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He couldn’t stop touching it. Running his fingers over it. Tracing the ridges and valleys. Pressing it into his skin. Lifting it gently only to let it drop, feeling the weight of it tug the fine hairs on the back of his neck. Pressing his fingers into the sharp tip of it, just to see if it would break the skin.
A dragon’s tooth. Serrated edge and smooth bone, set into etched obsidian, hung from a roped chain of dawnstone.
There is an old tradition. You find a dragon's tooth, break it in half, and you each wear a piece. Then, no matter how far apart life takes you, you are always together.
How had he come to this? Sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at the Inquisitor. The small elf slept soundly beside him; his brown hair a wild forest of tangled vines. Leaf had placed faith and trust in him that he did not deserve. Bull warned Leaf, time and again. He was Qunari. He was Ben-Hassrath. He was a spy. Everything about the Bull said he was here to use and be used by the Inquisition in service to the Ben-Hassrath, to the Qun.
Perhaps it was loneliness, or just simple curiosity that brought the elf to his side, sitting with him in Skyhold’s tavern. Questions about the Qun, the Qunari, and the Tal Vashoth; questions about Seheron, Tevinter and the Fog warriors. Questions about magic under the Qun, then the Saarebas. Questions about the weather of all damn things.
For all the questions, the Bull searched the elf’s face, his eyes. He watched the questions roll forward like the tide. He watched shock and empathetic fear widen the already large blue eyes as he listened to Bull speak of the Saarebas and their existence under the Qun.
Oh, those eyes.
There was compassion and anger and the desire to protect. But he also saw the elf struggling to listen and to actually understand. He was trying to recognize his own world view and expand it. He was willing to learn and adapt. He was trying not to judge. He admitted when he could not understand something and they agreed to disagree on things they could not, or would not, change.
It was more than could be said for a lot of the folks Bull had encountered in his life.
As time had passed, as they spent more time together, they talked of more personal things. Shared stories of adventures gone sideways. Shared cultural ideas of friendship, love and sex.
”We don’t have sex for love,” he’d warned the elf. But it didn’t deter the mage in the slightest.
In the time since that little story, they’d fought demons and darkspawn, slain three dragons, and leveled Adamant fortress to its foundations. Bull recognized his feelings, but kept them close and locked away. They were not important. He had a job to do. If the leader of the Inquisition was willing to be close to him, so be it. Bull could use that.
That’s what he told himself. For the mission. For the Qun.
”We don’t have sex for love,” he told himself as he offered his body to the Inquisitor for the first time. He was providing a service, though he wouldn’t use those words if the elf was to ask. Leaf had trusted, offered himself to the Bull, yielded to his touch and oh, damn, that had felt so good. Bull admitted he liked the elf, wanted to make him happy too. While he could.
He watched Leaf sleep as he idly traced the shape of the dragon’s tooth with finger and thumb, caressing it, making sure it was there, making sure it was real.
This was real.
They would head to the Storm Coast in a few days. Preparations were under way and they had to hurry to meet the dreadnought run if they wanted to break the Venatori’s red lyrium shipping operation. Bull insisted on taking the Chargers. He needed men he knew, men he could trust to get the job done.
For the mission. For the Qun.
He must have made a sound, or moved, because Leaf blinked awake, his blue eyes catching and reflecting the dim light, amplifying it, making it brighter, making them glow.
Those eyes in the night.
Leaf smiled, sleepy and sultry and oh so tempting. He raised himself up on an elbow and reached out to Bull. Small, but strong. Those thin arms all tendon and muscle.
Bull leaned down into those arms, let himself be pulled close, pressed back to the bed. Smiled as Leaf moved to lay over him, pressing their bodies together as he sought a kiss. Moaned and sighed as Leaf explored with fingers, tongue, and teeth. His mind slowed as he relaxed into touches that were growing bolder, more confident, more secure.
His thoughts drifted.
The weight of the dragon’s tooth pressed into the hollow of his throat.
His own words came back to him, whispered from loving lips.
“Nothing outside this room. Just you, and me.” Leaf breathed over his mouth before pressing their lips together. “Ma vhenan. My heart.”
“Kadan,” he echoed, returning the kiss with gentleness. “My heart.”
He needed it to be true.