FIC: In Good Keeping
GIFTEE: @maliwanhellfires from @hobbitkaiju
PROMPT: Arranged Marriage AU!
RATING: Adult, contains some semi-explicit sex
LENGTH: This is Chapter 1 of 2, and is 17 pages (rest will be posted/linked on AO3)
CONTENT WARNINGS: Halward appears in the beginning of this fic, being his awful self. Heads-up about that. Also, this particular scenario implies that Sebastian Vael died in the Chantry explosion in Kirkwall, so I suppose this needs a warning for background character death. It’s only mentioned in passing, and never in any detail. And finally, this fic makes use of the idea that all Qunari are essentially one sex and are thus all capable of several means of reproduction. Thus, male pregnancy is alluded to as a possibility though never portrayed. Credit for this idea goes to @twelve-colors (twelvicity on AO3)
**
By the time Halward discovered Dorian’s location, Dorian had been in Quarinus more than a month, and he and Maevaris had his exit plan underway.
It wasn’t an ideal plan, and Dorian lost sleep wondering if this could truly be his best option. But the only other escape route he could see would be to both leave Tevinter and venture into the South friendless and alone. At least this way he’d have connections and a home of some sort waiting for him when he departed. Better any plan, even this one, than Halward’s.
So when Magister Pavus arrived at Mae’s estate, Mae had a lovely tea all laid out and Dorian only flinched a little when Halward entered the sitting room.
“Father,” Dorian bowed.
“Dorian! You obstreperous boy, why have you answered none of my letters? And to come all the way to Quarinus, with no explanation! You missed your mother’s midsummer festival, and–”
Maevaris rose from her seat like a serpent from water, the thin fabric of her outer robes swirling around her thighs. Halward fell silent at once, remembering his surroundings enough to realize how rude it was to berate his son before even greeting their hostess.
Normally Halward barely deigned to acknowledge Mae’s existence even when their duties in the Magisterium forced them to interact. So the prospect of having whatever conversation he and Dorian were about to have even though she was watching would gall Halward terribly. And the fact that he’d been caught out being overtly boorish to her would irritate him even more. Dorian awarded himself a point.
Mind you, Dorian thought to himself, this conversation is only happening because he resorted to the ultimate way to cheat victory out of me for the rest of my natural life, so. Not much of a win, this.
“I am to be married soon, Father,” Dorian stated as soon as the formal greetings were done. He made sure to pitch his voice loud, stronger than he felt.
Halward faltered in the middle of seating himself to stare at Dorian. For half a second the older man hovered halfway between sitting and standing before he lowered himself cautiously onto the couch, his eyes narrowing as his gaze turned on Mae.
“To you, I presume,” Halward hissed at Maevaris. “You must know that I would never allow–”
“No, my dear, not to me,” Mae interrupted, before Halward could say anything too heinous. “I am nothing Dorian wants. No, Dorian is making a very advantageous match. To a king, in fact! You’ve heard of the Free Marches island nation of Starkhaven?”
Halward’s dark eyes widened, and Dorian held in a crow of victory as the man visibly swallowed.
“But the Vael prince is dead, killed in that Chantry explosion in Kirkwall. That is exactly why it–”
Dorian laughed, and it only came out a little choked.
“No no, none of the Vael line would have anything to do with Tevinter, I didn’t realize your knowledge of Free Marches politics was so out of date! I will marry the new king. Surely you’ve at least heard of him? The massive Qunari mercenary who took over the palace by accident last year and was then elected as king! I believe he is affectionately known in the Marches as the Iron Bull. I am contracted to him!”
For a moment Halward seemed frozen by this statement, stunned into silence. But then his face clouded, brows drawing together over his nose to make a most unattractive set of wrinkles.
“This is nonsense, Dorian, as I’m sure you know. You are saying this merely to exasperate me, and you have succeeded, so this charade is over. You must produce heirs! Someone who will carry on the Pavus legacy and take our seat in the Magisterium!”
Dorian rolled his eyes as though Halward was the one who had said something foolish, though his eyes prickled as though he might cry and under his robes Dorian was sweating terribly. He forced a cocky grin, and knew he’d pulled it off when Halward’s scowl deepened.
“The Bull has already agreed to allow me to sire children on him!” Dorian smirked, holding his arms out. “One for the Magisterium and one for Starkhaven, provided the Bull doesn’t name someone else his heir there before that happens. With him being one of the Grey People, begetting heirs with him shall not be a problem even despite his gender. It will be a wonderful cultural exchange, don’t you think? And it will mean that a half-Qunari will take our seat in the Magisterium someday. About time the Imperium got some new blood in it.”
If looks could kill, Dorian would be very dead by now. Halward’s glare was so cold that it very nearly qualified as a form of elemental magic. But Dorian was nothing if not good at smiling at those who hated him. The fact that his father was among those people–and apparently had been for some time, given the meticulousness of his notes on blood magic–didn’t lessen the display of Dorian’s perfect teeth.
“Technically the Bull is no longer a Qunari,” Maevaris added delicately, as though correcting a very minor factual inaccuracy. “He became a Tal-Vashoth several years ago, hence why he is allowed to marry at all. I’ve heard that before that, he was one of the Ben-Hassrath.”
“An oxman and a Qunari spy!” Halward rose, his lip curling. “This farce is over, Dorian! You will come home with me, quietly, and if I hear any more of these slanderous falsehoods from you I will be forced to take extreme measures against you. And as for you, Maevaris–I would have thought this sort of childish behavior was beneath even you!”
Maevaris only blinked prettily at him, unaffected by Halward’s insult. By sheer force of will, Dorian made himself remain seated too. He would not lose himself now. He refused to cry, or shout, or do any of the things he wished to do.
“I would say you have already planned to take extreme measures for me,” Dorian stated, in a slow, measured tone. “Why do you think I came here so suddenly? I read the notes in your study, Father, and I have no intention of going anywhere with you, so that you to use blood magic to break my mind.”
“What a preposterous notion,” Halward spat, lying easily. But his eyes darted to Maevaris, who pinned him with the cold blue gaze she had inherited from her ancestors in the Anderfels. “I don’t know who has dared to slander me by saying I would use blood magic, but–”
“No,” Dorian interrupted, and then forced himself to exhale slowly. For those several seconds, the silence in the room stretched out around him like a long shadow. “I know exactly which of our slaves–whom you have always prided yourself on treating well!–you planned to kill to do it. I know that you planned to use a Desire demon, if possible, since I so naturally attract them, and that you were going to allow the demon to leave in the elf’s body as payment for changing me. I had to break into your magically sealed cabinets to find the notes, yes, but I have read them all and I have them with me. If I need proof of your misdeeds in order to defend myself, I have it. So do me the courtesy of not lying anymore. You’re only embarrassing us both by doing so.”
For a moment, Halward seemed genuinely unmanned, opening his mouth before shutting it again. But then he stood to his full height, lip curling to reveal his teeth.
“Such recourse would never have even occurred to me if you had not forced my hand! You flout your disgusting proclivities for all to see! Do you have any idea how hard I’ve been forced to work to undo the stains you’ve already put upon the Pavus name? You will throw our entire house and your mother’s into disrepute! Anything I may have planned is your fault, Dorian, you–”
Maevaris stood suddenly. Both men were so focused upon each other that they might have ignored her, until a crackle of electricity cut through Halward’s rising voice. When they turned to her, both her arms were sheathed in a dramatic display of purple lightning that squirmed and twisted around her like snakes.
“I will thank you not to speak to my guest in such an unseemly way within my house, Magister Halward,” she snapped. “If you cannot conduct yourself with the dignity befitting one who serves in the Magisterium, then I will take any measure I deem necessary to protect those who are more welcome in my house.”
Silently Dorian thanked her. For a moment he couldn’t even force words out of his mouth, too paralyzed with horror at the depth of his father’s hatred for him.
“My future husband,” Dorian barked after only a brief pause, “is already on his way to the Tevinter border. I will be married as soon as I arrive at Maevaris’ summer villa there. I leave tomorrow to meet him. You cannot and will not stop me, Father, and the fact that I asked the Bull about producing heirs is the greatest and only compromise on this matter that you will ever get from me. You will either accept the heirs I produce with him, or you will die heirless and be forced to pass your seat on to someone of so-called lesser blood. Either way, I will be leaving Tevinter and taking myself out of your reach.”
Halward hissed at him, a sharp expulsion of air through his teeth.
“You are no son of mine,” he growled, and stalked out of the room.
**
A week and a half after that–eleven days spent traveling during the day and having nightmares about Halward every night–Dorian arrived with Maevaris at the villa. When they reached the stables, it became obvious that they were not the first of the wedding party to arrive. The stalls were packed with beasts of burden of every size and shape.
Among them hulked a massive nuggalope. By the Bull’s own description, even his own people reckoned him large, being outsized only by their gigantic mages. So when the bizarre beast confronted Dorian, he had to assume it belonged to the Bull. It would take a very sturdy mount indeed to support someone of the Bull’s reputed size, and a nuggalope–a species Dorian had previously only heard of in jest–would certainly qualify.
But the nuggalope was a lovely milky lavender that shaded to a royal purple in places, and it had pink spots. Pink. Its horns were decorated with little dawnstone bells, too, so that it jingled when it moved. It was perhaps the most ridiculous and undignified beast Dorian had ever seen.
When he asked the stablemaster about it, Dorian’s suspicion proved to be correct. It was indeed the Bull’s personal mount.
For a while Dorian considered the creature, which knuckled around its stall, using its flexible upper lip to snuffle out bits of vegetables and fruits from the straw that served as its bedding–as well as a few bugs, licking them up as Dorian watched. What sort of a man rode on a purple and pink nuggalope with bells on its horns? Was he a ridiculous man, a jester who’d found himself king yet still thought nothing of making himself a spectacle? Would he humiliate or embarrass Dorian? Or was he a fop, an effete man who loved all things soft and feminine?
An effeminate husband, at least, would not be a problem so long as the man remained grounded in sense and was not of the sort to spend all his coin upon makeup and lace. Such potentialities made no sense, though. Maevaris would have told Dorian in either case, because he had pestered her for every detail she could recall about the Iron Bull, his looks, mannerisms, and style. But nothing in her stories or descriptions had prepared Dorian for a man who’d ride around on a purple and pink nug with little bells on.
Mae had described the Bull as huge and quite masculine, unbeautiful yet attractive nonetheless, with enough chest for even a man of Dorian’s size to comfortably spread out upon. Quick to laugh but equally quick to spot weaknesses and exploitable advantages.
Dorian didn’t have much to go on. A few letters, a description from a friend, and a promise made out of desperation. And yet he’d pledged himself to this unknown, promised to share his body and home and name with a complete stranger. Promised to make children with both a man and species unfamiliar to Dorian.
The nuggalope told Dorian something important about his intended, he knew, but he just wasn’t sure what.
So when Mae’s servants ushered Dorian into a sitting room, the figure that rose from a creaky couch to greet Dorian still took him off guard.
“You must be my groom! Dorian Pavus, right? I’m the Iron Bull.” And with a heavily-callused, scarred-up hand, the Bull grasped one of Dorian’s and bowed, kissing Dorian’s knuckles as though Dorian were a blushing maiden. The Bull’s dark stubble prickled against Dorian’s skin, but the lips were both soft and very warm.
Dorian’s breath caught. He had expected–well, he had expected someone with both of their eyes, for starters, and someone wearing a shirt, but the Bull was neither of those things. His chest and shoulders rippled with muscle, liberally striped with scars that were on clear display given his half-dressed state. The Bull’s horns spread nearly as wide as his shoulders, and were tipped with pale pink dawnstone caps. The Bull wore only a sort of leather girdle of a deep midnight purple, and below that, loose trousers of pink plaidweave.
The clothing, while both ghastly in style and much scarcer than Dorian had anticipated, didn’t stop Dorian’s face from heating up. Maker help me, he thought. I’m supposed to beget a child on this?
For the first time in his life, the prospect of procreation didn’t seem completely abhorrent. Though, now he saw his intended, Dorian realized that mounting the Bull would be like one of those Orlesian specialty nugs bred for their tiny size trying to mate with a nuggalope. Dorian was himself quite tall as men went, and his endowment had never gotten complaints, but he wasn’t a Qunari. How could he hope to compare?
The Bull straightened to stand at his full height–which was far above even Dorian’s–and grinned as though he knew exactly what Dorian was thinking.
“Look at you,” the Bull crooned. “You’re every bit as pretty as you boasted! Didn’t expect that, honestly.”
“I believe ‘devastatingly handsome’ is the phrase you’re looking for,” Dorian quipped, doing his best to conceal the rapid staccato of his heart. The Bull still had not let go of his hand, and he now used it to pull Dorian closer and turn him so that the Bull could see all of him, front and back. Dorian allowed himself to be turned, feeling a prickle of erotic tension lift the hairs at the back of his neck. “But thank you for the compliment. I am glad that you at least find me–” and then he found he lacked the right words. Was one allowed to say, At least you find me attractive, since you are marrying me on little notice and probably as a favor to Maevaris? If the Bull had been a high-bred lady of Tevinter, Dorian would have known exactly how to comport himself in an arranged match such as theirs would be. But taking a Tal-Vashoth king of a Free Marches nation as his bride stumped Dorian’s etiquette lessons.
“Glad that fucking you regularly won’t be a chore?” the Bull finished for him after only a brief pause, apparently constrained by no such worries about propriety.
Thankfully Dorian’s skin was just a few shades too dark to show a blush. He felt the heat of one anyway, spreading up his neck and over his forehead.
The room was quiet around them except for the crackle of a large fireplace on the wall behind Dorian, but the Bull leaned in closer anyway, his face taking on a conspiratorial look. “Mae tells me you couldn’t stomach the idea of a wife but found yourself in sudden need of a spouse. Good thing my advisors were telling me that getting married will do a lot for my credibility as a ruler, right?”
“Right,” Dorian agreed, trying to surreptitiously take deeper breaths without seeming like he was feeling faint. “A fine happenstance, and much to my benefit. I admit, I was a bit surprised that you’d even entertain the notion. I had been given to understand that Qunari don’t marry, and indeed find the concept something akin to sacrilege.”
For just a moment the Bull’s face tightened, his smile faltering. But the grin slid neatly back into full brightness after only the slightest twitch, leaving Dorian uncertain the shift had even happened at all.
“Good thing I’m no longer a Qunari, then. I was made Tal-Vashoth a few years back, when me and my boys were doing a Dreadnaught run. Went tits-up and they chucked me out of the Qun. That’s all right, though, because I wouldn’t really want the Qun to have this much of a foothold in the Free Marches anyway.” When Dorian raised his eyebrow, the Bull rolled his eye and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to become a king, but the people elected me without my say-so. I was just hired to kill off the demon-possessed family who were ruling here before. Stupid me, I stayed in the castle for a few months after even though it wasn’t part of my job, just making sure no more demons would turn up. Apparently the people here took that as volunteering.”
“Is that what happened?” Dorian murmured, withdrawing his hand when the Bull finally released it. Standing this close, Dorian could feel the bigger man’s body heat, and indeed smell him. It was a faint smell, but pungent, and somehow spicy. It made Dorian’s mouth water. “I had heard that another noble family had taken over the rulership of Starkhaven in the Vael prince’s absence, but not what had happened to them that left you in a position to rule.”
“Possessed, every single one of them,” the Bull spat, expression twisting into clear disgust. When his lip curled up, the canine it revealed was sharp and long, not like human teeth. “Fuckin’ demons, getting into people’s heads! You wouldn’t believe the shit I found those nobs doing. One of them had developed a habit of making people into statues by mummifying them in liquid gold.”
“Goodness, that’s quite the hobby,” Dorian exclaimed, briefly forgetting who he was talking to in the shock of the news. “I don’t suppose there are crafting clubs for that the same way there are for knitting? Well good riddance, then, I’m glad you sorted that out. And I shall make sure not to summon any demons in our living room, yes?”
“Mae tells me you’re quite decent, for an Altus,” the Bull joked, nudging Dorian with one muscular elbow. “Barely any demonic rituals at all.”
“None ever, thank you very much,” Dorian primly replied, neatly pulling his train of thought away from memories of his father. “I don’t know how much Mae told you, but let’s just say that I have had more than my fill of blood magic as a solution for one’s problems.”
The Bull sobered at once, his humorous flirtation vanishing as if it had never happened.
“Mae didn’t give me specifics, just said that you were at risk. I’m glad you got out. I needed a spouse anyway, and finding a potential who needed saving from blood magic just sealed the deal, for me.”
“Thank you,” Dorian replied, surprised by the Bull’s gravity and vehement protectiveness. “Highly though Mae has praised you to me as a mercenary captain and ally, I still did not expect concern on my behalf. It is….much appreciated.”
The look the Bull gave him at this was pure filth, gaze dragging over Dorian from head to toes like sweaty hands. It entirely derailed the seriousness of the moment, and brought a fresh heat to Dorian’s face.
“My pleasure,” the Bull purred, and then Mae entered the room to distract them with other things.
**
The rest of the evening was taken up with preparations for the wedding, which they had planned to undertake the very next day. The wedding would not be a grand affair, as the matrimony of an altus-expectant should have been. But while the Villa was no grand cathedral, it still needed last-minute decorations, and the menu had to be planned.
Dorian tried not to think about the fact that he was getting married and not a single member of his family would be in attendance.
He would at least have Maevaris, his one and only friend, to stand as his Maid of Honor. With her would also be Mae’s cousin-in-law and close friend, a dwarf named Varric Tethras, who was from the Free Marches as well and had been visiting the Bull when the arrangement had been struck. Varric had, in fact, been the reason Mae had known that the Bull had been considering taking spouse in the first place.
Varric Tethras, Dorian supposed, was as close as he would ever get to having distant relations at his wedding. Not a single family member on either side would be present for the event. A single, solitary friend of a friend: that was apparently all Dorian deserved by way of kinship.
Dorian swallowed carefully around the tears this thought threatened to evoke, not wishing to cry in front of the cooks and servants who were listening to their instructions for the morrow.
And it wasn’t as if the Bull was any better off in the family department. Having been born and raised under the Qun, he of course had no relations. Instead, several key members of the Bull’s old mercenary company would be where his family ought to have been. Another man from Tevinter, in fact, a Soporato named Cremisius, would be the Bull’s Best Man.
Travel accommodations for the ensuing journey to the Free Marches also had to be planned out before the event. The Bull was used to camping and rough travel, but Dorian outright refused to spend the weeks after his wedding sleeping on the ground.
“Fair enough, we’re gonna want a bed anyway. Doing it in tents is difficult when you’re my size,” the Bull grinned, cheerfully accepting Dorian’s needs as though they wouldn’t double or treble the cost of the trip and put them at much greater inconvenience. “I’m probably only gonna get married once, so I suppose I should get a proper honeymoon.”
When they parted ways soon after that discussion, having finally completed the planning, Dorian thought he would not see his intended again until the ceremony. But a few hours later that night, a knock came at the door of Dorian’s chambers. When he opened it, he found the Bull standing there, hands clasped modestly over his belly with a gentle expression on his face.
“Hey, came to talk to you. Can I come in?”
Not knowing what to expect, Dorian stood back from the threshold to allow the larger man entry.
Cautiously, listening for any sounds of wood on the verge of breaking, the Bull seated himself in one of the plush chairs positioned in front of the fireplace. Then he looked up at Dorian with a serious eye, gesturing him to seat himself in the other chair.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Dorian asked, remembering his manners. Most of his finesse seemed to go out the window whenever the Bull entered the room–the man defied manners, that much was already clear–but Dorian was determined to keep trying.
“How’re you really feeling about this wedding?” the Bull asked, with every appearance of earnest curiosity. “It’s not too late to back out, and I won’t be offended or angry if you get cold feet.”
Dorian stared. Whatever he had expected the Tal-Vashoth to say, it wasn’t this. His thoughts whirled; was this the Bull’s way of implying that he didn’t want Dorian for a spouse after all? The very idea had Dorian’s pulse rate jumping and his palms clammy.
“Is there some reason you inquire?” Dorian replied with careful neutrality. “Has anything in my behavior displeased you, or implied that I am unwilling?”
The Bull shook his head, but his gaze remained fixed. Dorian kept his back straight, his legs positioned loosely in front of him. Poised, well-bred, yet relaxed.
“This is a damn marriage,“ the Bull said simply, undeterred. “And you’ve been rushed into it out of fear. I know you wouldn’t have chosen this–or me–if you had better options. I’m willing to make a political decision like this to protect people and secure my social standing–thus helping other people–but it’s different for you. I’m coming to this from a place of power. I could wait, find someone else if I really searched. But you’re backed into a corner. Yeah, circumstances have forced your hand and you need a safe way out of the country, but that doesn’t mean I want to push you into something you can’t actually stomach. If escaping Tevinter is all you really need, I know all sorts of people who could get you out and stationed somewhere comfortable without having to resort to marriage.”
For a moment Dorian’s facade cracked and he stared at the Bull in open shock. It had been years since anyone but Mae had expressed genuine concern for Dorian, or offered anything to him that wasn’t in some way motivated by political gain.
Helpless, Dorian’s gaze dropped. He hadn’t been this at a loss for words in front of a potential suitor since his teens.
“I….thank you,” he muttered. “I didn’t expect you to care.”
“That’s precisely why it’s necessary that I do,” the Bull replied, immediate and intense. Dorian could feel the other man’s gaze like he could feel the heat from the fire. “I don’t fuck the unwilling, Master Pavus. And though I’ve never been in a position to think about it before, I don’t want to marry the unwilling either. So I’ll say again: if this isn’t what you want, if I’m not what you want, then I won’t be offended or upset. I can act as your escort out of Tevinter instead, and even offer you shelter in Starkhaven for a while. You don’t have to marry me to get that.”
Dorian closed his eyes. All at once, the weight of the last month fell upon him–the sleepless nights, Mae’s frantic efforts to save Dorian from his own father’s brutal machinations, the endless spinning recall of his father’s notes and face and cold blaming of Dorian, the hard travel, and the knowledge that whatever he did, Dorian would have to leave behind his homeland and probably never return. He’d lost weight, he knew he had, and his eyes felt gritty all the time. He concealed the weariness with magic and makeup and charm, of course, but he felt the pain just the same.
“I don’t know how to answer you,” Dorian forced out at last, when the silence had stretched on far, far too long and revealed too much. When he opened his eyes, though, the look on the Tal-Vashoth’s face was nothing but kind, the green eye soft and concerned.
“I know what I don’t want,” Dorian stated at last, looking away from the scarred-up face that seemed to care about him. “I don’t want to be turned into a chess piece for my father’s personal and political plans. I don’t want to be married to someone I will despise, who hates me and everything I represent and desire and feel and think. I don’t want sex to become a chore I must dispense with in order to beget offspring whose sole reason for existing is to serve me. I don’t want to raise children who will have to watch their parents sink deeper and deeper into self-hatred and bitterness.”
Dorian stopped, the words choking him and his eyes burning with unshed tears as well as the now-normal soreness of exhaustion. A fine first impression he was making upon his soon-to-be husband; Dorian now looked like an over-emotional weakling who couldn’t deal with simple political realities. Wonderful.
“That all seems pretty reasonable,” the Bull remarked after a moment, getting a snort from Dorian. The words were in too great a contradiction with his thoughts, and thus couldn’t be honest. “Really, Dorian. May I call you Dorian? Look, I agreed to this arrangement because I trust Mae. She hired me and my men to help her deal with some really nasty people, once upon a time. Normally I didn’t take work from ‘Vints, but this was back when I was a Qunari spy, so my handlers jumped at the opportunity to get more information on the Tevinter Magister who wanted reform for her country.”
Surreptitiously wiping his eyes, Dorian adjusted his posture and crossed his legs, doing his best to look more like he was listening. He was, it was just difficult to hold himself together enough to look it.
“I spent a lot of time with Mae on that mission,” the Bull continued. “She came with me herself, because what she wanted was fairly personal. More than a month we spent together in constant proximity, and she was never impolite to my men or needlessly cruel even to our opponents. So when she wrote to me to say she had a friend in desperate need of a husband, I would have taken you on with her recommendation alone.” Here the Bull chuckled. “It’s nice, though, to find that you’re easy on the eyes, honest when it counts, and sweet under all the glitz and sparkle. Good marriages have been based on far less.”
Dorian didn’t quite jump when a big dry hand took his much-sweatier one in its grip, but he did turn his gaze abruptly from the glowing logs in the grate to the lined face beside him.
“I’m pretty sure you do know what you want, Dorian. But I’ll help you out with some basics, so we can both go into this with our eyes open. How about monogamy? I can’t promise you I’ll never sleep with anyone else, but I can promise you it won’t be serious if I do, and I won’t share any details about it with you if you don’t want to hear. I can also promise you I’ll never make kids with anyone but you. I’m always very careful about that. And I’m fine with you sleeping with other people too, so long as you don’t get any kids elsewhere either.”
At this Dorian laughed, squeezing around the long fingers that held his. “That won’t be an issue. I only like men.”
“Some men can get pregnant,” Bull replied, all calm factuality. “Case in point: me. But my point is that I want children to be a carefully-made decision, not an undesired consequence. That okay by you?”
“Yes,” Dorian agreed, noting the way his heartbeat raced down his arms and pounded in his fingertips where he touched the Bull. “Yes, that–yes. Children should be neither an obligation nor an accident. Which I guess is….is something else I want. I want to wait to have children, if we ever decide to do it. I’d like to actually know who you are, first.”
“Fine by me,” the Bull agreed, one corner of his mouth curling up in an easy smile. “So you’re okay with me sleeping with other people?”
“It’s what men do,” Dorian replied. It had been a fact of life in Tevinter. It was accepted that married people would take lovers, especially the men, though it was expected that a certain level of discretion be maintained. Dorian knew that in the South some people had very different beliefs about fidelity and sex and marriage, but neither Dorian nor the Bull were Southerners, not really, so surely none of that applied to them. “I can’t change the way people are just because we’re getting married,” Dorian finished.
“No,” the Bull contradicted, “sleeping around is what some men choose to do. I don’t want to resent you, and I think I would if I could never fuck anyone else ever again. This will be the first serious relationship I have ever entered, so I am not used to restricting myself when fun opportunities come my way. But if it is truly important to you, I am willing to try to keep my focus on just you and see how it goes. So, try again: is monogamy important to you?”
The Bull stroked Dorian’s knuckles, a slow caress that was at odds with the bluntness of his words. Something in it prompted Dorian to force himself to consider the question. But he had never before had a serious relationship either, and had never allowed himself to even consider the prospect of an exclusive one, so how was he to know what he liked?
“No,” he concluded at last. “If you can restrict your activities to places I will not see them and which will not publicly humiliate me, and if you agree to see a healer every few months to make sure we are both protected from disease, I see no reason to curtail your fun. Especially if doing so will only breed resentment. And as you said, I assume this arrangement means I too will be allowed to continue my ‘disgusting sluttish behavior,’ as my father called it?”
Rather than the glare Dorian of disapproval expected this to get, the Bull laughed, a loud shout of amusement. “Hah! Call it whatever you want, it doesn’t bother me. Marriage shouldn’t be a death sentence. And hey, maybe there’ll be some people we both like. The more the merrier in a bedroom!”
Dorian’s mind boggled, but he allowed himself a shy smile. At this, though, the Bull’s expression shifted again.
“Which brings me to another point. Do you even wish to have sex with me at all? If you don’t, I’ll still marry you, but it would become even more important that I get my needs met elsewhere.”
“I–ah,” Dorian choked. His face was outright sizzling now, from the combined heat of the hearth and his blush. This couldn’t be happening, surely? He could not be discussing possible abstinence with the man who’d soon be his husband. Dorian had barely known what to do with men who wanted to fuck him for a month straight. Commitment between two men was impossible enough in Tevinter, but commitment without any expectation of sex? Unthinkable.
“Based solely on your physical attributes, I don’t think I’ll mind fulfilling my marital duties with you,” Dorian offered. He hoped the Bull would not push. If the Bull said again that he’d marry Dorian even without sex, Dorian thought he might fall in love on the spot. And he was already overwhelmed enough without silly fantasies of this becoming a love-match.
“No?” the Bull teased, his tone all amusement now. “You wouldn’t mind being ravished on your wedding night by a big, burly ox?”
Dorian, who had been busy contemplating a future with a man who was caring and thoughtful enough to marry a desperate refugee and not even expect sex in return, grew keenly aware of the skin contact between their hands. His clothes seemed suddenly too hot.
“If it’s anything like I’m picturing, it won’t be a chore,” he gritted out, trying for seductive and failing. “But I had thought that….well, given that you agreed to think of bearing children for me someday, that the intimacy between us might happen the other way around?”
“That was before I met you,” the Bull chuckled. “Now I’ve seen you, it’s obvious that’s not what you’d want from me. No, you’d want me to take control, be the one doing the ravishing.”
“How could you possibly–” Dorian began to ask, but he didn’t pull his hand away. And when the Bull leaned forward in his chair, propping his other elbow on his knee, Dorian didn’t lean away.
“The way you look at my chest,” the Bull interrupted, and Dorian found he didn’t mind it. “You grip your hands a bit every time you do it, like you’re imagining holding on to something while I take you. And you keep standing just a little too close, as if by accident, and then staring up at me. It emphasizes the height difference between us, so I gotta figure you like that. And when you talk to me, you tuck your chin just a little and look up at me through your lashes. You never do that with Maevaris or any of the servants, just with me. Now that might be because you’re scared of me, or of what I represent, and you’re trying to appease me. It’s a submissive posture. But I don’t think it’s because you’re scared of me, I think it’s because you’re thinking about what it would be liking having me above you. Am I right?”
Blood flooded through Dorian’s entire body as the Bull talked, picking apart the minutia of Dorian’s body language and desires and being correct upon every count. Dorian was used to being scrutinized; he was used to preening and checking himself to make sure every hint of his body and posture were always at their best so that he could visually spit in the faces of his detractors. But he was not used to being visually consumed in such a way, details taken in and savored as though he were a treat that melted upon the tongue.
“Yes,” Dorian whispered. “Yes, that’s…..you are correct.”
“Good,” the Bull murmured, his deep voice husky and amused. “If we can get some fun sex and a solid friendship out of this, I’ll call myself a very lucky man indeed.” A big, rough thumb swept over the veins on the back of Dorian’s hands. “I would like to actually sleep beside you, too,” the Bull added, as though such a sentimental declaration were perfectly fitting after such a filthy discussion. “I’ve traveled with my boys for years, I don’t sleep very well when I’m alone. I like having someone breathing beside me. Have you ever slept beside someone before?”
“No,” Dorian admitted, feeling obscurely shamed by the declaration, though he couldn’t think why that should be. “Never. It’s….it’s not done, among the Alti.”
The look this got from the Bull was unspeakably tender, as though Dorian had just admitted something very sensitive. Dorian squirmed internally, though he managed to keep his limbs still.
“I won’t pressure you for this, either,” the Bull said. “But if you’re willing to try, it’s something I’d like.”
“I’m willing.”
They smiled at each other, and Dorian’s skin tingled.
At some point in the conversation, some sort of energy had built between them. Dorian wasn’t sure he’d ever felt this before, and he didn’t know how to label or respond to it. He’d felt something similar with Rilienus, a desire that was sexual but went beyond just that, too. Dorian had caught himself picturing a future together with the man in a hundred small but impossible ways: what a bedroom might look like with both of their belongings in it. How their sheets might smell from a combination of their hair oils and lotions and bodies in it. How both their research papers might have benefitted from skilled, consistent peer insight.
It had all been impossible, of course. Rilienus had been promised to another talented young Laetan like himself. They had married six months prior. Dorian had barely seen him since.
But this, here and now with the Bull, felt almost similar. Not quite the same, of course, the situations were different. Dorian had met Rilienus because their lines of magical inquiry had been so similar, and they had worked together near-constantly for months before the man’s wedding. By the end of those months, they had known each other well.
Dorian had never even slept with the man, never even daring to ask lest doing so break the sweet, lovely spell between them. It hadn’t been the impending nuptials that had stopped Dorian. He had slept with plenty of married men before. It had been that, for the first time, that he didn’t wish to lose a friendship to sex. He wished now that he had asked; he’d lost the friendship anyway.
The Bull wasn’t a friend, but now Dorian wondered if the Bull was right, that friendship might be a possibility. Could people even be friends and be married at the same time? Gereon had described his married to his wife that way. And Dorian had read about other such relationships in books….
But one solid example and a lot of hearsay did not a repeatable phenomenon make. As any good researcher knew, one couldn’t trust information conveyed by others. It was inevitably colored by the teller’s limitations and idiosyncrasies.
“I should let you sleep,” the Bull purred. The words were perfectly innocuous, but the tone suggested I should fuck you instead. He was still holding Dorian’s hand.
The Bull stood anyway, releasing Dorian’s fingers with a lingering slide that left behind little swirls of sensation. Dorian saw him to the door on slightly weak legs.
“You change your mind anytime between now and the wedding, I won’t hold it against you,” the Bull repeated, standing at the threshold. “Hell, you change your mind after the wedding, I’ll still let you go. Only do this if it’s what you want, okay?”
Dorian very nearly leaned up to kiss the man then and there. Under his clothes his prick stirred, and Dorian’s whole body leaned toward the Bull, just a little. But the thought occurred to Dorian that it would be–well, it would be terribly romantic if their first kiss were at their wedding. So Dorian held himself back, giving only a small smile.
“I doubt I’ll change my mind,” he murmured. “Unless you change dramatically between then and now. So do try not to get possessed in the meantime, yes?”
The Bull snorted as he turned to go.
**
The next day passed fast and slow, fast and slow. One moment Dorian would be standing agonizing over every aspect of his makeup and hair–was that too much kohl, or not enough? Did he look like he was trying too hard, or just hard enough?–and the next moment it was an hour later and he’d choked down breakfast without noticing.
Then he was at the altar, only barely aware of how he’d gotten there. He tried not to think of how small the chapel was, intended not for a wedding but for the private worship of the Tilani family. Yet \ the chapel’s tiny size didn’t matter to anyone but Dorian, since there were only eight people in attendance.
Dorian’s hands sweated, his armpits sweated, he was a swamp inside his robes. He wished he could somehow slow down his racing heartbeat so it didn’t throb at his throat and batter at the inside of his ribs. But he repeated his vows when prompted, took the hastily-acquired ring on his finger, and slipped another ring onto the stumpy remains of the Bull’s ring finger when the moment arrived.
A little thrill went through Dorian at that: where before the Bull had only worn the scars of battle, now he’d wear Dorian’s ring. It was a foolish thought, a romantic thought. Dorian hardly knew his groom. But it was good nonetheless to think of romance at least a little bit at a wedding.
A tiny wedding, at which he had no family.
Then the Bull pulled him tight against his much bigger body, curled a hand behind Dorian’s neck, and kissed him.
Somehow, the world receded away. There was nothing but the Bull, the warm skin of his bare chest dry and soft under Dorian’s grip. The Bull’s smell, potent yet somehow sweet, curled around Dorian like a down blanket. His high pulse throbbed inside the gold ring, the Bull’s tongue slid against the seal of Dorian’s lips, and Dorian could feel the luxurious press of the Bull’s soft sex against his own.
He’s mine? Dorian thought, baffled by the fact as their mouths parted in a slow, sticky movement that left Dorian shaky. I’m married. This is my husband now.
It made no sense. None of it made any sense. The fact of their marriage didn’t make any further sense when the Reverend Mother brought out the relevant legal paperwork, stepping neatly from her spiritual station to her job as a notary and legal clerk. Dorian signed the parchments in the relevant locations, and was surprised too by the beautiful calligraphy with which the Bull wrote his own name. Looking at the flowing letters, it occurred yet again to Dorian that he knew next to nothing about this man, and yet they had sworn before both the government and the Maker that they would join their separate lives into one.
Dorian got through the rest of the packing for their departure, the celebratory afternoon meal, and the last-minute changes to their travel plans. Dorian got through the revelation that the lavender nuggalope in the stables was named Crystal, that it had been a gift from one of the Bull’s past lovers, and that Dorian would be riding with the Bull on it through Nevarra to the Nevarran port where they’d catch a ship to Starkhaven.
“Means we’ll have plenty of time to talk, get to know each other,” the Bull murmured, and Dorian unaccountably flushed. The Bull’s words hadn’t been an innuendo, as it was already clear that when the Bull wanted to refer to sex, there was nothing oblique about the way he did it. So the Bull had truly meant that he and Dorian would have time to talk on this trip. And yet, Dorian was blushing.
If this had been a real wedding, Dorian caught himself thinking, and couldn’t stop the line of thought once it had started, then we’d stay for several nights in a family estate, feasting with all our relations, both mine and his. If this was a real wedding, we’d have our honeymoon in the Capitol and we’d deck each other in gold and velvet. If this were a real wedding, when we left for the Capitol, we’d need a caravan of horses and carriages and servants to contain all the gifts.
But it had been a real wedding even despite lacking all that. Very real, from the Bull’s warm palm at the base of Dorian’s spine to the heavy rings their fingers. Even if they’d be departing from this by riding double on a ridiculous oversized nug and taking only one extra horse for baggage, and their retinue would include only Aclassi and Tethras, it had still been real.
He will keep me safe from my father, Dorian told himself as he pushed away the disappointment and grief. Mae has vouched for his character, and it means I will have a place to go outside Tevinter. It is enough, it will have to be.
Somehow, Dorian made it through the day until the sun finally set, late because of how close they were to summer. Tasks complete, Dorian left behind the din in the great hall and the Bull came with him, still fixed to Dorian’s side as though they were truly some sort of romantic item.
Dorian allowed the Bull to lead them to their private quarters, despite the way that the hall spun around Dorian from the wine and his anxiety. His stomach had knotted itself into an agonizing twist that pulled at his spine that sent a throb of pain through him when the Bull closed their bedroom door.
“We don’t have to do anything tonight, you know,” the Bull said quietly, his voice obscenely gentle. Obscene was exactly the right word for it, Dorian thought, the gentleness in the Bull’s eye and tone somehow more explicit and intimate than most of the sex Dorian had engaged in before now.
“Don’t we? I was under the impression consummation was a bit of a social obligation, if not a legal one,” Dorian gritted out, barely managing not to choke on the words. “Sealing the deal, as it were. I’m yours, now.”
The Bull scoffed, his lip curling underneath one of his scars. “You don’t belong to anyone. And nobody’s gonna sit behind a screen and listen to make sure we fuck, so don’t worry about it.”
“Bored of me already, I see,” Dorian prodded, exploring the Bull’s kind manner like the edge of a wound. It couldn’t be real, surely. “Didn’t take long for this marriage to grow cold.”
This got a huff of laughter from the bigger man, but nothing more. Instead, he seated himself at the edge of the large bed. In comparison to the Bull, however, it was only adequately sized, and it groaned under him as it took his full weight.
The Bull meekly removed his boots and socks, waggling his grey toes in the open air with a look of relief.
“I’m not bored of you, Dorian. If you were comfortable, I’d have you right here, like this,” the Bull stated, curling his hands above his lap as though cradling an invisible person’s hips. His eyes lifted to Dorian’s face but Dorian hastily looked away, unable to handle the fact that his husband was looking at and talking about him like this. “I’d take my time figuring out how you like to be fucked. When you’re my size you have to go slow with humans, so I’ve learned to put that time to good use. I can’t wait to learn you, feel you inside and out and memorize every part of you like a cipher.”
“Ah,” Dorian choked, his skin searing under his clothes with the heat of blood flow close to his skin. His husband, his husband was sharing lurid fantasies about him. Dorian had no idea what to feel about it. “I, uh. That’s very generous of you. But that’s….not on offer for tonight?”
“Nope,” the Bull replied, popping the consonant. “Because you’re all tense and shaky and only half here. Can’t be half here for good sex, you’d wind up with a pulled muscle and bad memories. So how about,” the Bull rumbled, grinning with such earnest pleasure that Dorian thought he might die of it, “you come over here and kiss me instead. Just kiss me. Start with that, okay?”
“Okay,” Dorian repeated, an unnamable emotion curling in his chest. He didn’t want to call it hope, because that would imply he was looking forward to something more than a business arrangement with this man, and that would be terribly foolish. He’d been foolish enough in trusting his own father, apparently, so it would be ridiculous to hope for affection from a mercenary who’d deserted his own people. “Okay.”
The kiss started soft and slow with Dorian standing between the Bull’s knees. Softer and slower than their kiss at the altar, in fact, with no tongue at all. Then the Bull stroked one big thumb along the crest of Dorian’s hipbone, sensitive even through his clothes, and Dorian couldn’t help but open up his mouth.
The Bull came inside, accepting the silent invitation, and moved with careful interest. A stroke of his tongue against Dorian’s hard palate, another at the corners of his lips, and then across Dorian’s own tongue. The Bull obviously wanted to know how Dorian would react to each.
When the Bull had mapped out Dorian’s mouth, he moved on to the rest of Dorian’s face, then his ears, neck, shoulders, and collarbones. The Bull let out warm hums of approval whenever Dorian gasped out a “yes” to something, and an unperturbed noise of understanding when Dorian flinched away or shook his head.
Eventually, however, the Bull coaxed Dorian down onto the bed with him, and Dorian took that to mean that sex would be happening after all. At first Dorian shivered with tension, which the Bull did not mention. Dorian tried to suppress it, mortified to be caught shaking in bed as though he were some sort of virgin. He wasn’t, he hadn’t been shaky even when he had been new at this. It was just that he’d never had a husband be the one touching him before. (Husband, husband, husband, Dorian’s mind chanted. You have a husband, when will this go wrong–)
But the Bull merely stroked his big hands over Dorian’s arms and flanks and belly and continued his exploration unperturbed. When the shivering subsided and Dorian grew hard instead, squirming into the touches with little whimpers and gasps, the Bull didn’t mention that either. He didn’t change his behavior in any way despite the fact that, pressed together as they now were, there was no way Bull could miss the stiff line of Dorian’s arousal.
And when that arousal subsided and Dorian accepted that the Bull had actually meant it when he’d said they would only kiss, Bull didn’t fuss then either.
Finally, when Dorian’s mouth was swollen and half-numb from kissing and his whole body was limp and soft against the covers, the Bull pulled back.
“C’mon. Let’s get undressed and catch some shut-eye before we set off tomorrow.”
Dorian obeyed, loving the warmth and bulk of his bedmate as they settled together. Sharing a bed was a new and delightful possibility.
But Dorian soon found that every little noise or movement from the Bull yanked Dorian straight from dozing to wakefulness. Every deep breath, every sigh, every snore, every creaking of the bed-frame, every shift of the mattress. After the first two hours, it became its own specialized form of torture.
When Dorian pushed himself into a sitting position, Dorian could just make out the face of the clock on the far wall by the failing light of the bedside candle. The timepiece told him it was after two now. They would be leaving at eight.
“Can’t sleep?” the Bull asked, and Dorian damn near rocketed out of the bed. With supreme self-control he managed to keep himself under the covers, but had to drag in a long breath to steady himself. The Bull didn’t apologize.
“No, I can’t sleep. It’s….well, as I said, I’ve never actually slept beside anyone before. I’m not accustomed to this.”
“C’mere,” the Bull said with a gesture, and with a raised eyebrow and a great many misgivings, Dorian went. He scooted over to the big warm side, then let out a squeak of surprise when the scarred-up hands pulled him onto the Bull’s expanse of bare stomach and chest.
“Getting off makes me get sleepy. It do that for you?”
“Yes,” Dorian admitted, though he wasn’t feeling much in the mood right now. But without further preamble, the Bull grabbed a handful of Dorian’s hair, bit into the spot on his neck that the Bull had earlier discovered made Dorian squirm, and rolled his hips up into Dorian’s.
Within five minutes, Dorian discovered that the Bull hadn’t just been exploring him earlier, he truly had been cataloguing and memorizing him as promised. He had Dorian hard, squirming, and letting out undignified whimpers in record time. All the wiggling was apparently doing something for the Bull, too, if the frankly intimidating shaft digging into Dorian’s thigh was anything to go by.
“You want me to come too, or not?”
“Please,” Dorian begged. The thought of making the massive man under him shake apart made Dorian’s cock twitch, and that in turn got a chuckle from the Bull.
They rolled over so Dorian lay on his back, which made Dorian sure he was about to get fucked. When the Bull reached over to the bedside table and pulled out a small jar of something greasy, Dorian got even surer. Fear sparked up when the Bull immediately knelt back onto the bed and greased himself rather than his fingers, though–Dorian knew he could not take something that large without preparation. He’d tear!
But the Bull just pressed Dorian’s legs together, moved them to the side, and then slid up between them.
Dorian bit his lip in mixed relief and delight. The Bull’s cock was so big it pushed all the way through and out from between Dorian’s thighs, nudging up past his balls to the base of Dorian’s own member. He swore as the Bull braced over him on the bed, wanting to see everything that was happening. But when he summoned a little wisp for light, the Bull stared at it, then laughed.
“Never been with a mage before, if you can believe it. That’s a handy trick.”
“No?” Dorian couldn’t find it in himself to offer either an eloquent or sarcastic reply, too busy being mesmerized by the sight of the dark purple-grey corona appearing and disappearing from between his legs. It made him throb, his arousal fogging up his brain. “Then lucky me, I get to be your first at something,” Dorian pulled himself together enough to say. “Just like you’re my first Tal-Vashoth.”
“My first husband, too,” the Bull purred, and Dorian whimpered, much louder than he’d wanted. He slapped a hand over his mouth, biting at his palm.
“You like that, huh?” The Bull grinned. “Like that we’re rubbing off together in our marriage bed, as legally married spouses?” Dorian screwed his eyes shut, shivering, already almost on the edge. He knew that if he looked at the man above him, he’d come at once, shamefully fast.
The Bull had taken his eye patch off to sleep, leaving the empty socket and scars fully exposed in the green light of the wisp. Under other circumstances the deep, craggy shadows on the left side of the Bull’s face might have been alarming. But now they just seemed intimate and vulnerable instead.
“Yes,” Dorian choked out, running his hands up the Bull’s fantastic arms. “Yes! I–I like it, I’m sorry, I never thought I’d get to have–” he cut himself off before he blurted anything mortifying. He always got chatty in bed, and it had always been a problem. “I’m trying to imagine what you’re going to feel like inside me,” he admitted instead. It was a perfectly honest answer.
“It’s going to be great,” the Bull laughed, without a trace more modesty than Dorian himself usually displayed. “I promise.”
He was right.

