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Solas and Galahad are long talks in the icy Haven air, brief smiles, honest laughter. Their first real conversation is also the first time that Galahad looks at someone and thinks, maybe you are who I have been waiting for.
“Every war has its heroes,” Solas assures him. The elf speaks with gentle passion: the grace of a duke, the clever wit of a raconteur, and Galahad nearly falls for him right then and there, as Solas tips his head and smiles and says, “I wonder what kind you’ll be.”
Dorian and Galahad are tight-lipped disagreements, swallowed back sighs, fingers tightening into fists. Their first real conversation is also their first argument, and Galahad seethes for hours afterward, rehashing the quarrel in his mind— how can someone honestly believe that slavery is justified? That Tevinter can be saved? He does not entertain the idea that Dorian has never known better.
Galahad learns beautiful things, with Solas. The mysteries of his dreams, secrets of the Fade, aspects of his magic that the Templars had never allowed him to explore in the Circle. One afternoon Solas introduces him to a friend— a wisp of Patience— and Galahad lifts his arm and touches the spirit’s hand, palm to palm. “Incredible,” he says softly. He is not only talking about the spirit.
Galahad uses the word magister once, with Dorian, and is quickly berated. He grits his teeth while Dorian proclaims that there is a difference, that he is nothing like his counterparts. He suggests that the Tevinter Galahad knows is not the Tevinter that truly exists; Galahad suggests that Dorian has been blinded by privilege and decides, in the aftermath of Dorian's outrage, that it might be easier to simply keep his distance from the man.
But whenever he finds his way through Haven to speak to Solas, he can feel Dorian’s eyes, trained on his turned back. And every time he finishes his conversations with the elf, the altus is there, standing just a ways off with his arms crossed and his expression puzzling guarded. For all of his pomp and snark— too often, he lets Galahad pass him by without a word.
Too often, Galahad wishes that he would not.
---
With Galahad, Dorian says stupid things.
Things that he can see unsettle him. Things that he immediately wishes he could take back, turn over, rephrase— but Galahad makes him stumble. Makes him nervous. It’s not a feeling he necessarily enjoys but against his better judgment it’s a feeling he finds himself missing, when at last it fades.
The only two things that they have in common are being a mage, and wanting to free them, and apparently, with the way that Galahad looks straight through him, that is not enough.
The Trevelyan talks to Solas for hours, sometimes, his eyes shining in the light, crinkling just slightly at the corners when he smiles. Dorian has been in Haven for three weeks, and he has never been able to make him smile like that.
With Galahad, Dorian watches him fall in love with someone else, and then, tripping over his Maker-damned tongue, falls in love with him himself.
---
With Solas, Galahad learns what it is like to disappoint.
There is always something that he is not doing well enough, something he is not doing at all, someone he should have brought down the full weight of the court upon and has given a second chance to instead. Solas’s preaching and chastising wears on him, more often than he'd like— but these sorts of things are give and take.
That’s what people say, at least.
He has not had much experience with matters of the heart, in truth. Sex in the Circle was common, but love had always been a gateway to fear. The stakes were higher, with love. And Galahad has never been a betting man.
The safety of his new position grants him a freedom that he is not accustomed to. He no longer acknowledges Templars as his oppressors, and is no longer bound with the same restraints that had kept him from looking at anyone with more than a friendly eye— that is why he stumbles the way he does into Solas’s company, so eager and painfully hopeful. Solas brings him into the Fade as a companion and they walk there, together, close enough for their hands to brush. Galahad, learning to unlearn fear, convinces himself that it is not by accident.
Solas is fascinating, quick-witted. Galahad’s natural partner in every rising tension that threatens to swallow them whole.
Dorian is inscrutable in comparison.
Unfairly handsome.
But entirely inscrutable.
---
It has become painful, the impassive way Galahad looks at him. The burning ache in his chest in the face of it, the tightening of his throat— there are words there, crawling up into his mouth, sparking behind his teeth. Bits and pieces of truth and heart that he dares not say.
Galahad Trevelyan is probably the worst thing to happen to him since he reached Ferelden.
Give me another brain-addled Alexius! Maker, even time travel was easier, simpler.
Fire flares in his gut when he hears Solas laugh outright, his hand on Galahad’s shoulder— but jealousy is a nasty, unattractive little thing.
And so he swallows back ash and turns his head, instead.
---
Aneth ara, greetings, ma serannas, thank you, dareth shiral, goodbye. A halani, help, arla, home, vhenan, heart— Solas has taught him enough basic elvish to know how to string it together, as broken as it may be. He has to consult a few of the dusty tomes in the back of Haven’s map room to truly find the right words, but he is fairly confident that he has it right. He practices when he is alone, the foreign words strange and thick on his tongue.
And the next time that Solas guides him into the Fade, quiet lilt familiar and warm, Galahad stops him, fingers over his wrist.
He says, “Ma vhenan.”
Solas blinks. As if he hasn’t heard right, or perhaps as if he is hoping that he hasn’t. “Excuse me?”
“Ma vhenan,” Galahad repeats, heart thrumming like a frantic bird in his throat. “Ma’arlath—”
Solas goes very still.
“Ma’arlath,” Galahad says again, weaker, a question this time.
“You’re young,” Solas says softly, in the common tongue. “I wouldn’t expect you to know better. You don’t love me, Galahad.”
“Please,” says Galahad, swallowing hard. He does not know how to say it any other way.
Solas shakes his head. “Ir abelas, falon,” he murmurs, and Galahad wakes, then, grieved and alone.
---
Dorian does not get the chance to truly speak to him for a long while after he and the elf have their falling out.
He no longer makes his rounds to pass by the lodges that Solas and Dorian occupy. When Solas makes a point of greeting him, he bows his head and brushes past, words weighed and heavy. Their exchanges are brief if they occur at all, and although there doesn’t appear to be any outright spite between the two, whatever happened has reduced Galahad to a sharp-tongued bitter mess.
But Dorian hates to see him unhappy, whether he wants to admit it or not. And so at last he steels himself, and plucks up the courage to approach him.
They are out scavenging through Ferelden’s vast hills and valleys, drawing up vague maps for the newly recruited scouts that have trickled in through Haven's gates. Under normal circumstances, Galahad would have invited Solas, but since that is obviously out of the question—
“How much further?” Cassandra snaps as they carefully work their way down from the steep Hinterland cliffs. Dorian hasn’t quite worked out his exact stance on the Seeker, and judging from the narrowed eyes she enjoys regarding him with, the uneasiness is mutual. “I thought you said there was a river nearby— it seems to me that we passed by nearby quite some time ago.”
“Five minutes and you’ll be walking in it,” Galahad replies, just as irritable. “If you didn’t want to come, Cassandra, you could have just said so.”
The two had had an argument this morning, on religion, Dorian knows. Voices carry, in Haven, and so do rumors— which makes the unknown behind Galahad’s pain even more troubling.
When they reach the valley floor— the river gurgling happily past, to Cassandra’s begrudging pleasure— they slip their packs off and soak their tired, blistering feet in the cool water. Dorian wanders casually closer to Galahad. And when he’s sure that they’re far enough away from Cassandra to have some semblance of privacy, he clears his throat.
“Listen,” he begins, “I don’t mean to involve myself in matters that don’t concern me, but I like to think of myself as a particularly perceptive man. And I can’t help but notice that you’re—”
Galahad looks up at him from where he’s perched on the river's bank, his trousers rolled up halfway to his knees, his fingers stained with map ink, running one hand through his hair.
Dorian’s mind goes blank.
“That is,” he stammers, Galahad’s steady gaze rooting him where he stands. “Well, I mean, you’re…you know. You seem glum. Lately.”
He’d been a real charmer in Tevinter, he thinks sourly. When had he lost that charm? Damn the Free Marches and their handsome men. Damn Trevelyan’s pretty pale eyes.
“I appreciate your concern,” Galahad answers, turning his face out towards the water. “But you don’t need to worry yourself over me.”
What hole in the sky? What tattered homeland? The fire is back, burning hot in Dorian's chest, and he can’t stop the onslaught, the words that come blazing out— “It’s Solas, isn’t it?”
Galahad looks surprised. But he regains his composure quickly, recognition of the slip registering in his face, his jaw tightening. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, please. I would've had to be blind or stupid not to see the way you two carried on together.”
“I can’t say I know what you're talking about.”
Dorian watches the muscles work in his cheek. “No doubt. You did quarrel, then?”
“Whatever happened, I can promise that it won’t get in the way of the Inquisition’s work,” Galahad replies, and hear that, Dorian? That’s his polite way of saying ‘fuck off’.
“Did he hurt you?”
Galahad flinches, and Dorian stores away the stricken look on his face as something else he wishes he could take back.
Kaffas. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, feeling like an ass. “It’s none of my business, is it.”
But Galahad stops him, a hand on his arm. “No,” he says quickly, his voice hollow. “It’s not his fault. I thought I was in love with him, that's all. I thought I was in love with him, and he was kind enough to correct me.”
Dorian wants to breathe breathless laughter into Galahad’s tired, downturned mouth. To cradle Galahad’s face in his hands, to kiss the sadness off the lids of his eyes, to tell him that anyone who turns him away must be absolutely mad.
“That’s a strange concept of kindness,” he says, instead.
And Galahad smiles.
---
With Solas, Galahad learns to forget.
He stops avoiding him. He does not apologize— after all, what is there to apologize for— and neither does Solas. They no longer walk in the Fade together, and it is more difficult, sharing those intimate moments of magic, sharing theories. But it becomes easier, knowing that Dorian will be waiting for him in the tavern nearby with two tall mugs of West Hill brandy, and an endless supply of grapevine gossip.
Because with Dorian, Galahad learns to start over.
They have more in common than he had assumed. Their views on religion, he is surprised to learn, are more or less aligned the same. They of course agree on the terms of mage freedom, and share a strong disdain for Orlais— Dorian is less enthralled with the exploration of the Fade than Galahad, but even he admits that he has been silently curious on a number of subjects of Solas's studies.
Dorian is funny, too, past his childish retorts and quick temper. He makes Galahad laugh until his stomach aches, and makes him smile until he bursts into laughter again. He makes him feel truly young, the kind of careless youth that he’d lost in the Circle. There is a whole different side to Dorian that Galahad has never bothered to tap into. There is a whole different side to himself that Dorian brings out in him.
And he is just beginning to realize how harshly he has misjudged the altus when everything they have built in Haven falls overnight, to Corypheus and his red Templar army.
His companions are swept out of sight and he is left on his own, without a staff, his mana draining fast, Corypheus and his winged monstrosity advancing before him. Out of options, he slices through the trebuchet's ropes and then he is falling— the icy ground roiling and crumbling beneath his feet, pitching him into black shadows, into darkness.
When he regains consciousness he crawls his way to the surface, but even then, he knows there is no hope. Every direction is a wall of white, whirl-winding feather-light snow into miniature twisters around him. He stumbles aimlessly through the cold, surging through snow banks as high as his waist, struggling past campfires long put out.
He is freezing, wet, shivering so violently that he can hardly keep himself upright. His vision wavers, then fades out. His body numbs, then drops.
They say that freezing to death is like falling asleep.
But when he next opens his eyes, it is not the black, endless void of what he has always pictured the afterlife to be that greets him, but sunlight. There are thick warm quilts tucked around him, and the distant voices of his advisors, floating through the camp…
And Dorian, kneeling beside him, snow in his hair and worry in his eyes, is the most beautiful thing that Galahad has ever laid eyes on, in the relief and rush of survival.
He blinks up at him.
The altus begins to weep.
“Dorian,” Galahad says, rasping out his name, wincing in pain as he moves to sit up. His throat is still raw and he raises a weak, flailing hand; Dorian understands the gesture and grasps it firmly in his own. “What’s the Tevinter word for friend?”
“Amicus,” Dorian tells him, squeezing his fingers.
Galahad smiles. “Gratia, amicus,” he replies. “It is— Maker. It is so good, to see you.”
“Proterruisti me,” Dorian whispers, smiling, but his voice is trembling, tears still rolling down his cheeks. “Clarissima lux mea, te amo, carissimi cor—”
Galahad does not know enough of the Imperium's vernacular to understand the translation of Dorian’s words. And Galahad has not had much experience with matters of the heart, in truth, because the stakes are always higher, with love, and he has never been a betting man—
Not before now, anyhow.
He brushes Dorian's wet cheek with the back of his free hand, still clutching tight to Dorian's wrist with the other.
He pulls him in and kisses him.
Dorian goes deathly still. Tense, at first, but he unravels, bit-by-bit, when Galahad’s fingers slip into his hair. A moment more and he is rising up onto his knees with his arms around Galahad's neck, his lips parting, gasping into Galahad's mouth. Even when Galahad draws back for breath, Dorian stays close, like he is afraid to let go.
“Galahad,” he says.
"Stay with me?" Galahad asks, achingly hopeful.
“Of course,” Dorian whispers, pressing their foreheads together. “In aeternum.” And then they are kissing again, slow and sweet, and with Dorian, Galahad doesn’t have to wonder if it's him, is it you, the one I've been waiting for?
He already knows that it is.