Chapter Text
Dorian is the one who teaches him to want.
It’s a slow, complicated process. It’s hard to push back his training, everything he was raised in, was raised for.
Most of all, it’s terrifying. The overwhelming weight of emotions in his chest every time he looks at Dorian is foreign, new, raw, and it brings him one step closer to becoming what he has always dreaded.
Love – he doesn’t know what else to call it, but still doesn’t quite understand what the word means – is not only selfish. It’s all-consuming, uncontrolled, savage . Bull feels like he could lose his mind to it and not even care.
But love, Dorian teaches him silently, wrapped up against him in sleepless nights when the fear crawls into him like snakes, is what makes you better. It destroys everything he has built, but it also builds anew.
“Your name is Iron Bull,” Lavellan tells him quietly as the Storm Coast sleeps around them, her small hand soft but firm on his arm. “And you have to figure out what that means. Your heart is precious, ma falon. Listen to it.”
He’s trying.
Like this, with Dorian sprawled lazily on the bed, his back rising and falling under Bull’s palm, it’s hard not to. It swells in his chest, riot and peace, beating savage but soothing, because Dorian is here and he wants Dorian to be here.
It’s the way Dorian makes it so easy that Bull finds so hard to understand.
“Good morning,” He says now, yawning against the pillow as Bull runs his hands over smooth, tanned skin. Unguarded. He grins. “Did you want something?”
“Just you,” Bull says, because if Dorian tore down his every barrier to open himself to this, Bull can give him no less.
The Vint smiles, stretching under him like a cat. “Well, it is hard not to want me.” It is. Bull isn’t sure if he’d have it any other way. “But it’s also awfully early.”
“It’s really not. You’re just lazy.”
“And you’re insatiable,” Dorian replies, but he’s still smiling.
“Not my fault you’re irresistible.”
“You do have a point,” Dorian turns his head to look over his shoulder, taking in the way Bull is straddling his hips, large hands caressing his back softly, and smiles warmly. “Very well,” He says imperiously, laying back down on the pillow and stretching out his arms. “Tempt me.”
So Bull does. His hands inch down slowly to Dorian’s hips as he leans over to kiss the back of his neck and he thinks of Cole’s words to him, proclaimed to Dorian’s blush and the endless snow of Emprise du Lion.
“He submits, but you serve.”
It occurs to him he serves because it’s the only thing he knows how to do.
But it didn’t always used to be like this, with Dorian safe and relaxed in the knowledge he’ll stop at the breath of a word, so now he relishes the slight arch of his back, the contented sigh against the pillow, drinks it in and lets Dorian’s trust anchor him to this - this moment, this feeling , this terrifying, unknown thing.
It didn’t always used to be like this. It would have scared him more, once.
But Dorian is stripped bare for him, hair muzzled from sleep and kohl smudged around his eyes in a way he would never have allowed Bull to see before, and this insufferable, clever little Vint has turned the tables on him.
“Bull,” He whispers, purrs softly under his palms. “What do you want to do?”
Grounding him, pulling him back. What do you want. Dorian won’t let it be about what he needs anymore, or maybe Dorian needs him to want.
“Just let me worship you some more.”
“Well,” Dorian smiles, arching his back and cracking his knuckles lazily. “If you must.”