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“Chief, if you’re not finishing that I’m taking it. That’s perfectly good beer.” Krem says from across the table. The words seem slow to reach Bull’s mind, and when he eventually looks up from his mug to look at Krem he’s frowning deeply.
“Anything wrong, chief?” He asks then.
“Nha. I’ve just… well, I’ve been thinking.” Bull replies, looking back at the mug.
“Oh, that serious? You know that Lavellan will be fine, he just needs some rest. Losing an arm can be hard to get used to.” Krem tries to reassure him.
“That’s not it, Krempuff.” Bull can imagine Krem rolling his eyes but takes the pun silently.
“What is it, then? The rest of the Chargers may seem to be having fun but we’re all noticing something off with you today.”
“I was thinking of asking him to join us, ya know?” Bull says.
“You haven’t already?” Krem asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, we kinda touched the subject a few months after we got to Skyhold. He said he would but at the time I thought he was joking. I was just teasing when I asked and thought nothing of it, but now I’m not sure.”
“Chief...”
“He might have some other plans now that he isn’t Inquisitor.”
“Chief!” Krem calls him again.
“What?”
“Look behind you.” Krem says with a smug face, getting up and leaving to join the rest of the Chargers. “Let us know afterwards!” He adds as he moves away. Lavellan then appeared from behind Bull and sat on Krem’s spot.
Bull grunts and drinks from his beer, ignoring the watered down taste from this tavern in the middle of nowhere. Lavellan just looks amused, the devious thing.
“So, you intended to ask me something?” He asks, resting his face on his right hand. Bull knows pretty well that Lavellan would wait as long as need for him to ask for what he wanted, even after years away from the Qun. There’s no need to beat around the bush then.
“Would you, huh, like to join the Chargers? I thought that, since you’re no longer Inquisitor, and-” Lavellan silences him by placing a finger on his lips, smiling down at him afterwards.
“Come with me.” He says then, taking Bull’s hand and guiding him out the tavern into the warm outside. They moved for about 10 minutes in silence, Bull trusting Lavellan to know where they were heading. When they stopped, it was on the top of a hill overlooking a nearby forest.
The sight relaxes Bull, the evening light casting entrancing shadows in the middle of gold and green. He was also very aware of Lavellan’s hand holding his, a comforting pressure very much like the necklace they both wore in meaning.
“This place reminds me of a story my mother used to tell me.” Lavellan says then, still looking towards the forest. Bull knows better than to interrupt now.
“It was of this Elf girl and a Human man. They met when the girl’s clan approach a Human settlement to trade goods. He was the son of a local blacksmith, and she was the daughter of the Keeper, and they fell in love with each other after meeting once.” Lavellan says and pauses.
“I bet they didn’t go their separate ways?” Bull asks.
“And you’d be right.” Lavellan replies, laughing. It was not the joyful laugh he was used to hearing from him, but a bitter one.
“The girl tells her mother, her mother prohibits her of ever seeing him again for the good of the clan.” Lavellan says and pauses again, as if reliving a memory. Bull doesn’t know what to take of this yet, but he knows Lavellan well enough to go along with it.
“Did the girl obey?” He asks then.
“No. She and the man had agreed to flee that night, live together somewhere else out of his knowledge of blacksmithing. She had to kill another clan member to flee, and her mother had to cast her out of the clan for it. Then apparently the man left her and she died alone in the end, or so the story goes.” Lavellan states.
“Oh. I see.” Bull says. He doesn’t know what else to say. Is Lavellan saying that he’d like to go search for survivors from his clan? That…
“My mother told me this story after I fell in love with a man, not that she knew the gender of the person, just that I fell in love in similar circumstances.” Lavellan interrupts his line of thought. “I, however, did not flee. And I still sometimes ask myself where I would be if I had.”
“So… you regret not fleeing?” Bull asks.
“In the past, sometimes. However...” Lavellan adds, turning to face him for the first time since they began talking. The last rays of light shine directly on his face, and Bull thinks he has never seen anything as beautiful as that.
“I don’t have a clan anymore to go back to. To keep me from fleeing .” Lavellan says, giving him a true smile this time that Bull can’t help but reciprocate.
“And as it so happens, the man I’ve fallen in love with also has his own clan of sorts, a mischievous group of people that moves from place to place to fulfil contracts. It certainly sounds like I would regret not fleeing with that man.” Lavellan finishes, placing a hand on Bull’s chest which he feels tightening up due to the strange and familiar feeling that he could not name for the longest time.
Unable to find the words to reply, Bull reaches down and pulls Lavellan up, kissing him softly on top of the hill.
When Bull sets Lavellan down, he grins at Bull and teases while running downhill. “You might want to think carefully about what my position within the Chargers is gonna be. Or they might start teasing by asking if they can sleep with you for a promotion.”
Shit
“Considering who has been working for whom, I’d hardly call it a promotion.” Bull yells, running after him back to the tavern and their new future together.