Chapter Text
“My apologies Skeeter, but your admiration is showing.”
Only silence met Varric as Kerlan kept watching the woman on the other side of the camp, trying to be inconspicuous about it while rolling up his sleeping bag. Every five inches he rolled up further, his eyes would come up again, looking for the same person in the crowd, and following every movement with a slightly tilted smile stuck to his face.
Varric smiled. This would look good in a book, actually. Camp discretions: The Inquisitor and the new commander. Yeah, that would look amazing. He would have to propose that to his editor some day.
“Uh, what?” The Inquisitor seemed to have returned to the mortal plane at last.
“Nothing, nothing. But you might want to check your drooling before she actually notices.”
Kerlan turned a deep shade of crimson, hand immediately going to the corner of his mouth, but coming up with nothing. He scowled at Varric with murderous intent, but it didn’t quite come over as intimidating with his face stuck on the colour of a freshly plucked tomato.
Varric grinned as he walked away from the inquisitor. It was strange not having Curly around, but his replacement sure had made for quite a show. He wasn't normally for the "love at first sight" thing, but the way Kerlan looked at the new commander, there was no room for doubt.
Maybe it was a good thing that Curly went on that honeymoon.
Dorian looked at his friend, sighed, and put his wine glass down on top of the books he had stacked next to his beloved chair in the Skyhold library. There was no helping it, his friend was completely out of it. He came up beside him to lean on the railing, idly tracing a vein of wood.
“You know…”
Kerlan sighed.
“I know.”
“Then why?” he asked. “Why haven’t you asked her for a roll in your amazingly big bed yet?”
Kerlan turned as red as the tapestry on the wall behind them. He started wringing his fingers, avoiding Dorian’s gaze.
“I just- Wait, how do you know how big my bed is?"
Dorian feigned innocence and held up his hands. "Hey, it wasn't me! Just a tip, though, you might run into one of Sera's pranks soon."
He smiled at that. The last time, it had taken him a week to get the smell of cheese out of his quarters. How Sera did it, he would never know.
“But to come back to my initial curiosity - Something tells me you're not quite right in the head at the moment. It's not like you haven't had sex before. I clearly recall that buxom elven servant being quite sati-"
“Dorian…” He inhaled and exhaled, preparing himself for telling someone of what it was exactly that he wanted. “That’s just not the way… not the way I- I mean, that's not-" He wringed his hands so hard they were starting to get a bit red. "I admire her. Can't I? Just that. Nothing more."
"Sure, and I'm positive Mother Giselle loves me."
He deadpanned and made a sound of utter despair.
"Creators, why are you so-"
"Charming? Alluring? Fantastic? I've heard it all before, inquisitor, keep your flatteries to yourself!"
The cockiest grin spread across Dorian's face as he sad it, at last faking embarassment. Not very convincing for him.
"...I give up."
"No, no, no more beating around the bush. What's going on, exactly?" This time, he actually looked sincere. Honestly, not marred by pleasantries or a sly smile. Kerlan took a deep breath and decided that yes, he would just drop his pride and go for it.
"I never got to actually getting to know someone that I slept with, but she's... I just want to know more about her. How do you do that? How do you-"
“…woo someone?”
“…yes.” He admitted defeat, hanging his shoulders and no longer leaning on the rail.
Dorian knew this had been coming all along. He had seen him watching her. Seen his eyes not stuck to her backside, but to her. He had a crush for probably the first time in his life, and there was nothing anyone could do. This, after everything he had gone through with the inquisition, this he had to do himself.
“Can’t help y-“
“What if she doesn’t like elves?” He cut in, worriedly. He had started to pace the path to the rail, the wall and back. “What if I’m too shy? Too short? Too-“
“Kerlan!”
He stopped pacing.
“She’s in Cullen’s office. Ask her to have dinner tonight. Just ask her. Sure, you’re hardly as charmingly handsome as I am, but you’re not too bad to look at. If you don’t try…”
He nodded vigorously. Maybe he could do this. Maybe he could go over there.
“I… I will.”
Dorian looked at him, still standing there, Kerlan looking like a nug that just got caught in the food cabinet.
“Well? What are you still doing here?” Dorian made a shooing gesture, hoping he would leave already so he could enjoy another chapter of his book before the inquisitor came back without success because he probably wasn’t going to ask.
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She'd been living in Commander Cullen's quarters for a week now. Surprise wasn't really an emotion that came to her when she caught sight of the bad state the bedroom was in. Cullen and his wife had obviously packed in a hurry and left the mess for someone else to clean up. Were this the tent or the room of one of her recruits, she'd have him flayed alive, but she guessed that she couldn't really fault Cullen and Lea for this. They had actually left without telling anyone but Josephine about it just so no one could track them down for work. From what she'd heard, Lea, Cullen's wife, was a bit of a troublemaker and very, very impulsive. Fitting, since she'd always known him to be a little... well very uptight actually.
For the third time that day, she looked up at the roof above her, to the stars that glittered in the deep blue air beyond. As much as she liked the view, the cold that accompanied it? Not so welcome.
Actually, she had asked a recruit to get someone to fix the roof the second day she got here. Funny how that hadn't been fixed yet.
Guess she had to do it herself.
While in the process of dragging the desk over beneath the hole, she heard the telltale sound of a door closing downstairs.
"Uh... Lieuten- Co- Commander?" A very small voice called out to her.
While she preferred just sticking out her head through the trapdoor and helping with whatever problem a recruit had now that way, she sighed internally and went the boring, old-fashioned way down the ladder. Sliding, that is. Couldn't take out all the fun.
"Yees? What can I do for you?" What you could do for me is fix that hole in the roof, but okay. She turned around expectantly, waiting for the young recruit in front of her to speak.
Sadly, the recruit looked a bit shell-shocked and gaped at her. Oh Maker, did she just come off as childish? Ugh, why did she even take the job, not like she, of all people, could take care of all-
"Please, I- Excuse me, sir, I just... I'm not quite used to... someone so.."
"...not-Cullen?"
She crossed her arms and looked her down, eyebrows raised in question. The young woman looked... caught. As if someone had interrupted her during cheating.
"...Relaxed?" The woman muttered.
She smiled in response, her lips stretching over her teeth as she chuckled.
"Is that not the same thing?"
The recruit stammered and the blush that had been present initially deepened and spread to her ears.
"What is it you wanted to ask me?"
She started, eyes wide and sprung to attention at once. "I- I came to inform you that there will be a meeting with the other advisors within the hour."
"I knew this," she frowned, then one corner of her mouth tilted upwards in recognition. "Cullen made sure to check, didn't he?"
"N-No..."
"It's fine, it's fine, I know, he's an uptight little git at times. Thank you for telling me... again."
The recruit nodded and almost broke down the door to get outside as fast as she could, ears flaming red.
"This is going to take some getting used to..."
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The inquisitor planted his feet and swung his sword arm quick but recklessly into the side of the training dummy. He changed his footing and took a few swings swiping upwards, requiring more strength and less elegance, but that didn't help much either. He had been at it for hours - ever since he left Dorian, actually. After he left the rotunda, Vivienne got hold of him to tell him he really should think of the latest soiree at the Winter Palace soon. She had the fabric of the different outfits already sorted and was insistent on roping him down to take measurements. He was sure that if he kept brushing her off, her disdainful look would be the least of his worries.
Not that he had any time to think of ways to avoid the woman. In two days, he would be leaving for Denerim for a visit to the king and queen of Ferelden. Politics never ceased, and the time the inquisition had to spend on them only increased since Corypheus was killed. He wasn't fond of them and he never would, but he looked forward to meeting Queen Cousland and her husband. Of course, it was King Alistair that had the blood rights to the throne, as he had been told, but Queen Cousland had been a warden back in the day. They both had been, but Cousland had slain the archdemon and led thousands of people to the end of the war. She was famous, and even in the Lavellan clan, they had heard of her.
Not that that those were his only worries. They had planned a trip to the Storm Coast to kill a dragon that had been sighted there, all for Bull. He wasn't scared, but he didn't necessarily like facing down those animals. Corypheus he could take, but a mouth he could fit in at least five times with razor sharp teeth? No, that wasn't his idea of fun.
But it certainly had been for Bull. The Qunari had been dropping thinly-veiled "hints" while drinking and often mentioned his "flabby sword arm". Hard to believe for Kerlan, but Dorian had caved and begged him to take the Bull to kill the dragon. Not only because Bull was driving him mad, but apparently, the sex was, in Dorian's words, absolutely phenomenal. Something he preferred to cipher out of his mind.
He kept going at the dummy, trying to keep his mind off all the worry lately, but that amounted to nothing either when he saw Lieutenant Helena walking over the battlements towards the door to the rotunda mid-swing. His blade missed his target and, as per the rules of gravity, the momentum of his blade and his lack of functioning limbs, his body hit the dummy side-on as his sword flew from his grasp and clattered a bit further away. He scrambled upright and tried to look for her, but she had disappeared into the building. This... infatuation would certainly be the death of him.