Title: Cold Nights, Warm Hearts (subtitle: and other novels by Varric that Dorian refuses to admit he’s read)
For: @doozer-doodles
From: @redeemer-headcanon / @coveredinfeels
Beta: @chocobofangirl
Warnings/etc: mild Trespasser spoilers/references.
prompt: ‘Snowed in’
Ferelden, late autumn, winter nipping at its heels.
There are times, in these years, when Dorian can spare time to come south, not merely over the border into Nevarra, but South, times when excuses of diplomacy give them weeks together at a time, Bull playing bodyguard and joking about what Varric’s books would have to say about well-muscled bodyguards.
He enjoys these trips. He could have done without the snowstorm that appeared to have blown up overnight and sealed them in the little mountain hut they’d stopped at to rest themselves and their horses, but only because if he’s going to be shut in somewhere with Dorian, he’d prefer that his Kadan was happy about it.
“I should have listened to my mother.” Dorian mutters, staring out the window– or at least, attempting to. There wasn’t much to stare at.
Bull has never met Lady Pavus, and doesn’t particularly expect to any time soon, but from what Dorian has told him of her, directly and indirectly, that statement doesn’t really fit the context. “Had a lot to say about coping with blizzards, did she?”
“Not as such, but she did always insist that one should never step foot inside any accommodation described to one as quaint.” Dorian says, giving the carved mabari bootscraper by the door a look of utter contempt. “At least there are no holes in the roof, I will give it that.”
“We’ve got firewood, food, and a fairly nice bed.” Bull points out. “You know what one of Varric’s novels would have to say about the situation, right?”
Magister Pavus, highly respected luminary of the Tevinter Magisterium, turns on him and expresses his opinion on that in language that would make a Rivaini sailor blush, ending with “…and stop helping the dwarf!”
“So, we’re not going to conserve body heat?” Bull asks, and laughs when Dorian’s response is a rude gesture, wreathed in flame, before he stalks off to investigate their food– and wine– supplies for himself.
Dorian’s concerns about missing the various important meetings his presence is probably required at aside, it doesn’t look as if they’re really in danger of much more than a slight delay. Once he’s settled down, he uses the sending crystal to contact the Inquisitor, and Red’s networks are more than able in the matter of getting word to whoever needs word got to.
Secretly, Bull’s a little glad. It’s not as bad as it once was, but he thinks Dorian still fears that if he takes his eyes off his homeland for a moment, it will slip back into the madness of the old days, the Tevinter of the Venatori and of Corypheus. That he, alone, is the sea wall holding back the flood, and shit, that sounds pretty damn poetic in Trade, but it’s none less true for it.
So he thinks it does his Kadan good, this, to accept that there’s little he can do about the situation except complain about the paltry amount and undistinguished quality of the wine he fishes out of their luggage, and then relenting when Bull offers to mull it for him.
“One of the few good things to come out of the South.” he says, smiling. It makes his scar curve in a way that reminds Bull of a Tallis he knew, in another life. He still wishes he’d been there to see it, Dorian striding into the Magisterium the day after with the wound still bright and fresh, breathing more fire and ice than all the dragons the Inquisitor had hunted down put together. But reminding Dorian of it makes him frown, still, makes him too self-conscious.
So, he holds his words. Says it without words, instead, when despite his earlier protestations against 'sharing body heat’, Dorian curls his hands around his mug of mulled wine and his body against Bull’s own. Tries to say: wouldn’t have ever thought I’d be here. Not sure what 'here’ means. For one: stuck in a mountain hut with a gorgeous, grumpy mage who against all odds appears to still be in love with me, certainly, beyond anything he’d ever been able to consider a possibility.
But also: wouldn’t have thought I’d be in love. Wouldn’t have thought I’d be Tal Vashoth, clear and free of mind and happy for it. Would probably have given even odds I’d even live this long. Some days, would have given even odds I’d live to see the sunrise.
“Amatus…” he hears, and looks down to see Dorian’s fingers against a scar of Bull’s own. No points for guessing which one he’s fussing over.
You risked yourself, and the Chargers–
“Yeah.” he says. “Me too.”
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