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Ferelden has always been exceedingly cold to Dorian. There was, of course, the typical frigid distrust of 'vints that had only grown worse for the rising Venatori presence throughout Thedas. There was also the quite literal bone deep chill that was already creeping through his boot leather. It was honestly the latter that bothered him more. Dorian shivered inside his robes as he strode through the eluvian and found his breath clouding before him. It was so maker-be-damned freezing that he glanced aside expecting to find a gaping hole in the stone walls keeping the portal safeguarded. It wouldn't be unusual, after all. Skyhold was no spring chicken and the Inquisitor wasn't known for prioritizing appearances (to their credit, there had been a giant rift in the veil spitting out demons at the time.) Alas, the walls were intact, and he was left to simply wonder if poor Josephine had been taken ill with some new wasting disease, because there was truly no excuse otherwise for this fortress to be colder than a spirit's tit. Surely the Inquisition (technically disbanded, sure) could afford to keep the fireplaces lit. It was unthinkable that a dignified woman such as herself would stand for such a state of incivility. There were appearances to maintain when entertaining visiting dignitaries, and it just so happened that Dorian was one of them now. Josephine had once all but accused him of being dramatic, and she wasn't strictly wrong.
The quaint little garden that Skyhold boasted was as familiar to him as the inside of his glove, though not nearly so well tailored. He had navigated the spitefully uneven paving stones drunk as a bird on fermented berries enough times that the long shadows cast by the torches were of no hindrance to his progress whatsoever. It wasn't even worth casting a mage light. It was a skip and a hop to reach the steep flight of steps up to the ramparts, and from there the upper floors of Herald's Rest. The Chargers had been leasing the space as winter quarters ever since the breach was sealed. If there were any surviving members, this is where they would be found.
Sure enough, Cremisius Aclassi, second in command of the mercenary group, already had his hand wrapped around the hilt of a dagger when Dorian burst into their headquarters. Judging by the sheaf of parchment and asset markers strewn over a map, Dorian had interrupted as formal a meeting as the Chargers ever had. They'd even restricted themselves to beer rather than wine, the poor things. It must be serious, then. A shame, but he hadn't commandeered Rook's eluvian on a whim. Minrathous was on the very precipice of Venatori usurpation. He couldn't afford to be gone long, which made it exceedingly fucking inconvenient that he had to cross entire nations just to get any kind of reassurance that Bull was, in fact, alive.
Krem's nose wrinkled in confusion. "Dorian? What—"
"Am I doing here? Oh, just passing through." His eyes locked automatically onto the largest figure in the room instead. Impossible to miss. Thank the fucking Maker; he was alive.
Krem cleared his throat. "How did you—"
"Not by gryphon-back, I assure you. Too many bugs, and I do so despise nature," Dorian quipped despite his barely checked anger. "Here, a hostess gift."
He deposited a rather expensive Minrathous vintage (liberated from his late father's wine cellar) atop the whole mess before rounding the table to where Bull sat, cloak furling in his brisk wake. And the brute was glaring at him. Alive and fucking well, it seemed. And with both hands in working order, given their almost splintering grip of the armrests. Dorian might have taken pause from a look with so much venom in it. Might have. If not for his own smouldering temper. Truly, it was the only thing keeping him warm at all.
"You shouldn't be here," Iron Bull finally rumbled in reproach.
"Vishante kaffas! I wouldn't need to be if you could be bothered to pick up a quill."
Krem slumped back in his chair with a resigned sigh, trading the hilt of his dagger for the tankard in front of him. "What'd I tell you, Chief? Altus aren't used to being ignored. And Magisters? Good luck with that."
"Enough, Krem,” Bull said, still staring at Dorian, but then, he never looked away first. Fine, at least he finally had his attention.
Dorian dug the message crystal out of the neck of his robes and thrust it towards his supposed Amatus as far as the gold chain would allow. "You know I have this! You could have borrowed its twin from the Inquisitor at literally any time!"
Bull's good eye tracked the glint of the enchanted crystal then flicked back up to him with feigned indifference. It had to be feigned. If it wasn't, if this silence that had stretched between them for over half a year was… well, he supposed they’d had an unusually good run; no one else had stuck it out this long. Dorian should have seen this coming. Even if he had, well, no. He probably would still have come running anyway, just to make sure Bull was alright. And he hated the way it exposed him for the pitiful fool that he was.
"The blight and demons ravage half of Thedas and you can't be bothered to do the decent thing. To scribble just a few words of reassurance using a stick of charcoal in those hams you keep at the end of your arms? I shouldn't be surprised, and yet here I am." Dorian threw his hands up in disgust.
"Here you are," Bull agreed.
The words sank deep in the pit of Dorian's stomach under the weight of Bull's disapproval. Then he couldn't help but scoff in utter disbelief. The audacity. The sheer fucking gall of him. Bull wouldn't even look him in the fucking eyes anymore. Instead the icy gaze was fixed lower, at— Dorian glanced down and saw the halved dragon's tooth snagged in the crystal’s chain.
Ah.
He let the pendant fall and rubbed the side of his nose. Well, fuck. Given the way Bull was eyeing it, maybe he really was regretting everything between them after all. And here Dorian was, the dunce that had thought perhaps this time things were finally different. That they might really have had… something.
He really should have known better by now. There was no idyllic ending for a man like himself.
Krem took a deep pull as if to drain his tankard. "Right…So, I guess that's a wrap on our meeting, then, yeah? Looks like the two of you have… a lot to talk abou–"
Dorian cut him off with a gesture. "You needn't bother, Cremisius. Not on my account. No, no, by all means carry on. It is clear that the Iron Bull’s Chargers have everything well in hand, blight and all.” Krem coughed into his cup as Dorian continued. His temper was warming to the topic and making the tallow flames around the room flare. “In fact, there is apparently an abundance of clarity to be found here in Ferelden. Primarily, a lack of any reason for me to have come running at all. Right. I'll be needing this.” Dorian snatched the bottle of wine back off the table and turned on heel to make for the door.
This was utterly, utterly, stupid.
He’d been certain that Bull had been in some kind of trouble. They’d never gone so long without so much as even a coded note. Not since the time Dorian had found himself ambushed and captured by Venatori. Iron Bull, the fucking Qunari-est of Qunari (oh Maker’s breath, he was evening thinking like Bull now, what was wrong with him??) had led the Chargers right over Imperium borders, fighting through troves of Venatori, all to rescue him. How had Iron Bull even known to come? Vexing didn't even begin to describe it. No amount of coaxing had wrested the truth from behind Bull’s surprisingly white teeth.
A familiar creak of leather was all the warning Dorian had before he was unceremoniously hoisted up by the waist and slung over a set of massive shoulders like a very agitated sack of rice. A man his size, picked up like it was nothing.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Bull asked.
“The utter fucking nerve of you!”
“The nerve of me? The utter fucking stupidity of you, Kadan. You shouldn't be here.”
Dorian’s stomach flipped at the deep vibration of Bull’s voice cutting clean through to his bones. Maker, but it had been so long since they were this close. “Vishante kaffas! Don’t ‘Kadan’ me. Put me down you insufferable oaf, and I'll leave! No, I’ll kick you in the balls and then leave.”
“You know I love it when you get excited enough to light things on fire, but our lease isn't up for another three years.”
“Ugh. You're making the beer taste bad, Chief.”
Dorian blinked in surprise. Little motes of fire danced in the air around them as Bull carried him back up to the ramparts. It wasn't often Dorian's composure and control of his magic slipped, but there was a sharp uptick wherever Bull was concerned. The easiest way to dismiss them was a deep breath and exhale like he was blowing out a candle. The sparks dampened and fizzled out entirely, leaving Bull’s pauldron only a little singed. Meanwhile, the bottle of wine still clutched in Dorian’s fist bounced against his gloriously firm Quanri ass. No– no he was furious with him and the brute had tried to cut ties without so much as a stick figure carved into a slab of stone with his axe.
Speaking of axes to grind: “You always do this.”
“What? You love when I toss you around.”
“That.”
Bull exhaled long and low and Dorian despised how, even now, his length throbbed like as if with hunger pangs at the sound of it. At least the scrap of leather that Bull wore as a homage to armour meant that he could hide his entirely inconvenient reaction. It rather undermined his argument, after all. Bull wrenched a door open and ducked through it with his head turned sideways. The underside of a horn scraped across Dorian’s backside through the cloth and he wished he could stymie the needy gasp that slipped out.
“Heh. See? You love it.”
Prick. Dorian was about to swear a strip clean off him when he was tossed through the air. He hit a mattress hard enough to drive the air from his lungs instead. It was a wonder the wine didn't smash on impact along with his spine.
“Ass!” He wheezed. “And what in the hell have you stuffed this mattress with? A proprietary mixture of broken pottery and spite?”
The bed dipped under Bull's knees with a dry crackle of what was far more likely straw. The sconces behind Bull cast a deep shadow over Dorian. Try as he might, he couldn’t make out Bull’s expression. Just as intended, surely. As much as he liked to play the fool, very little (if anything) the man did was without calculation. The silence prickled like an itch just beyond his reach and Dorian couldn’t help but scratch at it anyway.
“I didn’t think to grab a corkscrew. You haven’t got one here, have you? That, or I don’t suppose you happen to know a party trick with those horns of yours?”
He was rambling and he knew it. Bull still hadn’t spoken a damn word. It was infuriating how comfortable he was with silence. He wielded it as adeptly as he did his axe, and it was just as cutting. The thing of it was, Bull had never turned it on him before, and it admittedly stung all the more for it. Iron Bull tugged on the bottle and Dorian let it slip free. In his current state, it wasn’t like he would drink it slowly enough to properly enjoy it, anyway. The wine found a spot atop a crate doubling as a nightstand, judging by the half burned candle and stack of books. That had surprised Dorian, actually, how well and widely read Iron Bull actually was. Which only reminded him that he was still angry, actually.
Bull wasn't stupid. Despite his crude jokes and careless demeanour, only the most clever Qunari joined the ranks of spies. Bull was no exception, but he was exceptionally sharp. Meaning: he had actively chosen not to write. And, damn it, Dorian was entitled to know why. He’d be lying if he said he’d ever expected a lover to have the decency to break things off to his face, but the least he deserved was a letter, no matter how brief. Even a single line would do.
But Bull hadn’t even bothered with the bare minimum. That certainly said enough in its own way.
Dorian felt his chin crumple despite his principled outrage.
It was just… he thought they had been more. After everything, after…
“Kadan.” The concern in Bull’s voice startled him more than the rough thumb scraping away a bead of moisture below his eye. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes, I’ve gotten the fucking message. Enough! Ama– Bull,” he caught himself slipping into habit and swallowed hard around the way it needled in his throat like a fish bone. “I came to see if you were alive. And you are. That…is enough for me. And now, I would very much like to leave.”
“Kadan.”
It was a command for his attention this time. Dorian recognized the timbre. An unwelcome shiver raced down his spine as heat pooled in his groin. Two enormous hands cupped his cheeks, and that thumb lingered over the beauty mark as it often did in some of their quieter stolen moments.
“Dorian, I know how much your work in Tevinter means to you. I… I didn’t want you to worry. Distraction is lethal in that pit of vipers.”
He couldn’t help but huff a watery laugh, thinking of the Shadow Dragon’s own aptly named “Viper.” Bull’s brow raised in question but Dorian simply shook his head. Well, as best he could between those engulfing hands. “Ah, never mind that. It’s nothing.” Then he remembered to scowl through the inconveniently timed watering of his eyes. “It’s outrageous, you know, that you aimed to fade out of my life like this under the guise of protection. Appalling behaviour. Unforgivable, really. By anyone’s standards, even my own quite low ones.”
A scowl of Bull’s own pulled at the deep scars marring his face. “I told you. ‘Always together no matter how far life takes us.’” The hand over his left cheek dropped down to fist the silver chain of the dragon’s tooth instead. Then he yanked Dorian nose to nose none too gently. He couldn’t help but gasp, sucking in the warmth of Bull’s breath. “This should be proof enough.” Another pointed tug on the dragon tooth underlined his point.
“As if there could ever be such a thing.”
“You’ve always been a greedy one.” Bull caged him against the bed with his forearms. “Always, always, needing so much reassurance. More, more, more. ”
“Yes, alright, I’m the difficult one.” Dorian’s face burned at the injustice of it all. To be chastised like this, like he was the problem for wanting an ounce of, yes, okay, reassurance. Call it what he liked, was it really so wrong for him to care?
Their lips suddenly crushed together as Bull threatened to devour him altogether. He always did this. It was pathological the way Bull categorically denied any needs of his own, brushing it all aside and turning the focus back on Dorian instead. Dorian’s teeth found purchase on Bull’s lower lip until his partner drew back with a hiss of pain.
“You’re feisty today.” Bull ran his tongue over the oozing split as Dorian glowered up at him in defiance.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Fine. So you thought I was dead. You definitely shouldn’t have come, then.”
“Damn it, Bull! How could I not?” The way his voice cracked only added insult to injury.
“Because it pains me!”
“Pains you? Pains you?”
“Yes, Dorian. It wounds me to be the reason you might wind up hurt. Just like last time. I can’t ever let that happen again.”
“That is utter and complete nug shit, do you hear me?” It was his turn to grab Bull’s face and force him to meet his eyes. “Iron Bull, you give yourself far too much credit. The Ventori ambushing me had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the fact that they hate me for me.”
“They used me to lure you in.”
Dorian sighed in frustration. “I was the idiot that got tricked. I should have known you’d never agree to a vineyard tour.”
“You are a lot of things, but an idiot is not one of them. You are everything to me. My whole heart.”
Bull snarled and pressed their foreheads together. Dorian froze, pinned more by the unexpected display of emotion than the physical weight. This time when they kissed, it felt like velvet and tasted like iron. And damn it, Dorian couldn’t stop himself. He clutched at him desperately, like he was hanging over a cliff about to fall. The kiss broke but a string of blood-tinged saliva tethered them together still. He really shouldn’t have bit him like that. It was so much better to turn that anger inward or drown it in the bottom of a bottle. Oftentimes both. This is what happened when he got…attached.
“I… Kadan I can’t keep you from your purpose. I’d never forgive myself.” The hot breath against his lips as Bull spoke more softly than ever before made him positively ache.
“Why do you Qunari insist on being so fucking selfless?” Dorian shook his head and tried to blink back the tears. “It’s worse, actually, I–I’m terrible.”
Bull stroked his cheek. “Agree to disagree, but go on.”
“It would be bad enough if you were dead. But it’s worse that you’re alive.”
“Well now I’m really confused.”
Dorian scoffed and tried to bury a sniffle in his sleeve. “No, I mean, as much as it would gut me to lose you forever, somehow it’s worse to imagine you alive and not– Andraste’s tits, I’m awful. Just, just never mind.”
“Ahhh, now I get it.” Bull chuckled at the back of his throat and nuzzled against his cheek. “You thought I was done with you. I’m almost hurt. But trust me, I’m plenty selfish in my own ways. And no, I am very much never done with you, Kadan.”
“Prove it then. I came all this way, it’s the least you could do, honestly.”
“You walked through a mirror.”
“It was a brisk walk.”
Straw crackled and leather creaked as Bull sat back on his heels, towering over him with a dim flash of a smirk visible in the back lighting. Dorian shivered again, breath catching in his throat at the implication. Then buckle by buckle and layer by layer Dorian found himself bared to the cold of the room. Goosebumps sprinkled over his skin and his nipples peaked. He lay there a shivering mess of nerves and desire, pinned by Bull’s critical eye alone.
And then Bull hooked his hands under his thighs, palms like brands against his chilled skin. Dorian couldn’t have stopped the moan it evoked if he’d tried. He gazed down his stomach, lips softly parted and already panting as Bull spread his knees and stooped between them. With a deft duck of his head, one of his legs hooked over a horn. The ridges bit into his flesh just the way he dreamed about at night, and Dorian fisted the bedspread to anchor himself. His length bobbed in anticipation, straining proudly in the air with precome already welling from the tip.
Another dark chuckle puffed across his inner thigh. “I like it when you’re selfish. When you’re so demanding and I’m the only one who could ever give you what it is you truly need. No one else gets to see that but me.”
Dorian’s head threw back into the mattress as Bull’s searing mouth sank down around his cock in one fell swoop, swallowing him whole. The delicious prickle of stubble against his balls set his back arching off the bed. Dorian tried not to linger over the ridiculous noises Bull always managed to wring from him. He might die of embarrassment otherwise. Lewder still were the slurping and suckling noises Bull’s mouth made around his length. Then just as abruptly, that mouth slid off, leaving flushed skin glistening and slick. Dorian yelped at the cold air blown over it, and scowled when it somehow only made him pulse even harder. Bull slung both legs over his horns this time and hoisted his ass clear off the bed. Strong blunt fingers dug into his hips and lower back hard enough that he’d surely be dappled like an appaloosa by morning. Dorian’s grip scrambled at Bull’s forearms with only his shoulders still touching the bed.
“For the love of– Hnng!”
Bull groaned right into the core of him in agreement as he dragged the broad soft flat of his tongue over his entrance. Anything else Dorian might have said was buried and forgotten beneath ragged moans. That mouth of Bull’s was relentless, probing and stretching him, never seeming to tire in the pursuit of his goal. Dorian could feel the pull deep in his pelvis as his balls lifted tight to his body. Meanwhile his length leaked freely onto his own stomach. There was something about being practically suspended in the air like this that made Dorian’s head go stupid. Like being drunk without a drop of wine.
Dorian almost sobbed from the aching need as Bull’s mouth drew back just as he toed the edge. “If I’d known you were dropping by, I’d have had the ropes ready for you.”
“Hnng– mmph, Bull!” His legs trembled pitifully, still hooked and helpless over his horns.
“I didn’t hear a ‘please’ anywhere in there.”
“And you won’t. I’m mad at you.”
“No you’re not,” Bull crooned against his inner thigh with an irritating grin. Then nipped him hard in rebuke. “You just missed me.”
Dorian gasped and a thicker gush of precome dribbled onto his own navel. He squirmed and pretended to fight against Bull’s hold on him, which only earned him another nip, this time on the underside of his cheek. “Maker–” The delectable crush of flesh between those powerful jaws nearly did him in.
“Mm-mm, you know very well that the only name you should be crying out inside these four walls is mine.” Bull ducked his head and lowered him back down to the bed with ease so that he could shed his own clothes with maddening slowness. Dorian watched, chest heaving, as Bull’s thick dusky dark cock sprung free, slapping against his thigh in a way that made his body ache with fevered desire.
“Fine. For the love of– please, Bull.”
“Mmph,” Bull grabbed his legs and tucked them around his waist, “I thought you’d never ask.”
They dozed for a time, and Dorian was grateful for the heat radiating off Bull’s bare skin as he lay draped atop him. Combined with the heavy quilt, he was almost cozy.
“Bull?”
“Mm?” Came the husky and drowsy reply.
“How did you know back then?”
“Know what, Kadan?” Bull’s fingers traced aimless designs over his upper back, then followed the dip of his spine down to his bruised ass cheeks.
Dorian shivered. “That I’d been ambushed.”
“Oh.” The fingers paused for a moment before palming the swell of his ass cheek. He chuckled in approval when Dorian winced at the deep ache and throb that followed such a session as this. “Well you’re allergic to stripweed.”
That made his thoughts stumble a moment. “I’m what? I told you I’m not allergic–”
“Uh-huh. So your face just swells like that for no reason, hm?”
“I still don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Oh. The forged note they sent me was a joke. Talk about amateurs.”
“Bull.”
“Right. Anyway, the note said you couldn’t meet because of some bullshit about being homesick for your country’s stripweed tea.”
“I hate stripweed tea.”
“I know.” Bull jiggled the firm muscle of Dorian’s ass pointedly. “Like I said. Amateurs. Any assassin worth their salt would know something that basic. And they would know that your lover would know, too.”
“My lover? I may vomit.” A rough chuckle shook them both and Dorian couldn’t hide the twitch of a smile quirking his lips. Still, though, it was a relief to finally have an answer to the question that had plagued him for months. “Ok fine. Maybe not vomit. Maybe just in the back of my mouth a bit.”
He yelped when Bull swatted his ass again and shot him a glare that perhaps might have bordered a bit more onto a pout.
“Oh, right!” Bull sat up so fast Dorian would have tumbled right out of his lap if not for the thick arm keeping him pressed against him. “I have something for you.”
“Yes. I believe I have already received it. Twice in as many hours.”
“No, not that. Well, ha, yes that. But I also have something else.” Bull levered himself out of bed, keeping Dorian slung on his hip like a babe. He rummaged in a rucksack hanging from the bedpost for a moment and withdrew—Dorian had seen any number of horrors in his life, from demons to monsters and the more mundane blood magic atrocities. But this… knew no equal.
“Why the fuck do you have severed nug feet in your bag?” Dorian recoiled, attempting to free himself from Bull’s hold, quite ineffectually, given his legs were swinging in dead air.
“They’re not real nug feet, Dorian, look.”
“Of all the times I could have been blinded in battle and not have seen these. Fate is truly cruel.”
“What do you mean?” Bull crowed. “They're slippers just for you.
“Absolutely horrifying. I am actually going to vomit. Why do their feet look like that??”
“Yes, yes, they're unsettling, Kadan.” He pressed a kiss to Dorian's temple, not even bothering to keep the smile out of his voice. “But these are lined with fennec fur.”
“Oh, not ermine? The audacity that you thought of me when you found these abominations.”
“Found them? No, no, no. I had them made for your freezing footsies. I know how you hate the cold. I traced your boots last time we met, so I know these will fit like a–”
“Sweet Maker’s ballsack, do not say glove.”
“—Glove. Heh.”
“Amatus, I would rather bludgeon my own feet off with an apostate grade staff than ever let these atrocities touch my skin.”
“Perhaps you should have thought about that before insisting on warming them up on my ass every chance you get. Hm?” Bull tossed him back on the bed and grabbed an ankle to yank him closer to the edge. Dorian kicked and flailed to little effect, because that iron grip of his hauled him almost clean off the bed again. Just when Dorian thought the indignity could get no worse, it did. Bull shoved the monstrosity onto his foot despite his squawk of protest. Dorian covered his eyes to try and block out the sight of those disgusting wriggling finger toes and was horrified to discover that it was like wearing the softest pillows he could ever imagine.
“Oh no…”
Bull broke into a rafter shaking belly laugh of triumph and jammed the second slipper on. “See Dorian? I always know just what you need.”
“Well I’ll never be possessed by a pride demon at least,” Dorian lamented. “I haven’t got any left. Pass me the fucking wine, Amatus.”