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Gaspard de Chalons was a very, very dull and petty man. He had ears that were too large, skin the colour of fresh fish fillets, and lips that would have been quite nice had they not been attached to him. He made Zevran feel bored.
“You make me feel bored,” Zevran said. “I do not like this.”
“I’m offering you millions of dollars to shame your direct competitors,” Gaspard said.
“Competitors,” Zevran said, laughing under his breath.
“This is in your best interest!” Gaspard said.
“My very boring man, you seem to be laboring under a false pretense… I am no longer putting my skills for sale. I do what amuses me,” Zevran said. “You do not amuse me.”
Gaspard turned red. It did nothing to improve his looks, but it improved Zevran’s moodimmensely.
“Fine,” Gaspard said, holding out an envelope stuffed full with photos.
Zevran took it, interest piqued just enough to humour the other man. He took the photographs out and went through them, cycling each image to the back of the pile when he was done looking at it. He went through the entire stack twice.
“You’d be up against them,” Gaspard said.
He was still very dull and boring, but even very dull and boring people could discover entertaining things every once in a while.
“A Qunari…” Zevran said, voice awed. “And a Tevinter… in my business…”
“Yes,” Gaspard replied.
“The Tevinter looks familiar…”
“Yes,” Gaspard replied again, now sounding as if he were gritting his teeth.
“Wait, did not this beautiful man once work with you? I saw his picture in the papers. Wonderful profile.”
“Yes.”
“Ah, I see, so this gorgeous creature left you, my very boring man, for a jovial fellow with big muscles and extraordinarily large horns.”
Gaspard did not reply.
“You are what they call ‘a sore loser’,” Zevran said.
Zevran let Gaspard have his tantrum, and after that accepted the job.
—
Zevran finished speaking and then rested his chin on his hands, smiling at them both. Bull and Dorian blinked at him, near-simultaneously, before looking at each-other. And all that in spite of Dorian sitting as far away from the both of them as he could physically manage.
“What?” Dorian said, looking at Bull.
“What?!” Dorian repeated, looking at Zevran.
“You owe Mr de Chalons a great deal of money,” Zevran said. “I will pay all of it back for you… if you do but one thing. Well, one of two things.”
“What are the things?” Dorian said.
“You steal the First Grimoire of the Mortalitasi, due to be exhibited at the Musee de Nevarra,” Zevran said. “Or you delightful creatures join me in a night of sexual intimacy and ecstacy, the likes of which you have never known.”
“We have a pretty high benchmark,” Bull said, looking Zevran over.
“No!” Dorian said, glaring at Bull, his index finger pointing.
“I promise you, I will not only surpass this benchmark, I will show you how to as well,” Zevran replied.
Bull looked interested. Dorian looked irate.
“NO!” Dorian bellowed.
Everyone in the restaurant looked at them. Dorian, a vision in apoplexy, glared each person down until they at least pretended to look away.
“I had no part in this,” Dorian said. “I don’t owe Gaspard anything, and I will not run around committing petty thievery or throwing my pearls before… Antivans.”
Dorian said the word Antivans the same way someone might say Ranch Dressing. Which was to say, not very positively.
“I think I’m going to have to go with the former,” Bull said, a wistful note just barely present in his voice.
“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Dorian said, whispering in a manner that was perfectly audible. “I’m not having anything to do with you or Gaspard, no matter what he says, ever again.”
Bull’s face tightened with hurt for a moment, a moment that Dorian was not looking in a direction to see, before smoothing out again. Dorian remained glaring at his own lap, arms folded defensively. Zevran felt a spark of sympathy for them. In Gaspard’s photos they had looked at ease, and happy. Something had happened in the interim to damage that.
“You can go if you want,” Bull said gently. “You’re right, it’s my problem, and I’ll sort it out. It’ll be ok.”
Bull raised a hand tentatively, before letting it fall back onto his own lap. Dorian stiffened, and then went soft and unhappy, his breath hitching once and only once. He stood, still avoiding Bull’s gaze, and also Zevran’s.
“I’m taking my leave,” Dorian said, walking out without another word.
“Ouch,” Zevran said.
“We’re having some issues,” Bull said. “So, uh, yeah. Option two’s not happening.”
“I will pretend not to be bitterly disappointed.”
Bull laughed, and Zevran was sad to find that it was a charming and attractive laugh.
—
He was, genuinely, very pleased when they worked things out. Pleased enough not to express too much interest beyond keeping the door open. At the time.
—
Dorian never opened the door to him. He almost had, once, when Zevran came to Dorian and Bull’s house with his leg in a cast. Unfortunately Zevran shot himself in his metaphorical foot by telling Dorian how he’d broken it in the first place. Dorian Pavus was not impressed by Parkour.
Bull though…
“Hey, Zev,” Bull said, smiling warmly as he ushered Zevran into his home.
“It is good to see you, my friend,” Zevran said.
He held up a six pack of Ferelden beer, a taste he knew Bull and Dorian both cared for. Bull always left one in the fridge, so Dorian could have it later.
“How’s tricks?” Bull asked.
They walked out the back patio of Bull and Dorian’s home, and settled themselves down at the outdoor table, a solid wooden creation that was sturdy enough to carry Bull’s propped up feet. Zevran put his up as well, because When in Tevinter.
“I stole the Chalice d’Auberville last month,” Zevran said. “But it upset the curator, so I put it back. I do hate to see a lady cry.”
“Oh yeah,” Bull said. “I read about that.”
They both took a pull from their drinks.
“You?” Zevran asked.
“Started teaching self defense.”
“You like it?”
“More than I’d like to.”
They drank again.
“I think I understand,” Zevran said. “It is… confronting, to go straight.”
“Well not that straight!” Bull said, doing what Zevran had come to learn was his version of winking. They both laughed.
Zevran was very fond of him.
Bull stopped smiling quite so much.
“Come on, Zev,” Bull said. “None of that.”
“I promise, I am on the best of my behaviour,” Zevran said.
“Oh, Zev,” Bull said. “Going to get yourself in trouble one of these days.”
—
Aquinea Thalrassian was a beautiful woman with eyes like eternity and a mouth full of knives. Looking at her was like revelation, because Zevran could see exactly where Dorian got it from. Whatever it was, it was the direct result of being born to Aquinea.
Halward Pavus was alright. Vaguely. Barely.
Dorian was still staring at Zevran with his mouth open and had been since Zevran had sat down at his table twenty minutes before.
“Mr Aranai…” Halward said, one of few things he had said since Zevran had introduced himself. “Dorian told us we were to be meeting with an…”
“With the Iron Bull, yes,” Zevran said. “And so you shall, once he has overcome the cause of his unavoidable delay. I am simply one of Dorian’s many admirers, taking dreadful advantage of this circumstance.”
Zevran’s dates were still at their table, but luckily, Hawke and Isabela were good sports about that sort of thing. That sort of thing being rescuing beautiful people from social conflict.
“Advantage…” Aquinea said, looking him up and down.
“I am a very bad man,” Zevran replied.
He batted his eyes at her. She smiled. Her husband frowned.
Dorian gaped.
“You will catch flies, Dorian,” Aquinea said.
Dorian closed his mouth.
“You really are terribly alluring, Lady Thalrassian,” Zevran said. “If I did not know different, I would think you were Dorian’s sister.”
“Flattery will not get you far, Mr Aranai,” Aquinea said, lips curling into a smile.
Her husband rolled his eyes, but everyone ignored him.
“Who are you?” Halward asked.
And of course, Bull chose that moment to walk into the restaurant, his stride as even and unruffled as any man who had committed to dignity in the face of an incredibly shitty day. His horns were shining with lacquer, his stubble was significantly more designer in nature than it usually was, and his suit was exceedingly well tailored. Zevran smiled at him, and he seemed to relax a little. He lost some tension around his shoulders.
“Alas, we are out of time,” Zevran said. “Dorian, though your heart is with another, I do live in hope. I think of you always fondly.”
“What?” Dorian said, right before Zevran kissed him full on the lips.
“I leave now, before I am obliged to duel for you, with your man,” Zevran said.
And then he stood up, bowed towards Aquinea, and walked off to his own reservation. He saw Bull pursing his lips against laughter, but did not go to greet him. It would have ruined the scene.
“That was… sweet,” Isabela said, over wine.
“That was weird,” Hawke said.
“They are my little albino whales,” Zevran said. “I could not leave them to falter.”
“I’m fairly sure that’s not how that relationship went, Ahab,” Hawke replied.
—
“Allo,” Zevran said, lying belly down on top of their hotel bed-spread, legs kicking up at the knees.
Dorian screamed and threw a fireball at him, but Zevran didn’t feel sore about it. He was fairly sure it was just a reflex.