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Dorian is stirred awake by a cry that echoes throughout his small shared tent. He immediately knows who the cry belongs to as he sees the faint writhing of the bedroll beside him. He quickly lights their lantern, which shines it on the Inquisitor who is tossing and turning in his disturbed state.
The Altus quickly realizes Matthieu is having a nightmare, and a rather frightening one at that. He fumbles in the dark over to Matthieu’s side. Upon closer inspection, the mage’s forehead is beaded with sweat and jumbled words can barely be made out. Dorian decides it is probably best to wake him, as he gently tries to shake Matthieu awake. At first it doesn’t help, he applies more force and allows magic to pool to his hands, applying thermal pressure as well to rouse him awake.
Soon after, Matthieu’s eyelids dart open as he looks up at Dorian in confusion. He looks around the tent and groggily mumbles, “Dor’, Where’s Flor’ and ‘Lena? Why are we here?”
“You were having a dreadful nightmare, but you’re safe now,” Dorian offers, hoping it’ll help the mage find some sense of clarity. The diminutive is a bit of a shock altogether, considering the only time Matthieu affectionately refers to him as such is when he’s heavily inebriated off a single glass of wine. He’s probably just tired, it doesn’t have to mean any more than that. As to the other too, he can all but assume they are some women or another he was dreaming of, not that that mattered, especially not right now.
“And I’m the Black Divine,” Matthieu scoffs as he sits up in his bedroll, trying to steady his trembling frame. He’s investigating their cramped tent as if it were the ruins of a thaig, not noticing how Dorian picks up on every frightened twitch and nervous dart of the eyes.
The Altus is going to chastise himself for this in the morning, but he needs to let his guard down. Being charming and quippy will do neither of them any favors at the moment, right now he needs Matthieu to calm himself down.
“Nothing’s going to harm you, Inquis—” He offers, before stopping mid-sentence. He needs a friend right now, and maybe a familiar name, as opposed to the abhorred mantle would help, “Matt. At least not while I’m here, so would you enlighten me as to what’s troubling you?”
Matthieu raises his eyebrows at Dorian in complete disbelief. Out of the corner of his eye, Dorian noticed Matthieu’s fists shaking at his sides at a quicker pace, as if he’s going to set the place alight. Matthieu’s breath is hurried as if his heart is beating so hard it could fall from his chest. Inconsolably, the blonde shakes his head, hair madly flouncing, and spits out, “This isn’t like you.”
He doesn’t know where this visceral reaction is coming from, and he searches every corner in his brain for ways to calm the Free Marcher down. He’s only slightly offended by the fact that helping Matthieu is eliciting such a reaction from the man, considering the Tevinter spends most of combat shielding the reckless thing and the rest of it on the mage’s aftercare. Matthieu had smiled at him last time that Dorian bandaged him, so maybe, touch? Yes, touch would ground him.
He tentatively takes Matthieu’s hands into his, one after another, and looks into the man’s frightened blue eyes. He scolds the Inquisitor with a small smirk, “Now, is that how you thank someone for trying to help you?”
The mage stares at him like a frightened halla for a moment and is glass in Dorian’s hands. He could but whisper and the current would be enough to topple Matthieu over. He gently squeezes the man’s shaking hands to calm them and offers a small smile usually reserved for musing about the man across from him in private. Anything to try and calm him now. Maker, please.
But it isn’t enough, as the soft eyes before him start to harden as tears begin to well up in the ducts. The momentarily steady hands begin to shake once more in a renewed vigor. In a flurry their prolonged eye contact is broken as the mage tears his hands from Dorian and wraps his arms around himself in defense.
Dorian moves to extend a hand towards Matthieu, unsure of what he did to scare him off. But when he does, it’s quickly swatted away with a glare that could pierce one’s soul deeper than any of Sera’s arrows.
“This isn’t funny, Dor’,” the blonde hatefully chokes out, wiping the first tear that falls with his sleeve frantically. Matthieu begins to shudder under the weight of whatever is befalling that enigma of a man, and he feels completely helpless. It scandalizes himself to think this, but he’s genuinely concerned for the man before him. He had borne witness to his flare-ups but never a breakdown. Never this.
He doesn’t know how to comfort people, nobody he cared for ever stuck around long enough for him to have the need to provide such a service. And they’re alone in camp with Blackwall and Sera, neither of whom would be apt to deal with this. Cole is a country away and he cannot do anything to make Matthieu feel less alone without repulsing him.
“ Fasta Vass, I’m not trying to humor you,” Dorian urges in frustration. He would normally notice the hint of desperation that colored his phrase, admonish himself for being so vulnerable, and pray it isn’t too telling. However, it’s about Matthieu, right now. Frightened, scared, little Matthieu.
He wonders if this is what he would have looked like when he had written that letter. Dorian couldn’t help him then, but he could know if Matthieu would allow it. Dorian softens his tone as he unceremoniously chokes out, “I’m worried about you.”
“Just stop this sick joke,” Matthieu beseeches through a rainfall of tears to stain the ground below them. The words fall from his trembling lips like a prayer and are followed by a desperate, “ Please. ”
“Then let me in,” Dorian of House Pavus, who prides himself on never being one to beg, begs. Maker take his blighted pride right now, just let him help.
For a moment, that glimmer of calm that washes across Matthieu’s fractures returns, but it is followed by the same gestures. The inconsolable nodding. The lip biting. The trembling chest. All of it. He’s shaking off Dorian’s prayer like a worn robe and throwing that vulnerability back in his face.
Dorian knew Matthieu had been hiding things, that they would never be as close as they once were. But this is not how he wanted to rekindle things and is the last thing he would expect from the spitfire. There was no flame here, only ashes of a man broken beyond all repair. And he didn’t know it, he didn’t expect it. He’s drawn from his thoughts by a bitter laugh that ripples throughout their tent. Matthieu shakes his head violently, “ Kaffas. You know you aren’t Hope anymore,”
This takes Dorian aback. It’s such a bizarre comment. What in the Maker’s name does hope have to do with any of this? “I beg your pardon?”
Each second in this conversation confuses him more than the last as the irrationality of this situation makes a mess of itself. Dorian goes rigid as he hears the blonde take in a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. He looks back at the Altus, biting back tears and trying to muster up a fraction of composure. He begs, “Just let me talk to Klaus tonight, instead?” And Dorian just sits, staring at the Free Marcher in shock.
Klaus is dead. Klaus has been dead for four years now. He was at the funeral and even grazed his fingers over the casket, which held fragments of what were a person found in the debris of Kirkwall. He is sure that most of it wasn’t Klaus, but it didn’t matter to the family, they could delude themselves into believing so. He even gave his condolences to Matthieu’s siblings, there is no way Klaus is alive. What is he going on about?
“Fine. Be that way, ” Matthieu says as he fitfully crosses his arms at the Altus spitting out, “I’m ignoring you and your perfect little imitation of him.”
As the mage says this, he circles his pointer finger at Dorian, as if talking to somebody who isn’t there. Imitation of what? This feels like a cruel joke, but he knows Matthieu better than this. The man tends to fall to pieces whenever he feels he’s hurt someone. The Inquisitor is acting crazed for some reason, but this is not normal behavior by any means. He needs to know what’s going on, but all he can muster is a “What?”
“If you do pull this again I’m killing you in the Fade myself? Got it? ” Matthieu growls out before turning away from Dorian as he tries to get back into his bedroll. Under his breath, he mumbles, “Maker-forsaken Demons,” before trying to fall back asleep.
Wait. He thinks he’s in the Fade? Oh.
There were rumors, no doubt, about the Inquisitor’s strange habits and even stranger bedfellows. When Matthieu and Cole spoke in camp there were mentions of Demons? Hope is a Spirit though, unless it corrupts into— Fenhedis.
Matthieu thought he was a Despair Demon he dreamt up. Matthieu not only thought he was a Demon, but named one after the Free Marcher’s childhood diminutive for him. A Demon who apparently was to be admonished for the Altus showing any semblance of care towards the Inquisitor.
If the other mage wasn’t soundly sleeping for what seemed like the only moment this evening, he would have burst out in the hollow laughter sitting in the pit of his gut. After all this time? This is what Matthieu thinks of him. A corrupting force trying to drive him to end things by his own hand. Oh, this is just rich.
He cannot even begin to process this information, the more he thinks about it, the more his insides writhe as much as Matthieu did in his bedroll before Dorian woke him. It is too much to even bear as the few answers he received left nothing but questions in his mind: Questions about Matthieu’s Demons who he talked with like friends. Questions about Matthieu’s ever-challenging reality. Questions about how much his adolescent self hurt Matthieu all those years ago.
This plagues Dorian and he doesn’t sleep much, there’s no way he could. All he can do is nurse their lantern and watch Matthieu, praying nothing comes to haunt him again. Seconds become minutes that become hours, until his eyelids become too heavy for him to continue and he is lulled into a thankfully dreamless sleep.
In the morning, things are silent between them for awhile. Dorian just watches the Free Marcher’s move, looking for any indication of something being the matter with him. But there’s no trembles or sighs or tears? Matthieu is acting completely normal, as if he didn’t confuse Dorian for a Demon in the dead of night while the Altus poured out his heart to help.
As he sits, waiting for Sera and Blackwall to finish their preparations, Dorian feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks up to see Matthieu eyeing him with an amused look on his face, “You’re not lecturing me this morning and I know my hair is a mess.”
Of course, he isn’t lecturing Matt. He’s frightened to say a thing after what he witnessed last night and what he has gathered from the messy and disturbed fragments of Matthieu’s fever dream turned reality. However, the blonde seems to remember none of it. The Inquisitor just plops down ridiculously next to him and grins, “Did you not get enough beauty sleep again?”
Matthieu definitely thought it was all a dream then. He supposed it’s best they keep it that way, Matthieu might go back to hating him after realizing what Dorian coaxed out of him. It would just be another unsavory secret of his, kept behind lock and key.
Dorian dons the mask he has come to know so well and composes himself, “I slept very well, thank you for asking,” Matthieu raises an eyebrow at him and Dorian scoffs, “And if you want a lecture I’m more than happy to indulge you.”
Matthieu lets out a laugh with enough levity to shatter the Altus. How is this the same man? How is this the man who fitfully cried, begged on his knees, and hatefully pushed him away. It’s as if he’s two different people and this is just Matthieu’s own mask. It reminds him of himself. He hates it.
Matthieu nonchalantly lays back in grass to admire the sky overhead, “Please do. If you didn’t, I would suspect something is wrong.”
Fenhedis, everything is wrong . He had gotten so much of it so wrong and he wants to say, ‘I’m sorry for everything I have ever done to wrong you.’ He wants to say, ‘I will protect you with all that I am.’ He wants to say, ‘I miss you more than words can say.’
However, all he says is, “For starters, your robes are looking rather disheveled today.”