused Dorian’s help as well, sending him off to the kitchens with instructions to drink water and take a generous sprinkle of powdered elfroot.

Quiet ruled the barn at this late hour. Cooling both horses and wiping them down, giving each a quick brush, soothed him as much as it did the beasts, and they both snuffled him in thanks as he led them to their stalls where a bit of fresh hay and water awaited. Horses away, some errant sense steered him toward the whelping room. Though the pups were up in the house, assigned to rooms for the foreseeable future, he was drawn to the doorway as he had been so many times during the past months. The chamber stood empty, its heating enchantments inactive.

Over so soon, he thought to himself. Youth sailed by on dissolving wings, ever earthbound, toward its own sunset. Time was as unkind to dogs as it was to men—less kind, given that their lives were a quarter the length of a lucky human’s. Another season, and the pups would be near grown. Summer would end again. Dorian would still be gone.

Running a hand through his beard, he turned away, leaving the animal sighs of the barn for the silence of the courtyard. He passed like a shadow into his own dark house.

Chapter Text

As the days grew lighter, so too did winter’s grasp loosen. Dorian tried to breathe deeply of the renewed season, but a chill plagued his bones that the fresh spring sun couldn’t warm out. Sadness had taken hold in him. Delicate, sharp white roots spreading, fibrous, into his organs, malignant as slow disease.

The days crept by and the last snow turned glassy at the edges, beginning its gradual retreat from the fields. What emerged in its wake was a great, green-backed animal. Vegetation sprang from beneath the wasted sheets of ice; grasses, ferns, long pointed stalks tipped by silken ghost-tears. Snowdrops, Fereldans called their varietal. Each plant rose through the thinning patches in clusters. Every unfurled flower renewed the looming reality of his leaving.

He stood on the edge of a pasture, watching the horses graze. Beyond that scene, in another field, figures tended newly planted crops. In yet another adjoining field, Cullen, devoted farmer that he’d become, accompanied his people in the task of digging over the dirt and sowing seeds. Lately he’d been returning to the house around midday, sweaty and sore-backed, leaving the afternoon planting to the more spritely. Fumbling for excuses to lengthen their time together, Dorian had begun walking out to meet him when he finished.

Tired, he rested his hands on the top wooden slat of the fence. Sleep had been a reluctant visitor the past few nights, alighting only for brief, shallow interludes. At his feet, flowers bordered the pasture. The teardrop shaped blooms, pale as milk, drooped in clusters of few or many, little spirits adrift on the quickening breath of spring. His eyes unfocused as he stared at their delicate, papery inflorescences: an omen. White was the colour of death, of the pyre shroud. The high peaks of mountains locked in permanent, lifeless ice.

Already, he’d stayed longer than intended. Maevaris had sent a letter to Cullen inquiring as to Dorian’s whereabouts, worried some ill fate had intervened on the road home. He’d written the reply himself and dispatched it by bird the same day, reassuring her he was alive and well, simply...delayed.

“Looking for work to do?”

Dorian’s head snapped up just in time to see Cullen hop the fence and land on his feet beside him. How had he come so far so fast? The flowers... He glanced back to them, mystified. Surely he’d not been staring at the ground for minutes on end?

“Dorian?”

A firm hand on his side made him suck in a sharp breath. “I’m—I’m fine.” Open palmed, he laid an answering touch on Cullen’s sturdy chest. The fabric was slightly damp with sweat. “Shall we walk a little, or are you hungry?”

Cullen knit their fingers against his breastbone and squeezed. “I had a good breakfast, if you’d like a walk.”

They strolled toward a thin stretch of woods, the patter of paws disturbing leaf litter quick at their heels once they broke the tree line: Juniper, looking gangly and sweet, and Birdie, who never seemed to be far from Dorian. Over the past weeks he’d experimented a handful of times, calling to her when he thought she was well away. In under a minute, almost without fail, a golden giant would come loping toward him as if summoned from the air itself, arriving at his side wearing a toothy, wide-mouthed smile.

The woods were changed, he noted. Birds hopped to and fro, fluttering wings filled the branches of trees ready to burst into brilliant leaf, each bud perfectly formed. The snow was gone minus a few sad, dirty patches where it had been heaped high. Spring in Ferelden was a beautiful, vivid season, he well remembered, one saturated with wildflowers and the chatter of innumerable boisterous streams fat with meltwater. Seeing it again would gladden his heart.

Except he’d see it only in passing—its beginnings, the early promises of a season not realized—from the back of an old horse as he rode away.

His vision altered. The woods overwhelmed him; every jolt of green, every shoot and silken snowdrop alarmed him to his very core. The absoluteness of his departure surged like a white blindness that left him dizzy, breathless. One of his ears popped. The flicker of vertigo that accompanied the sensation sent him lurching against the nearest tree for support.

Cullen was at his side practically in the same second his palm hit the trunk, as if he’d fadestepped.

“What’s wrong?” His brown eyes shone worry in the thin sun, same as the two dogs that now stood at his feet, Birdie and young Juniper, called not by words but by some innate canine sense of acute distress. Quite the trio, all told.

“It’ll pass in a minute,” Dorian said, waving them off. The gesture unbalanced him and Cullen gripped him by the arm to keep him upright.

“Are you sure?”

He was not sure at all. When was the last time he’d been sure of anything? The answer hit him like a fall over a balustrade, his mind twisting so hard inside his skull that he lurched a second time.

The Bull. He’d been sure of the Bull, like he’d never been sure of anything before in his life. The memory brought a horrible rush of fever heat; the intensity of pain and humiliation and loss roared through him from sternum to hip, and he buried his face in Cullen’s chest.

Cullen wrapped arms around him and held him. One of the dogs licked at his fingertips: dear, sweet Birdie. She did like him. Not that the others didn’t, but she’d paid him special attention from the start; trotted by his side when he roamed the grounds, lounged with him in the study, her boxy nose poking under his elbow if she gauged he’d been sitting idle too long.

“I think I’d like to head back now, if we could,” Dorian murmured.

“Yes, of course.” Cullen slowly extricated himself, crooking his elbow in an offer of continued assistance, which Dorian accepted. He was still unsteady on his feet, and Cullen’s sturdiness... Quite simply, it was welcome. His calm, if concerned, presence prevented Dorian from stumbling down into the old abyss yet again, knocked sideways by the tall, broad-horned specter of dead love.

“Maybe we might...play a round of chess, this evening,” he suggested.

Beside him, Cullen gave a catching little laugh. “Feeling nostalgic?”

“Something like that.”

Many things, good and ill, had begun and ended behind the high stone fortifications of Skyhold. One particularly unexpected thing had, arguably, begun over a chess board in a strange, everblooming garden that should’ve been locked in the same snows that blanketed the surrounding mountains. If he’d been inclined those many, many years ago, he might’ve seen Cullen’s heart opening to him amidst the fruiting vines and squash flowers, fragile and steadfast, but he’d been busy tending a more obvious bloom, albeit a no less important one.

The Bull lingered, a ghost smelling of blood and jasmine. Amatus, best beloved, rough calloused and soft mouthed, impossibly tender, ferociously precise, and lost, so lost, in his mourning, that he’d disappeared down a road impassable to any who might try to follow. Dorian was ready now to believe they had loved one another. For a while, anyway. How it had ended was an ugliness he’d bear the rest of his life, but like so much of the ugliness in the world, blame could not easily be assigned.

He glanced at quiet Cullen, the scar on his lip as healed as it was likely to get in his lifetime. Faded white now, mostly, merely a narrow interruption in his thick beard. Like the majority who took up a sword in the name of a god or nation, the scar was far from the only mark left by his experiences: a thick mist of horrors trailed him, a cloak of remorse billowing at his shoulder.

Forgiveness, Dorian believed, took every ounce of sweat and blood a body could surrender, and it was not a singular act. It required discipline. Commitment. Self-forgiveness took the same, if not more. Mindful daily practice, the way one drilled forms to learn how to wield a longstaff. Dorian knew that Cullen’s practice had begun as one of atonement in a dark hour, but somewhere in that arduous twilight of the soul forgiveness had crept in, dust through a pinhole, and here he stood on the other side. Never absolved—what good was grief or guilt if it didn’t temper future actions?—but not wandering in a maze of his own miserable regret, either. Change, spiritual or tangible, offered a long climb toward minor redemption. Cullen, by his own admission, climbed still. Would continue to climb, always.

No future could be set in stone. A choice, then. For good or ill, he knew he’d already made it.

He lifted his head to the sky as they left the woods, walking on toward the manor. Home but not home. All things in their own season, each season passing, seamless, into the next.

The time for him to leave had come.

That afternoon he withdrew to his own quarters to begin packing. Finer robes needed careful folding, and his road clothes all had to fit in small saddlebags and a single cantle pack. The few books he’d brought had to be wrapped in cloth, to prevent them opening accidentally if the trunk were to roll or fall, and his oils and moisturizers needed to be magically sealed against spillage. As few as three drops could stain not only his clothes and books but the wood of the trunk itself.

For how long he’d stayed, he’d brought little. An hour saw the wardrobe emptied, and a few minutes more would be all he’d need for the remainder. On a high shelf he found the scarf he’d bought back at Satinalia and had intended for Cullen. The wool, soft against his hands, felt like an inadequate, useless gesture at this late juncture. Stealthily, he crossed the hall and tucked the gift away amidst a stack of sweaters, accompanied by a brief note of thanks and affection. Hopefully it would make for a pleasant surprise somewhere down the road, rather than a bitter reminder of his leaving.

Back in his own room, he sat down on the bed to contemplate how much food to take on the trek—enough jerky for snacks between inns, no more—and his sleepless night overtook him a second time.

When he woke, it was to Cullen’s cautious grip on his shoulder.

“Dinner,” he said. He was in one of his finer tunics, bathed, beard trimmed, wafting a light scent of lavender and parsley.

Dorian felt summarily disheveled in contrast. “Should I change?” he asked, his sleep-clogged voice leaving him sounding bewildered.

Cullen smiled at him, his fingers catching along Dorian’s temple to tuck the fall of his hair behind an ear. “No need. It’s just us.”

He stood, swept his uncooperative mane into a quick bun, trying to hide the tousled evidence of the nap. As they left the room, Cullen urged him in the direction of the foyer, rather than toward the study where they normally dined. On the main floor, Dorian made to take a table outside the kitchens, but Cullen gestured him onward down the hall to the silent and peculiarly empty common room, vacant save for Jillian seated at her piano. She smiled, obviously expecting them, and began to pick out a very old, very familiar waltz.

Straight-backed, smiling softly, Cullen gazed at him a long moment while Jilly warmed up her keys. Then, he bent into a gracious bow, and extended a hand. “Shall we?”

Dorian firmed his face into a withering look, but the corners of his lips betrayed him, cracking upward. “You’re not serious.”

“I am.” Cullen stood tall again, shoulders squared, soldierly, to indicate how serious. “Please,” he asked, arm still beckoning, “do me this last honour.”

In a drawn out motion, Dorian extended his hand for the taking. Cullen began to pull him into form, and he resisted. “I want to note for the record this is happening only because you’re such a gentleman. Jilly,” he called, “you’re my witness.”

She laughed, the music flowing unbroken. She’d been practicing.

“You know,” Cullen said, smiling, “it doesn’t have to happen at all if you’re so dead set against a little romance. I’d only thought to make things up to you.” His fingers climbed to the appropriate place at the base of Dorian’s shoulder blade.

He presumed to lead, then. As well he should, Dorian supposed, given that this was his ridiculous idea. “Since you insist.”

Cullen tilted his chin in thanks. On the right beat, they began. Their slow waltz took them on a circuit of the chamber, Cullen leading confidently without stumbling.

“So you are also capable in a ballroom,” Dorian said to him as they pivoted, continuing the gentle whirl.

Cheeks pinkening, Cullen lead them on. “Leliana taught me. I tried to refuse, but she insisted.” In a poor imitation of the spymaster’s softly accented voice, Cullen said, “If you can fight, you can dance, commander.” Then he shook his head. “Of course, she didn’t teach me to lead. One of her little jokes... I had to ask Josephine to show me, afterward.”

Oh, how he wished he’d borne witness that. When had that been, he wondered? Before the Winter Palace, since their impending foray among royalty would provide an ideal excuse for such lessons. Cullen would not have gone along otherwise, being a warrior through and through, more efficient than elegant even with blade and shield. For all the aggravated faces the Inquisition’s general had likely pulled while being led through a waltz by a petite redhead wearing a private smirk, he made a perfectly able dancer.  

They toured the room, spurred on by Jillian’s earnest efforts at the piano. She had improved markedly of late. When she’d first arrived she’d been capable, but her songs were often intruded upon by jittery misses, a handful of ill-hit notes. Now, her playing was confident. Imperfect, but imbued with intention and soul. She might, one day soon, be well enough to travel as a musician if the inclination suited her, Dorian thought. He would tell her as much, before he left.

As best he could, Dorian followed Cullen’s lead, perhaps not as gracefully as he might have done had he not woken only ten minutes prior. Passably, though. It was enough, and by the tenderness on Cullen’s face, he was enjoying himself, which mattered more than whether or not Dorian looked an image of precision.

“You’re a natural,” Cullen whispered to him as they crossed the middle of the room.

“A consequence of my breeding. You’re not so bad yourself,” he replied with a smile. “I was expecting to have to ice my trodden toes afterward.”

Cullen let go of his shoulder and raised his arm, tugging Dorian’s fingers lightly to encourage him. He couldn’t recall ever before being the one expected to twirl, and with a laugh he obliged the movement, feeling his robes flare around him. They resumed their simple box step and as the last few sweet notes of the song rose, flowing to conclusion, Cullen let his hand fall to the small of Dorian’s back and pulled him in close, lowering his nose until their faces nearly grazed.

“Thank you,” he finally said against Dorian’s temple, “for humoring me.”

“You’ve put up with my ill tempers for months. I ought to be thanking you.”

Grinning, Cullen brushed their beards together. “There’s still time,” he said. “Until...tomorrow?” he asked, pulling back to meet Dorian’s eyes, seeking confirmation.

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

His smile flickered only momentarily. “Until tomorrow, then. There’s time.”

They moved together to thank Jillian for her willingness to indulge two silly old bastards, and she laughed them off, insisted it was her pleasure.

Dinner actually did await them in the study, as it so often did. The spread included early spring greens, some very precocious tiny carrots, a few beets that had weathered the winter, delicious spiced chicken stew, and ever present fresh bread to accompany. Not one of Cullen’s loaves, however. Since he had, of late, been neglecting his kitchen endeavors to lie about in bed with Dorian until past sunup, he’d temporarily consigned his sourdough starter into the capable hands of the cooks. Also gracing the table was a bottle of Marchand’s wine, and to the side of that, the chess board.

They’d matched wits over that board time and again, passing idle hours when Cullen was ill or the rare days when relaxation better befit the troops than incessant drilling. Dorian had made it no secret that he found the commander a handsome fellow—he did have eyes, after all, and had begun pretending he had no shame, hoping he might someday come to believe it—but what had started out as a ruse for flirtation evolved steadily into a surprising, quiet friendship that he’d come to hold very dear.

“I see the wheels turning in there,” Cullen teased, leaned back languid in his chair with wine in one hand, the other indicating the matched set of tiny armies on the table. “Planning how to cheat me already?”

“Such accusations. A man isn’t allowed to strategize?”

In truth, his strategies had always been more about garnering a reaction than winning the game: that heady little chuckle for instance, or an incredulous lift of the brows, those were what he’d played for as he shifted his pieces across the checkerboard. On occasion, when Cullen got too smug, he’d knuckled down and given him a sincere run for his money, but he’d never had much patience for the hours-long grudge matches he’d often seen other students involved in at the Circle libraries. Quicker moving card games were his preference, where chance had a seat at the table alongside every player. When it came to chess, any bad luck was manufactured by your own poor strategy or the clever maneuvering of your opponent, and his impatience had always been his downfall.

He’d kept at it, though, in the Inquisition days, for the companionship and obvious satisfaction it gave both of them.

Cullen set his wine aside and rose. “I’ll take these away,” he gestured at their empty plates cluttering the table, “then we can get started?”

“Would you like a hand?”

“No, it’s fine. You sit. Prepare yourself mentally for a forthcoming crushing defeat.”

“Insolence!” Dorian accused, grinning.

Cullen only laughed while he stacked the dishes on a tray, then departed for the kitchens. He would probably wash them up himself, too, so as not to trouble the staff, who had likely already finished their dinner duties and were sitting down at their own table about now. It would take him a few minutes.

Dorian rose and paced the room, trailing fingers along the dusty edges of the study’s bookshelves. If this was to be their final night, did he want to spend it in nostalgia and reminiscence? No doubt as they played, stories would float to the surface, jostling like lily pads crowding an old dock. Did he dare invite such ghosts on an evening before he meant to travel? Love, sorrow, grief, loyalty, fragments of the man he’d once been, dim shards of the man he might become, all rattled inside his skull. At the window he stilled, looking partway through the glass and partly at his own reflection. Long hair, messy, going grayer by the day, a beard that his northern brethren would consider much too heavy, thin face worn hollow through the cheeks, made strange not only by the distortion of glass but by his own sense of himself. He looked away, staring into the spines of the volumes lining the shelves, eyes tracing minute imperfections.

A touch to his back startled him, and he leapt slightly sideways.

“Oh, sorry love,” Cullen said, giving him space. “Didn’t mean to sneak up.”

Dorian let out a breathy laugh. Clumsy, he pawed at Cullen, dragging him in close to wrap arms around him. One hand rose to cradle the warm back of Cullen’s skull. As they stood, Dorian glanced at the warped reflection of their combined silhouette in the darkened window, framed by lamplight. Cullen’s hair was lush against his palm, newly regrown curls thick at his nape as though the golden glow of youth still clung to him, reluctant to leave.

Such reluctance, Dorian understood. A word formed in his mind, one he’d reserved for another and doubted he’d ever use again. In all possible worlds and ways it was wrong for him to be thinking it and yet, there it sat, on the tip of his tongue.

Spoken or unspoken, the truth was clear. They’d played enough chess for a lifetime. Dorian lifted his head and smashed their mouths together, perhaps too hard if the muffled grunt in Cullen’s throat was anything to go by. Cullen’s hands drew over his sides, holding him fast at the hip as they backed against one of the bookshelves with a thump and clatter. Ignoring it, they kept kissing.

“Whoa, whoa,” Cullen finally rumbled. “What about chess?” One canine gleamed in the lopsided smile.

“Now might...be the time to confess that those games were largely a smokescreen,” Dorian muttered, bumping their noses. “Mostly, I just liked looking at you.” A half-truth, or thereabouts. He let a hand slide between them, over Cullen’s cock and down to the inner thighs. Heart-thumping silence. Cullen sighed across his neck, thick leg muscles tense against Dorian’s fingertips.

Deep, rumbling laughter welled in Cullen’s barrel chest, his eyes half-lidded. “All right,” he murmured, voice lowering. He nipped the side of Dorian’s neck. “I’m yours, then. Do as you will. It’s your turn to lead.”

It occurred to Dorian their tryst was visible to anyone standing in the courtyard below, so he withdrew his hand, letting it rest at Cullen’s ribs. “That’s what I like to hear.”

Stumbling only a little they retreated down the hall to Cullen’s chambers, where Dorian let down his hair and let his robes fall freely from his shoulders, scar exposed without shyness. Similarly nude, half-hard, breath shallow in his broad chest, Cullen reached for him, his rough palms hot over Dorian’s back as he held him.

They rutted like animals. Cullen bit him more than once: hard, sharp bites that left him gasping and grabbing at him to encourage it. The salve nearly ran out, but not before they’d both come twice, Cullen’s second orgasm leaving him a glassy-eyed, euphoric ruin, belly sticky with his own come, legs loose and slack where they rested against Dorian’s sides.

When normal blood flow resumed and restored their wits, they used the wash basin by the fire to bathe. Each of them had their nighttime rituals, so they completed them and put down a fresh sheet before crawling back into bed.

They lay on their stomachs, close together. Dorian reached out and ruffled his fingers through Cullen’s disorganized, sweat-damp curls, which softened his sleepy expression and left him looking like a happy dog leaning into an ear scratch, hoping for continued attentions. He stopped just shy of nosing after Dorian’s hand when he stilled, however.

He’d traveled far, had Cullen, throughout his Inquisition years and beyond, sick with withdrawal and certain he deserved no quarter. Given the chance to begin anew—a fresh command of a young army, united in purpose—he’d taken on huge responsibilities at the same time he’d undertaken a guilty, grief addled march away from the man he’d once been. And still, there were those who opposed forgiving him his errors. Namely himself, but others, too.

Odd to contemplate the matter. The world was cruel. Each member of the Inquisitor’s inner circle had killed under arguably dubious circumstances, repeatedly. Easy to judge yourself in the right if your own moral compass or strict religious precept was all the direction you paid heed to. Most every villain considered themselves the hero of the piece, afterall, or if not a hero then a tool, their actions undertaken in service of a god, or government, free from the burden of choice and thus absolved of responsibility. Framed like that, perhaps to some extent suspicion and old grudges were warranted, and nobody, especially not someone wronged, was obligated to forgive a damned thing.

Some days he did, and some days he didn’t. Sinking, unstable ambivalence sent him spinning in two directions at once: one moment wanting to absolve and be absolved, metamorphose, weep one final river of tears and drink in a new self; the next wanting to scream and rage and bloody his face with his own knuckles for how stupid he’d been to believe he’d deserved other than what he got.

The end result was profound confusion. Did he deserve this? Was this strange span of time and all it contained—the warm voice of an old friend, his thick legs snug at Dorian’s waist, their mingled sweat, Cullen’s unspoken but barely contained pleas for him to stay—its own absolution? Mercy, the kind he’d cried for years ago, sick and contorted with despair, blood on his sheets from the wound that should’ve killed him but hadn’t?

He could not say.

Beside him, Cullen opened his dark, deep set eyes, unfocused by sleep’s approach. Mercy... An ongoing process, atonement. To turn a critical gaze inward, dislike what you saw, and decide to change instead of concede. No mean undertaking. He ran his knuckles down a curly sideburn and over trimmed beard.

Cullen smiled. One of his small, battleworn smiles. “You lead well,” he murmured.

“I like where we go when you follow me,” he whispered back.

Morning came too soon.

After the last of his preparations were made, he saddled Barley and bid Antony a fond farewell, the young man turning their handshake into a snug embrace as Dorian thanked him for all his kindness and hard work. Jillian, who’d come outside to see him off, had an embrace for him also, remarking that she hoped he’d visit again, perhaps for the following summer, because what on earth would possess a person to spend winter in Ferelden in the first place? They both laughed, and they both looked at Cullen, Dorian as if in answer to the question and Jillian because she already knew it, which made them both laugh a second time.

In the yard, he made goodbye rounds amongst the dogs, who didn’t understand but were rarely disappointed to have any stray attention come their way. He spent a few moments longer with Juniper, and still longer with Birdie, going so far as to wrap her in a quick hug. She retaliated with several licks to the face, and he spluttered and chuckled, forced to fish out a kerchief and blot away the slobber.

By the barn stood Cullen, rubbing an appreciative Barley’s neck. As Dorian approached, he patted the horse a final time and stepped forward, careful smile on his face. “You’re off, then?”

“I’m afraid so. I’ve been away too long already.” He mirrored the smile, hoping to maintain composure.

Cullen nodded. “I’ll see that your trunk goes after you tomorrow at latest.”

“No great rush. There’s nothing in there I can’t live without once I’ve made it back to my apartments.” Summer would already be fully fledged in Minrathous. Ocean breezes, fragrant gardens, humid nights spent on rooftops under a span of stars, monsoons gathering over the north sea but blowing east to make landfall elsewhere. A seat of power awaited him, about as effectual left standing empty as it was when he filled it. His father’s legacy cast a profusion of shadows, but all that lay ahead. Now, he looked at Cullen.

Dear, handsome Cullen, greying in the beard like an old Mabari, crow’s feet deepening under new freckles, ear tips pink from too much sun the day before. Still somehow young, under it all. Softly, he took hold of both his arms and drew in close to kiss him. A sentimental sort of kiss. “You take care of yourself,” he said. “Don’t be foolhardy. Rest.”

“I will.” His tone hinted at resistance. “If you promise you’ll do the same,” he added, a sly grin bending the scar.

Dorian just smiled, helpless to deny that they knew one another too well, had known one another too long, to expect such requests could be faithfully heeded.

“Ah, there’s... One moment,” Cullen paused, finger upheld as he stepped away and whistled. Several dogs trotted to him from where they’d been milling around. He patted them all, then sent them off in turn, save for one. Juniper sat obediently at his feet. “There’s something I wanted to give to you, before you go,” he said, indicating the puppy.

Dumbstruck, Dorian made no reply. His mouth opened, but no thought perched long enough to find expression.

“I know,” Cullen made a gesture of appeasement. “It’s quite a journey for a young dog, but she’s strong. You won’t be traveling too far each day, or too fast. She’s... She’s really your pup, after all.” He lowered his hand and stroked Juniper’s broad skull. “You called her and she came back for you. It’s meant to be.”

Dorian realized he’d already begun shaking his head, ever so slightly, back and forth. “I can’t,” he whispered. “It’s too far, Cullen, she’s still just a baby. I can’t take her away from all she’s ever known, not when she isn’t finished yet.” He looked down at Juniper, who wagged up at him, utterly unaware that her fate had been gifted into his hands, doubly unaware that he was refusing it.

“But...she’s yours,” Cullen repeated.

When Dorian closed his mouth, pained he could not say yes, Cullen’s eyes glossed over, red with the threat of weeping.

“Please take her, Dorian. She’s clever, and she’s learning fast, I’m certain she’ll mind you. I’m certain.” One of his hands fastened gently about Dorian’s forearm, not so quickly or tightly that he couldn’t feel how it shook. “Please.”

This wasn’t only about the puppy. He knew, looking into Cullen’s face, that the gift went beyond the fate of one young dog. Poor Cullen’s heart broke, beat by beat, as they stood there. Gently, Dorian put a palm to his beard. “Darling... Oh, don’t cry,” he hushed. He let out a breath and wrapped Cullen close, pulling him in as the first wet streaks ran into his beard. “It’s not that I don’t want her, please don’t think that. She’s still too young to go so far, is all. It’s dangerous. She might injure herself irreparably, and I’d hold myself responsible.”

A near silent whimper muffled against his shoulder. Fingers dug into the cloth of his robes. They stood for at least a minute, scarcely moving. Snuffling, Cullen squeezed him, then shifted his head. “You’re right.” The croak was nigh inaudible. “You’re right. It’s too far. She could damage her joints, I... I know better. Forgive me.”

Dorian held on to him. “No harm done.” He felt Cullen’s crying intensify, and his grip tightened. “Shh, sweetheart... Let’s say I’m leaving her here to take care of you, hm? Her life is my gift to both of you.”

Against his neck, he felt Cullen nod. When he pulled back and away, the depth of sadness on his downturned face was too much to bear. Dorian reached and ruffled at his beard again, urging his chin up so he could kiss him, carefully.

They broke apart and Cullen sniffed, rubbed at his eyes. “You... You will come back, won’t you?” His voice was so small. Grains of sand hissing across a ruined temple threshold out in the wastes. “Someday?”

No futures set in stone. There was no telling what he’d face upon arrival north. It could take years to extinguish the fires he’d set by leaving, though Mae had done her level best to control the burn in his absence. “Someday,” he replied. His smile did little to reassure either of them.

Resigned, Cullen clasped him tight one last time. “Safe journey, my love,” he whispered. His fingers swept into the hair at the base of Dorian’s neck. All the air seemed to hiss from his lungs, shrinking him, leaving him looking too small for his big frame. “Maker watch over you...”

When they pulled apart, Dorian struggled against a wave of sorrow. “I’ll write,” he said. That much, he meant. Writing letters was something he could do with some assurance. He looked into Cullen’s face, but he’d stopped meeting his gaze, tears flowing unstaunched from wide open, honey brown eyes. “I promise I will.” Dorian kissed him one final time, and he did kiss back, salty lip quivering. He let his hand trail up and down over his arm in a fond rub, and then he glanced to the horse. One second longer like this, Cullen standing shattered in front of him, and he’d stay just one more night. His life would become an endless succession of one more night. “I promise,” he said again.

Cullen spotted him as he hoisted into Barley’s high saddle. Dorian extended a hand down once he’d gotten seated, and Cullen took hold of it. He tried to think of something, anything, he might say to ease this awful tearing, but he could not, so he squeezed his hand and smiled before he let their fingers slip apart.

One click of the tongue against teeth got Barley moving. They made headway along the drive before he allowed himself to turn in the saddle to wave a final time. Cullen stood fast, Birdie and Juniper’s snouts lifted toward him in confusion as he raised his hand in an answering gesture. Dorian supposed he was likely to stand there a while, but couldn’t bring himself to look again. If he did, his resolve would splinter, he’d turn the horse and ride back. The endless cycle spun its potential— one more night —but the time had come to move forward, and away. Even if this did feel distressingly like leaving home rather than leaving for it, his choice had been made. He faced north, and rode on.

Chapter Text

In the quiet of the whelping room, Cullen lowered onto the bench and let his head roll back against the wall. Over and over he’d told himself he would maintain composure when the day came. Keep his heart inside his chest instead of pinned to his Maker-forsaken sleeve for once in his fool life. In the end, he’d failed.

As soon as the first hint of trepidation had crossed Dorian’s face after he’d offered Juniper, Cullen realized that he fully meant to walk away untethered. Their winter had come to a close, and there would be no shared spring. The sweeping avalanche of wild, gut-wrenching love had been primarily one-sided, which was not new information. Certainly, they shared affection, and sex, but sex could be perfectly meaningless and affection was love’s gentler counterpart, a short poem on a single page blurred at the edges, less all consuming than the frantic stanzas of infatuation. Whatever Dorian felt, love or otherwise, he’d folded it away with deft hands, tucked somewhere to be either preserved or forgotten as needed.

Still, Cullen did not blame him. Did not believe he’d been abandoned, or wronged. Everyone felt the irrepressible catch of hope, a smouldering coal in the belly that radiated dormant possibilities, whispers of maybe, maybe... Maybe great love can come late in life after decades of isolation. Maybe he’ll stay... Just ride to the end of the drive, or a ways north, realize his error, turn back at a canter and come crashing to a standstill in a flurry of robes and road dust, ready to be in love.

Dorian had never falsely stoked those hopes, which Cullen considered a small mercy. His own mind, betrayer that it was, had put quite enough kindling near the embers, such that a small fire burned deep in the gut. This morning it had been summarily snuffed out. Dorian had ridden down the road without so much as a whisper of assurance that he ever intended to return.

If he’d taken Juniper, then Cullen might’ve felt a thin thread pulling between them, fragile but present—a living link bridging the impossible distance. Except the idea had been a stupid one to begin with. What did he expect, trying to send a puppy off on a journey across half the continent? At least one of them had the sense to strip the gesture of its romance and think of the logistics. Poor Juniper. Any number of awful fates might befall a young, untested Mabari on the road; broken limbs or worse. Dorian was right. She wasn’t finished yet.

Not for the first time in his life he felt a helpless emptiness, as if he’d been hooked, landed, and gutted. Tears roiled, spilled hot down his cheeks, and he angrily wiped them off. He’d known this was coming. All along, he’d known, but what you saw coming from ten miles away would still hit you like a flung boulder if you didn’t have the sense to stand aside. He’d watched this trebuchet launch its projectile and he’d planted his feet and faced into it, stubborn to the last. Arguably, he’d sprinted into its arc to be sure it collided. Somehow he’d convinced himself he could withstand the blow as he’d done before throughout his life: bones, mind, spirit, ideology, all fractured by his work and later, the immeasurable regret of having chosen to do it. And he had done it, blindly, without question. Worse than a zealous hound whipped to frenzy, he’d faced each victim with the calm reassurance of an ardent disciple, believing he walked a righteous path.

Still, he’d survived. Borne up beneath the weight of his wounds, his pain and contrition, he’d staggered headlong toward oblivion praying that his efforts might better a world to which he’d contributed only misery. A man like him, repent as he might, strive to atone as he would for however many years remained to him, hardly deserved the brief glimpse of love he’d been given.

He rose to his feet, refusing to let the thought alight longer than a moment. Hard, when it was so familiar, every landmark burned into his brain. Here, the self-loathing, here the guilt, each step heavier with remorse as he faced the man he’d been: abusive coward, blind zealot, stubborn, unchanging, dull as a worn blade. Nausea pushed hard as it raged alongside the fear that he could never truly stop being that man. For all he wished he could reach across the weft of time and wrap his hands around the throat of his past self, what was done was done, and he’d earned his suffering.

Eyes closed, he balled his fists. He could not afford to engage these thoughts. Down that path lay nothing but ruin, perfectly whole damnation that prevented any effort to make amends for his sins. The only salvation lay in the work.

The best thing for him would be to lower his head and set his shoulder to the stone. Return to the daily march of manual tasks and useful kindness. Put his back into it, nevermind the fact that his back wasn’t near as sturdy as it used to be.

Wiping his eyes, he breathed deep of the comforting smells of horse, hay, leather, and warm wood, and emerged into the courtyard hurting but able to put one foot in front of the other.

Immediate distraction materialized, as much confirmation as he needed for his choice.

“Cripes, Rutherford. You dying?” called Bridget, freshly arrived with their latest shipment: several young goats to add to the herd and a large, varied collection of cloth bolts. The manor’s resident tailor would inevitably complain about the two disparate cargos being shipped together due to the hair and odor, but efficiency had to take precedence over more delicate considerations.

“Thank you, Bridget, that’s very flattering,” he replied. “And I’m still standing.”

She only laughed and tossed him a cloth bolt. “Well then, you can help me with these, eh?”

Goats and cloth, jokes with Bridget. Later, a meal taken in the company of people fighting their own battles. None of it could be called inconsequential. Heartbroken as he was, he was also too old to dismiss the thousand tiny joys found in a day if one happened to be up and walking, and he’d feel his misery in private solitude, at night, like a proper soldier. Publicly, he had to stand as example.

Shoulder to the stone.

The dawn of the first real day without Dorian saw Cullen heading into the woods with a small team of draft horses and two other men, their aim being to pull several fallen trees back to the workyard. Although the season had finally turned to warmth, one could not discount late dustings of snow and nobody had yet invented an alternative to the cook fire, thus demand for firewood remained constant, if lesser, throughout the summer. Ferelden winters reliably left casualties in their wake, arboreal and otherwise, so whenever possible they hauled in windfall or cut down standing snags to spare felling live trees. Eventually they’d also have the coppice wood, but in its current state it was still two or three years shy of usefulness. No matter the source, there were always logs that needed cutting and cording. These were jobs most often left to his groundskeepers rather than doled out to any of the templars, unless they were through the worst of their shakes and steady on their feet. Initially, Cullen had been barred from lumber work as well, at Rho’s behest, but over the past couple of years he’d gotten strong enough to lend aid without causing risk to himself or others.

In spite of all parties being adept in their assignments, the task proved difficult. Morning disappeared as if into quicksand, gone as the horse teams finished their hauling, and afternoon half vanished before they were sawing the spoils into more manageable pieces, easily stored in sheds for drying. The slow blue creep of evening had begun in the east by the time he held the maul in his hands.

Splitting the first log felt practiced, a motion he’d performed countless times from the day he’d been large enough to wield the tool. His mother had shown him a clever way, using natural flaws in the wood to make the splitting easier, instead of relying on brute strength, (his father’s favoured tactic), which he had not come by naturally until much later in life. Now, he bore the muscle to be less clever but nonetheless prefered an artful approach. He chopped wood until daylight drained from the world and then he retreated to a bath, where he focused on the good ache of a day’s work rather than the anguish throbbing in his chest.

The second day, he woke to a flat blanket of loneliness. Animated by sheer will, he dressed and fed the dogs and accompanied Antony on his rounds, checking up on the herds and Dragon, who always greeted him but never overenthusiastically. Her severity made her an adept livestock guardian, and he’d wondered more than once if he ought to plan a litter for her. Not soon—she was young yet, and he’d need another dog to stand in her stead while she carried and whelped—but someday. Stern devotion was a good quality in a flock protector, worth passing to a second generation, but Mabari were individuals, much like people. Dragon would probably not be an attentive dam, so perhaps the whole idea was daft.

He thought of Dorian’s parents, his grandparents, meticulous generations of ancestors, their efforts culminating in a brilliant, beautiful, stubborn man who refused the forward wave of creation, thus upending a dynasty. Of course people were more complex than dogs by far, but the basic truth remained: you could select for traits, sure enough, but what you got might not align with what you wanted.

Ah, well. No more puppies, not for at least a couple of years. There was work yet to be done with last fall’s younglings. He looked down at Juniper, who’d decided to follow them on their rounds. She wagged her tail at him and picked up a stick, holding it out in the hopes of a game of fetch.

“All right, little one, all right.”

He arced the branch as far as he could. Off she went, joined by Fuller in the chase. Poor Birdie had been sulking since Dorian’s departure, and twice now he’d found her asleep in his emptied quarters, curled up on the pelt at the foot of the bed. Some impression of Dorian must still linger in that room—notes of his oils, or the waft of soap, something Cullen could not detect but a dog’s miraculous nose picked out of the air as if it were a solid object tossed in their direction.

In the distance, he noticed two riders approaching on horseback. As they moved closer they resolved into the unmistakable figures of Marchand and, close behind, Alexandre. They picked their way toward the fencing and Cullen waved, moving to join them.

“Hello, hello,” greeted Marchand as he drew near. “Did you miss us?” he asked, then laughed, not expecting an answer.

“Back for the summer?”

“Yes, at last. Slow going this year. This one had some trouble with his leg,” he gestured to his husband.

“Are you faring better now, I hope?”

Alexandre smiled. “I am, though I’ve been coerced into spending a few months in the countryside, to restore myself.”

“Ahh, well.” How restorative an active vineyard would be, Cullen couldn’t say. “I hope you’re looking forward to hearing a lot about grapes?”

Marchand barked a laugh. “Don’t worry about him, he’s very practiced at ignoring me. Eh, old man?”

“Hm, what’s that?” Alexandre remarked, cheeks indented by a coy smile.

Two raised brows in Cullen’s direction from Marchand put a fine point on the exchange. “Has your honored guest taken his leave of you?” he asked.

Cullen nodded. “Couple days back.”

“Oh ho, only a couple of days ago? Gave him good reason to stay, did you?” He did not wink, but he might as well have for the lascivious cant in his grin.

“Claude,” Alexandre chided.

“Ah come, we’re all friends here!” Underneath him, Marchand’s horse, the same solid sooty dun he always rode, huffed and lowered its head to grab a mouthful of grass, obviously accustomed to pauses for bouts of lively conversation. “You should eat supper with us soon, eh? Nothing will stand in for his company, but let us distract you awhile. Next week?” He looked to Alexandre, who nodded amiably. “Next week. Any night. There is always room at our table.”

“That’s very gracious of you both,” Cullen said. An odd rise of emotion made his voice thick. “Thank you.”

Marchand leaned dangerously sideways in his saddle to clap a hand on Cullen’s shoulder, though his horse seemed accustomed to such things as well and simply stood chewing, unperturbed. With that, the two men carried on toward the creek, obviously enjoying the weather and one another’s company.

The sight left a jagged snarl in the bottom of his lungs while simultaneously filling him with a reluctant fondness for his neighbours. They were kind men, past Marchand’s abrasiveness and Alexandre’s slight shyness. He would gratefully join them for dinner, though he knew the empty fourth seat would leave a painful gap in both his heart and the conversation, one no amount of wine would help close.

The rest of the afternoon he spent in quiet discussion with several of his charges. Two of them were also readying to leave, one for the Free Marches to join a brother who ran a shop and had offered a job, and the other to Denerim, hoping for work on the fishing boats. Both were looking healthy—clear headed, pain-free. They knew that if they struggled the manor doors remained open to them, day or night, for the foreseeable future. An idea of permanence to keep in their minds if their footing grew unsure.

Once, that’s what The Order had meant to him. A home, honest work, brothers and sisters wearing the armor and reciting the chant, upholding the Maker’s will. The foundations had been rotten through, he understood now. Nothing sturdy could be built in a stagnant swamp of hateful doctrine. Here, he intended to build on bedrock that could not falter: acceptance, responsibility, companionship, patience. Cornerstones to foster peace and forward momentum.

Although he liked talking to those in recovery, hearing their hardships, sharing pride in small triumphs, the effort left him spent by the time the evening meal concluded. Tired as he was, the familiar creep of insomnia prickled his limbs as he readied for bed. Once there, his fitfulness gradually drove off the three dogs who’d joined him, and he could find no rest. What he did find as he tossed and turned was a pocket of scent trapped amidst the strewn pillows that, when inhaled, summoned Dorian’s presence into the room—orange blossom, sandalwood, other herbs he could not name. Although the thin haze of it encompassed him, held him rapt, quietly desperate, it felt nothing like being folded in someone’s arms.

His sore heart left him wondering (in the helpless, introspective tradition of devastated men throughout the ages) how any of this had begun. More specifically he wondered about the true beginning of it, years ago, rather than this unlikely second beginning in the autumn of his life. By the measure of his own seasons, the real start had been midsummer—his early thirties, the last of his prime. A strange handful of years, loaded with tragic happenings and personal shifts: his departure from recovering Kirkwall and the Order, a return south at Cassandra’s behest, the Divine’s conclave annihilated and the rise of more conflict, more bloodshed, the very fabric of reality torn by unknown magics, Ferelden’s greatest upheaval since the blight.

Much unwelcome news washed in on those unusual tides, but so too did they bring revelations. They brought Dorian.

From the moment he’d first laid eyes on Dorian Pavus, grasping a bare arm to prevent his collapse into the icy drifts outside Haven, the man had grated across a part of Cullen he did not previously know existed, like a swift yank to a tail he’d never noticed he had.

Although Dorian had joked about Haven that night months back at Marchand’s, of the event itself Cullen remembered mostly screaming, panic, the ferrous tang of spilled blood on snow, clouds of acrid smoke rising as their little town burned; the hackles-raised mad dog snarl of being backed against a mountainside without exit. He had been prepared to bury them that night, because what else was he meant to do? Stand ground to the last man, teeth bared, order everyone to die with honor, uselessly picked apart by foes they couldn’t hope to defeat? Why not make an unexpected play and entomb the enemy army alongside their own in one frozen mass grave? Tactically, it was sound: if unable to retreat, cause as much collateral damage as possible before you were stopped, buying time for whoever was left to fight the next battle.

But Dorian had challenged him, his own hackles up as they circled one another in the chantry hall. This sweat-slick, handsome newcomer with the flint gray eyes, (an outer view of the inner steel that had carried him so far on foot in the dark, limbs leaden with cold and the burn of overworked muscle), this foreign lone wolf, had risen up and declared the whole idea suicidal. Had accused Cullen of thinking like a blood mage, which rankled still. In that refusal, Dorian had opened a door. Chancellor Roderick delivered their escape and ultimate salvation, and somehow, the Herald—soon to be Inquisitor—survived the ordeal, living to make the hike into the freezing heights of the Frostbacks.  

The Inquisitor, too, had been a mage, but a Circle mage, one who knew and understood the perils of their own power, or so Cullen had believed at the time. Fresh out of Kirkwall, he’d still carried a deep mistrust of mages, though he’d begun the process of interrogating his own conclusions on the subject. Hawke had been...not proof, that was too strong a word, but evidence that control could be learned beyond the walls of a Circle, perhaps better than within. Not every mage fell prey to the perils he’d long assumed only containment could defend against. Anyway, regardless of Hawke’s skill or their actions, (or the dubious actions of their companions for that matter), The Gallows had long since deteriorated beyond repair. Meredith had become a leader whose decisions were amoral at best and tyrannical insanity at worst. Both Cullen and the Order had much to answer for following her defeat. He readily admitted fault and knew it would be a process. At Therinfal, the extent of the Order’s corruption became indisputable, but Ser Barris was a good, steady man, up to the task of turning the templars to their original purpose: protection.

Both sides would have to cooperate for survival. Nonetheless, Cullen had still held that mages presented a risk.

A northern mage was a whole other pedigree. It had been decided that this startling newcomer’s intentions were sound, or at least as sound as those professed by several of their other allies with equally suspect backgrounds, and there was little Cullen could do or say to influence those decisions.

It had been simple to dislike Dorian at first. Too handsome, too quick, those ridiculously impractical robes, the casual arrogance, nevermind the secrets he was undoubtedly hiding. Since they rarely crossed paths, from a distance it felt natural to dismiss him out of hand as yet another spoiled noble hoping to ingratiate himself.

However, things rarely stayed simple. Cullen remembered one morning following drills with the troops, he’d stood beside the ring sickened by exertion; he’d eaten nothing solid in days due to withdrawals. Shirtless, puffing, red-faced, legs ready to buckle at the knee, he’d realized that Dorian had been watching. Spotted, the Tevinter mage approached, leaning easy as anything on the fence nearby, smiling below the curl of that Maker-damned villain mustache, and told Cullen it was nice to see he’d found a more productive outlet for his ill tempers than burying them all under a hundred thousand tons of snow.

Dripping sweat, starved but too nauseated to contemplate a noon meal with the other soldiers, he’d been so taken aback by the statement that he’d snorted a very silly laugh in spite of himself and understood, not for the first or last time, that Dorian suffered a surfeit of bravery.

Further remarks followed as the days blurred by, words usually just sharp enough to nettle, and he’d gotten more and more used to the fact that maybe he did have a tail, afterall, and maybe he didn’t hate that Dorian was constantly finding ways to yank it.

Their conversations frequently challenged Cullen’s admittedly narrow worldview, but there were topics where he felt perhaps the privilege of Dorian’s upbringing had blinded the man to the plight of those born without his particular gifts, especially in his homeland. His views on the structuring of Tevinter society left cold sweat prickling Cullen’s nape more than once. The idea of all those souls labouring away for the possible boon of not being sold off (or beaten, or worse,) should’ve bothered anyone with two wits to rub together. Dorian boasted a fair few more than that, so why couldn’t he see the problem? Cullen had fought him tooth and nail, saying he’d rather beg in the streets than sleep in a warm bed knowing his own body didn’t belong to him, but Dorian had answers to all of it. At first. Once he began mingling with the Chargers, some of his bad ideas seemed to lose their vigor, discarded as his Tevinter perspective underwent renovations.

Where he gave no quarter and no ground, however, was in the defense of mages. On this topic, Cullen, still seeing through the eyes of a jailor, had not yet realized he was clinging to a system he knew did not work. Though he’d come to acknowledge that the Circles were flawed, and lifelong confinement unjust, he’d still believed mages needed limitations, supervision, separation from the whole to protect those who did not share their proficiency.

Dorian, naturally, found this ridiculous. An exchange they’d shared early on in their acquaintance had lodged in Cullen’s memory, every detail preserved down to the way Dorian had been standing: one rounded shoulder leaned against the stones of the stairwell above the tavern. Early dusk cast Skyhold’s courtyard in blue. They’d been arguing about southern templars, a touchy subject at the best of times, and Cullen had been struggling to convey his sense that all mages were a real danger, not some imagined or exaggerated menace.  

“Mages are living weapons. You, too, are a weapon, armed or not,” he’d said. “In truth, you could kill me where I stand and without lyrium I could do little to stop you.”

A sniff from Dorian. He’d rubbed his hands together and grinned under a week’s worth of stubble. “Cullen, you happen to be a man in possession of four strong limbs. Isn’t it true that you could creep into my bedchamber while I slept, or catch me otherwise unawares, and bludgeon me to death with the nearest convenient heavy object?”

Cullen could only stare at him in dismay. Such a notion was unconscionable. “That...is hardly what I meant. I only meant that you’ve more power in your little finger than I have in my entire body.”

Chuckling, Dorian leaned close. Cullen remembered thinking he smelled of oranges and ale. “A demonstration, mayhaps.” With a gesture, he lit a tiny flame at the tip of his pinky. “If you smoke anything, I’d be happy to light it for you.”

“You’re being overly literal. I obviously—

“Those were your words, commander. And you haven’t heard my point! Magic is...a full body practice.” He held his hand aloft, the tiny flame steadily alight. “Even this, while a very good party trick, takes a lot of strength, and focus, and will. If I concentrate too closely on something else...” Here he gazed up at the stars and began reciting words in Tevene—memorized constellations, perhaps—and the flame guttered, extinguished. He made a sort of you see? gesture. “So yes, it can be dangerous, and yes, an untrained mage may wield it improperly, but the same can be said of any oaf who brandishes a sword.”

“You don’t just accidentally pick up a sword,” Cullen grumbled. “It isn’t the same thing.”

“ Venhedis , you and Blackwall both, hm?” Dorian looked vaguely annoyed. The two men must’ve had a similar conversation at some point, and it improved Cullen’s opinion of Blackwall to hear the warden was sensible. Dorian sighed a big, theatrical sigh. “Oh fine, I relent. To some degree it’s a false equivalent, but you must see a kernel of truth in what I’m saying. All people are capable of grievous harm against one another, mage and layman alike.”

“Perhaps, but it’s not innate to someone without magic. Their ability to do harm is limited by size, strength, by—by the weapons they wield and the skill with which they wield them.”

“Following that logic, anyone bigger than you is a threat worthy of containment. Should I let Bull know we’re going to need him to submit to irons? Word is he rather prefers it the other way around.”

Cullen rolled his eyes and sighed. “That’s not—

“Unless I’m mistaking you, and you’re suggesting that all magic is innately harmful? Or that all mages intend harm?”

“No, but—

“Have you never seen big men fall to little poisoned knives? Watched an arrow lodge in someone’s chest?”

He’d breathed out through his nose, frowning. “All right. In that regard, I take your point.”

Dorian had smiled, curled mustache exaggerating the expression. “Don’t think I don’t understand your reservations. I do. I agree that magic is dangerous, and thus mages can be dangerous. Magisters abuse their power all the time, I’d be deeply stupid to deny that. And look at the Venatori!” He paused to chuckle, shaking his head. “No, I do understand. But a life sentence? Why not proper schooling? The philosophy of conjuration, ethical applications of thaumaturgy, all that rot. That seems a natural step. But I digress,” he waved the words away. “What I’m saying, Cullen, is that magic...is what the user makes of it, same as any tool. Even a hand balled in a tight fist can kill someone if it hits their head in just...” he reached out with deliberate slowness and pressed two fingers softly against Cullen’s temple, “the right spot.” Still smiling, he withdrew. “I’m sure you’ve taken your share of punishment. You know how devastating a single, well-landed blow can be.”

The ghost of that touch, the lingering scent of oranges, crowded his senses. His cheeks burned red above the rough scratch of his beard, which he’d let go several days. “Yes. I do.”

That had been his first hint, he realized later. Their second touch.

They’d eventually taken their affable enmity to the chessboard, and the friendship rooted firm. He came to rely on their games to cheer and rebalance him on his worst days, and he believed that benefitted them both. Dorian’s occasional hungover sullenness, his fits of bleak mood or unnamed sadness, faded into the background as they played, replaced with relaxed calm or a sparkle in his pretty eyes. Some days Dorian did all the talking, seemingly content to fill the garden with his own voice, and Cullen didn’t mind that, either. The musical quality of his stories and jokes brought relief, as did his throaty, teasing laugh.

The fated afternoon, the point all memory converged on, Dorian had turned away in his seat, arm hooked on the chair back and ankle crossed over a knee, to watch one of Leliana’s birds hiding a prized trinket in the dropped leaves amidst the elfroot. The hour had grown late, the pinkish gold prelude to dusk filling the courtyard. Soft light illuminated the long line of Dorian’s neck, up over the outer defining curve of his high cheekbone to the perfect shell of his perfect ear, this contrasted against dark hair, coal-brown waves untended and barely beginning to curl at his nape after a month-long foray into the wilds. His hand rested on his knee, lean fingers tapping an uneven rhythm while he waited for Cullen to move his piece on the board.

Were he a painter, he would’ve painted it. Composed a song, if he were a bard. A poem, if he were a poet. Except he was none of those things and he’d fallen in love. At a loss, all he had the presence of mind to do was leave his king unguarded for a chance to see Dorian grin.

Of course, he’d taken too long to parse through what that meant, the falling. Dorian was beautiful, personable, a bit of a drinker who liked a good time, and so the long ago window framing what they might have become slid shut without fanfare. Cullen had sunk his mind into the work. There’d been no shortage of it. Once they saved the world, he promised himself, he’d have time to nurse his thwarted heart.

Never had he imagined what would befall Dorian at Bull’s hand. None of them had. Neither had he imagined that Dorian would arrive on his doorstep half a decade later, their friendship intact, Cullen’s dormant love flickering alive again, not unlike an abandoned dog who pined for one person and one person alone even when surrounded by the trappings of an otherwise comfortable life.

He could not say whether it was worse to know what it felt like to be held and lose the one who held you, knowing all the while that they did like holding you but not enough to keep doing it, or to never have been held at all. However it broke down, it left him feeling listless. He kept having to sequester himself to cry, hoping if he let the fat, helpless tears spill it would clear them out so he could bloody well get on with things.

Since he was crying again, it obviously hadn’t worked yet.

The night’s dark hours passed slowly, and he slept only in snatches; minutes where his awareness dimmed to nothing. When the rooster crowed he was already awake, standing in the bathroom down the hall where he’d hoped a warm cloth over his tear-swollen eyes might calm their aching. Sunrise pinked the light at the edge of the sky through the windows when he returned to his room. He’d barely sat down, legs slung over the edge of the mattress, when a knock sounded on his chamber door.

Bleary, he rose, wiping a palm over his face, and answered it.

In the hallway stood Antony, his kind, dark eyes full of worry. “Forgive me, ser... I know it’s only just sunup...”

“You’re well within your rights, lad. No need for formality.” The assurance did little to dispel the nerves from the young man’s face, however, and Cullen stood a bit taller, suddenly alert. “What’s wrong?”

Antony knit his fingers, looking down at the floor. “I’m afraid it’s Birdie.”

“What’s happened to her?” Cullen turned, quite awake, grabbing up a sweater and searching for where he’d cast off his work boots.

“Ah, nothing that I’m aware of, it’s just, um... She’s gone.”

“Gone?” Damned fool dog. “You’re sure?”

“Quite sure.”

She might’ve gotten injured in the woods, caught by the resident wolf pack or in a hunter’s trap or... “Ohhh, Maker...” No, he knew exactly where she’d gone. He let the boots fall to the floor. “Antony, could I trouble you to ready our fastest horse?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Twenty minutes. I’ll be to the barn in twenty minutes.”

“Right away.”

Rushed, he moved to his dresser and grabbed down his traveling clothes, a small cantle pack, and a satchel of gold. He dressed in haste, pulled on a warm jacket and his riding boots, tossed a change of shirt and necessaries into the pack, and headed out the door at a trot.

Chapter Text

The snows had withdrawn from the main roads, leaving only crusts of melting ice in ditches and fields where the banks had been piled deep. Pops of green broke the monotony of gray skies, some thickets and strips of grass boasting seas of early flowers. On the third day it rained on them, but it was a sprinkling, timid sort of rain.

The rest of the journey proved unremarkable, minus brief flares of misplaced, belated indecision. He traveled, and ambivalence pursued. One early morning he realized Barley had set out in the wrong direction, back toward the Bannorn. For a fleeting moment he hesitated to correct the mistake, but the lapse passed, and gently, he turned the horse about.

He crossed the border into Orlais without incident.

Jader buzzed, bristling, imbued with a soul peculiar to port cities. Each he’d ever been to had its own distinct life, yet they shared something interior cities did not, intangible parallels existing beyond the salt air and shorebirds. Dorian moved through the streets while merchants called out their wares, citizens picked out vegetables for their suppers, sailors cackled amongst themselves, and fishermen waded through stray cats to bring in the day’s catch.

Scraps of varied languages flitted to his ears. It made him smile to hear so many similar conversations carried out across so many different tongues: auntie said be there midday — the portrait, in the main hall? — I’ve just come from Orzammar and you wouldn’t believe — not turnips again! —And so on, and so on.

He debated what he ought to do with Barley. He’d grown rather fond of the steady old horse, but he worried the miles between Cumberland and Minrathous might tax him beyond recovery, if the sea crossing didn’t stress him to death first. That being the case, returning him to his place of origin seemed the most suitable course of action. When he arrived at the stables, however, the girl he remembered was nowhere to be found. A befreckled farrier told him that one of the previous owners had suffered an injury, and the family had gone to the lake district to work for a winemaker, though after a brief physical inspection peppered with questions about temperament, she offered to buy the beast, flat out. One look at the gelding’s sweet face, and Dorian knew he couldn’t bear to leave him with strangers.

Instead, he walked the horse to a courier and arranged for him to be taken back to the manor in gradual stages along their delivery routes, which spanned far and wide across the south. This was, apparently, a common enough service that rates (based on distance, terrain, and the likelihood of banditry or unruly wildlife) were displayed on a wooden board behind the counter. It cost a handsome sum, but the creature deserved to retire in comfort under Antony’s considerate watch.

There were a couple of carrots left in his robe pockets from the trip, so he surrendered those, listening to Barley chew while he rubbed his withers. “Say hello for me when you get there,” he instructed, giving him a final pat. At last he passed the reins to a spritely middle-aged elf, who led the horse away to the stables out back. “Goodbye, old fellow.”

It had been a long time since he’d had all the amenities of a city at his disposal. First, he secured an inn for the night. Close by, on the transitional street where the rough and genteel neighbourhoods blurred, he took the opportunity to visit a prim, if heavily tattooed, barber to have his hair tidied and beard trimmed. Further toward the wealthy area, he noted the location of an aviary. Hemming the northern stretch of town were the docks, where he found a captain bound for Cumberland willing to have him aboard. The schooner and her crew meant to sail late morning the following day, which left plenty of time to sort the remainder of his affairs. Business concluded by mid-evening, he ate a meal at a fine restaurant, befriended the older, impeccably glamorous Antivan bartender over a digestif, then retreated to the inn. Exhausted, still caught by the odd twisting shudder of indecision, he curled into bed and fell asleep.

Late in the night he stirred, noted the heavy comfort of a dog at his feet, and rolled over to reach for Cullen. His fingers encountered only emptiness and a cool sheet, because Cullen wasn’t there. He’d left him behind. He extended his toes, expecting the imaginary weight of the dog to dissipate as well.

It did not.

Shouting, he threw himself against the headboard. Something yelped in answer and leapt to the floor. Flame sparked in his left palm to illuminate the scene as his pulse thundered in his temples.

A very startled Birdie stared up at him, ears lowered in apology.

“Fuck’s sake!” The flame went out and he thumped his chest, working to swallow his heart back down to where it belonged. A snap of the fingers lit the much safer bedside lamp, which filled the room with a glow. “Birdie, what are you doing here?”

Birdie wagged her tail, still apologetic, making a slow approach to set her muzzle on the edge of the bed. Sighing heavily, Dorian extended trembling fingers and gave her a scratch behind the ears. Out of the dim innards of his mind crept an idea: Cullen must have come. He didn’t know why, or where he was now, but he must’ve come to see him off, and that’s why the dog was in the room.

He threw on boots and a long coat, then walked down the hall, dog trailing faithfully behind. Few other rooms were occupied, and no one was in the shared washroom. The proprietor had gone from behind the bar, leaving in his stead a young man with an open book and a pipe propped in his mouth, both of which he jammed below the bar in prompt haste at the sight of Dorian.

“Ser?” he asked, in a thick Orlesian accent.

“Did a blond fellow come in recently? About my age and height, but stockier?”

The young man’s eyes turned upward, searching. “Er, no one tonight.”

Dorian’s forehead twitched. “You don’t happen to know how this animal came to be in my room, do you?”

This time, the young man’s eyes widened until his irises were ringed with white. “She’s—she’s not your dog, ser?”

“Not exactly.”

“My deepest apologies!” He rushed around the counter, hands raised at the ready, looking like he planned to make a grab for Birdie, who merely cocked her head at him, wagging her tail. The very picture of agreeableness. In the time it took the young man’s heavy brows to bend, he seemed to realize how large she was, reconsider his choice of action, swallow, and stand to attention. “I’d thought she was yours, ser, because she marched inside and went straight to your door. Often guests leave their dogs out and fall asleep, so I took...the liberty...”

Birdie cocked her head the other way, still watching him, tail still wagging. He took a slight step back.

“She’s friendly,” Dorian promised. “And she’s... Suffice to say I know her. Don’t worry about letting her in, I’ll need to keep an eye on her until her master can be reached.” A message by bird, first thing in the morning.

“Terribly sorry for the misunderstanding,” the fellow repeated. “Can I offer something complimentary from the kitchens? For you or, ah...” He looked down at Birdie. “This...noble creature.”

“Thank you. Anything spare would be appreciated.”

He bowed and darted off, and Dorian urged Birdie to follow him back to the room. A minute later, two knocks resonated, and the young Orlesian stood on the other side of the door offering a tray of smoked meat slices, a chewy dark bread roll, and a little pot of stew, as well as what was very clearly meant to be an extra bowl for the dog, since it contained a raw ram joint. Dorian thanked him.

Birdie ate with relish, but she’d not gone too hungry on her journey—she didn’t scarf everything down in desperate gulps, only regular gulps, and gnawed at the bone in a leisurely way with it balanced between her large, dexterous paws. Belly full, paws thoroughly licked clean, she jumped up on the end of the bed and nosed Dorian.

“Yes, you found me.” Gently, he rubbed her ears. “Cullen’s probably worried sick over you, you damned idiot dog.” She contented herself with snoozing alongside him, one of her feet giving an occasional twitch. Unable to deny her, and finding himself grateful for her company, Dorian allowed her to sleep where she’d settled.

Early morning in Jader meant the arrival of the night fisherman, and their return heralded the departure of the next wave of boats. The wealthy side of town slept on—the rich expected their money to buy them fine houses as well as peace and quiet—but the lower district not only woke, it came alive with small eateries and markets, gossip, laughter, cart horses clopping: farmers coming from the outlying agricultural districts with the day’s milk, eggs, and vegetables. Dorian and Birdie wandered together on the network of docks, where he sought the Nevarran captain. The man was hard at work alongside the rest of his sailors, loading cargo, and he stood mopping his brow with a kerchief as Dorian explained he’d been detained last minute by personal affairs, and asked if he might catch a future crossing. Thankfully, the captain was an honorable sort and seemed untroubled by the shift in itinerary. He said he’d be returning end of week with another shipment, and that he’d send a runner to the inn to let Dorian know when they’d come to port.

Next on the roster, the aviary. He composed a brief missive which, with any luck, would find its way into Cullen’s hands in a matter of hours. Most of the birds flew their routes with only minor enchantments to guide them. It was the busy couriers at the receiving end, the ones that made the final leg of the journey on horseback (since shared birds could not be sent to more than one or two separate places) who might slow the arrival of a message. In this instance, speed wasn’t of the essence. Some kind of arrangement would be made, though he would have to defer to Cullen’s discretion as to what best suited the circumstances.

“Now I suppose we wait,” he said to Birdie, who wagged her tail at him before lowering her snout to snuffle the curb. There were plenty of distractions in a big city. He’d not been to a proper bookseller in an age, and knew there would be several in the upper markets. Perhaps he could—

A plaintive bark, behind him. Facing the dog, he saw that she held her heavy head high, nose working, pulling in short huffs of air. Eventually, she snorted and gave a low woof.

“You’ve got another idea?”

A third woof, and she started to trot, pausing to check over her shoulder to make sure he followed.

Rolling his eyes, he set out after her, believing he was being led to some meat vendor or other. When they passed by the butcher’s and she kept on, he grew curious. One of the fish stalls on the docks? But she kept on further still, circling here and there, snuffling. Tracking. They retraced their steps all the way to the wharf where they’d begun the morning, speaking to the hardworking captain.

At the far end of the pier stood a man, facing out over the Waking Sea. He’d know the breadth of those shoulders anywhere. The sails of the recently departed Nevarran schooner billowed with salt air, carrying the craft northeast into big skies and open water. Had everything gone according to plan, Dorian would be hunched over the rail on the bow of that very boat, green as the sea itself, already desperate for landfall.

Birdie lifted her head toward the distant figure, sucking deep breaths, then in a bolt of understanding, she took off. Bandy-legged and puppyish, she capered toward the end of the pier, arriving at Cullen’s side with a wildly wagging tail. His posture straightened in surprise but quickly softened, and he bent double to give her a fond rub about the ribs. Greeting completed, he laid a hand on her head and looked back out to sea. A staid silhouette, the two of them, thick old soldier and muscled young Mabari, framed by the horizon’s glittering light.

Dorian walked down the dock, silent as he could manage, stopping a mere two feet behind man and dog. “Did your love leave aboard that ship?” He let a tiny smile bend his cheek as he asked.

Startled, Cullen turned, swiping at wet, red-rimmed eyes. A millisecond of confusion knit his brows. Dawning recognition lifted them an instant later. “Dorian!” Three steps and Cullen had wrapped arms around him, tight, lifting him off the ground before setting him on his feet and hiding his tears in the wide collars of Dorian’s robes. “I thought you’d gone...”

He let his fingers climb into Cullen’s curls, gripped him as he watched a gull soar above the shoreline. Briefly, he felt as though time collapsed, delivering him into a present that rang with the clarity of a bell, one that had rung once before, long ago. Cullen drew back a few inches, looking into his face, lips quivering with unspoken questions. The most pressing inquiry was apparent without words.

“I meant to go,” Dorian began, “but I had to be sure this one made her way safely back to you.”

Next to them, Birdie wagged her tail, patiently awaiting instruction.

A small flicker of something crossed Cullen’s face. At first Dorian presumed disappointment, but the tension at the tops of Cullen’s cheeks spoke of deeper pain, a flinch against the wrenching hurt of torn hope. The expression did not last, resolving instead into affected stoicism. “Probably best you didn’t leave her,” he said, gruff but warm. “She would’ve sat on the dock and howled no end. Or,” he gave a laugh, “she may have jumped in and tried to swim after you.”

Dorian looked down at the dog, whose pink tongue lolled, panting happily. “ Venhedis , my girl, I hadn’t even thought of that.” That could’ve ended in tragedy, though he doubted any Ferelden fisherman—and there were plenty about, Orlesian port town or no—worth their salt would allow a Mabari to drown, even if it meant crossing a raging sea in a dinghy to attempt rescue.

Sudden clattering: several sailors making a racket down the dock with a stack of crab traps. Dorian reflexively pulled away to a sociable distance rather than an intimate one.

That same look pinched the tops of Cullen’s cheeks.

It was as though a pin dropped, in his mind’s eye. Within the glint of realization it occurred to him all over again that they were in Orlais, the land where two men embracing was unlikely to ruffle many feathers, let alone surprise anybody. “Oh.” He reached for Cullen’s hand and knit their fingers. “Come,” Dorian said to him, gesturing back up the hill in the direction of the inn. “Are you hungry? I know a lovely little place.”

Cullen’s fingers tightened around his, and the delicate beginnings of a smile quirked his bearded cheek. The eyes remained sad, but given the overarching circumstances in which they found themselves, perhaps that was simply their character.

A second pin dropped. “Shit! First we have to go get Barley.” No sense in shipping him off now, since the perfect escort stood in front of him. “He’s at the courier’s. I meant to send him back to you, but—

“Right. Might as well take him myself, if we’re not too late.”

They joined the hurried fray of townsfolk, Birdie proving useful at parting the crowds. Her very presence moved people aside, no matter how friendly and calm she behaved, since the average Orlesian was not accustomed to Mabari in their midst.

In a stroke of fortune, the riders bound for Ferelden had not yet gone for the day. Soon a familiar, well-worn leather lead slid back into Dorian’s hand. For his part, Barley nickered fondly at them but was otherwise unfazed by the shuffling about, given that any covered place stocked with hay and fresh water probably seemed a wholesome place to a horse. He transferred without fuss or fanfare to a fresh stall at the inn. Retrieval complete, they had no further demands on their time.

Morning’s hustle gave way to an eventual afternoon lull. Many shops closed for an hour or two so the proprietors could take their lunch and nap, as the majority of them had been up and doing since before sunrise or thereabouts. They watched the daily slowdown from two comfortable seats in the window of a small café that kept its doors open during rest hours, Cullen nibbling bite-sized Orlesian pastries and Birdie sleeping peaceably on a patch of lawn just outside. A few other customers were about, but an air of quietude permeated here as well. The conversations taking place were all in low, calm tones.

Coffee and pastries consumed, they wandered to the rocky beach at the outskirts of town, where Birdie’s eyes went wide at the sight of waves lapping the shore and the salt smell and skittering crabs drove her to heights of frolic reminiscent of the young pups back at the manor.

It felt good to be back in Cullen’s company. Normal, save for the persistent, insurmountable grief neither one of them addressed or tried to unburden. Their fingers stayed knit the better part of the day, and following the evening meal, they stood a long time at the end of a pier, surrounded by the sound of water, Dorian wrapped warm and close against Cullen’s thick chest. The heart within seemed to be beating down the seconds until they parted again; a slow, losing thud.

Before the hour grew too late, they went to fetch Cullen’s horse and belongings from the livery yard where he’d left them. “Didn’t take a room when I arrived,” he explained. “Couldn’t be sure if I was staying the night or not.” A series of small adjoining chambers, once stables themselves, made private by a few hastily mounted spare planks, were apparently offered on the cheap for travelers who couldn’t afford the luxury of an inn.

“Probably wise,” Dorian remarked, leaning to inspect one of the vacant cubbyholes. The cots lining the walls, three to a room, teemed with verminous possibilities. “Come morning I suspect you’d be flea bitten.”

Cullen elbowed him and cleared his throat, glancing to where the grim-faced proprietor stood at the end of the hall, eyeing them warily.

“Er, what fine linen,” he amended, not entirely straight-faced.

With a stifled chuckle, Cullen took him by the arm and they left, horse in tow, bound for the real inn a few blocks over.

“Ugh,” Cullen breathed. “I’m quite sure I’ve spent the whole day wafting the smell of barnyard,” he said as they climbed to the room. “I’m off to remedy that.” Down the hall he went, to take advantage of a warm bath, leaving Dorian to change into his nightclothes and do his minor ablutions at the wash basin. Clean and dressed, the conclusion of the evening saw them both seated on the edge of the bed, Birdie taking up the bulk of the mattress behind them as they stared over their shoulders at her.

“Shall I tell her she can’t stay there or will you?”

Cullen snorted. “I’m not sure she’ll listen to either one of us at this point.”

“Rude creature.”

They both watched her for a few moments, and she watched them back, then flopped onto her side and whined playfully before righting herself again, one ear folded entirely wrong-ways over. It made both of them chuckle, which Dorian had no doubt was her aim.

The mirth on Cullen’s face was short-lived, however, replaced instead by a serious rift at the center of his brows. “I...know now what my mistake was.”

Confused, Dorian tilted his head. “Mistake?”

He smiled, but wistfully. “I tried to give you the wrong dog,” he murmured. He rearranged Birdie’s awkwardly flopped ear, turning it right side out.

She twitched, shook her head, sneezed, licked her nose, and concluded by wagging her tail as if in apology.

Cullen’s eyes rose and locked with his. “I want you to take her with you.”

Silence wound around them as Dorian gaped, disbelieving. “But...she’s yours. She’s your favorite, and don’t you dare tell me she isn’t. You’ve come all this way to collect her!”

Ram stubborn once he’d set his mind, Cullen shook his head. “Take her with you. In my stead. I can’t protect you from what waits, but...she might be able to.”

A deep-chested, golden-haired dog in the place of a thick-waisted, once golden-haired soldier, both fierce in their devotion. Not an untested pup, but a proven sub-adult. Able to travel far and wide and fend for herself, if the need arose. Too great a sacrifice to accept, but also too great a gift to refuse. “Are you quite serious?”

Slow, intent, Cullen lowered his face until it pressed into Dorian’s sternum, the tip of his nose cold where it touched. The sadness that stretched between them snapped tight, its sting reminiscent of a wound given by the edge of a fresh sharpened blade. “Take her, but bring her back to me someday,” he whispered, lips dragging on skin. “I need you to come back. Without you, I’ll... I’ll wither and die. I’ll be a field without rain.” His hand brushed roughly up Dorian’s thigh, pushing his robe aside, palm resting against the dark hair at his base. “Please...”

Without further ado, Birdie was asked politely to wait outside the room awhile, and they affixed the small ‘do not disturb’ hanger to the doorknob to avert any well-meaning interruptions.

One more last time, Cullen hard as iron with wanting, both of them moving into their desperation on clean sheets covering a mattress that had no doubt been subject to the countless trysts of countless couples in similar throes. It held them as they held each other when the fires were quenched and the need turned to familiar, formless longing, the incongruous pain of being with someone and knowing to the bone that every heartbeat propelled you toward a moment of separation, temporary or final.

When he reached reflexively for Cullen in the night, he found him there, breathing slow, belly swelling with each inhalation, radiating heat like a sunbaked stone.

Moisture sprang up in Dorian’s eyes with the sudden force of a squall, dribbling over his lower lids and across his nose. I just want to go home , he thought. Sudden discomfort shot through his whole body, wrenching free a helpless, huffed whimper. He realized he did not know what that meant. Please, please, let’s just go home. Gripped by confusion, he clamped his lips and buried his face in the pillow behind Cullen’s curls, tears spilling free like a tap spun full.

Cullen stirred. He twisted in place, saw Dorian’s distress, and rolled over, drawing him in close. “Love... Love, hush...” His chest rumbled, voice deepened by sleep. “Nightmare?”

“Nn,” he croaked, throat tight. Hardly a nightmare if you were awake. “I’m not sure,” he confessed, his whisper hot against Cullen’s sternum. “I don’t know...”

The weeping went on until he’d soaked the pillowcase but Cullen, exhausted by his frantic ride northward, mumbled a few more sweet words of comfort and gradually drifted back under, unable to fight the tide of weariness.

Dorian could not settle again. He rose fiendishly early. Dressed. Left Cullen asleep in the bed. With Birdie ever at his heels, he slipped out into the waking city, mind churning.

Home. It should be simple, yet he struggled. Place, or abstraction? Pure familiarity, or a deeper current? Idea versus the immediate construct of memory upon memory, backward ad infinitum if you counted what the blood knew.

The beginning, where the roots were. Muted green algae swallowing old brick facades, Minrathous gently rotting in the moist summer air. Each telltale creak of the sprawling entry hall staircase memorized, sidestepped or bypassed, climbing barefoot to better grip the wood. Ginger flowers. Bright filaments of an orb spider’s web in the gardens of Qarinus, threads beaded with dew, silent weaver at the center; patient, speckled, best left alone. The smell of alluvial soils carried down through the centuries from the High Reaches into the fertile plains, field upon field passed by in the family coach. Simple longing for the feel of loam under young, curious hands. The best dirt smelled so clean. He’d forgotten that.

Off to Vyrantium, where home was bragging rights, lists of estates, an eventuality, the due of a first or only son. Something he’d begun to know, even then, would never belong to him. He wanted the wrong things.

Get out. You’re no son of mine . A door, closing. The Nocen sea carpeted in hot white light, vision blotted with afterimages when he looked away.

Wasted years. Gereon intervening, Felix’s soft-spoken company. Home then in laboratories, volumes and flasks, resonant crystals, in too little sleep and endless fascination, but the world changed, again. Cast out, his path turned south.

A coarse stone room with a fireplace. A library. Cozy candle-lit alcove, sweet must smell of parchment and vellum. Curving walls of the rotunda circling up to the spy’s nest, the building’s lowermost level muraled by the hand of a patient, self-righteous god. Great valleys awash with stars, picturesque but otherwise inhospitable; rank food, rank tents, rank companions. Weeks spent out in the wastes, passed flasks and boisterous laughter small consolation for the sand embedded in the very seams of his robes; the nightly ritual of standing naked, cranky, and stubbled, battering the grit from his underthings against outcroppings of stone. Perpetually tired, nursing bruises and surface wounds and a sour gut, cold through once the sun set until he nestled down at Bull’s side and whimpered. Big arms holding him close against a wide, hot chest, warmth radiating from the well muscled torso covered by a protective layer of fat. Useful muscle wasn’t lean, Bull had always argued.

Gone. All of it, gone. Homes lost or abandoned, made unliveable. Rooms choked with history and the suffocating motes of choices unmade. Where he lived now in Minrathous, he lived out of obligation, had presumed he would go on doing so always, because—

He slowed down, and Birdie swiveled her head from her snuffling to regard him. Because why, exactly?

At what point could a son declare their duty to a dead father concluded? Did such a day ever come? And what of failure? The price of an unfulfilled legacy was yet another ghost added to the retinue. Could he live with himself if he walked away from his country, the homeland of his ancestors, his birth and youth, deserting it to its petty squabbles and grave malfeasance like he’d done once before? Back then he’d known, sure as the span of seas, that he had to return north and try. For the sake of a place that held so much history and beauty and culture and potential yet untapped— home —he’d believed, profoundly, that he had to at least try.

Now... Well, he had tried, hadn’t he. For himself, for the sake of his own integrity. For millions of wronged souls because a grave debt was owed. But he’d tried for Father, too. (Cole’s compassionate lilt floated through his mind: anything, anything to make him happy. ) Seasons changed, he held his ground, and the Lucerni put forth proposal after proposal, their number of suggested amendments rivaling the gray hairs overtaking his temples. Not a single document moved beyond initial review. Not a damned one. Too radical, too much progress too fast, complained the Magisterium, all the while staunchly refusing to so much as inch forward at a crawl.

He recognized now that Tevinter was not yet ready to cease its horrors, let alone make amends for them. For all his incitement to revolution, for all his provocation and machinations to push progress, in ages to come he’d likely be little more than a footnote in some crumbling volume only historical scholars bothered to read.

Or was the very fact that he stood in opposition, casting judgment from the sidelines along with a small faction of like-minded souls, enough that he’d merit his own chapter?

Empires, like homes, came and went. People built them, people conquered and razed them, and time brought all to ruin so the cycle could begin anew; the rise, the fall. Injured as he’d been, wasted and grayed, he’d tried to throw his weight against the momentum of centuries, to no avail. In spite of his cynical streak, he’d once believed true idealism gave rise to the necessary stamina to endure inevitable frustration, but that had been the belief of a younger, healthier man, damaged by derision and rejection but gifted in both body and mind. Perhaps it was disingenuous to call himself old, but he’d arrived at early middling age and his injuries, physical and spiritual, had taken a toll. He was no longer as resilient as he’d once been.

I want to go home .

A return home—to the sense of home he’d known in childhood, the pure concept rather than any literal arrangement of rooms within a specific building—was out of the question and had been for years. He could walk the same halls he’d walked all his life and never be home again. Not unlike an approaching death, his absence had become more home to him than presence at this late stage, of that he felt certain. Minrathous did not miss him, even if he did miss Minrathous, the marvellous architecture and the brilliance of the secret flower markets that sprang up along old town alleyways, brief as blooms, wafting heavenly fragrance in the hours before dawn. Still, the knowledge that the loveliness of a single basket of marigolds in Tevinter could be traced back to the suffering of several people made him hurt, and it made him angry.

Everywhere he’d visited or lived in Thedas, life existed as duality; a parallel march of inverse states. Or was that oversimplification? Perhaps better to see it as an indefinite spectrum of terrors and little loves. People could make choices, they could surely try, but the universe found myriad ways to balance the scales regardless of which god, if any, heard someone’s uttered prayers.

He’d tried, and he could go on trying, or he could stop. With or without him, the Imperium would write its passage into dust.

Perhaps that was the crux: with, or without him.

Exhausted, he paused on the cobbled road, stones still wet with dew. Above to his right hung a trellis heavy with aromatic vines, marking the walkway into the side yard of a small chantry where a Revered Mother tossed feed to a flock of chatty hens. A stone altar stood at the gate, laden with sprigs of prophet’s laurel: berries of blood, leaves of mercy. Folklore, but no one could deny the plant’s longstanding presence as curative in any healer’s arsenal.

Mercy, he well knew, could be very small, and very powerful. It took only one acorn to grow a whole oak, he’d heard Fereldans say.

He thought of Cullen at work in his kitchen, dusting and kneading dough, flour smears on the sides of his trousers unnoticed or forgotten until he fed the starter afterward—the golden knight who’d shouldered out of his pauldrons and instead learned to turn ground wheat into loaves; a less overt sort of protection, but the instinct was there. To safeguard. To nourish, and sustain. Breadmaking, though not a warrior’s pursuit, was still an investment of time, and strength, untold patience.

Dear devoted Cullen, asleep in their shared bed at the inn, peaceful and soft middled, if bruised by his long ride, fully prepared to surrender the precise thing he’d journeyed miles upon miles to retrieve. Willing to say goodbye a second time without giving voice to the wish Dorian could see burned through him, engulfing his heart, devouring from the inside out:

Stay.

It was a rare choice that once made could perhaps be unmade.

On shaking legs he passed through the trellised chantry gate.

When he returned to the inn some while afterward, Cullen sat on the edge of the bed half-clothed, helplessly fuzzy, tunic close at hand. “There you are,” he said. He held an arm out, beckoning, and Dorian acquiesced to the pull of large hands, familiar calluses catching on the smooth fabric of his robe. “Wondered where you’d gone. I’m...sorry, I passed out. You were upset. Are you all right?”

“Mm.” Dorian acknowledged, leaning down, pressing his nose into Cullen’s scratchy curls. “Needed a think.” His crown smelled of sleep, linen and warmth, the barest hint of herbs. Dorian straightened out and stroked a thumb over incongruously dark brown beard. “May we talk? Over tea?”

Cullen looked up at him, deep-set eyes questioning, but he nodded. Finally, he pulled his shirt over his head, rose, tugged it straight. “By all means.”

They installed themselves in the peaceful rear garden of the inn, spring flowers spilling over rock walls as bees hummed companionably about, coming and going in a great hurry from their small apiary some twenty or so feet away. The coastal climate enjoyed a mildness that central Ferelden lacked, and the season seemed to be ahead of itself by some weeks here. Dorian took advantage of the sun by positioning himself so that his back was full in it, and the warmth was the touch of a much missed companion. Cullen opted for the shade, though Dorian did notice that he sat wrong-ways on the bench of their table, extending his legs out so the light might fall on them. Dutiful as ever, Birdie lay on the ground at their feet.

“So. You’ll be off in a day or two?” Cullen asked, elbows resting on the tabletop where he leaned, propped in place. Set within easy reach was a tray of tea, biscuits, cheese, and jam, but as he had his back to it, he’d not touched a thing. Unusual behaviour for him, ignoring fresh biscuits and jam.

“That’s the idea, yes.” The whole reason he’d remained had been to deliver the dog safely back to her master, and instead she’d been entrusted permanently to him. It rendered the whole postponement somewhat superfluous. Or rather, that was one point of view. Another—the one he’d decided to espouse at first light outside the chantry gates—was that he’d been given a sign. There were things that needed saying before he got on that boat to Cumberland. He meant to begin saying them now, but as soon as he made to do so, his mouth dried to the consistency of a woven reed basket. Carefully, he grabbed the jug of milk, dolloping a little into each cup before pouring the tea. Smooth, creamy clouds billowed in the liquid like gathering rainstorms. “Here.”

Cullen straightened and accepted the mug, though the dainty gilt porcelain appeared whimsically petite in his hand. “Thank you.”

Lifting her square head, Birdie looked almost as if she awaited her own cup, but abandoned the notion when none was forthcoming.

The tea had cooled to perfect sipping temperature. Dorian savoured it while he pried at his thoughts. Purposeful as a mason deconstructing bad work, he examined each loose stone for evidence explaining failure. Scrabbling deep, he found fear, gray and grainy, weighted. Near it, old pain, razor sharp along the margins like shattered obsidian. Those aside, he hit an immovable boulder, only part of it known to him. This made up the truth of matters—the foundation he’d hoped to ignore.

Except he was allowing silence to stretch too luxuriously between them. “Cullen, I... I feel I’m at something of a crossroads. Last night, I was thinking, and...” Stop dithering . He steadied himself. “Twice now, you’ve asked me if I might, someday, come to love you, and I said...I didn’t know.”

Brows drawn, Cullen angled his face toward him, tea still clutched, unsampled, in his hands. He did not say anything. His expression recalled that of someone waiting on word of whether or not their sentence would see them sent to the gallows come sunrise.

Guilt-stricken, Dorian couldn’t maintain his resolve, and he turned away. “I said I didn’t know, but that was...” There was a flaw in the grain of the table, a narrow crack that encircled a knot and disappeared under the tray. He followed it with a fingertip, feeling it scrape the pad. “I lied.” When he lifted his hand to set it back on the teacup, it trembled. The tremor threatened to creep into his voice. He swallowed, but instead of dislodging the lump in his throat, that made it stick all the harder. “I do love you,” he croaked. Tears swelled, stinging when he blinked. In a quick gesture he palmed at the wet drops, hand coming away smeared with kohl. Exhaling in annoyance, he clunked his tea on the table and rubbed at the marks with his other thumb. “Shit...”

A snout bumped the back of his elbow and Birdie lodged her head under his arm; she wasted no time when she knew someone was crying. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring pat, unable yet to meet Cullen’s gaze.

“It’s all been very complicated for me to...to sort through. Somehow I’d thought it might be easier to leave if I hadn’t told you. For both of us. But I’ve been cruel, letting you think—

He glanced up. Cullen had covered his eyes with one hand. The line of his bow lips drew down in a grimace, and the fingers still looped through the handle of his teacup had gone lax, threatening to dump the contents into his lap. Dorian quickly reached to avert disaster, plucking the hazard from Cullen’s unresisting grip. Tea set aside, he took gentle hold of his empty hand, and squeezed.

“Darling,” he said, leaning to rub his shoulder. “I am sorry...”

Birdie’s attentions switched to Cullen, stricken as he was. She nosed his wrist where his arm lay against his leg, but he did not react, so she whined, then set a heavy, clawed paw on his thigh. When that had no effect, she grumbled, repositioned herself, and rose up to rest both forelegs on the bench beside him to put herself high enough to lick his chin.

That did it. A puff of breath broke out of him, and he lowered his hand to ruffle the dog’s ears before giving her a kind, firm push at the chest, easing her down onto the ground with a muttered ‘good girl’ for reassurance. The hand that Dorian held finally came to life, closing around his in an answering squeeze, and Cullen turned his head, barely, looking down at their clasped fingers rather than into Dorian’s face.

“You... You do love me, then?” His voice stretched paper thin. Soft, worn parchment, read and reread, folded and tucked close to the heart. The tip of his nose was pink, matching the hue of his tear-bright eyes. A single clear droplet clung to the point of it.

“Oh...” Hearing it asked made something snap tight around Dorian’s whole chest, forcing a muffled noise of dismay. He’d intellectualized, tried to apply practicalities, fallen prey to his own sense of fairness yet again, and in doing so he’d abandoned Cullen to the dusk of perpetual uncertainty. It wasn’t the same as his own dusk, not so violent, nothing dramatic involving an axe, but still he knew what it was to stumble through the darkness, not knowing, blood trickling down to drip off the elbows from carrying a wounded heart.

He lifted an arm and ran fingers over Cullen’s temple, swept a thumb along the curled pink rim of his ear. “Of course I love you,” he said. He leaned in, his nose pressed hard into the stubbled side of Cullen’s neck, both arms wrapping awkwardly around him. “I love you dearly,” he hushed. “I’m...so sorry I let you think otherwise for so long. Please forgive me.”

Cullen wept, torso jolting with quiet sobs, but he nosed in and kissed Dorian’s neck, fingers raking up into his hair to hold him at the nape. For a while they simply sat there, rocking gently, Cullen crying hot tears that slid all the way down to wet Dorian’s collarbone.

There came a few longer breaths; a steady, lowering calm. “Maker,” he grated at last. “All this time, believing I was... That I’d imagined...” Shaking his head, he sniffled, withdrew to pull out a kerchief. “I’ve felt such a fool...”

Dorian winced. He left a hand on Cullen’s knee. “I know. I’m so sorry, that...wasn’t fair. I haven’t done right by you,” he whispered. “I didn’t know how. I still don’t. There are still things that I...” He closed his mouth and sighed. “So much is undecided.”

Brief, weary silence. “I understand.”

“No, it’s...” He gestured at the air, searching in vain. How infuriating, having to hunt so hard for his words today of all days, the sleepless night catching him up, sapping the strength he needed to shrug this final ambivalence. “You’ve been so gentle with me, since I arrived, and I... I hadn’t realized how badly I needed that. If I don’t maintain a flawless facade in Minrathous, well...” They were all waiting, ready to pry him apart. “One crack, and I’m meat for the butcher’s block. It’s... I’m exhausted,” he said. “I’m so exhausted, but...I have to go back.”

“I know.” Cullen smiled, though he did so as he wiped more wet from his red-rimmed eyes. “I know you have to go.” His voice had dropped to hoarse whisper. “I always knew.”

The poor man looked so heartsick. “Yes, but...” Time now for the final gamble. His heart pounded offbeat as reached a hand into the front fold of his robe to extract the rolled parchment that rested there. “As I said, I’ve been thinking. About how I might...make amends. For your consideration,” he held it out.

Still snuffling, Cullen wiped his palm on his thigh and took the parchment. Steadily, he unfurled the sheets, squinting down at the tidy, cramped writing. As he read on, his brows lowered, gathering above the bridge of his nose. He flipped to the second page; the third, fourth, the fifth. On the fifth and final page, his eyes widened and his head rose up. His lips moved, but he closed his mouth again when no words formed. “This is... Dorian, this is...”

“A marriage agreement.” Dorian slowly nodded his head. “Yes.”

All the color drained out of Cullen’s face. His thick brows knit, first tightly, then tighter. “Are you... Do you mean to... Are you proposing to me?”

His fingertip sought the flawed grain in the table, tracing it yet again, but he made sure not to break their gazes. “I suppose I am.”

Tears welled freely from Cullen’s eyes. They fell, uncontested, running streaks down into his beard. Shock overtook his features, pallor intensifying. “I... I’m dreaming,” he said, putting the parchment down, looking around at the gardens in bewilderment. “I’ve dreamed all this. I’ve fallen into a fever...” His head drooped into his hands. “This can’t be. You’re leaving and I...”

“Cullen.” Dorian caught him by the elbow. Gently, he spun him so they were facing one another. “I assure you, you’re wide awake. It’s rash, perhaps, and you can tell me if I’ve gone soft in the head. I’d only thought... We’re in Orlais, there’s a pretty little chantry a few blocks over. If I’m to go back and forth, or—or stay for long stretches, I’d at least like to be able to tell people I’m off to see my handsome Fereldan husband.”

Breath shallow, Cullen licked at his lips. “H... Husband? You want to... Before you go?”

He’d not seen such an incredulous look on the man’s face since his days of training the raw recruits. “Preferably. Though if you’d rather the formality of a protracted engagement, I’ll suffer through. It would be far more courtly of us, after all.” He smiled and rubbed at Cullen’s thick shoulder, but gentled his expression after a few moments. “Whatever your answer, consider this my promise. I must go, that’s not optional. There are and ever will be...affairs to put in order. Explanations to make. But once I’ve done my share of that, I will come back to you. Maybe not soon, but I’ll come.”

Gradually, the heavy brows eased, the tension slackened. Leaning close, Cullen’s fingers gently bumped his hip, then rested there. His eyelashes were thick with moisture. “How long?”

Dorian shook his head, calculating. “I’ve been absent for damn near an age, there will be a backlog. Probably eight months, maybe a year, maybe a little longer, but...I will come back.”

Against his hip, he felt Cullen’s fingers twitch. He seemed to be contemplating the space to the side of Dorian’s head. In the silence, the bees hummed. Beyond the inn’s walls, Jader began to awaken in earnest. His brows crumpled and more tears slid, glassy. “You’re serious?”

“Deathly.”

Birdie stretched, huffed where she lay by the table, watching them for any sign of conflict or departure.

Cullen’s dark eyes lifted, at last. “Yes,” he whispered.

“Yes?”

He nodded. “Yes.” His composure split, more tears wandering down his cheeks. “I love you. I’ve loved you since...” Words failed him, breath going thin, and he licked at a small bleeding split in his lip, a result of chapping from days on the road. “Since one unremarkable evening in the gardens at Skyhold, when I looked at you and saw...”

Unable to resist the pause, Dorian guessed, “How devastatingly glorious I was?”

Cullen lowered his head, snorting his strange, silly laugh, but he composed himself and brought his gaze up again. “A glow,” he said softly. “The sunset.”

“Sunset...” He’d been likened to many a phenomena by many a stumbling suitor, but never a symbol of finality, the conclusion of a journey west. “An end?”

“No,” Cullen hushed. “No, day’s end isn’t a real ending. It’s...room to breathe. A time for things to—to slow down. Hope for the dawn. We focus so much on the light, we take for granted that darkness brings its own peace.” He reached out and knit their fingers. “Without it, how would we see the stars?”

Fates preserve him, he’d fallen in love with an incorrigible romantic. He laughed, leaned close. “You saw all that, did you?”

“I saw you. That’s all I needed to see.”  

The gentle heat of his heart deepened, reddened to molten. Overwhelmed, Dorian smiled, both hands rising to cup Cullen’s scruffy face. “So, then. Shall we get ourselves cleaned up and go see a Revered Mother? I have just the one in mind.”

Cullen sniffled, scar tugging awkwardly at his cheek as he smiled against Dorian’s palms. “Lead the way.”

Together, they left the sunlit garden, with Birdie at their heels.

Chapter Text

EPILOGUE

Birdie moved with the exacting grace of a lioness, golden lean muscle singular in purpose. They were traveling the last stretch now, and she knew it. Tireless, she outpaced the horse, leading the young mare through the Bannorn’s landscape as though Dorian had personally tasked her with the duty. The horse followed without complaint. The two beasts had gotten along since the first humid morning they’d met, nose to nose on opposite sides of a fence on the outskirts of Minrathous. The mare—an immensely tall, sleek-flanked creature with a reputation at her previous owner’s for exuberant misbehaviour—had taken a shine to Birdie, and by extension, to him as well. After conferring with the dog, the horse had cast an appraising eye toward Dorian, approaching him with playful curiosity. She was no saint, though he chose to view her stubborn, mischievous streak as high spirits. To her credit, she hadn’t yet made any effort to unseat him during their long span of miles traveled.

Before his time in the south he would’ve disregarded the whole experience as coincidence—dogs and horses met noses all the time to little effect—but after some months in Birdie’s care he had a real sense of just how far one Mabari’s good regard could carry a person.

Across continents, quite literally, if she had indeed put in a kind word for him with the horse. Their trio had been on the road together for some weeks now, heading southward from Minrathous. Birdie seemed to remember the journey they’d made in the opposite direction a year prior, taking up point each morning when they set out. Even in Cumberland, its centuries old labyrinthine sprawl a confusion of stonework and ghosts, she’d never once looked lost so long as she kept Dorian in her sights. He’d been unsure about making the sea crossing to Jader with a horse, and rightly so: he’d been forced to wait several days before one of the few ships known to ferry such cargo between the two cities came to dock. An assessment of the mare’s temperament caused exchanged glances amongst the ship’s crew, and he’d had to promise them that Birdie’s presence helped rather than hindered. In the end, an extra bit of gold did the trick better than any verbal reassurance.

Against the sailor’s predictions, however, the creature who’d proven most miserable during the traverse was not the mare but Dorian himself. Typical, that. He’d chewed a small ball of mint leaves and kept his eyes forward, narrowly managing to hold onto his breakfast. Nevertheless, they’d arrived unscathed, minus a greenish tinge about the gills, and had been making good time in the days since leaving Jader.

High summer in the Bannorn. So close to their destination he could almost smell the vineyard’s dusty grapevines.

Birdie barked up ahead, and the mare snorted, breaking into an unbidden trot. Not startled, but eager. He reined her gently back to a walk, but the dog barked again, determined they were lagging. So close...

The day’s final hour of light showed a clear road before them. His own excitement sparked, glimmering under his sternum. The two beasts could no doubt feel that crackle, too. To hell with it. They’d been circumspect up until now; a sprint for the finish seemed fitting. Inhaling deep, he squeezed his legs against the horse and gave a click of the tongue.

Possessed of a hot blooded vigor, the mare took flight after the dog with no further encouragement. Their staid pace during the course of their travels had, rather than tiring her, left her itching to run. Given her head, she streamed over the terrain as though she might catch the line of the horizon, a lustrous wildfire burning beneath him. The sheer unabashed speed thrilled the blood, and he let the wind wash over and through him, energy electric as a gathering storm. They slowed only slightly to turn down the wide mouth of the familiar, tree-lined drive, and when he saw nobody in the way he allowed her to pursue Birdie unhindered.

The dog bounded down the driveway toward two figures in the distance, gap closing with breathtaking velocity. From his galloping perch, Dorian watched Birdie leap upward next to the sturdier figure: blond, bearded, heavy-shouldered, off-kilter with delight at the sudden performance.

Dorian relaxed his tension, beginning to ease in the saddle, slowing the mount to a canter, then a trot, watching Birdie all the while. She’d spun several turns around her much missed first master, then prostrated herself in happiness at his feet, rolling over and kicking for joy as he knelt to ruffle her underbelly.

Nearing the courtyard, Dorian recognized it was Rho who stood observing the dog’s performance, and he grinned at the dark-eyed physician when they glanced up and nodded toward him.

“Easy,” he said to the mare, “easy.” The horse circled wide while she settled from her trot to a walk, tossing her glossy mane as she gathered her breath. Dorian swept adeptly out of the saddle as she strolled, following alongside her until they’d reached the open barn doors.

“To me, ser,” Antony called softly, emerging from the dim interior of the building as he gestured for the reins. His smile was as shy and bright as ever. “I’ll cool her down. You go on.”

“Thank you, dear Antony. Watch this one, she’s a wildfire.”

“I believe it.” Horse and stable master moved away into the barn, the mare going willingly with upright, curious ears.

When Dorian turned to face the house, two blonds were charging him at speed.

Impact. Lifted off his feet at the waist, he barked a laugh as the world spun, blurs of green, gold, and blue. A quick, jarring scuff when he felt his soles touch dirt. Then, Cullen’s lips on his mouth, the scratch of beard. They kissed, gripping one another, until they ran out of air. Panting, laughing, Dorian planted his face against the side of Cullen’s neck as they stood, clasping each other hard, hearts pounding, rocked by the rush of their shared exaltation.

They pulled apart enough to look into one another’s faces but it didn’t take, and both laughed and knocked their noses in clumsy desire to keep kissing. Birdie circled them, breaking the reverie, tail whipping violently gleeful arcs, nudging their legs with a seeking paw.

“Yes, I see you Birdie. Good girl, you’ve brought him back safe,” Cullen said to her.

Birdie sneezed and skittered into the barn, likely to assault Antony with her affections. Dorian laughed as he watched her go.

“Such happiness,” he remarked.

Drawing away, Cullen held him in a steady gaze, radiating affection. “Maker, your hair,” he murmured, rapt, scrubbing fingers over the shorn back of Dorian’s head, trimmed nails gently raking the scalp. “Almost steel right through. And you’ve cut it...” The simple touch, after months of absence, was akin to the first full breath of air following a sprint.

“And you’ve got quite fat,” Dorian said, voice full of candor, both palms planted on either side of Cullen’s substantial middle. The statement made Cullen grin, crow’s feet deepening with mirth.

“Didn’t want to waste away in your absence,” he explained.

“Perish the thought.” Truthfully, his stomach was the only hint of real softness, though he’d thickened everywhere—rounder of leg and shoulder, new muscle bulking out his arms and chest, presumably from long hours of heavy work. A fresh spate of freckles covered his pink nose and his unruly hair had been bleached bright by the summer sun. The very picture of good health. “The season suits you well.”

“I suspect it’s marriage that suits me well,” he replied, arms around Dorian to hold him close as he nuzzled in for another deep kiss. This, too, felt like freedom from pain. When they broke apart, Cullen rested their foreheads together. “I’ve missed you sorely. We didn’t expect you’d be back before Satinalia, so this is...” He shook his head, trailed off, squeezed him hard.

“If it’s more convenient, I can come back at Satinalia,” Dorian said, gesturing down the drive.

Cullen tugged him in tight. “Don’t you dare,” he growled, still grinning. “Are you staying long, this trip?”

“Trip?” Combative, Dorian cocked his head. “Who said anything about a trip? Is this not my husband’s house? Do I not live here, too?” He let his lips curl gently at the corners.

Soft brown eyes widened, their rich honey tint revealed by the golden hour of evening. Cullen puffed a breath, palm holding Dorian’s cheek, tickling his beard. “You do,” he whispered. “Whenever and for however long you like.” He shifted slightly, dropped his hand, big rounded shoulder angled toward the manor atop the hill, its high arched windows framing mirror-perfect reflections of sunset sky. For the span of several heartbeats the high streaming clouds seemed to slow above them, their towering flanks radiating intense hues of pink. Cullen dipped his chin, a near imperceptible nod of gratification or approval. His neck stretched, throat long and corded under rough stubble, and he laid a kiss on Dorian’s temple. Sweet, warm breath rushed over his ear, “Welcome home, husband.”

Dorian linked both hands about Cullen’s waist and nosed his freckled cheek. “Thank you, amatus.”

END