A Bad Night, A Better Morning
for @labarkour
Rating: T
Summary: In which Dorian experiences two semi-polite awakenings within only minutes of each other, which he probably deserves.[link to AO3 will go here]
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A long day, a bad night. Dorian had found himself outside the Bull’s door, which has ever had been left unlocked, and had opened it without much input from his thoughts. At the desk by the hearth sat the Bull, head resting on his left hand, quill dangling uselessly from his right. He’d looked up, and sighed.
Dorian…
Not – not that. Will you allow, that is, may I…
A grey morning. Dorian wakes slowly to warmth to his front, cold to his back, and identifies the warmth eventually as the Bull, still slumbering beneath him. A pang, then. Last night he’d been an intruder, creeping into the Bull’s bed for some kind of comfort – and whenever had he begun to find comfort there? Dorian had woken just briefly as the Bull settled in beside him, just long enough to press closer until the Bull wrapped a hand around his back to hold him there.
“I should go,” Dorian says, all but silently, a test of the words. His voice rasps in his throat.
The Bull stirs then, and Dorian stills. Warmth against his left shoulderblade, then, as the Bull wraps an arm around him once again. “Mmm. Morning.” In a slow movement the Bull drags his hand a short way up and down Dorian’s back, soothing until Dorian recognizes the nature of the act. He doesn’t stiffen, but his heart sets to pounding. The Bull must feel it, pressed together as they are.
It’s too much, after the frustration and despair of the night before. Sequestered from morning to evening in the forge with Dagna, delicately prodding at Calpernia’s crystal, and not a thing to show for it. Another snide letter from the Head Librarian of the Minrathian Circle refusing his requests in the most insulting means possible without directly condemning him. The perpetual distaste and distrust of a keep full of southerners who manage never to notice his commitment to the cause. A cold night, and a dragging sorrow, until there’d been nothing for it but to give in, and—
“I should go,” Dorian says, and his voice is rough, and he says it with his face pressed into the Bull’s shoulder.
The Bull says nothing. He’d said little the night before. Dorian, and sure, and that had been it. Something despondent in the curve of his back, and Dorian hadn’t thought to ask—no, that isn’t it. Had not wanted to ask, in the expectation of being rebuffed. And the Bull had held him all night, is holding him now, despite whatever it is that weighs on him.
Selfish, to have come; selfish yet, to linger. Selfish once more, to angle his face up to say, “Unless…”
“Go,” says the Bull, and something sharp stabs through Dorian’s chest even as the Bull continues, “or stay. It’s your call.”