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Dorian laughed as Alex stumbled into his quarters. The door being that near the stairs was difficult to navigate when sober. Tipsy and nearly drunk as they were, the difficult construction of Skyhold posed new challenges.
Orlais had been interesting. Trying. Amusing. Insane. It had been difficult to enjoy the party both before and after the scandalous events of the night. A deep plot to assassinate the Empress, a Civil War to manage, and a bitter break up to boot. Never let it be said Orlais was boring. But even at a ball it wasn't exactly that easy to let loose, to enjoy their time spent in style and class. The revelry that followed Alexander's "performance" with Lady Florianne wasn't really met the same way by the Inquisition members as it was the other nobility, and by the time they all returned to Skyhold, they were drained.
But Varric insisted on a night out. Or in, as it were. And a couple games of wicked grace.
Now, full of fine Brandy and some less-fine ale, with Alexander's pockets now sadly empty, Dorian and Alex stumbled their way up the stairs and into the darkness of the Inquisitor's quarters.
"Who would have thought such a hulking mass would be such a light weight!" Dorian groaned as he struggled to pull Alex to his feet. The poor lad kept stumbling on every other step leading up into his room. "I honestly never would have kept filling your glass if I'd known," Dorian said as Alex continued to chuckle with each stumble. It made Dorian chuckle every time as well, though he'd never admit it.
"You said it was like practice," Alex argued, still struggling up the steps with Dorian laughing at his side. "I'm practicing."
"You're not going to get better at drinking if you fill yourself up with it every now and then," Dorian said, almost hauling Alex up the last little stair. It was a little too difficult for him too to get up the stony steps. "That would be like training hard only once a week, never improving."
"I'm improving," Alex said as they got to the top at last. He wobbled as he stood before Dorian, smirking like a fool. It was horribly endearing, and Dorian was smiling back. "I was building tolerance."
"You were building a nasty morning," Dorian told him, his own head swimming slightly with the drink he'd consumed himself.
Alex grinned and stepped forward, reaching out with his hand and resting it on Dorian's hip. It was both for support, as well as for romance. "Perhaps we can build a good night then," he purred, though his words were choppy and slurred.
"I think perhaps The Inquisitor needs to sleep it off," Dorian mused, but he would be lying if that hand on his hip wasn't painfully alluring. Drink always made Dorian's flirty behaviour five times worse, and increased his already active sex drive by ten. All he needed was Alex's hand on his body, basically anywhere, to make Dorian weak at the knees. But he kept himself upright and grinning, trying to at least give the impression of a responsible man.
Alex didn't make it easy. He stepped even closer and put his lips to Dorian's neck, stumbling a bit against Dorian but holding him tight. "Take off your clothes," he breathed into Dorian's skin, and Dorian sighed against all better judgement and closed his eyes. He wasn't a fan of drunken escapades, even though he'd had them, but with Alex it wasn't a one-night-stand. It was so much more, and in the slightly drunken state he was in, Dorian had no complaints.
He reached up and wrapped his arms around Alex, relishing the way the other man's lips felt on his hot skin, and he pushed them back lightly towards the wall. But Alex's foot caught, and he stumbled back with a gasp, catching himself on the wall and laughing like an idiot. Dorian's fire immediately went out, but he smiled and chuckled too. "Alright, I think bed is calling," Dorian said. "I think sleeping is all that is going to happen in there tonight."
He moved forward and took Alex's arm, slinging it over his shoulder and dragging him over to bed. Alex protested, tugging at Dorian's belts and buckles, but when Dorian set him down Alex fell back easily. "Oh Dorian," Alex groaned as Dorian made his way around the bed. "Everything is spinning."
"Which way?" Dorian asked, using the footboard to keep himself steady.
"Um," Alex thought, "clockwise."
"Well, I'm spinning counter clockwise," Dorian joked. "Perhaps together, we're sober."
Alex laughed hard and it made Dorian smile. The poor lad would definitely hurt tomorrow morning, but for now he was enjoying himself. "I can't remember when I had that much fun," Alex said.
"You lost," Dorian told him.
"So?"
"Every game, Alex."
"So?" Alex said, propping up on his elbow with great difficulty. "It's the fun that counts, is it not? Isn't that all that matters?"
Dorian shook his head and chuckled. "Yes, Alexander. The fun is all that matters."
Alex reached back and took one of the pillows off the bed, throwing it with a surprising amount of accuracy at Dorian's face. It connected with a very satisfying thwump, and Alex burst into laughter. Dorian took the pillow off his face and shook his head. He looked at Alex, who was holding his side with laughter, and wondered how in the world he adored this massive idiot.
But then the urge took him and he whipped the pillow back at Alex. This served to make him laugh ever harder, grabbing the pillow and wiping a tear from his face. Alex finally sighed and slowed his breathing, shaking his head and chuckling every now and then as Dorian made his way to the edge of the bed. He sat down, smiling, trying not to laugh and show that he found it funny too. He always had to be the mature one, the one who held it together. Debonair and classy. Even if he was sloshed.
"This is nice," Alex finally said as the night grew still.
"What, being drunken idiots?" Dorian wondered.
Alex rolled his eyes. "The idiots part maybe. But I mean this." He gestured wildly between the two of them a moment. "Us. You and I. We never get to be this way. We never get to just...be. There's always something serious, there's always something to do or focus on. We never have fun."
Dorian grinned. "We have plenty of fun," he purred.
Alex smirked crookedly. "I do love that kind of fun," he agreed. "But I mean this kind of fun. Like...foolish fun. Stupid fun. I feel like a boy again."
Dorian guffawed. "Did you often get drunk as a child?"
"You know what I mean," Alex said, throwing the pillow back at Dorian. This time, he caught it expertly.
"I know what you mean," Dorian nodded. "But regardless, I wouldn't exactly say this is like boyhood to me. I didn't exactly have a picture perfect upbringing."
"It can't have been all bad," Alex scored.
"Childhood is very different in Tevinter, especially when you're of a high rank."
"We both grew up as nobility," Alex argued. "I know what that's like."
"You don't know how it's like when you're a mage," Dorian stated, and Alex seemed to concede. "It's not exactly very fun going from Circle to Circle, being thrown about to different tutors."
"Did you move a lot?" Alex asked blankly. "From place to place?" It almost made Dorian chuckle.
"No, we did not move," he said sadly. "I was just difficult. And often expelled. It's not an easy childhood for the only son of an important magical family."
Alex frowned, and Dorian realized he'd perhaps succeeded in sobering Alex up, but in a way he hadn't meant. "What was that like?" Alex asked. When Dorian instantly looked away, Alex pushed himself up and leaned back against the headboard. "Dorian, tell me. Talk to me."
Dorian was too drunk, too tired, and too enamoured to really think about why he still felt fear when it came to spilling his secrets. It definitely had something to do with the fact that he so rarely told anyone anything, but Alex had already pried him open like a particularly hard nut. Dorian had been tricky to crack, but Alex had a gift, and Dorian had a soft spot. Alexander, with his big heart and endless curiosity, had such a knack for weaselling things out of people that they wouldn't normally share. Even just by asking a question or pressing for an answer, Alex could get easy confessions.
And so Dorian sighed and didn't fight it. "I showed signs of magic early on," he explained, looking out the window across the mountains beyond. "Everyone was so proud, so ready to stroke my ego, and even some of my peers were jealous. It went to my head, as you can imagine, and because of my apparent knack I explored more complicated spells and incantations than I should have. When I was sent to a Circle, which is a privilege in Tevinter, I had no idea how to cast simple spells.
"It's what we were being trained to do," Dorian went on, "and I was horrible at it. It had never occurred to me in my hubris that there may be mages even better than I, and realizing this was a hard blow. I struggled with the most simple tasks, and suddenly this boy that everyone had been afraid of or jealous of, could do nothing. Even as I could do everything. But I'd skipped the simple steps and moved right on to the difficult tasks. I could do so much, and yet so little."
Alex reached forward, but he couldn't reach Dorian's hand as it pressed into the mattress. "You were told you were great all your life," Alex said, his meaning sincere though his words were a little slurred. "It must have been hard to realize other people could be great too."
"I should have realized I wasn't a gift," Dorian said with a slight snort. He looked back out the window distantly. "When I was nine years old, we started practicing duels. I was pitted against another magister's son, Colias. If I was talented with complicated spells, Colias was an expert at the simple. I struggled to keep his little sparks away from my clothes, keep his flames from licking my fingers, all the while trying to ignore the laughter I could hear around me. The snickers. There he is, the Pavus boy, an apparent prodigy unable to cast the simplest spell."
Alex could imagine a small Dorian, tanned skin, black hair, all gangly-limbed. It was sweet, and perhaps a little sad. Dorian had already mentioned once upon a time that he'd been a skinny boy, a little twig masquerading as a large tree trunk, and the imagery of him struggling against another mage made Alex feel pity. Pity he knew Dorian wouldn't like, but it was there all the same.
"Well I got angry, as you can imagine," Dorian continued bitterly. "In an instant, I was determined to win and prove my power. I shot ice at the boy, razor sharp and strong. I remember ripping through his barrier as the power left my body, watching as he struggled to fight off my attack. But one of the slivers caught his arm, and it dug into his flesh and stayed stuck there. I stopped, everyone was yelling at me, and I was terrified. I'd never hurt someone before, and I didn't know why I'd done it. The next day, I was expelled."
"That's not fair," Alex said with determination. "They were bullying you. You fought back."
"In a duel, it wasn't seen that way," Dorian explained.
"Bullies deserve what they get," Alex said, making Dorian turn to face him. There was a clear story there, and Dorian suddenly felt a foreign desire to hear it. "My mother took my brother and I to Orlais once when we were young. She wanted to visit a friend who also had two sons, similar to us in age. We stayed three days, and every day those boys taunted and tormented us. Tristan and I, we'd already been taught to fight, but these boys were raised to practice manners and etiquette instead of swordplay. They were better at harsh remarks and nasty comments that stuck with you for hours. But they still played, with little wooden versions of the real weapons Tristan and I handled.
"One afternoon, the oldest boy said something particularly nasty about something or other. I can't even remember. I just remember getting the bright idea to fight him with his little toys, knock him down a peg. I knocked him down harder than I planned, leaving a good size scar on his forehead. Needless to say, mother wasn't please." Alex chuckled as he finished his story, and Dorian laughed a little bitterly.
"Oh yes, that is very much like my constant pariah-status all through childhood," Dorian said.
Alex frowned. "I was trying to relate," he said, offended. "I thought we were sharing."
Dorian leaned forward and playfully patted Alex's cheek. "I know, you little fool."
Alex grabbed his hand and pulled him down to the bed in a heap, but Dorian didn't fight it. In fact, he felt just tired enough to accept the position of laying in Alex's bed. In the dark. As Alex snuggled closer, he had to admit that this was nice. It felt nice to just lay here with him, talking, staring into the darkness as it engulfed the massive fortress. Dorian could lay in his own bed and think through the night, or he could sit alone and read for hours and come out of it feeling a little empty. Dorian realized that this was the first time he'd been in bed like this with Alex, not sleeping together, but sleeping together. Even without talking, just sharing each other's presence, it felt nice.
"Can I ask you something else?" Alex wondered after Dorian thought he'd fallen asleep.
"I suppose," Dorian said groggily.
"Tell me about your first kiss," Alex asked. It was absolutely not what Dorian was expecting. "I imagine it was when you were a boy, as mine was."
"What was yours?" Dorian immediately asked.
Alex looked up with a smirk. "Ah. You first. I asked first."
Dorian sighed. "What a child."
"We're reliving childhood," Alex said. "It's appropriate. Tell me."
Dorian rolled his eyes, but the story seemed ready and waiting on his lips. He did like talking about himself, but Alex had a way of picking at the most secret, gentle stories Dorian had. But he found sharing with Alex was almost addictive. "It was with a servant," Dorian said.
"I'm shocked," Alex stated, mocking more surprise than necessary.
"Please have more faith in my disregard for societal hierarchies," Dorian said.
"I don't think I could even say that right now," chuckled Alex.
Dorian laughed more than his sober mind would have. "He was an elven serving boy in the kitchens. Only stayed downstairs, but I rarely obeyed rules designed to keep me upstairs. I was fourteen. I liked to invade the kitchens in the night to fulfill a ravenous, growing-boy hunger I'd developed over the years. My mother always wondered how I stayed so slim, the way I ate."
"I had a brief time period of boyish fat," Alex put in.
Dorian laughed. "Maker bless me, I can imagine that."
Alex gave him a little sideways shove. "Go on."
"Anyway," Dorian said, snaking a little closer to Alex. "I was down in the kitchen one night, having spent many nights down there before, when this boy caught me. He'd never caught me at night, but he'd seen me down there more than enough during the day. I seemed to have startled him. He asked if he could make me anything, help me find anything, and I told him I was perfectly capable of handling the kitchen. As I recall, I wanted a cup of tea, and I was in the process of making up a small bag of one of my mother's favourites when I turned and found him kissing me.
"He was taller than me," Dorian recalled dreamily, "as I didn't hit another growth until my next year. I remember being so intrigued by the way he seemed to engulf me. He was perhaps a year older than me, if not the same age, but he seemed practiced. Or as if he'd been thinking about it for a long while. It didn't take long for me to decide I wanted to follow suit, and after a brief moment of surprise I did. I don't know how long it lasted, but soon we broke apart at the sound of footsteps. He seemed more shaken than I was, and I immediately went back to my task as his mother came in and begged my pardon. I went to bed that night with my first real kiss on my lips, and no idea what to do with it."
"What happened?" Alex asked after a slight pause.
"Nothing," Dorian said, and it was almost sad. "He stayed in his part of the house, and for some reason I found myself staying more in mine. If I'm not mistaken, he still works for my family."
Alex gulped. "Was he a servant or a slave?"
Dorian sighed. "I'll let you answer that."
Alex frowned and looked down at his feet, so near Dorian's, trying to decide whether this story bothered him or made him happy to hear.
"So what about you then?" Dorian asked. "You promised your own tale."
Alex chuckled and curled closer to Dorian. "My first kiss was with a girl."
Dorian made an exaggerated gagging sound. "Tell me about your first kiss with a boy. Or were you a man by then."
"I suppose I was a man by then," Alex admitted with a slight twinge of embarrassment. "I was eighteen."
Dorian laughed. "Oh my innocent little warrior."
"Shut it," Alex groaned, butting his head into Dorian's side. It made Dorian flinch, and Alex chuckled further. "I wasn't promiscuous like some. And I was at home almost my entire life, I was watched and monitored for my youth. It was hard for me to make anything happen."
"So how did it happen then?" Dorian asked.
"There was a dinner at another estate," Alex explained. "Old family friends, but also connections my Father needed to keep. We hadn't seen them in years, and when the family greeted us at the gates I realized just how incredibly handsome their son had gotten. By this time, I already knew what I liked, and he was....definitely in the category."
Dorian cooed, "What was his name?"
Alex blushed. "Gregory. He was blond. Green eyes. A jaw line sharper than my own, and stronger, but his face was somehow soft still. I remember thinking he seemed almost pretty, but then he opened his mouth to this low voice and I just...knew. I knew I wanted to kiss him."
"Your story so far is much better than mine," Dorian teased.
Alex chuckled. "We were in the salon after dinner, and I was talking by the fireplace with my mother, when he approached me from behind. She walked off, and Gregory asked if I wanted to see the gardens. I jumped at any chance to be alone with him. I think we both knew what was going on by the time we got outside, and it was dark enough that hiding behind a statue gave us more than enough cover."
Dorian sat up a bit and spun on Alex. "Was this the night that more than just a kiss took place?" he suddenly wondered.
Alex laughed. "No! I'm not that easy! Though it was with Gregory. But it was the year later. We'd written back and forth, scandalously, and any time he visited we shared a few moments. He always found an excuse to come with his father. I think they hoped Gregory was interested in my sister."
"You have a sister?" Dorian mused.
"Not the point of the story," Alex mumbled, waving it easily away. "The point of the story is...that I am hopelessly outmatched when it comes to you."
Dorian laughed. "We knew that before this tale of teenage romance." Alex laughed and Dorian continued to lean on his elbow and look down at him. "You know," he said, voice softening, eyes drooping. "I do like this. This easiness we share. I've never had it with anyone else, it feels like a present."
Alex smiled. There was still clear signs of drink to his eyes, but there was still honest sincerity in his words. "I really...I'm really very glad to have you, Dorian. You're nowhere near the kind of person I would have expected to be so thankful for, but I am."
"Well I'm of course not what you expected," Dorian said. "I'm not blond."
Alex burst into a chuckle and reached out, pushing Dorian down and pulling himself half on top of the man. He squeezed Dorian's sides and got that same little flinch he'd gotten when he'd butted his head against his side. "Don't do that," Dorian said.
"Do what?" Alex wondered. "Squeeze you?"
"It's not a squeeze," Dorian argued with a smirk. "It's not a hug. It's...a poke. A prod."
Alex grinned wide, slowly, figuring it out, and he did it again. Dorian flinched once more and pushed Alex's hands away. "I said don't!" he snapped, but he was grinning.
"Are you ticklish?" Alex almost yelled. "Maker's breath, is the unflappable Tevinter Altus ticklish?"
"Why is that so surprising?" Dorian defended. "Everyone is. I bet you're worst of all!" He reached up and prodded Alex's side with his fingers, watching with anticipation, but Alex just raised a brow with calm, even breaths. "You can't be serious," Dorian said bitterly.
Alex shook his head. "Not even my feet."
"That is absolutely not fair."
But Alex didn't care. It was about time he had something to lord over the Lord. He dove back in and pressed at Dorian's sides, then his stomach, then under his arms, then anywhere he could. And Dorian laughed. He laughed harder, louder, than Alex had ever heard him laugh before. Even as Dorian tried to yell, even as he tried to just breathe the words 'stop it', there was laughter. Joyous, wonderful laughter than rang through he rafters above their heads. The soldiers on the battlements below Alex's window could even hear it, and it made them both confused and amused.
Even through his near inability to breathe, Dorian analyzed how easy this all felt for him. It was hard not to over think, but Alex's fingers kept his mind a little more occupied. How silly, how delirious they were together. It had been so long since Dorian felt he could truly relax and be foolish with someone. All his jokes, all his sassiness aside, he was still more stern than anything else. Yet he let Alex poke him and prod him and fall all over him. And it was glorious.
In time, Dorian managed to fight Alex off, and he lay there out of breath as Alex (incredibly pleased with himself) chuckled over and over again at his latest discovery. They spoke a little more, talking about this and that, tiny little bits of their youth they could remember and relate to. Soon, however, the night wore on, and the drink in their system grew thin, and so Dorian did something he hadn't done with another man in a very long time.
That night, Dorian slept peacefully and soundly in Alexander's bed, in Alexander's arms. He didn't get up and gather his belongings, he didn't give Alex a fond good night before sneaking back to his own room. He stayed, undressing haphazardly and sliding beneath the covers, curling up against Alex's pale skin. And they slept together, a cool breeze wafting in every now and then from the darkness, like a pure and honest couple.
After all, they were far from boyhood now.