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Trevelyan was dying, and Josephine knew it all too well.
The shooting pains in her marked hand only got worse as they embarked to the Exalted Council. For weeks before, once a day at the bare minimum, Trevelyan would keel over with an anguished cry in the middle of a war meeting, while trying to fall asleep, playing cards… Even without the dramatic contractions, Trevelyan’s face would contort in a wince often - multiple times an hour - though she refused to speak a word of discomfort or complaint.
It was terrifying to watch. That’s all anyone could do, really. She’d shout and scream, and her friends were powerless to help. Skyhold’s healers couldn’t do anything to numb the pain or stop the spread of the mark. Even Solas had only been semi-successful before he left.
The mark was killing her - that was clear. And it was going to happen soon.
---
“If I don’t make it through… Well, it’s been an honor to know you. I’m proud of you all, and I love you.”
Dorian was hit with the knowledge that Trevelyan’s speech before they entered the eluvian was a rehearsed goodbye, and he could just about kill her for it if she wasn’t already so close to death. She had wanted to speak with Solas alone, Maker knows why, so Sera, Thom, and himself hung back like the loyal companions they were. They were eavesdropping, naturally, though they could hardly be blamed. There were quiet voices, confused voices, and then loud, angry voices, but they still waited patiently for Trevelyan’s signal.
Then, a wrecked, terrified scream came from inside the temple room, and Dorian’s heart stopped. That was her. Somewhere in his peripheral, Dorian thought he registered Sera grabbing Thom’s hand in fear, but he wasn’t wasting time investigating. He checked his shoulder into the center of the double doors and bolted to the top of the ruins where another eluvian stood. When he made it to the top, he quickly darted around, trying to take in the scene, but neither Solas nor Trevelyan were waiting for him.
“Inquisitor?” Dorian called out, sounding embarrassingly frantic even to his own ears. Sera and Thom were close behind him, scaling the stairs two at a time and drawing their weapons. “Natasha! ”
“Dorian, what’s going-” Thom was interrupted by Sera yelping, dropping her bow, and running behind a rock.
“Inky! Hey, hey, it’s - it’s alright, it’s just - Fuck! ” Dorian and Thom were by her side in a second and - Andraste preserve them. Sera was kneeled over Trevelyan’s seizing body. Trevelyan was sickly pale and splayed out on her back. She was sweating profusely, her wild orange hair sticking to her face as she panted, each breath broken and ragged like it would be her last. Her daggers were thrown haphazardly around her, the left drenched in the thick, merlot blood that was pouring from where her elbow used to be. Trevelyan’s eyes were staring to the sky, unseeing, her only acknowledgement of their presence a weak, high-pitched moan.
Sera ripped off a piece of her plaidweave shirt and made quick work of tying it around Trevelyan’s arm, attempting the impossible task of doing so without hurting Trevelyan. Wiping her face with her wrist, Sera looked up at them, her face red, wet, and snotty.
“Help already! She’s in shock!” she demanded.
Thom jerked to attention beside him. “I’ll get the others - healers - keep her alive.” Ever the soldier, Thom ran off without another word.
Dorian knelt down, trying not to cry or throw up, and Sera shuffled out of the way. “I’m no healer, I don’t…”
Sera’s leggings were stained with blood from where she kneeled in the gore and her face was blotchy. How was he supposed to handle this? The makeshift tourniquet seemed to have done a small amount of help in stopping the blood, but her entire fucking arm was gone, and all Dorian could think about was that this was his best friend and he failed to protect her. How many times had she stepped between himself and a blade? Pulled him from the tavern when he couldn't see straight? Kept him sane, even when they were apart, by writing him letters and sending him thoughtful gifts? He had long since been in her debt, and he still couldn't defend her. He focused on a few basic healing spells he knew, but the best they could do was ease the pain minutely. That wouldn’t do anything to keep her from bleeding out.
“Nat?” Sera sniffled and reached out to hold her pale hand. Trevelyan’s eyes blinked shallowly, trying to focus on something that wasn’t there.
“...Josephine?” She croaked.
“No, it’s,” Sera sniffled and hugged her knees up to her chest, “it’s Sera. And Dorian. We’re… Thom’s getting help, ‘kay? You’ll be a’right.” Sera did her best to sound calm, but she then pressed her face in her knees to muffle her sobs.
“Mmm.” Trevelyan let out a half-hum, half-groan. “Dorian?”
“I’m here." Dorian tried to imagine this was any other wound on any other person. A patient or subject Alexius had brought to him to study, assess, and treat. Swallowing hard, he held a hand to her fevered forehead to brush the hair sticking to her skin out of her face. “Do you think we can move you? We need to get you back.”
“‘Back.'” Trevelyan laughed droopily, then winced. “‘m not goin’ back, Dori'n. There’s… there’s, mm, letters for you all. Under my... mattress.”
“No. No, Natasha, you’re going to be fine. Better than fine, actually. Top of your game!” Dorian cried, hysterical. Sera, who never showed anyone other than Trevelyan and Thom affection, dropped her head onto Dorian’s left shoulder and quietly wracked with sobs.
“Yeah,” Trevelyan laughed again. “...Thank the Maker I cleaned my room.”
“What? Nat, can we move you?”
“‘Cause… When Josie has to get my things, she… she won’t be, like… ‘What a mess she was!’” Her eyelids fluttered disjointedly, and she groaned again.
“Keep those eyes open for me, Nat, okay?”
“...‘mkay, Dorian.” Dorian nodded towards Trevelyan’s feet, signalling Sera to take position there while Dorian kneeled at her head. He murmured a countdown to Sera, and they lifted Trevelyan as best they could. She cried out at the jostling. The injured arm hung limp at her side, dripping red grotesquely. Dorian’s arms were strong under her armpits, keeping her elevated while Sera held her by her leather boots.
“I don’t think we can do this,” Sera admitted.
“She’ll make it.”
“Her arm’s been shite for weeks, Dorian. This was coming.” Sera’s lower lip jutted and wobbled.
“Weeks?!” Sera and Dorian began to trek down the cobble stairs. “So, all this time I’ve been in Tevinter, my dearest friend has been dying and no one told me about it?!”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“‘m sorry,” Trevelyan heaved. Heavy guilt was setting over Dorian’s shoulders. She had all but begged Dorian to stay at Skyhold. “I’ll miss you," she’d said. If he’d known…
“I would have stayed. Natasha, I would have stayed,” he stumbled out. Tears were threatening to spill over, but they were almost to the nearest eluvian, if he could just keep it together for her…
“Didn’t wanna worry...” she slurred.
“We can’t take her through,” Sera said, staring at the watercolors of the eluvian’s light.
“Fuck. Fuck.” Dorian layed his eyes on a relatively flat rock just a few feet away from the entrance. “There.”
They set her down as gently as they could. She whimpered when her back made contact. There must’ve been some bruising around her ribs - perhaps even some broken - that he’d overlooked when attending to her arm.
“I love you,” Trevelyan whispered to the empty sky above her. “Leliana?”
“It’s Dorian and Sera, dear.”
“I need… Sol’s, Solas is Fen’Harel. He’s trying to tear down the veil. Tell Leliana, please.”
“Andraste’s balls.”
“Yeah,” Trevelyan giggled. She blinked, her eyes glassy, and sobered. “Shit. I was told I would live.”
“You will,” Dorian protested. Sera’s eyes were still on the eluvian.
“They told me to believe. ‘Andraste watches over you’. Nugshit.”
“Natasha.” Dorian cradled her face in his hands and willed the tears not to come as he leaned over her. “Natasha…”
“It’s okay, Dorian... Don’ cry,” she soothed.
“You're - You'll be alright, my friend.”
“Natasha!” Josephine burst through the eluvian and ran to Trevelyan’s side. She was already as teary-eyed as Sera. Behind her came Vivienne, Divine Victoria, and Thom. “Oh, Maker’s breath! Natasha, can you hear me?”
A smile stretched across Trevelyan’s blearly face. She reached up towards Josephine, who shushed her gently. “Josie…” Vivienne began casting spells over Trevelyan’s pale body while Leliana started digging through a pack and pulling out various potions. Josephine took Trevelyan’s remaining hand in hers and kissed her palm.
Dorian was utterly useless. He stepped back to let Josephine take his place and watched as the rest of their team filtered in with equally grave expressions; Cullen, Varric, Cole, Cassandra, and Bull were dressed in their Inquisition armor, battle-ready, but all they did was stand and stare. The only dry eyes were Bull’s and Vivienne’s, both hyper-focused on her convulsing figure. A selfish part of Dorian wished Bull would reach out and hold his hand.
Why did he let Trevelyan talk him into staying sober, again? All he wanted to do was make himself busy by pouring himself a glass of the hardest stuff in the local tavern, not stand here and watch the light leave his friend's eyes.
“Blinding, burning, betrayed. I should have known. Dripping, dying… Andraste looks a lot like Josephine. They’ll never know how I stared at the dark.”
“Cole,” Cassandra bit out, silencing the boy.
“It hurts,” he whispered to the air.
“We know she’s hurt, kid.” Varric put his arm around Cole’s waist to comfort him.
“Not her.”
That stunted the talking, leaving bottles clinking and Trevelyan murmuring nonsense to Josephine to fill the hazy air.
“Hold her,” Vivienne commanded. Josephine placed her hands filmly atop her lover's shoulders, and Vivienne held hers over Trevelyan’s amputation. Green light swam from her hands to the wound, making Trevelyan wail and try to squirm away. Josephine’s damp face was contorted in pain, but she bravely held a stern grip.
“Stop, stop!” Trevelyan pleaded. Sera, who had been sitting at her side, apparently couldn’t stand it any longer. She jumped up and hurried to embrace Thom, shaking her head as though to knock the memory from her vision.
“She can’t take it any longer!” Cullen insisted.
Leliana shot him a glare. “She could be concussed!”
“She’s hurting!” Sera yelped back.
“She has to be up. If they knock her out, she might not wake up,” Bull growled. That was it. Maker, she was truly dying. Dorian’s legs gave out and he fell to his knees. He felt the heavy weight of Bull’s large hand on his shoulder.
“Let the blade pass through the flesh, let my blood touch the ground, let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice." Another wail broke in her throat, and she repeated more urgently, "Let mine be the last sacrifice."
“Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls. From these emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies eternity,” Divine Victoria answered back.
Trevelyan nodded, and her body fell limp. Josephine kissed her forehead.
“No. No,” Dorian sobbed.
“Maker preserve us,” Cullen choked out.
“She’s still breathing,” Vivienne announced quickly. “The bleeding stopped, and her ribs are healing. We need to take her back.”
“Will she live?” Leliana and Vivienne looked at Josephine, pain in their eyes.
“Bull, take her,” Leliana responded instead. The Iron Bull was at Trevelyan’s side in an instant. Leliana peeled a trembling Josephine away from her body and pulled her aside, speaking softly. Despite his looming form, Bull lifted Trevelyan with grace and great care.
It wasn’t just Josephine and Dorian who felt as though their worlds were coming to an end. She was all of their Herald, their Inquisitor, their friend. Trevelyan called them a family often, though typically it was while complaining about something. Dorian recalled a time where Cullen and Cassandra had sternly lectured her on pulling her daggers out in front of esteemed guests at dinners, even if it was just to show them how "pretty" the handle was. “I hate this fuckin’ family," she’d answered, rolling her eyes playfully.
There were times, though, when she called them family with tears in her eyes, sappy from drink, or with fierce determination to prove to them she meant it. Dorian had been on the receiving end of that too many times to count. He always brushed it off with an awkward, half-hearted joke, not knowing how to respond to such sincerity. Trevelyan always let him change the subject with a knowing smile. He should have said it back. He should have given that to her as freely as she had given it to him. Both estranged from their blood relatives, yet Trevelyan picked him as replacement easily.
Dorian was frozen in past memories as Bull exited through the eluvian, the rest of their team following him solemnly until all that remained were himself and Josephine.
“You need to be with her. She needs you.” Dorian’s voice was thin and shaky.
“I would just be in the way.”
“Right.” Dorian squeezed his eyes shut. Soft sounds of shuffling silk and heels against stone made their way to his side until Josephine laced her blood-stained fingers with his. Trevelyan loved holding hands with anyone, whether it was Josephine under the table at breakfast, or any of their companions walking about in the wilderness. She’d grab Dorian’s hand and swing their arms excitedly as they journeyed to Redcliffe Village or some outpost in the Emerald Graves. Dorian hung his head. “I would have stayed, if I only knew… Two years of barely seeing her, and...”
“I’d wager that is why she didn’t tell you. You know her. She does not want anyone worrying about her.” Josephine squeezed his hand. “She wouldn’t let anyone bring the mark up, either. It was infuriating.”
“I’m going back to Tevinter. For good,” he said. “She found out today, and she… asked to come with me. As if she could. Could you imagine? A Magister, his Qunari lover, the Inquisitor, and an Antivan bard, parading around my homeland? It sounds like the start of a very bad joke.”
“She always hated when you were gone,” Josephine said softly. “No wonder she looked so miserable in our meeting earlier…”
“Naturally.” Dorian didn’t have the energy to land his quips, but he wasn’t sure what else to say. Sorry the love of your life might die? “‘They’ll never know how I stared at the dark’... What did that mean?”
Josephine wiped her cheeks and sniffed. “I’m not sure. We’ll have to ask Cole.”
What a miserable conversation that would be. Dorian would much prefer to have it with Trevelyan herself. Well, he’d prefer to have most conversations with her over anyone else, save for Bull. Even then, it was murky.
“Will you still go back? To Tevinter?” Josephine’s voice wobbled.
“Not for a little bit, at least, if…” Dorian shook his head. “Yes, I will. Tevinter needs me.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Dorian could see Josephine’s shoulders shaking. For the first time, he turned and made eye contact with his friend. She looked as broken as he’d assumed. Her eyes were bloodshot, and as tears were still flowing freely down her face, her lips were pulled in a tight, warbling line.
“I don’t know what to do,” Josephine admitted. She took a heaving breath. “I… I don’t know what to do. There is nothing for me without her. The Inquisition, our… our future family… I bought us a cottage east of Val Royeaux, close to Skyhold for work and Tevinter for her, where we could - could be safe, and happy -” Josephine cut herself off with a debilitating sob and clutched onto Dorian’s forearm with the hand not already on him. Dorian supported her weight, even though he felt like crumbling, too.
“Josephine…”
“What am I supposed to do without you?!”
Dorian wasn’t sure if she meant Trevelyan or himself. It didn’t occur to him that Josephine considered his absence a loss, too. Maker, when did this become his family? That was just a nice, flowery word Trevelyan used, but it was true all along. What connected Josephine to Dorian was one woman adored by them both, but without her was still Josephine and Dorian. They were still family.
Dorian pulled Josephine into his chest and wept.
---
It wasn’t Vivienne, or Leliana, or even a Council healer in Trevelyan’s room when Dorian and Josephine pulled themselves together enough to see her. The halls of the Winter Palace were deathly silent, with all talks presumably halted due to the Inquisitor’s state.
It was the Iron Bull that was sitting at her bedside. His face was coldly neutral as he stared at her, the way he looked when someone said something particularly nasty about Dorian or another member of their party. Initially, it had frightened Dorian to see his Ben-Hassarath instincts come out, but now he knew well enough that it was just his lover being protective. Bull didn’t glance up at Dorian and Josephine when they entered, but he certainly noticed.
Trevelyan looked better than she had when Sera found her, but that didn’t mean much. The blood was wiped off her pale skin though still matted in her hair. She’d been stripped to her underclothes and covered in blankets, hiding her from the neck down - arm included. She was terribly still.
A small desk sat next to her bed, covered in cookies, cards, a crude drawing of Solas, Crystal Grace, and for some reason, ballet slippers. Cole, probably.
“Is she alive?” Josephine asked. Bull looked up at that.
“Leliana didn’t find you?” Dorian’s heart froze in his chest. “She’s okay. The healers stepped out to refill supplies at the apothecary in town.”
She’s okay. She’s okay. She’s okay.
“Truly? She… she will live?” Josephine sounded as doubtful as Dorian felt, though it must have been worse for her. She’d been mourning Trevelyan for weeks already, to think she could live must seem impossible.
“Yes.” Bull took Dorian’s hand and pulled him to the seat to his left. “How’re you doin’, Kadan?”
Dorian tried for a laugh, but it sounded like he choked. “Oh, I’ve had better days.”
“Thank you for waiting with her,” Josephine said, stepping tentatively to her side and brushing her thumb over Trevelyan’s cheekbone.
“Didn’t let her outta my sight.”
Bull and Trevelyan were a pair, too. With Dorian often away from Skyhold and Josephine busy until late at night, they’d spent hours in the tavern, drinking themselves into a stupor and, well, bonding. Dorian got many letters from them both recalling the same story about whatever wild adventure they’d gotten up to in their partners’ absence.
Were Josephine and Bull secretly the best of friends, too?
At some point while Dorian wasn’t looking, their lives had weaved together wholly and completely.
“Maybe… maybe you could come to Tevinter with me, after all,” Dorian murmured into Bull’s ear.
“You think so, big guy?” Dorian could hear Bull’s grin and resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“A trial run. Things get too hairy for you, then I know a quaint little cottage nearby for you to stay,” Dorian finished with a wink to Josephine.
“Shh! I haven’t told Natasha yet!” Josephine flushed pink. “I can’t believe she’s really alive. She’s alive .”
“It doesn’t feel real, does it?”
“Nah, I knew she’d be alright. She’s a fighter,” Bull decided, then kissed Dorian’s temple. Dorian leaned into the touch of intimacy. He’d missed him. He’d missed all of them.
“She fights for others, not for herself,” Josephine whispered. Bull frowned, but said nothing, probably recognizing she was correct.
“...fight you…” Trevelyan murmured. Bull and Dorian shot out of their seats to reach her side.
“Natasha? Are you alright, my lady?” Josephine cupped Trevelyan’s face gently.
“I’ll fight you, Cassie… Gimme…” Dorian couldn’t keep himself from snorting at her babbling nonsense, though he seemed to be the only one that found it amusing.
“Inquisitor?” Divine Victoria slinked into the room, holding elfroot potions in her left hand. “She is waking?”
“Something of the sort. It seems our lovely Inquisitor is dream-quarrelling with Cassandra, for the moment,” Dorian laughed. Leliana smirked and set the healing draughts on one of Sera’s lovely drawings.
“At least her spirits are up,” she giggled. Josephine huffed and dropped her hands.
“Maker, I’m sick of this waiting!” she complained. An eventful day, clearly, if Josephine was openly frustrated. Ever the master of dramatic timing, Trevelyan chose that moment to groan and blink her bright eyes open.
“‘The fuck happened?” Trevelyan moved to sit up but moaned at the movement and flopped back down on the cot. “And why does it feel like a giant stepped on me?”
“Of course you’re already joking about this,” Josephine lamented. She stroked her thumb over her cheekbone lovingly.
“Joking about…” Trevelyan’s face fell. She dropped her eyes from Josephine to where her arm laid under her wool blanket. With a nervous swallow, she lifted her left arm slowly until she saw the shape of what was left there, then closed her eyes and relaxed her muscles down again. “Fuck.”
No one had a response ready for that. What could they say to comfort her? None of them could relate to this loss, save perhaps for Bull and his eye, but coupled with such a betrayal was beyond any of their reach.
“Fuck,” she repeated. “Solas is… I thought I was dead.”
The room somehow got even quieter, the clinking of Leliana’s bottles stilling as the words sunk in.
“You didn’t tell me you were dying,” Dorian spoke before he could stop himself.
Trevelyan blinked her eyes open at him, equally mournful and fiery with anger. “How could I? You might’ve come back, abandoned your duties in Tevinter, to… what? Count down the days until my death? I wouldn’t have that for you.”
“That wasn’t your decision,” Dorian spat. Now that the fear for his dearest friend had faded, beyond the surface relief was a rising resentment for her actions. “You don’t get to withhold information because you might not like what I might do!”
“It was my decision! I was dying, Dorian! Who I got to tell was the only control I had!” She sniffled, and Dorian felt immediate regret pierce his heart.
“You’d deny me final moments with my best friend because you don’t want to worry me?”
Her gaze on him was steady. “Yes.”
“But you wouldn’t talk about it with anyone else, either.” Dorian crossed his arms over his chest as she stiffened. He needed to be sure she wouldn’t do this to him again.
“That's enough,” Josephine asserted. “She just woke up. Let us talk about this another time.”
“Agreed,” grunted Bull. “It’s good to have you back, boss.”
“Yes,” Trevelyan said, her sad eyes still trained on Dorian, “I’m glad to see you, too.”
---
Despite their brief argument, Dorian remained at Trevelyan’s side the rest of the day. They sat in a tense silence as others came and went to say hello and kiss her cheeks. She played cards with Varric, cried with Cole, and ate with Josephine for meals, all the while Dorian sat and watched like some bored and underpaid guard treating his wards like they were a show.
It wasn’t until hours later, the lanterns dimmed and Josephine asleep at Trevelyan’s side, that their mutual silent treatment had to come to an end.
“I would rather be by your side as you die than hear about it in a letter from Josephine a week later,” he announced softly. It was hard to make out Trevelyan’s shape, but he heard her shift under her sheets.
“I wanted to postpone your suffering as long as possible. And I didn’t want you to stop your important work because you felt like you had to.”
It made sense, he supposed. He didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but he might have done the same thing in her shoes.
Well,” he cleared his throat, “the next time dark magic is eating your hand alive, you let me know. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” A smile was present in Trevelyan’s voice.
“Are you alright?”
“All right, indeed.” Trevelyan raised her right hand and waggled her fingers at him in the dark. Dorian gaped at her, and she snorted quietly at her own joke. “Sorry, I’ve been waiting for someone to ask that all day.”
“I pray for your sanity.” Dorian had trouble comprehending the woman in front of him. Maker's breath, did he love her. “Are you doing well ?”
“Eh… I didn’t think my heart would still be beating, so I can’t complain too much. But my arm… and Solas… I fear I’ve lost too much of myself to still be myself. Does that make sense? I don’t know who this Natasha is.”
“Whoever you want to be,” Dorian whispered.
Trevelyan hummed. “Whoever I want, huh? I’ll have to think about that.” Dorian rose from his seat and approached her cot. “Get some rest, Dorian. There’s a Bull waiting to snuggle you somewhere nearby.”
Dorian leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning, then. You stupidly brave woman.”
“I’ll be here. I promise.”