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Like everything that had been truly good in Dorian Pavus’s life, it had started in a library.
At the time, he was deep enough into his PhD that he could no longer see either end of the tunnel he was stumbling through. He couldn’t remember life before the research, and couldn’t imagine life after it. He had mapped out every corner of every study area in every relevant building on campus, including (but not limited to) the supply closets in Drakon Hall where he taught introductory classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Though cramped and stinking of industrial cleaners, they were a necessary evil when something needed to be finished before a deadline. He had not been given an office of his own, only a desk in a bullpen with other untenured professors, and he wasn’t about to risk students interrupting his deep dives by working there.
His favorite spot on campus was in the basement of the university library. While the main levels of the sprawling building were separated into study rooms and computer labs and classrooms, the basement spanned the entire footprint of the building, one giant continuous space. Huge though it was, it was made to feel cramped by the sheer number of books that had been relegated there over the years. It was dark, too, even with all the lights on, as the ceiling-high shelves prevented most of the light from going anywhere useful. It was a labyrinth, a dungeon perfumed by the smell of old books. It spoke to Dorian on multiple levels: the child who used to pretend he was a wizard; the adult who relished the resting potential of an unread book; and the anti-social curmudgeon he was destined to become.
Like meadows in a dense forest, little study spaces interrupted the book-jammed shelves across the basement. Each one was hard to find unless you knew where they were, and with so many shelves separating them, they felt worlds apart. To set up shop in one of those study spaces was to be completely isolated from the world, unreachable, forgotten. A perfect, insulated bubble of academia. (If not a little far from the restrooms.)
He was particularly fond of a table beneath the west wing, because it required three right turns between shelves to find, which meant almost no one knew it was there, and certainly no one knew how to find him when he used it. It was at that exact table, on a snowy night in January at around 7:45 PM, that Dorian met Hanon.
He had been offended, rather immediately, by the other man’s presence at his table. Not only was he occupying Dorian’s preferred research spot, but he’d put down roots. Research spread out across the entire table, books and stacks of newspapers and boxes from the archives that you needed special permission to access. There were two laptops open, and a tablet between them. The area was indisputably, if not aggressively, claimed.
Dorian rounded the corner and made a noise. A huff, maybe, something small and startled, because it hadn’t occurred to him that someone else would be down there. The man at the table, whose back was to the aisle Dorian emerged from, startled and turned in his chair to face him. They regarded one another like cave explorers who had both thought they were alone underground, a kind of bewildered surprise that bordered on alarm.
Dorian hadn’t meant to interfere. Not out of politeness, or even respect; students had been queued up for hours outside his shared office, looking to complain about the lackluster midterm evaluations he had dished out, and it had exhausted what little reserve of grace he possessed. He understood, though, as a man who longed to be surrounded by research material, that there was nothing he could do nor say that would make the other man pack up and move.
But his upset must have shown on his face, because the man glanced back at his own mess of materials, and then back at Dorian. There was an awkward pause. Then, after a moment of consideration, the man’s expression smoothed out and he pivoted further in his chair to face him. An amused smile spread across his face.
It was the kind of smile that said ‘sucks to be you’: just a touch mean-spirited, like a child on the playground who knew they had the upperhand.
Something very old and petulant twisted in Dorian’s stomach at the sight of it. A pretty boy looking amused at his expense brought back sour memories.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much room,” the man had said, his voice ashy, though from misuse or a winter illness, Dorian didn’t know.
Dorian pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow, refusing to look any more upset than he already did. “Evidently,” he sniffed. Then, because he was tired and agitated from a long day and couldn’t help himself, he added, “Do you make a habit of dog-earing books that aren’t yours?”
He nodded at an old red hardcover, lying open upside down next to the man’s to-go cup. For his snide efforts, he received a thin smile that didn’t reach anywhere near the elven man’s green eyes.
“I’d wonder about the man concerned over this particular book,” the stranger said, his scratchy voice clipped. He reached without looking and flipped the book upright, tapping his finger against a picture on the spread inside.
Curiosity won out instantly. Dorian stepped forward, hefting the winter coat that draped over his arm as he went. He had to step within just a few feet of the stranger to see whatever point he was trying to make. A whiff of cedarwood reached Dorian through the overall smell of old books.
It took him a moment to recognize what he was looking at. The book was open to a page with cramped typeset and minimal margins. There was a black-and-white illustration among the text, depicting a square-jawed human man with a dragon rising up behind him, its wings spread out on either side. Underneath the wings, smaller things cowered: a badger, a rabbit, a hound, and a lesser, uglier dragon. Dwarves, elves, the south, the qunari.
It was old propaganda from the Imperium. Dorian winced in recognition, just as the man slid his finger up the length of the page and tapped on the book’s title, printed at the top. The Divine Right. A veritable road map for human supremacy and eugenics in Tevinter.
“What on earth would possess you to read that,” he asked without thinking, the contempt in his voice as natural as it was inadvertent.
Dorian gave the stranger a more intentional glance. An elf, yes, but now he recognized the delicate linework tattoos on his temples and cheekbones. Dalish.
The young man leaned back in his chair and looked up at Dorian with an unnerving kind of consideration. “Hard to dissect something if you can’t explain it.”
“I should think it’s rather easy to explain. Small men with smaller cocks were compelled to make it everyone else’s problem. Cook on high for several administrations, stirring occasionally to squash protests, and voila: empire. Serve with red wine.”
Amusement lifted the stranger's smile a little closer to his eyes, but that sharp assessing look didn’t lessen. “Both flippant and reductive. Are you always so careful when you describe state-funded genocide?”
A wiser man would’ve left immediately. Dorian’s self-preservation skills were honed enough to know when he’d stepped into a pit full of snakes. Instead, like an idiot, he said, “Are you usually so standoffish with strangers?”
“Only the men looming over me in isolated corners of basements.”
Heat hit Dorian’s cheeks. He loosed a single note of laughter, annoyed and amused. He turned to leave. “Perhaps in the future, you’ll save us both the time and simply tell me to fuck off.”
He wasn’t angry, exactly, but there was something burning deeper than the embarrassment. It had been an unfair playing field, he thought. He hadn’t known what the bastard was reading, how was he supposed to have known? And to have his words twisted back at him so quickly, when he only meant to lighten the damn mood.
Before he could flee, though, the young man tossed out a final quip.
“No one said anything about introducing fucking to the equation.”
Dorian’s face heated further, though in retreat, the stranger would never know. He spluttered the rest of the way out of the basement.
-
The interaction followed him like a shadow. He hosted a one-sided debate in the shower, tried to recreate his facial expressions in the mirror while brushing his teeth to see if he’d looked like an idiot. In the morning, calmer and more rested, he thought he might’ve figured out how to maneuver his way out of the conversation if it were to happen again. He replayed the banter while he waited for his coffee order, some theater of the mind. In class that afternoon, he found himself almost missing the challenge of the interaction while his students had a cyclical debate that went nowhere. He thought about it at lunch, and then again during his office hours between pleas for extensions or extra credit.
It was that last bit, about fucking. It hadn’t been said meanly, or even dismissively. Had it been flirting? Could someone flirt right after being insulted? Had Dorian insulted him? He’d been the one trying to keep things politely lighthearted, because they were two complete strangers meeting by chance, and it had jumped immediately to genocide. How was he the bad guy?
It didn’t matter if it’d been flirty. It probably wasn’t. Dorian was mostly upset that he’d been so quickly painted into an unflattering corner.
And that was his spot, goddamnit.
That evening, an hour earlier than the day before, Dorian slid his laptop into his satchel and muscled into his wool coat, intent on being the first person to that table. It didn’t matter if that little prick was still around, not if Dorian got there first. He wondered about the look on his face when he would round the corner and find Dorian taking up the entire table. And Dorian would look up with a little distracted lift of his eyebrows, peering over his glasses (which he did not wear, but the image emphasized the moment) and he would say something rather devastating like “No room for you tonight, I’m afraid.”
Only, that wasn’t very good, was it? He pondered it on the walk across campus. It was dark outside already, and there was a cold snap to the air that threatened more bloody snow. He’d have to keep an eye on the weather app so he didn’t get stuck in shit weather on his way home.
Into the west entrance corridor, passed the tutoring labs, down the stairs into the basement. Through the old swinging doors, forward until you reach the section on sword age poetry. A left, and then forward to the aisle marked by the fifteen-year-old flier for a ska show. Right, right, right.
And there he was, a young elven man with blood red hair sitting at the table, with his work spread out everywhere. This time, he was facing the aisle.
“Vishante kaffas,” Dorian swore, immediately, and with too much volume. He was met with the kind of smile a cat reserves for a mouse.
“There has to be another spot for you to colonize,” Dorian insisted, just barely stopping himself from stomping his foot. He had rushed right down here without taking off his coat, and he was starting to feel the encroachment of sweat, making the whole situation that much worse.
“Isn’t colonization more up your alley,” the man asked innocently, tilting his head just so.
They hadn’t been facing each other directly last time. Now they were, and Dorian could have sworn again, because the stranger’s parting quip the night before paired very well with that face. Dorian had done some work in the intervening hours to convince himself that the man wasn’t attractive, but fuck, he was.
Whatever clever retorts he’d cooked up in last night’s shower, Dorian at least had the wherewithal this time to quit while he was ahead. Undoubtedly visibly agitated, he turned on his heel to leave. There were other spots to do his work, compromises between his perfect hidden nook and a supply closet. At least in another study area, he’d be spared the headache of a Dalish man with a victim complex.
“Wait, hold up,” the stranger called, concession clear in his tone. “Wait.”
Dorian stilled, hesitated, and turned back. He didn’t know why; it wasn’t like the man was moving to pack up his things and cede the table.
The stranger’s body language had changed, his shoulders lowered, his expression less guarded. They considered each other for the span of a breath, something passing between them that further reeled in Dorian’s curiosity.
“I was a prick last night,” the stranger admitted. “You caught me at a bad time. I’m sorry.”
Dorian’s sails, only a moment ago chock full of wind, began to slacken. He turned back toward the table and considered the apology for a moment. It seemed genuine, if not a little stiff, like when someone was making themselves do something that went against their less flattering nature.
That almost made it feel better. A begrudging apology was more believable than an enthusiastic one, at least in Dorian’s lived experience.
“Reading about the worst this world has to offer didn’t put you in a friendly mood?” Dorian asked, offering an olive branch of sarcasm, since it was the only foundation the two of them had.
The look of contrition on the man’s face twisted with a little bit of resentful amusement. “I’ve worked on happier projects.”
It settled something in Dorian’s chest that had been agitated since the night before. He offered a little nod of understanding. He wasn’t one to extend a lot of patience to people when he was frustrated, either. But he also wasn’t so gracious as to accept the apology without at least a little grovelling.
“I’d have you retract your accusations of my looming, then,” he said.
The stranger lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “You did not loom,” he agreed.
Further relaxed, Dorian rolled back on his heels and considered the man before him. He pursed his lips. “And I was perhaps a touch tone-deaf,” he offered awkwardly. He wasn’t particularly good at apologies, but this one felt oddly transactional, and he hadn’t been proud of that part of their brief interaction anyway.
Across the table, the man pressed his lips together. “And just a skosh patronizing. But I would’ve bitten your head off anyway. I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable toward the entirety of Tevinter last night.”
“Who says I’m Tevene,” Dorian asked, with entirely too much bluster. “I could be Antivan, for all anyone in the south knows the difference.”
The stranger chuckled, a breathy noise that Dorian immediately wanted to hear again. “Surely you own a mirror.”
“I own many. Some of them clustered for optimal self appreciation. What’s your point?”
That smile was growing more and more genuine. Dorian rather liked it that way. “No one this far south is that pre-occupied with personal grooming.”
“That alone makes me Tevene?”
“That, and your last name helped me piece it together.”
Dorian stilled, confusion and panic rendering him blocky and immobile for a moment. How did this man know his name? Shit, he hadn’t been one of Dorian’ students, had he? Or a TA? Was Dorian flirting with a TA? (Is that what he was doing?)
Before the university’s code of ethics could start ringing in his ears, the stranger pointed to Dorian’s chest. The badge around his neck, a hideous institutional requirement hung on a school-branded lanyard, displayed his name in plain sight. Dorian Pavus. Academic Faculty.
Dorian looked down at it and then back up, feeling the uncomfortable creep of warmth across his cheeks. Or maybe that was his big stupid wool coat. “Well, that’s hardly fair. Now you know who to report for being a patronizing basement loomer. How am I meant to report you?”
That smile quirked with some of the mean-spirited amusement from the night before, but this time Dorian felt a little rush at the sight of it, like it signalled a game and not a fight. Instead of taking the bait, the other man said,
“I’m Hanon.”
Dorian found himself smiling, his hackles well and truly settled. “Dorian,” he returned, because even though it was unnecessary, it only felt polite.
Before he could linger on their last parting words, or even begin to entertain their possible implications, he forced himself to take a breath and shake it off. “Well,” he said decisively, “if you’ve chosen a topic that pisses you off enough to be rude to this, perhaps you need this bunker of a study space more than me,” he allowed. “Though I will eventually want it back.”
The stranger – Hanon – made a point of looking over the spread of books, documents, and archive folders spread out in front of him. “Are you sure,” he asked, in no way sounding like he had any intention of uprooting himself.
Dorian found himself grinning. “Oh, I insist.”
-
He avoided the spot for four days. That was, by his estimate, about as generous as he was capable of being to someone who had spent the first half of their brief time together being an ornery prick.
When he returned on the fifth day, it was still light out when he descended into the basement and wove his way to his preferred spot. He had perhaps been hoping that it would still be overrun by a certain Dalish man’s research project, but when he rounded the corner it was empty. The only sign of previous habitation was a phone charger on the floor, spiraling out from one of the two outlets in the area. Of the thousands of students who attended the university, it could have belonged to anyone. He wondered if Hanon’s cologne might have lingered, but that was gone too, snuffed out by books and dust and the musty smell of old basement.
He tried not to be disappointed. After all, he’d gotten his space back, and he wasn’t entirely sure that Hanon was someone he could be flirting with anyway. Certainly not at the risk of losing his funding or meager teaching position. If it even was flirting.
He spent some time setting up his laptop, lingering and listening for the sounds of anyone else in the labyrinth, but he heard nothing. Eventually he set out for a round of book collecting, starting first in his usual areas and then branching out in the hope of making a creative discovery. He was currently working through a rather involved section of his research, all about Navarran funeral shrouds, which appeared repeatedly throughout antiquity as artistic metaphors for both death (obvious) but also luck. He was hoping to find examples in lithographs, or paintings, or poetry, or something. Something new, something unexplored by the stuffy old academics who didn’t see the artistic angle as anything more than frivolity.
He was successful on five counts, if he included the copy of Through The Veil: A Traveler’s Account of Navarra in the Divine Age which he had technically already referenced earlier in his paper. He reasoned he’d been searching for something else at the time, so perhaps it would prove useful again.
Back at the table, time started to crawl, the way it often did when he was caught between a digital archive and a mildewed tome. Surely the sun had set outside. He thought about (and neglected to) check the weather app on more than one occasion. He didn’t like snow, but he liked derailing himself even less. And some childish part of him thought that if he didn’t look at the app, the snow might just not come at all.
After several hours of blissful isolation, Dorian thought he heard a door slam elsewhere in the basement. It was hard to tell, with all the books around to absorb ambient noise. He hardly considered it, but only a few moments later, the shuffle of approaching feet gave him pause. He looked up, mostly deep in thought with only a fraction of his attention turned toward annoyance.
Hanon appeared around the corner. He blinked at the sight of Dorian, and then smiled.
Dorian felt his entire body wake up.
“Well this feels only fair,” Hanon admitted, pulling a headphone out of his ear. Dorian could just barely hear the whisper of music playing from it before it stopped abruptly.
He was very aware that half of the table was clear and available.
Hanon had a few snowflakes resting on the shoulders of his duffle coat, which boded ill for Dorian’s commute home. He had a flush to his cheeks, the kind that came from a brisk walk in the cold. Most noticeably, his backpack was hanging on only one shoulder, like he intended to put it down.
“A bit late for a deep dive,” Dorian said by way of greeting, glancing down at the clock widget on his laptop. 9:47 PM. The library would be closing soon, he realized with a jolt.
“Left that,” Hanon answered, pointing over the table at the charger.
Dorian, who came from wealth but was living on a public housing budget after his decision to pursue a life away from his parent’s schemes, raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t just replace it?”
Hanon huffed a note of laughter. He dropped his backpack on the table and started to make his way around it to the wall where his charger was. Dorian eyed the bag. It was all black, with the sort of straps and compartments and zippers that signalled military function. There were patches on it too, mostly for national parks, though one was of a woven, twisting pattern, two mirrored parentheses arched almost like laurels. Halla horns, Dorian thought.
“That’d be wasteful,” Hanon was saying, leaning over to get his charger. Dorian tried not to watch the bend of his waist, though thankfully the edge of the table spared him much ogling. “And anyway,” he said, righting himself, “I’d need an adapter for it back home, which means buying another one would be useless.”
Ah, well, the brogue should have given that away, Dorian thought, wishing he didn’t feel a little bit of disappointment at the implication that Hanon was from somewhere far enough away to have different wall outlets. Or that he was temporary enough here that he was using adaptors. Dorian didn't like that it elicited any kind of reaction in his chest.
Hanon was smaller than the kind of man Dorian usually flirted with. Certainly shorter than Dorian, and lithe, though it was impossible to really tell underneath the winter coat and big scarf.
But it didn’t matter, because Dorian was not going to flirt with him, because he was a professional.
“And maybe I was hoping to run into you,” Hanon admitted. Dorian’s resolve shattered almost immediately.
“Checking in on an old enemy?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Hanon returned to the far side of the table, coiling the charging cable around his hand as he went. “Just curious about you. Your countrymen don’t typically introduce themselves by disparaging the Imperium.”
“Well it’s awfully low hanging fruit, if you ask me.”
Without looking, Hanon reached for an outer pocket on his backpack and unzipped it, sliding the charger inside. He was eyeing Dorian’s collection of textbooks. “Is that why you’ve chosen to work on your doctorate outside of Tevinter?”
Dorian squinted up at him. He had only been wearing his employee badge last time because he’d left his desk in a hurry, and he was certain he wasn’t wearing a ‘Hello! My name is: doctoral candidate’ sticker.
“You’re not an undergrad,” Hanon reasoned when he clocked Dorian’s frown. The observation about his age was a little too blunt for Dorian’s ego. “And masters students don’t have ‘academic faculty’ on their badges.”
“Who’s to say this isn’t research for a lecture?”
A hint of that smirk–the mean one, though Dorian wasn’t sure anymore that it was mean–pulled at the corner of Hanon’s mouth. “Steinhart,” he answered, leaning over the table and pressing a finger against the book on the top of Dorian’s stack, “was a consumptive blowhard that no self-respecting academic wants associated with their lectures.”
They stared at each other. Hanon’s eyes, a little too half-lidded for Dorian’s comfort, had a small spot of brown in the green, surrounded by gold. He didn’t want to look away from it.
It was perhaps the most sexually charged academic observation Dorian had ever experienced.
“My turn, then,” Dorian decided, closing his laptop and leaning back in the chair, bringing an end to the tension before it could get the better of him. Hanon stood back upright with a satisfied little grin, like he’d just learned something Dorian hadn’t wanted him to know. “You’re here for a masters, but not the full program, otherwise you’d buy a charger that works in this country. Unless the program is hybrid? Perhaps visiting for the semester?”
Hanon considered this a moment before he shrugged. “Something adjacent to that, I suppose.”
If he was trying to throw Dorian off, he wasn’t going to allow it. “I’m not going to find you in one of my lectures, am I?”
“No,” Hanon laughed. “I’ve little need to know about Navarran funerals.” Then, after another moment of consideration, he relaxed his shoulders and said, “I’m an investigative journalist. Who happens to be dragging my feet through the tail-end of a master’s program with the University of Orlais,” he admitted, like it was an annoying fact he rather wished were no longer true. “And since I’m in town for a story, I figured I’d get ahead of a few research papers, as well.”
It was, emphatically, not what Dorian had been expecting. Neither this near-total stranger sharing so openly with him, nor the reality of what he was saying. Suddenly, he couldn’t muster even the barest shred of interest in Navarran burial shrouds. “I don’t know that I would have arrived at ‘journalist’ on my own.”
Hanon grinned. “Oh, I bet I could lead you to it with enough hints.”
I bet you could lead me to a lot of things, Dorian thought, but whatever embarrassing thing he was going to say was interrupted by the building’s P.A. system, a few tones and a voice over the intercom informing them that the library would be closed in five minutes. Dorian glanced up in the nonspecific direction of the announcement, and felt a rush of things all at once. Most of the feelings congealed into one thought: he didn’t want this conversation, however brief, to end.
“You’ve spoiled the ending,” he said. “What will we talk about over drinks, if I already know your pursuits?”
The smile that earned him had Dorian packing his bag with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm. Hanon shouldered his backpack and slid his hands into the pockets of his coat.
“Oh, I think we can find something. I don’t suppose you’d let me pick your brain about growing up in Tevinter?”
Dorian cut him a wary sideways look. “That sounds rather risky, considering the foundation for this budding friendship.”
Hanon shrugged. “You don’t think we can weather another storm?”
“This would be for one of your research papers?”
“Mm. One of them,” Hanon confirmed, a touch of conspiracy in his tone. “And maybe I enjoy bickering with you.”
The younger man turned and started to mosey down the aisle, throwing a glance over his shoulder. If he was playing up the flirty behavior for a laugh, it worked in more ways than one.
“You’re trouble,” Dorian observed, pulling on his coat. “My mother warned me about girls like you.”
Hanon’s smile flashed with a bit of teeth. “Oh, professor. You have no idea.”