Work Text:
There are a lot of things to get used to, being human.
Certain things make you sneeze, like the flowers that Leliana sets out on Josephine’s table in the spring. You learn to keep your face away from them, and why Josephine carries so many handkerchiefs with her at all times.
For the first time, the snow stings when it touches you. The wind whips it in your face in a flurry of tiny bites. It burns, slows you down, and the others notice; Solas casts a barrier around you to keep the worst of it off, worry creasing his brow tight. His thoughts are packed tight, dense as the blizzard battering the shield overhead. You can’t read them the way you used to, only as blotches of dark color.
You get hungry, just a little at first, but more and more as the days pass. It scares you, an echo of memories too loud, too raw, that were never loud or raw before they became yours. The Inquisitor notices your hands shaking and your scattered attention, but instead of shouting at you, she begins bringing you small treats—foods to try, and things you discover you like. The hunger dies down a little, and so does the fear as new memories of food push the older ones out.
And then there are the two of them. Dorian, with his mouth full of knives and his heart burning so brightly it’s hard to look at. The Iron Bull, whose mind is a network of constantly shifting possibility and whose hands are wide, warm, gentle. The Iron Bull is always kind to you. They both are, in their own ways. Their room is as sumptuous as Dorian’s desires, and their bed smells like them.
You get used to it much faster than you expected. It is always warm, the press of their bodies against yours, Dorian’s fingers in your hair, The Iron Bull’s mouth on your hips. Your head and heart are so full of their thoughts and feelings—tender, brilliant as chips of crystal—that release is a sharp, violent unfurling of emotion, a blooming catharsis.
Being with them is like shedding your skin, stepping new and tender out of the shadows and into the sunlight, trusting it won’t burn you. Afterwards, as you watch the last candle taper out, their breathing even and deep with sleep, the imprint of them lingers on your cooling, sated body and your steadying heart.