Work Text:
Dorian Pavus has barely been swaddled when his first golden brace is fastened around his tiny arm, a pale brilliance against his soft skin. As he grows, the ornament is exchanged for a larger equivalent, often on birthdays, though as growth spurts became more common, so too do the changes.
The metal is always expensive, ornamented richly as is proper for a young man of his status. It is also always locked, which only invites questions for such an inquisitive youth.
Aquinea huffs and scolds him when he asks her, waves him off with her own adorned wrist and long, ring-laden fingers.
Halward seems genuinely sad, and takes a moment to rest his hand atop his son’s head. “Some things are easier in ignorance, Dorian, though I know you hate to suffer it.”
So of course, when Dorian is eight years old, he pays very careful attention when the family jeweler comes to fasten his forearm into its new, luxurious prison. This has become a puzzle, and puzzles never last long against his burning intellect and stubborn nature.
He figures out the locking mechanisms in less than a week.
And there, in bold, undeniable script, is a set of words.
Where they came from he does not know, but they are as plain as black text can be on grey:
Well, that fuckin’ sucked.
-
Briefly—very briefly—Dorian is annoyed. He wonders if perhaps someone has played a joke on him. But then, he isn’t the only one who wears this heavy band. His mother and father each have similar pieces, more ornate of course as both have finished with growing bones and stretching skin.
The other magisters wear them too, as do their spouses and children.
The only people who do not seem to wear these dreadful accessories are slaves and soporati .
And so, one long summer day when his mother is engaged with whoever she’d decided to favor that week, and his father is away visiting a colleague, Dorian rolls up his sleeves and ventures out into the gardens to track down the groundskeeper.
-
Cyrus frowns when he catches sight of the youngest Pavus trudging out amongst the flower beds, covered head to toe in dark materials. Aquinea Pavus does not ‘believe’ in jeans, let alone shorts. To dress down, apparently, is a form of social death that she is not prepared to suffer.
Dorian doesn’t seem all that happy about the result.
“It’s hot out, young master. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay in the shade?”
“I wanted to ask you a question, and you’re not in the shade.”
“Ah, we’d best get you an answer quick, then.”
“Please.” Dorian nods with a great deal more determination than one might expect from the average eight-year-old. “Tell me what this is?” He sticks his arm out, brilliant gold glimmering against warm brown.
“Looks an awful lot like a bracelet to me.”
Dorian pouts. “I mean what’s under it. The words. ”
“Ah. You sure you wouldn’t like to ask your parents?”
“Quite.”
“Right, well...I’m melting, myself. Let’s continue this inside.”
Dorian follows behind him like an irritated duckling. Cyrus shrugs helplessly when Cassia catches sight of them coming in through the door.
It’s obvious that she’s just finished work for the day, her long fingers wringing out the cloth before patting it over sun-beaten skin.
“Young master, you’ve met my wife?”
“Not really.” Dorian says, shifting uncomfortably. He hasn’t exactly been introduced to the bulk of the staff, and certainly not any elves that work in the kitchens and gardens.
“There’s no need to look so red in the face, young master.” She smiles. “My name is Cassia. Would you like some water?”
But Dorian’s frown only deepens at this.
“What is ‘red’?”
-
So Dorian learns about colors, and what it takes to see them. He wonders if he ever will, and if his parents ever have. He has no doubt that the words on their wrists are completely incompatible.
Even at such a young age, he has no delusions that his parents are in love or that they intend anything of the sort for their son.
He watches a great deal more intently when his mother calls him in during her fittings, tuning out her lectures on decorum at some upcoming event in favor of watching her handmaidens as they fuss over accessories.
All Dorian can see is shades of grey, but as Yora and Reina smile and brush their fingers together passing sashes, pins, and combs, he has no doubt that they can see an entire spectrum of colors that he and his mother cannot.
He wonders what words they said, when they first met. He wonders if they cried, if they embraced immediately.
He wonders who in the world starts off the most world-shaking experience of their lives by saying, Well, that fuckin’ sucked.
-
As the years pass, the words locked against his skin become something of a comfort.
No matter how much rejection Dorian feels, no matter how much powerless frustration and loneliness, he will always wait to hear those words, and see the world bloom into hundreds of glorious colors.
And when the words do not come, he knows that they will eventually.
The words are there, and Dorian is waiting.
-
Dorian is familiarizing himself with the bottom of a bottle in one of the cheapest, seediest brothels the elven slums have to offer. Everything is grey and slightly blurry, steeped in the eternally conflicting scents of cologne and perfume.
A girl with roses painted on her cheeks in what must be a lurid shade of... something ...lets her head roll back against his knee from her position on the floor.
“You sure you don’t want a blowjob?” She asks.
“Positive,” he responds. At this point, if anyone wanted him, they’d have to haul him out in a wheelbarrow, because he certainly can’t move.
He’s no better off than the rest of them.
He wonders, absently, if this young lady has a soulmate. He wonders if some hapless young man is wandering about some distant bordello district, waiting to be blinded by the red lights with, I’m good with my tongue, domine stretched over his skin.
And that’s when Gereon Alexius appears upside down in Dorian’s field of vision. He recognizes the man from...something academic. Something Dorian likes the idea of, which means it very well may never come to pass.
His wrist, despite his class, is bare of any adornment, and Dorian glimpses a hint of black text before the man is sighing and gathering him up like a child in his arms. “Really,” Gereon grunts. “A mind like this, and all you want to do is pickle it.”
-
The first words Livia Arida ever said to Gereon Alexius were:
What say you we make that ancient bastard Fabian eat his words?
His were:
How terribly unscientific would it be for me to kiss you right now?
Pure romance.
-
Dorian wakes up in a large, airy room full of—Maker help him— natural light. He covers his eyes with the comforter and makes a noise like a dying animal when someone knocks at the door.
The pounding in his head won’t allow him to call out any sort of response, but the door opens anyway. Soft footsteps draw closer to the bed that Dorian is very interested in occupying until he dies, and the covers—despite his best efforts—are pulled from his aching fingers.
“Let me die.”
“Can’t. Father says you ought to take a look at the course selection forms for the Minrathous Circle.”
“Father can take a long walk off a short—wait. My father?”
“Mine.”
Dorian finally opens his eyes to a friendly face with deep set eyes and a teasing smile. He might find the man’s looks charming, if he weren’t also an obvious sadist.
“Good morning. I’m Felix Alexius.”
“Dorian Pavus.”
“I know. You told my father as much in the carriage. He says you’re a very impressive conversationalist, at least when you’re plastered.”
“I’m an impressive conversationalist all the time, thank you. Is there a…?”
“Waste bin? Here.” Felix pulls the bin to the side of the bed and rubs Dorian’s back gently as he heaves into it.
“ Please let me die.” Dorian whines again, eyes squeezed shut against the light and shoulders shaking from exertion.
“Not yet. There’s paperwork first.”
“ Fuck .”
-
The Minrathous Circle has a very limited course selection in regards to the necromantic specialization. This is likely due to low student interest, which is itself likely due to the students being a mass of unimaginative, artless fools.
On the bright side, this means Dorian doesn’t have to vie with anyone for resources or lab time when it comes time to complete his first solo dissection of a humanoid corpse.
The body Dorian has been issued is, apparently, a very unlucky qunari. He’s easily the largest Dorian has ever seen, tall with broad shoulders, his horns equally as wide. Though Dorian hasn’t actually seen that many qunari.
But this one…
Looking over the recently deceased, Dorian feels a sense of sadness that he never has before. Under some other power, his hands come up to trace over scarred grey skin, and…
And his fingers are not grey.
They’re brown. His skin is brown.
The polish Livia had applied to his nails is still black, but his skin is a warm comforting color that can only be called brown.
He looks up, and the walls are a cool shade of either green or blue. The cabinets are filled with bottles and bins of various colors, and for a moment he’s breathless with wonder.
And then his heart begins to burn.
Before he can think, he reaches into the Fade with all that he has and grasps at what must be—what has to be —this man’s lingering soul. But it’s not enough. It’s damaged from the accident that tore open that strong, thick throat and left him...left him here.
For Dorian.
For his fucking lab grade.
But still, Dorian holds onto it firmly. He feeds it back, confused and shivering, into the place from which it came.
And then he reaches inside himself.
-
The Iron Bull comes to with a kick, gasping past what has to be the world’s worst sore throat. The light in his eyes is momentarily blinding and he thinks, This is it. This is the Void.
And then he realizes that he’s in a lab somewhere, like in some medical drama.
He’s on a cold, metal operating table, a thin white sheet the only thing covering his privates from cold, and someone is breathing heavily very nearby.
He remembers. He knows. He should be dead.
There was a crash.
“Well,” He croaks. “That fuckin’ sucked.”
The heavy breathing is replaced by weak, wet laughter. A shaking hand reaches up from the floor beside the table to wrap around Bull’s fingers, and a moment later there’s a man—a damned beautiful man crying and smiling down at him like this entire fucked up situation is still the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
It might be, Bull realizes.
Because he opens his mouth and says, "I was beginning to think I'd never meet you. I very nearly didn't."
Bull knows those words by heart, and now they have a face.
A face with dark skin and darker hair, a strange, curled up moustache, and an awful white labcoat over a deep purple dress shirt. And in the middle of all of this new information, this entire spectrum that he’s waited so long to see:
The prettiest pair of grey eyes.