Chapter Text
If he's going to strain his neck anymore, it'll keep the position forever. Dorian is certain of it.
Another passerby gives him an awkward look – just bewilderment, not hostility, though and whenever did that change?
He answers with his best court smile and even gets a reply in kind. The bewilderment lingers, though.
People got friendly with him. No more heads turning pointedly and only a reasonable amount of glares – an amount that could be chalked up to the envy his stunningly good looks naturally evoke. Somehow, between killing all those demons and actually growing to tolerate that brew they served in the tavern, people seemed to have gotten rid of the notion that he was here to steal the Inquisitor's soul. Or worse.
He finds little comfort in the idea, though, eyes flickering to the patch of green below him once more. The canopy almost covers the furniture below, but not enough to conceal that both seats are woefully empty.
Cheerful greetings jerk him out of his musings once more and Dorian cracks another smile as two young maids hurry along, arms filled with freshly washed sheets.
There was nothing of note in this part of the Keep, but the stream of onlookers never seemed to end, as if to ridicule his stealthy plan.
Dorian cranes his neck again, to look out of the window and down into the garden, trying to see through the blooming branches of the trees there.
“Dorian?”
Dorian winces. He turns and straightens his back to find the Inquisitor, weedy arms full of scrolls.
“Your Worship.” Dorian greets the Inquisitor, casually leaning against the wall.
“What are you doing here?” Denna frowns at him, walking over to where he was hunkered in front of the window a moment ago. She comes close, almost pressing up against him.
“Why are you watching the garden?” she asks, peering out of the window, trying to recreate the angle he bent his head at a moment before.
Dorian barely resists the urge to throw himself in front of her to obscure the window. That would loose him what plausible deniability is left to him. Who knows, maybe she wouldn't figure it out.
“Are you – ” she starts, leaning forward a little more, reminiscent of his earlier pose. “are you watching the chessboard?”
“No.”
“Dorian.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you watching the chessboard?”
“Who says I am?”
The Inquisitor groans and steps back, shaking her head. “You know what, I have an assassination to thwart and I really don't have time to – wait.” Andraste's ass, he had almost gotten rid of her. “Don't you normally play chess with Cullen this day of the week?” Dorian winces, and promptly draws a blank when trying to come up with an excuse. “You do, don't you?”
Blighted elf. He's not weaseling his way out of this one. Denna was like a mabari pup with a new favourite toy when something caught her attention. She could spent hours chewing on it until it burst open, spilling its guts. “Well, as a matter of fact, I am here to get answers to that very question.” he admits, finally.
“Call me old-fashioned, but couldn't you just, I don't know, ask Cullen? I know he's busy with our preparations for Halamshiral but – what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I, uh … it's complicated.” he says.
Denna frowns. “You kissed about a week ago and it's already complicated? Did something else happen between the two of you since then?”
Dorian shrugs. “How am I supposed to know? I haven't spoken to him since then.”
On Denna's face realization dawns like a particularly bleary day. “Creators, Dorian.”
“And while we're at the, ah, confessions, when I told you about the dancing and the kiss I may have neglected to mention that I sort of walked out without another word in his direction.”
Denna's jawline tightens as she scrutinizes him. Finally, she let out a sigh. “Well, that explains the war table moping.” She shakes her head and pulls the scrolls threatening to spill over tighter to her chest. “And now you're hiding here, hoping that he will turn up, and if he doesn't, then what? You'll continue to act as if nothing happened?”
“Cunning plan, I know.” he quips, but it comes out pitiful enough that he makes himself sick. The look in Denna's eyes does nothing to improve his emotional state. During their ensuing staring contest he bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying anything else. Surely he had poured enough of his past troubles onto her; she could fill in the blanks well enough on her own. She didn't need his tear-fueled retelling, especially not this close to the tipping point of a future they both rather dreaded.
Denna sighs then, gathers the scrolls threatening to spill closer. “You know what, I can't – I have to do things and there's the assassination – I've gotta get these reports to Josephine and – ” Rambling, she makes her way toward the door.
She turns in the archway, flashing him a tentative smile. “But if he doesn't show, come around tonight. I've still got a bottle of that wine left.”
Then she's gone and Dorian lets out a long-suffering sigh.
He's not actually as much of an ass as people think, at least most of the time.
When he can help it. Without too much inconvenience.
So when Cullen doesn't show – and what a big surprise, too – Dorian doesn't actually unload more of his petty problems on her tiny elvhen shoulders.
They have got enough to carry as it is.
The tavern is full that night, and Dorian retreats to the hindmost corner, sipping his beer and doing his best to wallow in the mess he brought down on himself.
The chair opposite him creaks and Dorian tenses.
“Don't worry,” a familiar deep rumble of a voice sounds over the raucous tavern. “I'm not him.”
Dorian looks up to glare at the Iron Bull. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Sure you don't.” the Qunari says through that blighted all-knowing smirk of his. He stares at Dorian over the brim of his tankard, drinking in silence, as the tapping of Dorian's foot against the tavern floor speeds up.
“I'm not talking about this with you.” Dorian hisses angrily.
“Talk about what?” Bull asks nonchalantly, stretching his massive body over the back of the chair, which gives a protesting groan. “I'm just having a drink.”
Dorian grits his teeth at the perpetual grin plastered on the Bull's face, a grin that somehow persists while the Qunari drinks.
“You're the most infuriating man I've ever met.”
“I'm just having a drink.” Bull says, raises his tankard and holds it out for a toast. Dorian might be seething, but he does have his manners. He brings up his own mug and clinks them together.
“I'm still not talking to you.” Dorian murmurs after taking a long, long drink.
“Not talking to him either.”
Dorian groans. “I thought you were just drinking.”
“Not talking to anyone really.” Bull takes another sip of ale. “Not even to the Boss and you two never stop yapping at each other.”
“Wrong, I spoke to her not two hours ago.” Dorian says a little too triumphantly for such a little success. Bull cocks that up for him, too, raising the eyebrow he's got left.
Dorian sighs. “If you have to say something, just say it, and spare me your prolonged presence - and odor.”
“I'm not saying anything, I just … observe.”
“How positively annoying, unhelpful and indecent of you.” Dorian turns in his seat, turning to look at the middle of the tavern instead, intent on removing the Bull from his line of sight. But the Qunari's form has gravity to it, and it lingers in the corner of Dorian's eyes.
Bull says nothing, just drinks and looks.
“And I suppose you have it all figured out, then?” he snaps a moment later.
Bull grins. “You asking for advice, 'Vint?”
“As if.” He'd settle for a snide comment, even derision, anything but the silence that leaves just his own thoughts.
“It took you a long while to step out of that little corner of yours,” Bull starts. “in that dusty old library. It won't do you any good to step back in because you got your feet wet in a little rain.”
“Well,” Dorian says around the lump in his throat. “the leather of my shoes is rather delicate.”
Bull says nothing.
Dorian leaves soon after.
Leave it to the Qunari brute to ruin a perfectly good opportunity to drink himself into a stupor. Now he'll have to depart to Halamshiral without a hangover.
Dorian packed enough books to occupy himself while 'hiding in his tent all blighted evening', as the Inquisitor so lovingly put it as he turned down her invitation to join the others for dinner in their nightly encampments.
All the glimpses of the Commander that he catches are fleeting, and barely plague his mind, or so he tells himself.
In fact, he's amazed at how little he thinks about Cullen. Just now, again. Not thinking about him. In fact, thinking about quite the opposite of Cullen.
So what if he had managed to ruin everything? It wasn't the first time, and the Commander was hardly the malicious type, so he wouldn't have to worry about nasty rumors spreading or blackmail.
'Ruining everything' in Ferelden was more like 'a slow Tuesday' in the Empire.
That's his state of mind by the time they reach the Winter Palace and all through the night he keeps his position in the garden, slipping into old habits like into a well-worn glove.
At the end of the night the Empress is alive, and an official ally of the Inquisition – it couldn't have gone better. And yet Dorian still stands at the balcony of the Palace Gardens, overlooking a sea of green, and he can barely breathe.
Ironically, he stepped outside to get some fresh air. The joke tugs at the corner of his mouth, but it does nothing for his overall mood. He'd been clinging to Halamshiral, working towards it. It had been close enough to focus on, urgent enough to push aside all other thoughts and now it was gone.
Their next steps were unclear, and all in all they had a moment to slow down. Good thing, one would think. Only Dorian half-wishes Corypheus would come marching up with what was left of his Demon army. Anything, that would put their trip back towards Skyhold, towards lonely days in the library and crowded evenings in the tavern off, if only for a few days.
Someone cleared their throat behind him.
Cullen.
Andraste's tits.
Dorian himself wasn't sure what prompted the blasphemy – the cruelty of fate of him showing up here if the fact that the sight of him warmed Dorian's heart. Both were equally worthy of the curse. There was also the fact that the man looked good enough to eat.
“Her Worship said to be ready for departure.” Cullen says. His shoulders are raised under the bright red fabric of his uniform, his posture is tense.
“I'll be there in a moment.” Dorian replies, turning to watch the sunrise again. He listens for heavy footsteps leaving, but they never come. Instead, there's the awkward shuffle of heels over tiles.
He peers over his shoulders and sees the Commander approaching – carefully, like Dorian was a young deer. It's quite ridiculous, he would not run.
Not again, at least. Probably.
“I, ah – ” Cullen stutters, a few steps closer than he was. “I owe you an apology.”
Dorian frowns. “Were you the one who ate the last of those mini quiche then? They were quite formidable but someone emptied them while we were beating sense into those crooks. A tragedy.”
He could see the hint of a smile tugging on Cullen's lips. “No, but if you do root them out, I would like to have a word with them as well. But I meant – ” the man continues, stepping closer. No getting around it then, outside of leaping over the balustrade, Dorian thinks wryly. And only considers doing it briefly. “about what happened, a few days ago. The, you know.”
What an impossible man; it had been such a promising start and now? Ugh, Fereldans. Didn't they know the healthy approach to such matters was sweeping them under the rug and never speaking of them again.
“Ah.” Dorian says, raising his eyebrows, bracing himself for whatever came next.
“I know I overstepped, you've made it plain enough. Plain enough for me, even. I only want you to know it was not my intent. I misread the situation. Not that I want to make excuses, but I am not the most … experienced, when it comes to … ugh.” The blush already lingering on the Commander's cheeks blossoms and spreads and he rubs the back of his neck, refusing to meet Dorian's eyes.
“Don't trouble yourself with it.” Dorian says hastily. 'Please, just let it go.' is what he wants to add. 'Take me or leave me but don't prod at it.'
Cullen tenses, takes a step back again. “Alright, then I will, leave you to – uh.” He turns to leave, and by all that is holy, Dorian should let him.
But he has never been particularly good and sacrilege comes as easy as breathing.
“Did it help at least?” Dorian asks.
Cullen turns back to him again. “Beg your pardon?”
“The dancing lesson.” Dorian says with a smirk. Cullen's receding blush returns with a vengeance. “Did you woo a young pretty aristocrat or three?”
Cullen laughs nervously. “I am afraid with all that's been happening I've completely forgotten about dancing. Besides, I, uh, am not too partial to strangers with wandering hands.”
Dorian tuts, “So it was all a waste, then? Unless … ”
Cullen raises his eyebrows as Dorian extends his hand. Dorian tells himself that it's just getting back to their usual flirting, all casual.
It's just getting back to that. Oh, please could they get back to that.
Something twists the Commander's gentle face, as if Dorian had raised his hand in anger instead of invitation, making the man flinch.
It's not the worst reaction Dorian ever got to such a proposal, but it is by far the most devastating.
“There's even music this time.” Dorian says as the gentle violins from the orchestra drift outside.
Cullen smiles, while there is still deep lines etched into his forehead. “Indeed there is.” he admits, his eyes hazy.
Dorian almost sighs as Cullen takes his hand a moment later, and gingerly places his hand on Dorian's hip.
Their steps are slow, bumping into each other as their tired feet move over the tiles.
“I think you were better the first time.” Dorian teases.
“It's not your finest hour either.” Cullen replies, gloved hands resting gently on Dorian's back. Dorian acutely remembers the feel of bare fingers over his shirt and there are worlds between then and now.
“I suppose not.” Dorian says.
They quieten, and slow down, until they are merely swaying, foreheads gently touching.
As Dorian looks up, he can see the affection in Cullen's eyes and Dorian tilts his head.
Cullen lets go of his hand, takes a firm step back, pressing his arms at his side, rigid and nervous. “I – I should go. Th-Thank you. For indulging me.”
Steps hurry away and Dorian is alone in the vast garden.
He sighs. Oh Maker, he would have to really talk this through, wouldn't he?